New 400GB MicroSD Card
SanDisk’s parent company ‘Western Digital’ has announced at the ‘IFA 2017’ in Berlin that it is launching the world’s largest storage capacity (400GB) microSD card.
What Is MicroSD Card?
A microSD card is a small (fingernail size or less) removable flash memory card that uses chips to store data e.g. documents, music, photos and video. They are used for storage in devices such as phones and tablets. SD is an abbreviation of Secure Digital.
Why The Need For More Storage Space?
We are now living in a world where we spend a lot more time using our smartphones to take more HD videos (4k video is the norm) and photographs. These take up large amounts of space, and tech companies have therefore been looking at ways to meet the need in the market for a microSD card with much more storage space.
World’s Largest Storage Capacity
SanDisk’s new microSD card is reported to have the world’s largest storage capacity for the memory card format, beating the previous record holder, Samsung’s 256GB.
What Can It Do?
The new card is reported to be ideal for use in Android phones and tablets, and is able to hold up to 40 hours of full HD video. It is also UHS Speed Class 1 (the best performance standard for a microSD card), and it supports 100MB read speeds. This superior read speed means that time can be saved by the user as up to 1,200 photos per minute can be transferred onto the card.
Price?
The price is $250 which may sound like a lot but the advantage, apart from the convenience of space and speed, is that it could actually save you money. This is because companies like to charge more for similar products in their range that simply have larger memory / storage capacity, so you could purchase a lower-priced device and put the new SanDisk microSD card in it to enjoy greater storage benefits than the higher end devices.
Resistant
Another benefit of the new microSD card is that it is very difficult to accidentally break, and this is particularly important in something that is used to store difficult, expensive or even impossible to replace things such as photos and videos of important occasions and events. The card is re-assuringly waterproof, temperature-proof, shockproof and X-ray proof.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
With so many aspects of business now being carried out using smartphones and tablets, and with photos and videos being used / exchanged as an important part of business activities, or for marketing communications on the Internet (social media, emails and websites) storage capacity on devices is an important consideration. An increase in quality (and expectations of quality in the marketplace) of e.g. videos (HD), also means that extra storage capacity, at a price that is affordable even for smaller businesses is important. The fact that this microSD card could also help businesses to save costs on which device they buy also makes it attractive.
Six UK Regions Get Full Fibre Broadband Trials
The UK government has announced the six regions of the UK that will host trials of full fibre broadband for businesses, schools and hospitals as part of a £200m scheme by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS).
Which Six Regions?
The DCMS has decided that £10 million of the total £200 million budget will be spent on trials for full fibre broadband in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, West Sussex, Coventry and Warwickshire, Bristol and Bath & North East Somerset, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
The government has said that these first pilot schemes are intended to test innovative ways of connecting offices and public sector buildings with the next generation of broadband, and follows the government’s call for evidence on extending local fibre networks.
Full Fibre Broadband
Full fibre broadband will mean running fast fibre connections straight into customers’ premises rather than just running fibre cables to roadside cabinets, and using the old copper phone wires for the connections to customers’ premises.
Having fibre running to and from the roadside box could reduce bottlenecks and increase broadband speeds to more than the 10Mbps standard currently recommended by Ofcom, and hopefully speeds of up to one gigabit-per-second (1,000 Mbps). The government also believes that full-fibre broadband will provide more secure connections, and will help more people to work remotely without disruption.
31st In The World For Average Broadband Speed
A boost in broadband speed would, of course, be welcomed by businesses. Even though the government is keen to point out that its broadband delivery programme has reached 93% of businesses and households around the UK (aiming to bring superfast broadband to 95% of households by the end of 2017), a recent survey by cable.co.uk found that the UK ranks only 31st in the world for average broadband speeds, with an average broadband speed of just 16.51Mbps.
Four Year Plan
The full fibre broadband pilots are just the first stage of a four-year plan unveiled by Chancellor Philip Hammond as part of the National Productivity Investment Fund announced in the Spring Budget. The ultimate aim of the scheme is to expand full fibre access across the UK.
The original plan announced in the budget was to use £400m of taxpayers’ money to encourage the private sector to invest more than £1bn to fund full-fibre broadband across the country, and to introduce legislation to allow business rates relief for new fibre as an additional subsidy.
With these full fibre broadband trials costing £10 million, the aim is to use the remaining £190m for the rest of the UK’s full fibre broadband rollout by the end of the 2020-21 financial year.
Criticism
There have been many criticisms of the government’s big plans for boosting broadband speeds with the widespread use of fibre-optic cables including:
- Even if you have a fibre-optic cable to your home / business premises, there will still be shared traffic points in the network which will slow down your broadband at certain times.
- The scheme will need a large number of construction workers. This could mean disruption, logistical challenges, and high costs.
- Full fibre-optic, ultra-fast broadband is not likely to be a reality in the UK anytime soon. At the current rate, BT Openreach has stated that only two million premises will have access to ‘full fibre’ by the end of 2020.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
With so much of business (with customers, suppliers, and internal communications / collaboration) now conducted over the Internet, a fast connection is essential to help UK businesses to remain competitive. Although the trials / pilot schemes are starting now, what is disappointing is that UK businesses don’t have (and look unlikely to have any time soon) access to kind of speeds that overseas companies (e.g. competitors) enjoy. Whilst it is good that funding and momentum for the task of delivering faster (fibre or fibre/G.fast) broadband for UK businesses looks to be increasing, the UK has a long way to go, and the reality is that we may only actually have 7% full fibre coverage by 2020.
In terms of what it actually means for a business to be physically connected to the new fibre broadband infrastructure, technical commentators say it will be a case of simply having a small box installed on the premises. In terms of costs, it seems likely that faster packages could be an opportunity for ISPs to charge more.
Smartphone Danger For Teenagers
| A new book by an American Psychologist highlights her research findings that young people who spend more than an hour a day on smartphones are more likely to be unhappy, lonely, depressed, and have more risk factors for suicide.
Title Says It All The new book by Dr Jean Twenge is called “iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy –and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – and What That Means for the Rest of Us”. As the title clearly suggests, the author found evidence of many negative effects of too much time spent on smartphones by young people. iGen The ‘iGen’ generation is defined as those born between 1995 and 2012. The significance of studying this generation particularly is that the commercialisation of the Internet dates roughly from 1995, which means that they have always lived with the Internet. Also, they are the first generation to have smartphones for their entire adolescence. Dr Twenge reportedly drew upon the data from large national surveys of high school and college students, and one of adults as the bulk of her research. The Findings The findings highlighted in Dr Twenge’s research and book are that:
Criticism & Reaction When Dr Twenge’s book and findings were reported in the media, the reaction could be summarised as praise from parents and criticism from scientists. It was also suggested by some critics that Dr Twenge had cherry-picked data to ignore studies showing positive outcomes from social media use. There were also suggestions that Dr Twenge was simply “youth-bashing” to support conservative views about young people. Dr Twenge has answered critics by saying that she has 3 children of her own (the oldest being 10) and that she was simply reporting what young people were saying about themselves and how they were feeling. Advice For Parents Dr Twenge’s advice for parents is to delay getting your child a phone for as long as possible, and when you do buy one for them, start with one that doesn’t have internet access so they don’t have the internet in their pocket all the time, and limit the time that children spend on their smartphones. What Does This Mean For Your Business? Businesses spend a lot of time and money influencing young people as consumers via channels such as social media, so limiting their access to those marketing communications could have a negative effect from a commercial point of view. At the same time, however, many business people are also parents of young people / teenagers, and will be aware that young people spending time with other people and family (and less time on smartphones) is one of the keys to emotional well-being, and can help to improve the family dynamic. Risks such anxiety, depression, and suicide are clearly very worrying for all, but it’s worth remembering that there are also studies to show that spending time online / on social media can also bring some benefits. There will, no doubt, be many other research projects and books relating to the positive and negative effects of technology on the young generation. In the meantime, businesses need to ensure that they are careful, responsible, and ethical with their online marketing communications and messages, and that they are quick to act to stop (and report) any online bullying / online hate crimes, which can be a particular source of unhappiness, and even suicides among young people. |
Phone App Detects Cancer
A new app called BiliScreen, developed by Researchers at the University of Washington, uses eye-scanning technology to detect early stage pancreatic cancer, thus increasing the chances of successful treatment.
Surgery Early Is Best Option
Relatively little real progress has been made in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, and fewer than 7% of the 9,600 people who are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year survive beyond 5 years. The key element is the successful treatment of pancreatic cancer is an early diagnosis followed by immediate surgery. Surgery beyond the early stages is not an option because of the nature of the tumours and the complexity of the operation.
In recent trials by University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, for example, 31 out of 32 patients eligible for surgery went on to have successful treatment. This was a 97% success rate, compared with a current average of 75%, and helps to confirm the fact that a much faster path to (diagnosis and) surgery for pancreatic cancer patients has a significant impact on survival rates for the disease.
What Does The App Look For?
The new BiliScreen app works by calculating how much of the bodily compound called Bilirubin is present in the whites of a person’s eyes (the sclera). The significance of this is that a build-of Bilirubin can be an early indicator of pancreatic cancer.
Bilirubin is essentially a yellow pigment that is produced when the liver breaks down old red blood cells. This is the same pigment that causes the skin and sclera to look yellow when a person has severe jaundice. Consequently, as well as detecting early signs of pancreatic cancer, the BiliScreen app can also be used to detect the other causes of jaundice e.g. hepatitis and Gilbert’s syndrome (a harmless liver condition where the liver has problems processing bilirubin).
How Does The App Work?
The app uses eye-scanning technology and involves a person taking a selfie of their eyes while wearing a box similar to a VR headset to block out light from other sources. It’s thought that the next version of the app won’t need the headset and could work just using a smartphone camera.
The calculations and diagnosis are made by the app’s machine-learning algorithm. The big advantages of using the app are that it is faster, a lot more convenient, and less invasive than the current testing method for jaundice which is a trip to the doctor and a blood draw.
Is It Accurate?
In a clinical study of BiliScreen involving 70 participants, the app was able to correctly identify 90 per cent of the people with abnormally elevated bilirubin levels, and the app also had high specificity i.e. very few healthy people were wrongly identified as having a disease.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
This story is an example of how a combination of technologies can mean that apps can now be made to carry out high-value tasks in a faster, more convenient, time saving and often cheaper way than many of the existing accepted industry standard tests and equipment. This is why apps now present such a good opportunity for businesses and other organisations that need to provide their customers / users with specific information / data (or gather it from them) and produce it in a digital format.
In the case of BiliScreen, a combination of biometrics (eye-scanning), mobile and app technologies, as well as machine learning have been combined to perform a relatively complicated and very important task in an accurate way, and in a way that avoids the scope for human error. BiliScreen is one of growing list of apps that are being used for diagnosis, and while they don’t replace doctors, they are becoming trusted and important time-saving mobile tools. Given that accurate diagnostic apps can be used in medicine, there is no reason why other useful diagnostic apps can’t be developed and used to add value in a range of different industries.
Tech Tip : Customise Your Start Menu
One of the features of Windows 10 is that it allows you to customise your start menu so that it has your most used software to hand, and it has a look and layout that you are happy with. Here’s how:
1 – To blend the traditional interface with the Live Tiles – right-click on any tile and select resizing it to alter the tile’s dimensions until you’re happy with it.
2 – If you don’t want live tiles, right-click on each of the defaults in the Start menu and select ‘Uninstall’ to remove them from your system, or ‘Unpin from Start’ if you’d rather hide them than eradicate them.
3 – You can Re-populate them with the desktop software of your choice by right-clicking any app or program and selecting ‘Pin to Start’.
Consumers Still Unaware of Current Account Switching Service
Recent research has shown that despite spending £750m on an IT system that has simplified and sped up the process of changing bank account providers, only 28% of us know that the Current Account Switching Service (CASS) exists.
What Is CASS And What Does It Do?
CASS was introduced by the Banking Commission in 2013 as a result of concerns from consumers and because of a widely recognised lack of competition in the banking industry. The service simplifies and speeds up the process of changing banks. Before CASS, this process typically took 30 days, but using CASS it now only takes a week to switch bank accounts. CASS also makes sure all payments made to the old account are redirected to the new account, thereby ensuring that payments are not lost if the old account details are erroneously used.
Less Than One-Third Aware
Recent research by the TSB has shown that, 4 years after its introduction, less than one-third of consumers are aware of CASS and its benefits.
Why?
The research revealed that CASS is underused because there has been a lack of communication to consumers about the service.
What is also revealing in the TSB’s research findings is the fact that in the past 12 months, the number of consumers using the CASS service to switch bank accounts has fallen by 14%.
Challenger Banks
The TSB research has shown that, even though are new players in the banking industry, and an increase in the visibility of so-called ‘challenger banks’ in the UK, 68% of consumers still think that there is less competition in the market compared to last year.
The TSB appears to see itself as a challenger bank, and its research does not bode well for other challengers in the banking sector.
No Informed Choice
The results of the research appear to justify the TSB’s conclusions. It found that 41% of consumers believe it’s hard to make an informed choice when switching, 38% do not see the benefits of switching, and 28% think that all products are essentially the same.
The reporting of the TSB’s research may therefore have gone some way towards making more people aware of their right to switch banks.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
The results of the TSB research shows that, even after a 3-year long investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into competition in retail banking, the big banks still have a stronghold on the market, and consumers are missing out. It is of course advantageous to the big banks that this lack of awareness about CASS exists, and it appears to be getting worse. Indeed, some have accused the big banks of taking their customers for granted, trapping them on poor deals, and then making it impossible to switch.
It has been estimated that the average person could be £70 better off by switching, and that equates to a collective £10 million in savings that consumers are missing out on because of the lack of awareness about CASS.
The solution may be, therefore, to force banks to promote CASS and to explain its benefits to their customers. Many think that the CMA also needs to make more of an effort to promote the CSS and to encourage consumers to shop around for a bank account.