News has surfaced of a patent that’s reported to have been filed by Amazon back in December 2014 for a flying warehouse, or airborne fulfilment centre (AFC), that can use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to deliver items to users.

The patent has been recently unearthed and reported via Twitter by analyst Zoe Leavitt from CB Insights, who described the idea as ‘the Death Star of ecommerce”.

An Airship at High Altitude

The AFC warehouse proposed in the patent would be an airship that is kept at high altitude e.g. 45,000 feet. Within the details of the patent, it is suggested that UAVs (drones) with ordered items on board could deployed from the AFC to deliver those ordered items to users’ designated delivery locations.

Parcel Delivery Drone

According to the details of the patent, the UAVs /drones that deliver the parcels from the main airship could simply descend using the force of gravity while navigating a horizontal path towards their location. This could, therefore, keep costs down for Amazon, and the savings could be passed on to the end customer in lower delivery charges.

Shuttles Used To Replenish the Flying Warehouse.

The patent outlines how smaller airships could be used to replenish the AFC with stock, fuel and other supplies. The patent also suggests that human workers would be needed at the warehouse air-ship, and that they could be transported to and from airship using smaller airship shuttles.

On the U.S. Patent Website

Full details of the Amazon Technologies Inc. (Seattle) patent can be viewed on the U.S. Patent website here.

Amazon Delivery Drones Already Tested

Amazon announced back in July 2016 that it had paid the UK government to allow it to embark upon the project to test parcel delivery to UK households by drone. The programme was designed to test whether automated drones would be able to safely and effectively deliver small parcels to the homes of customers, ideally within 30 minutes of them being ordered online.

In December, Amazon’s founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos confirmed the that the company’s first successful drone parcel delivery had taken place in Cambridgeshire and it took just 13 minutes to complete from click to delivery.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The airship warehouse may sound a little far fetched but the fact is that Amazon is already well on the way to making drone parcel delivery a reality.

The drone technology market could develop into a market that is worth billions of pounds and it could mean potentially lucrative business opportunities, cost savings, and other advantages for businesses that adopt these developing technologies for deliveries, or for other elements of their services.

A report by IDC has revealed that the fact that water damage is common and yet it is not covered by insurance policies is the reason why sales of water resistant mobile devices have increased so significantly in 2016.

Water Damage = No Payout

IDC’s European Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report has lifted the lid on an experience that is surprisingly common among mobile device users i.e. you are relatively likely to drop your mobile device in water / get your mobile device wet and then not receive an insurance payout if it is damaged as a result.

Big Increase in Sales For Water Resistant Devices

The IDC report shows that sales of water resistant devices were up a massive 45% year-on-year in the first nine months of 2016. In fact, water resistant devices actually accounted for a substantial 23% of devices sold last year.

During the same period, sales of devices without the feature were found to be down 17%. This second statistic dispels the idea that it’s just a case that more phones are now water resistant, and it is an indicator that consumers place a possible deal-breaking value on the feature.

Accidental Water Damage Very Common.

Figures show that water damage to mobile devices is surprisingly common. IDC estimated figures show that as many as 100,000 smartphones are destroyed by liquid damage every single day in Western Europe. The cost to consumers (and potentially insurers) is therefore likely to be more than $10.7 billion (£8.5 billion) a year!

IDC figures also show that the vast majority (95%) of damage to smart phones is accidental anyway.

Most Manufacturers Offer Feature in One Model.

The response to an increase in customer demand for a water resistant phone is the fact that most major smartphone manufacturers now appear to offer at least one model with that feature.

For example, Samsung and Huawei do, and the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have an IP67 rating. With this rating the first number (6) indicates protection against solids, and the second number (7) indicates that the phone is capable of withstanding water immersion between 15 cm and 1 meter for 30 minutes.

Technical commentators have pointed out that advances in nano-technology and improvements in industrial design could mean that liquid damage to smartphones may soon become a thing of the past.

A Value-Adding, Differentiating Feature.

Mobile market commentators have noted that whereas some manufacturers compete on price, other manufacturers are finding that differentiating by improving the user experience i.e. resistance to liquids is a profitable strategy because more buyers now place real value on this feature.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

As more businesses move to a model with a cloud-based centre, with communication and collaborative work undertaken in real-time via staff using mobile devices, the fitness for purpose of those devices and their ability to withstand real and common challenges appears to be increasingly important to business customers.

Spending a little more for important features such as water resistance could mean cost saving in real terms over time through avoiding the purchase of replacements due to water damage. For manufacturers and companies selling mobile devices it is an important lesson in the need to listen to and respond to real-life customer experiences and requirements in order to achieve competitive advantage and increase profits.

The growing optimism for the future of the web-based crypto-currency ‘Bitcoin’ received another boost this week as the value of 1 Bitcoin jumped above $1,000 (£815) for the first time in three years.

Performed Better Than Central-Bank-Issued Currencies.

On Sunday, the digital currency’s 2.5% increase in value helped it to not only reach a three-year high but its 125% boost in value for 2016 also meant that it performed better than all other all central-bank-issued currencies.

No Central Authority

Bitcoin has no central bank control and this makes it attractive to individuals, organisations and governments who want to move funds across the globe quickly and anonymously, and who want to get around any capital controls.

Since its introduction (in 2009), Bitcoin has cut out the need for central banks which has led to allegations and suggestions that it would be particularly attractive to the criminal element of society. The fact is, however, that Bitcoin is now looking like a viable alternative to cash for countries that have a shortage of it (e.g. India, which had high denomination bank-notes removed from circulation in November).

Doing Well Until Hack.

The last great high of Bitcoin’s value was back in late 2013 where it reached $1,163 (Bitstamp exchange). At this point, the currency had experienced a tenfold increase in its value in only two months. Unfortunately, a hack caused the value to topple again on the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange to less than $400 in the following weeks.

Same Value as a FTSE 100 Company Now.

Bitcoin has experienced a big boost in its value in recent months to the point where its total worth of $16 billion is around the same value as that of a FTSE 100 company.

It is estimated that at this record-high point in its growth, 12.5 Bitcoins are added to the system every 10 minutes. Despite its current value, some currency analysts say that Bitcoin’s biggest daily moves of 10% 2016 make it still a bit of a volatile currency compared to many others.

Why the Rise in Value Now?

Currency experts attribute the big rise in Bitcoin’s value to a big increase in demand in China due to the fall in the value of the Yuan in 2016. This has been the Chinese currency’s weakest performance in more than 20 years.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

For businesses, Bitcoin has many attractive advantages such as the speed and ease with which transactions can take place due to the lack of central bank and traditional currency control.

Using Bitcoin also means that cross-border and global trading is simpler and faster and the ‘crypto’ aspect of the currency makes it secure. Bitcoin’s decrease in volatility in recent years plus the widening of popularity and potential uses for its underlying technology ‘Blockchain’ mean that Bitcoin looks likely to look increasingly attractive to businesses and governments in 2017.

With the massive amounts of household, leisure items and toys that have a ‘smart’ element to them, could any of the IoT presents that you receive or give this Christmas be taken over and used by hackers in 2017?

A Big DDoS With IoT.

Back in October this year, cyber criminals were able to take over many thousands of household ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) devices, and use them together as a botnet to launch an online distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack (Mirai) on the DNS service ‘Dyn’ with global consequences. The devices included things like white goods, CCTV cameras and printers, and the major platforms that were put out of action by the attack included Twitter, Spotify, and Reddit.

Only 2 months down the line many of us will be giving and receiving IoT devices as Christmas presents that are just as vulnerable to being taken over and used by hackers for attacks in the coming year.

Which Devices?

The kinds of smart devices that are part of the IoT and could potentially be exploited include fridges, kettles, toasters, and systems used to heat and monitor your home remotely. While smart devices and the IoT have many great benefits and great potential, they also bring security risks that are not yet fully understood.

Why Are These Devices Vulnerable?

Technical experts and commentators believe that it is not easy for manufacturers to make internet-enable devices secure because:

• Adding security to household internet-enabled ‘commodity’ items costs money. This would have to be passed on to the customer in higher prices, but this would mean that the price would not be competitive. Therefore it may be that security is being sacrificed to keep costs down – sell now and worry about security later.

• Even if a security problem is located in a device, the firmware (the device’s software) is not always easy to update. There are also costs involved in doing so which manufacturers of lower-end devices may not be willing to incur.

• With devices which are typically infrequent and long lasting purchases e.g. white goods, we tend to keep them until they stop working, and we are unlikely to replace them because they have a security vulnerability that is not fully understood. As such these devices are likely to remain available to be used by cyber criminals for a long time.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

If your business manufactures or sells smart devices, be aware that if recent months are anything to go by, consumers will begin to understand the value of security protection of their IoT devices, and it may become part of the purchase criteria in the near future.

For businesses and individuals, one simple step that we can all take to make sure that our ‘smart’ Christmas presents and other smart items are protected is to make sure that, if they have a default username and password, these need to be changed as soon as possible. Make sure that the new username and password are very secure and very unlikely to be discovered easily.