Air New Zealand customers at Sydney Airport will get to experience the role robots may play in future travel journeys this week. Click here to watch Air New Zealand’s Chief Digital Officer Avi Golan and CommBank’s Tiziana Bianco explore the future of travel with social robots.
The airline is partnering with CommBank in a five-day experiment utilising Chip CANdroid, the bank’s social humanoid robot, which will interact with and assist Air New Zealand customers checking in and at the gate prior to boarding.
Air New Zealand Chief Digital Officer Avi Golan says “this partnership and experiment with Commbank and Chip is another way we are pushing the boundaries to ensure we remain at the forefront of technology which will allow us to further enhance the experience we offer our customers.”
Air New Zealand has worked with a range of technology partners to introduce innovations which are enhancing the experience it offers customers. For example, Oscar, the artificial intelligence–backed chatbot has been introduced to assist customers with a more personalised online experience or biometric bag drops which identify customers using face-to-passport recognition.
“We are also experimenting with potential enhancements of the future, including the idea of our cabin crew one day using Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented reality viewers onboard our aircraft,” says Mr Golan
Commonwealth Bank established a social robotics team within its Sydney Innovation Lab in late 2016, with the intention of partnering with leading corporates and research institutions to better understand the opportunities and challenges that physical robotic technologies present in a variety of commercial contexts.
Tiziana Bianco, General Manager Innovation Labs, Commonwealth Bank says “this experiment is a great example of why we invested in social robotics; working collaboratively with an innovative client like Air New Zealand, while also engaging some of the brilliant minds from UTS’s Centre for Artificial Intelligence. It is a wonderful opportunity to explore the possibilities of a horizon technology such as social robotics, and what it might enable in the future.”
Ms Bianco says social robots can bring to life information that is not particularly engaging when delivered by a screen.
“People interact with them in a very social and sometimes emotional way, which means they can enhance experiences in ways that other technologies are unable to do,” Ms Bianco says.
“Chip is one of the most advanced humanoid robots in the world, and is perfect for our work aimed at understanding how humans and robots interact in dynamic social spaces.
“The opportunity to experiment with a robot like Chip in a real world environment such as Sydney Airport is unique, even on a global scale. It is also incredibly valuable, as it allows both corporates and academics to contribute to the growing field of research in social robotics and ensures that both CommBank and Air New Zealand remain at the forefront of disruptive technologies.”
Air New Zealand customers can meet Chip at the Air New Zealand check-in counter and at selected departure gates at Sydney International Airport from Monday 21 August until Friday 25 August.
Click here to watch Air New Zealand’s Chief Digital Officer Avi Golan and CommBank’s Tiziana Bianco explore the future of travel with social robots.
| An Air New Zealand release || August 22, 2017 |||
New regulations for New Zealand’s fuel specifications will support the growth of lower-emission fuels that are better for people, the environment and cars, Energy and Resources Minister Judith Collins announced today.
The Regulations set out minimum standards for fuel performance, and change incrementally over time to keep up with new technology and international best practice.
“There are four significant changes – three that enable greater fuel supply choice and market-led innovation in the fuel mix; and one to reduce harmful emissions:
· Introducing a total oxygen limit, which potentially allows a wider range of fuel blends;
· Increasing New Zealand’s limit for methanol in petrol from one to three per cent volume;
· Raising the biodiesel blend limit in diesel from five to seven per cent; and
· Reducing the sulphur level allowed in petrol from 50 to 10 parts per million.
“The changes carry multiple benefits for consumers and for our environment.
“Three of the changes – the introduction of a total oxygen limit, increasing the biodiesel blend limit, and increasing the methanol blend limit – could potentially allow more flexibility in fuel mixes, a reduction in harmful emissions and increased diversity and enhanced security of local supply.
“The other change of reducing the sulphur level in petrol is specifically targeted to reduce harmful emissions, which will have health and environmental benefits. This is consistent with the most stringent fuel standards in the world, most notably in Europe, Japan and the United States,” says Ms Collins.
All of the amendments will take effect from 2 October 2017, apart from the change to the maximum sulphur level, which will come into effect on 1 July 2018.
More information is available at: http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-services/sectors-industries/energy/liquid-fuel-market/reviewing-aspects-of-the-engine-fuel-specifications-regulations-2011
| A Beehive release || August 22, 2017 |||
This new customised scam gives the old fashioned con artist the full leverage of the electronic funds transfer era.
A new wave of money transfer fraud techniques is on its way to New Zealand. It is the President scam, so called because it is centred on the departure from secure procedures triggered by a very senior official in the targeted organisation intervening and giving the appearance of wanting the fraudulent transfer to take place.
Under the President modus operandi someone poses as the boss of an organisation. They then conjure up an exception of some kind and which requires an instant transfer of money. The controlling officer, the one at the receiving end of the email or telephone call, then instructs the operations person concerned to implement the transfer. Or transfers it personally.
Inherent in this confidence trick is the artificial flap and the urgency it generates, an urgency designed to wash away any remaining security steps, especially any suspicion about the entity on the other end of the money transfer.
The theme of the President scam is that it differs from other transfer frauds in that it is designed to be implemented and completed in minutes rather than hours.
However the preparatory spade-work by the perpetrator will take much longer and involves a close study of the voice and verbal pattern of the senior official, the President, who is being mimicked. It will also require an evaluation of the vulnerability of the authorisation chain and especially of the individual who will press the button on the transfer.
These weak links may include for example a command chain noted for an informal i.e careless approach to established procedures.
Also an organisation in which the boss, the President, is known for making procedural short cuts. A boss who is feared in this context represents a weak link because line staff will want to avoid incurring their ire and so be more willing to take the procedural short cut.
There are of course a number of variants on the President scam.
These include the scam artists impersonating suppliers who claim that if a certain payment is not immediately made, that they will cause, for example, a production line to close down.
A particularly nasty twist is when a known adviser, perhaps the head of an organisation’s firm of accountants appears to be ringing in, urgently advocating the settlement of this or that account before the sky falls in.
In Europe where the President scam was developed and refined there can often be a conspiratorial aspect to the impersonation in which the scam artist seeks to impersonate elements of the forces of law enforcement, and seeks the covert assistance of someone connected with money transfers on the grounds of patriotism.
The money transferred under the President scam moves quickly through the hot money arteries, bouncing around countries with low banking surveillance, before being laundered, and often factored through commodities and other merchandise.
The history of the preceding waves of electronic scamming indicates that the International fraud artists turn their attention to New Zealand when they have picked the eyes out of the low hanging fruit in the northern hemisphere.
This time, as we shall see, is about now. Neither can we claim that the President technique has not already been applied to New Zealand. It may have been intercepted. Or the victim organisation has shut up about it.
Anyone involved in money transfer knows that by its very existence any chain of authorisation is vulnerable just because humans are involved.
So we have to hold onto something solid. In this case documentary credit instruments represent the best banking landmark. This means, in this context, sight documents.
Why? Because seeing is believing. Any departure, any exception, from authorised procedure must be verified by “sighting” the individual, the President, the CEO, or the CFO who is demanding the implementation of the exception to standard practice i.e. the money transfer.
The reason that sight procedures (never in this connection ever to be confused with citing or even “site” procedures)apply now is just because unlike previous waves of point to multi point stacked scams, the President formula relies on a high degree of customisation.
This means for example that an email used in the scam will be customised around the known habits of the President and also around the known personality of the target, the officer of the organisation authorised to make the transfer.
This email may, for example, have a holiday home telephone number. “Ring me for verification.” The person at the other end of the line will be the impersonator, perhaps with a nasty cold in order to cover up any discrepancy in tonality.
It is this customisation that makes the President scam so dangerous to New Zealand organisations.
Organisations should now evaluate the wisdom of displaying and generally publicising the names of their treasury people, especially on their web sites. They are the point of departure for practitioners of the President scam.
As practitioners turn their attention to southern latitudes we find that only in the simplicity of direct sight, the face-to-face encounter, is there an antidote to this curious yet so far extremely successful blend of the old fashioned confidence trickster merged now with the speed of light of a numerical transfer.
How vulnerable are New Zealand medium to large organisations to this new threat?
Until now the publicised victims of electronic scams of all stripes have been individuals, householders.
The first wave was the Nigerian one in the fax era. Then followed a medley centred on phishing or bank impersonation. Dismayingly the banks insist on using emails to send out their promotional material which means that they cannot collectively state that any email from a trading bank is by definition a false one.
It is in this year’s wave, the telephone calls from Microsoft accredited agent impersonators that we find the direction of this new scam.
As this particular Microsoft scam developed it was observed that recipient caller display bars began to show New Zealand telephone numbers.
Though replies indicated that the caller display numbers elicited no response.
Another pointer is the arrival in the Auckland area especially of criminal gangs working over ATMs.
We are entering the era in which organisations will have to start becoming reticent about their financial authorisation chains in terms of who staffs them.
Similarly with IT structures in which any unanticipated request for tests should be flatly ignored.
At least, until the sight verification.
| From the MSCNewsWire reporters' desk - European Correspondent || Tuesday 22 August 2017 |||
Bartlett School of Architecture graduate Cassidy Reid has designed a concept for a high-speed transport network based on Hyperloop to create infrastructural and cultural corridors across Europe, and shrink travel time between cities.
Connecting London to Krakow in just one hour and ten minutes, and passing through Brussels, Cologne, Frankfurt and Prague, Reid's Pan-European Corridor network leverages newly developed Hyperloop technology to make Europe's cultural corridor easily commutable while also helping to connect deprived communities that have been "left behind" by globalisation.
Hyperloop is the vision of entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors, PayPal and space exploration company SpaceX. The system employs mag-lev — the same technology that is used by high-speed trains in Japan – in which the electromagnetic levitation of the train means there is no friction, unlike traditional trains that run on tracks.
Musk, who first unveiled the concept for Hyperloop in 2013, later open-sourced the technology and is no longer directly involved in its development.
In Reid's Hyperlink masterplan, the corridor's most populous and diverse terminus would be located in London. Integrated into a bridge on the River Thames, the high-speed twelve-track terminal is designed to "evoke a space-bending feeling of connectivity between other European major cities".
Continue here to read the full article on deZeen . . . | August 21, 2017 |||
Brexit and Ireland Britain's troubled relationship with the island next door is a problem again.
Theresa May's government has urged the European Union to allow British businesses to continue to enjoy the benefits of the free trade of goods into Europe after Britain has left the EU. Brexit secretary David Davis said:"These papers will help give businesses and consumers certainty and confidence in the UK's status as an economic powerhouse after we have left the European Union".
The Government is to publish more details of its negotiation plans for Brexit later this week. "We've published recently just in the last few days a number of papers that set out our thinking on some of those key issues for the future relationship".
Slovenia's prime minister Miro Cerar told the Guardian newspaper in an interview that not enough progress had been made to move onto discussing a trade deal, in a blow to the government, who want to begin trade talks alongside negotiations over the UK's withdrawal.
"There are so many hard topics on the table, hard issues there, that one can not expect all those issues will be solved according to the schedule made in the first place".
The European Council will decide in October if "sufficient progress" has been made in discussions so far.
"That is our aim and we are confident that we are working at a pace to be able to get to that point".
Britain is pressing Brussels to begin early talks on a long-term trade deal as part of the negotiations over the terms of Brexit.
But sources said it was up for negotiation whether ECJ rulings will apply in the two or three year transition period after 2019.
A New Zealand/UK dual national with more than 25 years' experience, Falconer will lead trade policy and the development of negotiation capability and will serve as an ambassador for Dr Fox's Department for International Trade. "So, never mind Theresa May's foolish red line; we will have the ECJ in all but name".
The proposal, unveiled in The Times today, could allow Theresa May to square the circle of getting Britain out from under the control of the ECJ while protecting free trade in the EU's single market.
The Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake MP said: "David Davis promised us "the row of the summer" over the Brexit timetable, only to capitulate weeks later to the EU's preferred timetable after a disastrous general election for his party which vastly undermined their negotiating position".
| A Hightech Beacon release || August 21, 2017 |||