technology
'China's Tianjin Port now smarter, more efficient, thanks to Huawei'
Global ICT infrastructure and solutions provider Huawei, has come up with a 5G network, 4L autonomous driving and other technological innovations to make ports smart, safer and efficient.
Recently, a smart terminal was built by Tianjin Port Group (TPG), together with Huawei and other partners.
This initiative was taken to deal with port congestion that caused severe disruptions in global supply chains, goods handling problems and other port-related issues resulting in a decrease in overall efficiency.
At the Tianjin Port, under the guidance of the BeiDou navigation satellite system, the whole process of moving the container trucks to the automatic locking and unlocking stations can now be completed in one go.
"The intelligent and digital transformation of the port has led to tangible benefits and increased efficiency. Now, each container at the Tianjin Port consumes 20 percent less energy, and cranes are 20 percent more efficient on average, with each crane operating 39 container units per hour," Huawei said in a statement.
Read: Huawei launches all-band 5G solution series
Jason Li, board member of Huawei Bangladesh, said: "Smart ports and terminals can be the focal point in the next few years for realising the Smart Bangladesh vision. If Bangladesh can turn Chattogram and Mongla ports into smart ones, it will have very positive impacts on the economy and also help to address the problems in daily operations at ports."
Tianjin port is one of China's most technologically advanced ports and a vital hub for the One Belt One Road initiative. It has a 300000-ton-class wharf with a channel depth of 22 meters. It has 192 berths of various types and 128 berths above the 10,000-ton-class.
By the end of 2021, the port's cargo throughput reached 435 million tons, ranking ninth in the world, while the container throughput exceeded 18.35 million TEUs, ranking the eighth port in the world.
'Ultra-broadband 5.5G to be key milestone on the path to intelligent world'
Ultra-broadband 5.5G will be a key milestone on the path to an intelligent world, David Wang, Huawei's executive director of the board and chairman of the ICT infrastructure managing board, said Thursday.
He was speaking at the two-day Ultra-Broadband Forum 2022 which began in Bangkok today.
"As we approach the intelligent world of 2030, home broadband speeds will reach 10 Gbit/s, marking a huge improvement over today's 1 Gbit/s experience," David said.
"Now homes have an average of 5 to 20 devices connected to their Wi-Fi networks. However, this is set to change as smart home devices see broad adoption, which will drive this number up to 150 to 200. It will therefore be essential that fibre can reach every room of every home."
Read: 5.5G: 'The key to building an intelligent world'
By 2030, Wi-Fi networks will also be capable of delivering several 10 Gbit/s experiences for mid- and large-sized campuses and will need to support intelligent operations and management, David said.
"Micro and small enterprises will need Wi-Fi networks that can deliver large bandwidth, premium experiences, and one-stop intranet services. Industrial Internet will require a bandwidth higher than 10 Gbit/s and latency lower than one millisecond," he added.
"Enterprises will adopt a multi-cloud strategy that requires networks to dynamically adjust routing. Driven by green development and automation, we will see 10-fold increases in network capacity, energy efficiency, and O&M efficiency," David said.
Govt has permanently blocked 22,000 porn sites and 6,000 gambling sites: Mustafa Jabbar
Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar today said that robotics, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) will shape the future.
The minister said this while attending a policy dialogue on safe use of technology in establishing peace and extending democracy, arranged by Bangladesh Enterprise Institute at a Dhaka hotel.
Terming internet connectivity as mandatory for the digital age, Jabbar said that the government has taken up a project to bring the entire country under high speed internet.
Read: No more than 15 SIM cards under 1 NID: BTRC to deactivate extras
“To face the challenges posed by digital technology, first we need to eliminate digital divide. Everyone has to be digitally competent to enjoy the benefits of the upcoming technology-based world. If you keep your child away from the digital spheres, he/she will lag behind,” said Jabbar.
Acknowledging that there are both good and bad sides of digital technology, the minister said that digital technology won’t have adverse impact on the state, society and people if everyone is also aware and cautious of its dark side.
“The government has permanently blocked a total of 22,000 porn sites and 6,000 gambling sites. We’ve also achieved great success in removing harmful content from the virtual world through improving our ties with social media giants like Facebook and others. But such progress won’t be of any use if the consumers of digital technologies don’t practice restraint, which can only be done through digital literacy,” added Jabbar.
Read Hijab protests: US takes action to increase Iranians’ access to internet
The dialogue was presided over by Ambassador Humayun Kabir. Mezbah Uddin, Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and Charles Whiteley, Head of Delegations of the European Union (EU), among others, spoke at the event.
Ex-girlfriend selling gift, memorabilia from Elon Musk in auction
If your ex becomes the richest person in the world, keeping his possessions could turn advantageous in the future.
The ex-girlfriend of tech mogul Elon Musk is auctioning off a collection of pictures and other memorabilia from their relationship. The souvenirs are being sold by Musk’s college flame Jennifer Gwynne via the Boston-based RR Auction, reports CNN.
According to a press release RR Auction provided to CNN, Gwynne and Musk began dating in 1994 while they were both employed as resident counsellors in a university dormitory. Musk began a doctoral study at Stanford soon after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, but left to found his first firm, Zip2.
Read: Elon Musk's $44 billion Twitter deal gets board endorsement
The collection includes souvenirs from Musk and Gwynne’s time together in addition to 18 candid pictures of the businessman when he was a baby-faced University of Pennsylvania economics student.
Before his quick ascent to fame, the billionaire appeared just like any other college student in the glossy images, hanging out with his fellow resident advisers, having fun in his dorm room, and cuddling with his fiancée.
A birthday necklace given to Gwynne on her birthday is the item with the current highest bid, followed by a signed birthday card, the CNN report adds.
Read: Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘temporarily on hold’
The message reads, “Happy Birthday, Jennifer (aka Boo-Boo), Love, Elon.” Sunday morning's opening bid is almost $7,000, which is the most. According to RR, the card is anticipated to sell for more than $10,000.
The emerald in the gold necklace was mined in Zambia by Musk’s father Errol, a successful South African engineer and real estate entrepreneur.
Two photographs are also included with the necklace: one of Musk and Gwynne with the former’s mother, the model Maye Musk, and the other of them at a 1995 end-of-the-year formal.
Read Musk says Twitter deal could move ahead with 'bot' info
Tesla aficionados have until Wednesday, when the auction closes, to place a bid on a piece of Elon Musk memorabilia.
Use of air flow machines in storage transforming onion farmers' fortunes in Faridpur
Every year, it is said that almost a quarter of the country's total output of onions - which in 2020-21 stood at 3.3 million metric tonnes - ends up wasted, going rotten due to bacterial infection, or exposure to excessive heat and vapour.
That would equate to 825,000 MT of wasted onions in 2020-21.
But this year, farmers in the country’s southwest have started reaping the benefits of using a new technology in the preservation of their perishable crops.
An air flow machine, already being dubbed the ‘Air Conditioner (AC) for Onions’, - although the technique can be and is used in storage of other items as well- is helping Faridpur's onion farmers to prevent a significant portion of their produce from going rotten.
For the last couple of years, Bangladesh has been increasing its annual output of onions. But the country still has to import huge amounts of onion every year to meet demand. Both the importers and the local farmers incur losses due to surplus onions in the market, as prices come down and the product starts to rot.
The air flow machine has arrived as a solution to this two-pronged problem.
Also read: Bangladesh to export onions in 2-3 years: Agricultural Minister
The cost-effective innovation, long in use in other parts of the world, is being championed in Bangladesh by a team of Southwestern Coordinated Water Resources Planning and Management Project-Phase II. The cost of setting up an Air Flow Machine is only Tk 15,000-Tk 20,000.
Vivo brings Y01
Global smartphone brand vivo has brought Y01, the latest addition to its Y series smartphone, to Bangladesh.
The device has a 5,000mAh battery and is also engineered to offer 5V/1A reverse charging, enabling it to charge other devices.
Read: Vivo brings X80 to Bangladesh
Y01 also features a 6.51-inch Halo FullView Display with HD+ (1600x720) resolution, providing a wide and immersive view for both videos and games.
The device has an 8.28mm body equipped with a stylish 3D back cover, an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera.
Read Walton Primo R9 Review: Competitive in entry-level budget segment
Y01 also has the Face Wake feature that unlocks one's phone the moment it recognises his or her face.
Priced at Tk9,990, Vivo Y01 is available in Elegant Black and Sapphire Blue.
Instagram tests using AI, other tools for age verification
Instagram is testing new ways to verify the age of people using its service, including a face-scanning artificial intelligence tool, having mutual friends verify their age or uploading an ID.
But the tools won’t be used, at least not yet, to block children from the popular photo and video-sharing app. The current test only involves verifying that a user is 18 or older.
The use of face-scanning AI, especially on teenagers, raised some alarm bells Thursday, given the checkered history of Instagram parent Meta when it comes to protecting users’ privacy. Meta stressed that the technology used to verify people’s age cannot recognize one’s identity — only age. Once the age verification is complete, Meta said it and Yoti, the AI contractor it partnered with to conduct the scans, will delete the video.
Meta, which owns Facebook as well as Instagram, said that beginning on Thursday, if someone tries to edit their date of birth on Instagram from under the age of 18 to 18 or over, they will be required to verify their age using one of these methods.
Meta continues to face questions about the negative effects of its products, especially Instagram, on some teens.
Kids technically have to be at least 13 to use Instagram, similar to other social media platforms. But some circumvent this either by lying about their age or by having a parent do so. Teens aged 13 to 17, meanwhile, have additional restrictions on their accounts — for instance, adults they are not connected to can’t send them messages — until they turn 18.
The use of uploaded IDs is not new, but the other two options are. “We are giving people a variety of options to verify their age and seeing what works best,” said Erica Finkle, Meta’s director of data governance and public policy.
To use the face-scanning option, a user has to upload a video selfie. That video is then sent to Yoti, a London-based startup that uses people’s facial features to estimate their age. Finkle said Meta isn’t yet trying to pinpoint under-13s using the technology because it doesn’t keep data on that age group — which would be needed to properly train the AI system. But if Yoti does predict a user is too young for Instagram, they’ll be asked to prove their age or have their account removed, she said.
“It doesn’t ever recognize, uniquely, anyone,” said Julie Dawson, Yoti’s chief policy and regulatory officer. “And the image is instantly deleted once we’ve done it.”
Yoti is one of several biometric companies capitalizing on a push in the United Kingdom and Europe for stronger age verification technology to stop kids from accessing pornography, dating apps and other internet content meant for adults -- not to mention bottles of alcohol and other off-limits items at physical stores.
Yoti has been working with several big U.K. supermarkets on face-scanning cameras at self-check-out counters. It has also started verifying the age of users of the youth-oriented French video chatroom app Yubo.
While Instagram is likely to follow through with its promise to delete an applicant’s facial imagery and not try to use it to recognize individual faces, the normalization of face-scanning presents other societal concerns, said Daragh Murray, a senior lecturer at the University of Essex’s law school.
“It’s problematic because there are a lot of known biases with trying to identify by things like age or gender,” Murray said. “You’re essentially looking at a stereotype and people just differ so much.”
A 2019 study by a U.S. agency found that facial recognition technology often performs unevenly based on a person’s race, gender or age. The National Institute of Standards and Technology found higher error rates for the youngest and oldest people. There’s not yet such a benchmark for age-estimating facial analysis, but Yoti’s own published analysis of its results reveals a similar trend, with slightly higher error rates for women and people with darker skin tones.
Meta’s face-scanning move is a departure from what some of its tech competitors are doing. Microsoft on Tuesday said it would stop providing its customers with facial analysis tools that “purport to infer” emotional states and identity attributes such as age or gender, citing concerns about “stereotyping, discrimination, or unfair denial of services.”
Meta itself announced last year that it was shutting down Facebook’s face-recognition system and deleting the faceprints of more than 1 billion people after years of scrutiny from courts and regulators. But it signaled at the time that it wouldn’t give up entirely on analyzing faces, moving away from the broad-based tagging of social media photos that helped popularize commercial use of facial recognition toward “narrower forms of personal authentication.”
Foundation stone of Barishal hi-tech park laid
State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak has laid the foundation stone of a hi-tech park in Barishal city’s Kashipur area on Thursday morning.
The hi-tech park is being built under the ‘District-based Hi-tech Park Building Project’ undertaken by the Hi-tech Park Authority of the ICT Division.
Besides, the park is being built on 6.5 acres of land at a cost of Tk 170 crore.
The construction of the hi-tech park will be completed within next two years. Once established, at least 1,000 youths will be able to receive training from it. Besides it will create job opportunities for 3,000 youths.
Talking to reporters, Palak said that the hi-tech park will turn Barishal into a technology-based city.
Read: Hi-Tech Park to turn Khulna industrial area into tech-based zone: Palak
“Barishal will turn into a Silicon City, which will help in the making of a Smart Bangladesh,” Palak added.
Mayor of Barishal City Corporation (BCC) Serniyabat Sadek Abdullah, Managing Director of Bangladesh Hi-tech Park Authority Dr Bikarna Kumar Ghosh and other officials and political leaders were present during the event.
BCC Mayor Sadek said that the initiative by the government to build a hi-tech park in Barishal has fulfilled the long-cherished desire of the people of this part of the country.
“I hope a generation rich in ICT-based knowledge will grow in Barishal due to this park,” added Sadek.
Present world is not of competition but collaboration: Palak
State Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Zunaid Ahmed Palak has said the present world is not of competition, but of collaboration.
"The more collaboration, the more life can be made easier. To that end, there are opportunities for private sector partnerships in the current coordination between the ICT Division and various ministries," he said while appearing as a guest on the first episode of ‘bKash Digital Life’ aired on Channel i recently.
Shamsuddin Haider Dalim hosted the programme.
The state minister said that not only urban people but also the rural ones have become accustomed to the digital life and digital technology has revolutionized the way people live their lives.
Read: Draft of data privacy and localization law is prepared: Palak
He believes that the initiative taken by this government 12 years ago to build a Digital Bangladesh is the basis of creating this digital habit today, said a media release.
Palak added that the digital services have become accessible to the masses due to the contribution of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her ICT Advisor Sajeeb Wazed Joy.
Regarding the bKash app, the state minister said that the latest customized and personalized solutions of bKash are very attractive.
Palak hopes that the bKash app will become a super app in the fully developed Bangladesh by 2041, saying, “Just like Facebook is not just a communications app, but an entertainment hub; Amazon, for example, is not just an e-commerce platform, but a part of the whole lifestyle, starting with entertainment; Google, for instance, is not just a search engine, but an education platform – similarly, bKash will become a super platform and super app. We will all work together to make Bangladesh the golden Bangladesh as dreamt by the great leader Bangabandhu.”
Reports: Twitter to provide Musk with raw daily tweet data
Twitter plans to offer Elon Musk access to its “firehose” of raw data on hundreds of millions of daily tweets in an effort to push forward the Tesla billionaire’s agreed-to $44 billion acquisition of the social media platform, according to multiple news reports.
Lawyers involved in the deal would not confirm the data sharing agreement. Musk made no comment on Twitter, although he has previously been vocal about various aspects of the deal. Twitter declined to confirm the reports and pointed to a Monday statement in which the company said it is continuing to “cooperatively” share information with Musk.
Musk, who struck a legally binding agreement to buy Twitter in April, contends that the deal can’t proceed unless the company provides more information about the prevalence of fake accounts on its platform. He has argued, without presenting evidence, that Twitter has significantly underestimated the number of these “spam bots” -- automated accounts that typically promote scams and misinformation — on its service.
On Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also announced an investigation into Twitter for allegedly failing to disclose the extent of its spam bot and fake accounts, saying his office would look into “potential false reporting” of bots on Twitter.
Read: Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter, make it 'maximally trusted'
The Washington Post first reported Twitter’s plan to provide Musk with full access to the firehose, citing a person familiar with the matter. Other reports suggested the billionaire might only receive partial access.
Twitter’s reported offer could blunt Musk’s attempts to use the spam bot issue to cast doubt on the deal’s future. This week, lawyers for Musk accused the company of refusing to surrender information about the true number of bot accounts on Twitter. Mike Ringler, the Palo Alto, California, attorney who signed that Monday letter, told the AP he was not at liberty to speak about the matter when reached Wednesday afternoon.
Fake social media accounts have been problematic for years. Advertisers rely on the number of users provided by social media platforms to determine where they will spend money. Spam bots are also used to amplify messages and spread disinformation.
The problem of fake accounts is well-known to Twitter and its investors. The company has disclosed its bot estimates to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for years, while also cautioning that its estimate might be too low.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal has said that Twitter has consistently estimated that fewer than 5% of its accounts are spam. But Musk has disputed that figure, contending in a May tweet — without evidence — that 20% or more of Twitter’s accounts are bogus.