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Is it just me that finds this news item really worrying? The article seems to suggest that our current low interest rates / approaching negative interest rates will be the new norm? When I see articles such as this, the word "hubris" immediately comes to mind, as does pride before fall. As it ignores the impact of rising fuel costs and other costs leading to inflationary pressures on economies. That's generally a sign that interest rates are likely to rise - so when somebody says "they'll stay low" - to me that's a sign to clear debts in case they don't (or more a case of be prepared for them to rise). Or have I missed something? ... See MoreSee Less

Entirely possible that we'll see low interest rates forever, asset manager says

www.cnbc.com

Julian Howard expected that the Federal Reserve would probably only start raising interest rates in the second half of 2022.

1 week ago ·

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Competition in the UK credit card market heats up - and MasterCard is now the dominant player. Visa charges explain why everybody is switching - but long term when a company such as Amazon blocks one credit card company everybody loses as consumer choice is restricted. Debit cards are still OK - and interestingly Amex is too. Will this force Visa to modify prices - and if so, how will they recoup? ... See MoreSee Less

Amazon to stop accepting payments using UK-issued Visa credit cards

news.sky.com

The online retailer admits its decision, due to take effect in January, is "inconvenient" for shoppers but insists it is in their best interests while Visa - whose shares fell 5% on the announcement - accuses the company of restricting choice.

2 weeks ago ·

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Although this is an advertorial, it makes an important point. Social Engineering is one of the best ways to gather intelligence and counter-intelligence is always needed to protect companies from attacks. This article gives ideas on how to protect your organisation - and how social engineering techniques can be used to attack you. Social Engineering Teaming Service: Protect Your Organization from On-Site Infiltration #OSINT #HUMINT #competitiveintelligence #SocialEngineering ... See MoreSee Less

Social Engineering Teaming Service: Protect Your Organization from On-Site Infiltration

securityboulevard.com

After spending the better part of the last two years working remotely, employees are beginning to filter back into their office buildings. Their return is greeted by familiar faces, fresh...

2 weeks ago ·

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Each week I trawl articles for material of relevance to #competitiveintelligence, #OSINT, #strategy and more. Why not subscribe to see what appears. ... See MoreSee Less

AWARE Weekly Update

paper.li

News on business & marketing strategy, competitive intelligence research & analysis, disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, web & social media search, OSINT and related business areas. by Arthur Weiss

2 weeks ago ·

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Every picture tells a story - and so do photos. Clearview AI has now scraped the web for photos from websites and social media and used facial recognition to let police and others get an image of who we are and what we are doing - and so identify suspects, etc. Clearview sees this as a starting point - and that AI will make such surveillance actions even more powerful BUT it may also make them more dangerous to bad actors and the risk of error is also there. (Just think of the 6 Jan 2021 attacks on congress - lots of photos and so this can be used to identify those who stormed congress and link them to ther actions too). #OSINT #SOCMINT #sigint ... See MoreSee Less

Clearview AI Has New Tools to Identify You in Photos

www.wired.com

In an interview with WIRED, CEO Hoan Ton-That said the company has scraped 10 billion photos from the web—and developed new ways to aid police surveillance.

2 weeks ago ·

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How Competitive Intelligence Helps Understand How Decision Makers Think

www.octopusintelligence.com

We Are Octopus. We Create Certainty, Insight & Competitive Advantage So You Can Dominate Markets & Beat Your Competitors

2 weeks ago ·

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Arik Johnson's latest interview speaking to Rostyk Hurskey of the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF) suggests that "CI needs to evolve faster than it is currently evolving.” So true.... A lot of established CI practitioners base their research on techniques developed over the years - but prior to today's online world and social media world. Sadly, many have not updated them fully - and so miss intelligence because CI hasn't evolved fast enough. #CompetitiveIntelligence #OSINR #SOCMINT ... See MoreSee Less

Arik Johnson on LinkedIn: “I think CI needs to evolve faster than it is currently evolving.”

www.linkedin.com

“I think CI needs to evolve faster than it is currently evolving.” says Rostyk Hursky, Director of Impact and Strategy at Saskatchewan Health Research ...

3 weeks ago ·

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How To Triage Leaked Credentials | Recorded Future Spotting leaks - especially due to poor security is crucial for ensuring the integrity of your information. This article suggests a process to stop some leaks. ... See MoreSee Less

How To Triage Leaked Credentials | Recorded Future

www.recordedfuture.com

Leaked and stolen credentials pose a critical risk to organizations everywhere. In fact, 61% of breaches involve compromised credentials.

3 weeks ago ·

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This Company Had a Marketing Mystery Only Private Eyes Could Solve: An interesting research story - spotting industrial espionage from an ex-employee with access to confidential information. The company engaged a private detective to identify a leak of trade secrets to a competitor. The article suggests that competitive intelligence involves customer surveys, using PR companies, demographic data analysis - while their approach using PI techniques was better. Although it worked I wonder if it's the whole story. The article states "…month after month, its customers were fleeing to the competition..." and that the client "was convinced that standard market forces weren't at play". Yet the company apparently "had a stronger brand and social presence, cooler spokespeople, cheaper prices" and was greener. What the article doesn't state is any attempt at validating this. Was it true? How often do customers switch to an inferior, more expensive competitor? There was no mention of win-loss analysis - speaking to lost customers to find out why they switched. In this case, there may have been espionage. However many other questions are raised relating to poor CI practice! Why didn't they speak to customers to find out why they had switched, as one example. Why was no checks made on whether their assumptions were correct. Why were there no exit interviews or security protocols within the company. The company may have caught a leaker - but its approach, if the story is true, suggests poor information management and no CI process - so it's ripe for attack anyway. buff.ly/3bZ7sqJ #CounterIntelligence #CompetitiveIntelligence #Espionage ... See MoreSee Less

This Company Had a Marketing Mystery Only Private Eyes Could Solve

buff.ly

Even companies that make all the right moves can succumb to an all-too-common culprit: employee theft.

3 weeks ago ·

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Human Beings have been telling stories since we lived in caves. It's the tool that all great communicators use. Even if it involves dry facts and numbers, turning these into a story can make them meaningful and memorable. #storyteller #influencermarketing ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago ·

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Ensuring that your company is protected and not vulnerable to cyberattack is now a necessity. However for some sectors, it's particularly important as they hold massive amounts of data on individuals - making them key targets for cybercrime. We can see this in the increase in the number of healthcare data breaches (Up 25% in 2020 vs, 2019 - and around 2x a day). Cybercrime in heathcare include ransomware, online fraud and identity theft - with entry obtained via phishing, hacking of legacy systems, poor passwords and entry via supplier systems. An illustration of the value of healthcare records is that credit card details now sell for under US$ while passwords and access to a Gmail account can be over US$100 as this gives access to the full identity of the target - many people use their Gmail account password for other systems. However medical records can be even more valuable as they can allow a thief to have a full personal profile - with date of birth, prescription records, payment cards and other identity detail. ... See MoreSee Less

Cybersecurity in Healthcare: How to Prevent Cybercrime | Brighterion AI | A Mastercard Company

brighterion.com

Cybersecurity is a growing area of risk in healthcare, and organizations are grappling with their vulnerabilities, including identify theft that leads to healthcare fraud. Brighterion's highly scalable artificial intelligence solutions detect healthcare fraud, waste and abuse.

2 months ago ·

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My weekly update of news I've found interesting, inciteful or important for marketing & competitive intelligence professionals. Subscribe and you'll get this every week. ... See MoreSee Less

AWARE Weekly Update

paper.li

News on business & marketing strategy, competitive intelligence research & analysis, disruptive innovation, entrepreneurship, web & social media search, OSINT and related business areas. by Arthur Weiss

2 months ago ·

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Sometimes things aren't perfect - yet the show needs to continue. A lesson for all presenters on coping and continuing. Use humour, and improvise and the audience will be thrilled. Congrats to a real #professional presenter. It's not just knowing your material like the back of your hand. It's being able to show you know much more and that you are ready for whatever twists are thrown at you. (And yes, I've also had the occasional "help - what do I do" and have managed to continue. It may be a workshop on finding information for my clients - or a lecture at a conference. It's still a performance and you still need to be ready for whatever bad luck is thrown at you). www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBbRTRBY4D4#presentation #teaching #performance ... See MoreSee Less

Brazilian pianist, Eliane Rodrigues, LITERALLY taking the performance below the stage!

www.youtube.com

That time when you have to play a recital at De Doelen in Rotterdam and something is not right with the piano. Who says classical musicians don't have a sens...

2 months ago ·

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Aftershocks and Opportunities 2: Navigating the Next Horizon has now been published. (lnkd.in/egi-7FCZ).I made a brief video summarising my chapter and there's more detail on this link. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6850811038754066432/. Although Covid-19 is still with us - and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, despite most people having been double vaccinated, life must carry on. We need to learn to treat it a bit like we treat flu - potentially life threatening, but not life stopping or curtailing for most. But in the same way that different ages view flu differently I believe that different age cohorts will react to the "new normal" in different ways.To learn more - click on the link above to purchase your own copy of the book - and read my chapter and those of the others named so you can navigate the opportunities and threats emerging as a result of the pandemic. ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago ·

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In our age of hacking and cyber-terrorism, your company's data is a target. And it doesn't take much for a hacker to break into a network and wreak havoc. What do you need to know about password security?(And this is just one step in protecting companies. There are many more - for example, ensuring employees don't fall for targeted phishing attempts, or phone calls asking for seemingly innocuous information that, when combined with other information can give clues to strategy and much more. Ask me - and I'll explain). ... See MoreSee Less

Password Security in 2021 — A Complete Guide | Hacker Noon

hackernoon.com

A comprehensive guide to password security for all IT managers (and everyone else!). Learn why it is important, the risks of insecure passwords and how you can

2 months ago ·

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I use OSINT techniques to gather competitive & marketing intelligence for customers. However there's also a dark-side as it's possible to use the same approaches for nefarious purposes. Targeted phishing attacks and "whaling" depend on the use of OSINT to get information on the victim so that they fall for the attack. So understanding OSINT is important for the counter-intelligence community too. How good are your OSINT skills? ... See MoreSee Less

The upside and downside of open-source intelligence – OSINT

www.scmagazine.com

There are advantages to OSINT for defenders, but bad actors also use it to hack into organizations.

2 months ago ·

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You see a sign "Parking for Green Vehicles"Does that mean the paint colour or environmentally friendly? Ambiguity causes problems in business. It's important that communcation is clear / understandable and unambiguous to be effective. ... See MoreSee Less

What Does It Take to Message Effectively?

www.modernanalyst.com

Is your requirements approach friendly to vocabulary, policies and messages? I mean directly. Wouldn’t it be of great help to your organization in achieving its goals if they were? In our experience, policy sources almost always need interpretation and disambiguation to achieve an effective pr

2 months ago ·

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The importance of understanding value - Business Analyst Articles, Webinars, Templates, Jobs

www.batimes.com

Every company has many competing ideas on projects which need to be fulfilled in order to run successfully. Departments will usually get a budget and at times try to deliver as many items as possible, in order to say they have been completed. But are the correct items/functions/projects being delive...

2 months ago ·

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Why Visionary Leadership Fails

hbr.org

Top executives need to make sure middle managers are aligned with them.

2 months ago ·

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Social Intrapreneurship: Unleashing Social Innovation From Within

sloanreview.mit.edu

The next wave of social innovation is coming from employee-led initiatives.

2 months ago ·

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Novel AI Approaches For Marketing & Advertising

www.topbots.com

To help you stay aware of the state-of-the-art AI applications in marketing, we have prepared an update of our AI marketing research series with 15 recent research papers in attribution, optimization, personalization, and content generation.

2 months ago ·

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‘A race to the bottom’: Google temps are fighting a two-tier labor system

www.theguardian.com

Contracted workers doing the same jobs for less pay and no job security are exposing the tech company’s workplace inequalities

2 months ago ·

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Is Automation Jeopardizing Our Future?

liwaiwai.com

Earlier, widespread automation meant the introduction of service sector jobs or big stupid machines doing repetitive work in factories. That’s not the case a couple of decades down the line, is it? Now there is software that can land aircraft, diagnose cancer, and trade stocks for you🐱‍👓 M...

2 months ago ·

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What is the point of the Quad?

www.economist.com

The loose coalition of America, Australia, India and Japan is yet to prove its mettle | The Economist explains

2 months ago ·

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Design Your Work Environment to Manage Unintended Tech Consequences

sloanreview.mit.edu

Virtual, tech-mediated collaboration carries risks of isolation, exclusion, surveillance, and self-censorship.

2 months ago ·

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Read the chapter I wrote on the post-Covid world - and take advantage of a special offer today. Details below: ... See MoreSee Less

Final Day of Pre-Launch Offer for Aftershocks and Opportunities 2: Navigating the Next Horizon

mailchi.mp

2 months ago ·

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Google Releases Wikipedia-Based Image Text (WIT) Dataset

analyticsindiamag.com

Google recently released a Wikipedia-Based Image Text (WIT) dataset, a large multimodal dataset created by extracting various text selections associated with an image from Wikimedia image links and articles

2 months ago ·

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How threatening are the high levels of corporate debt?

www.economist.com

Research suggests property-related borrowing is the biggest headache | Finance & economics

2 months ago ·

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Getting Back to Business

hbr.org

The future of shopping in the post-Covid world

2 months ago ·

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Brave browser adds private videoconferencing with $7 premium option

www.cnet.com

The company doesn't know the identities of people using its new Zoom competitor.

2 months ago ·

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Espionage is NOT the same as competitive intelligence. Sadly the need for counter-intelligence is growing. You can learn techniques to counter espionage at GICI Institute for Competitive Intelligence workshops. This article shows the threat. euobserver.com/democracy/152873 ... See MoreSee Less

EU needs to step up espionage defences, experts warn

euobserver.com

Robert Dover from the University of Hull said intelligence work nowadays is mostly data warehousing to "improve the behavioural models of how state and individuals will act and behave" - and how to encounter that.

3 months ago ·

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Your Employees Are Your Best Defense Against Cyberattacks

hbr.org

Six strategies to fortify your human firewall.

3 months ago ·

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After Afghanistan, where next for global jihad?

www.economist.com

The biggest danger is in poor, unstable states where insurgents already control territory | Leaders

3 months ago ·

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I hate jargon - as it just serves to confuse. It's often used to promote a feeling that the jargon user is an expert but often the jargon just means that there is insufficient thought about the topic. One particular piece of jargon language that I'm increasing encountering in business is that we live in a VUCA world. VUCA stands for Volatility - life and business are dynamic but the term suggests that business is changing faster than ever before. Uncertainty - we can't predict the future or even understand what's happeningComplexity - business is now multi-factorial and so highly complex and hard for human beings to comprehendAmbiguity - things aren't clear due to lack of or incomplete information. Partly this is because things are complex and volatile and so uncertain. There are a number of sites describing VUCA e.g. www.forbes.com/sites/jeroenkraaijenbrink/2018/12/19/what-does-vuca-really-mean/?sh=433bc94017d6 and even Wikipedia describes it and gives the background - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguityMy problem with this is that saying that the world or industry is VUCA is almost a short term way of saying "We can't do anything because everything is unclear, uncertain, complex and changing too fast". It becomes a code term for lack of planning or an explanation for failing when strategies go wrong. The flip side is that some consultants offer guides to survive in a VUCA world. The question is - is the world really VUCA. Is it really impossible to understand the business world. If it is, then this negates the whole scenario planning / future planning business. As scenarios depend on looking at possibilities in the future. Good scenarios take account of volatility and ambiguity in business and are all about reducing uncertainty to something that can be managed. If the business is so complex that you can't understand it, maybe it's time to look for a new business.One of my mentors Andrew Shaw pointed out to me yesterday that in fact the world of the last few decades has actually been pretty predictable - compared to the past. Yes - there are surprises but usually we cope with these. As a trivial example, it's predictable that there will be a significant earthquake within the next few decades along the San Andreas Fault in California. This is likely to do massive damage. What's uncertain is when this will happen. However even though this is uncertain, and the results will be complex, you can plan and prepare for it - in many ways. Building regulations, training on survival techniques and much more. Most examples VUCA pundits mention should allow planning and preparation and so are they really that volatile or uncertain or complex or ambiguous. Andrew Shaw pointed out that for most of human history, the world was truly VUCA in that much of humanity didn't even know where their next meal was coming from. They had no control over who ruled them and no vote. Women were in a worse situation as they were often subservient to their husband's will - who in turn was subservient to the local lords or potentates or factory owners. However the last 50-60 years have been golden years where planning for the future become routine - as the future became predictable. As Hans Rosling, the author of Factfulness points out (www.amazon.co.uk/Factfulness-Reasons-Wrong-Things-Better/dp/1473637465), much of what MOST people think about the world is wrong - and that people are in a much better state than is conventionally thought. (Rosling's work has been continued by Ola Rosling in the Gapminder initiative - again showing how we are wrong about the world that is generally predictable. www.gapminder.org/)The problem is that we are now actually in a VUCA period - but not for the reasons the VUCA pundits have posited. The impact of Covid-19 has upset many applecarts. Whereas in 2018 it was standard to say "I've just booked my holiday in 6 months time" or "We're arranging our wedding for 2 years time.... " Covid put paid to all that. Although we are getting back to a new normal, it's slow and we still can't guarantee that we'll be able to go on a holiday we've booked for 6 months or even 3 months away. Businesses don't know if they will be subjected to a new lockdown and what to do about employees that want to work from home. That, in itself, changes more than just one workplace but impacts public transport and infrastructure. How different generations and age cohorts will cope with changes resulting from Covid is an additional complexity - which we can only guess at. It's something I've attempted to do in my chapter in a book about to be published (28 September - pre-orders now available at a discount) on the post-Covid period. Other authors look at different aspects and try to make sense of what is happening, so that businesses can be prepared. Of course this all means that maybe things are not as volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous as they were even just a few months ago! (But buy the book to find out my and other author views on this). fastfuture.com/shop/aftershocks-and-opportunities-2/ ... See MoreSee Less

Aftershocks and Opportunities 2: Navigating the Next Horizon | Fast Future Publishing

fastfuture.com

Aftershocks and Opportunities 2: Navigating the Next Horizon brings together 37 world-class futurists, analysts, subject matter experts, and strategists from 16 countries on five 5 continents to explore the forces, developments, emerging ideas, issues, risks, and opportunities that could shape our p...

3 months ago ·

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A Guide to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)

www.cjr.org

Introduction: Peering Behind the Mask Open source intelligence, which researchers and security services style OSINT, is one of the most valuable tools to a contemporary reporter, because of the vast amount of publicly available online information. Reporters conducting OSINT-based research should asp...

3 months ago ·

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Facebook “transparency report” turns out to be anything but

www.cjr.org

Last week, Facebook released a report detailing some of the most popular content shared on the site in the second quarter of this year. The report is a first for the social network. Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, described the content review as part of “a long journey” to b...

3 months ago ·

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The most popular posts on Facebook are plagiarized

www.theverge.com

The way to succeed is by copying someone else’s idea

3 months ago ·

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Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat talks about crowdsourced investigative journalism

www.getrevue.co

I write about digital media for the Columbia Journalism Review. I'm an expert in stucco, a veteran in love and an outlaw in Peru

3 months ago ·

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Facebook is the AOL of 2021 | ZDNet

www.zdnet.com

The 1990s had a word for being trapped inside a manipulative notion of human contact: AOL. Facebook and its ilk are the rebirth of that limited vision.

3 months ago ·

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You’ve Built a Racially Diverse Team. But Have You Built an Inclusive Culture?

hbr.org

Three research-backed strategies to create an environment that encourages authenticity and fosters trust.

3 months ago ·

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Special ACFCS Report: The Front Lines – The Investigations Series: 'OSINT Investigations' Part 2 of 2, negative news, SARs and controlling the narrative - CFCS | Association of Certified Financial Crime Specialists

www.acfcs.org

The Skinny: ACFCS unveils a new series, “The Front Lines,” by Erin O’Loughlin, Senior Director of Training for ACFCS. She is a former front-line investigator and manager for multiple large financial institutions, a crypto currency exchange, as well as a former intelligence officer for the U.S....

3 months ago ·

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How Workplace Culture Affects Workplace Performance

www.modernanalyst.com

So, what can you do to improve your workplace culture? A possible way to start is with the notion that culture is usually local. It is impossible to change the entire organization unless you’re the CEO, and even then, it’s hard. But it is not so hard to change local culture.

3 months ago ·

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Employee surveillance: the latest command-and-control disease

www.modernanalyst.com

With the massive shift to working from home we now see a plethora of tech companies flogging new employee surveillance tools. You can readily see their appeal to command-and-control thinkers. If you think, as they do, that managing employee activity is crucial, then to know who’s doing things

3 months ago ·

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9 websites that will bring you back to the old internet

mashable.com

We found some great, old websites that'll have you taking a trip down memory lane.

3 months ago ·

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Debate: Smile, you're under surveillance!

theconversation.com

In the current health crisis, authorities use our need for security and private firms our desire for entertainment to encourage us to give up our civil rights.

3 months ago ·

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The Invisible Citation Commons · Business of Knowing, summer 2021

commonplace.knowledgefutures.org

Scholarly knowledge relies on citations. Discovering and acknowledging prior work is fundamental to knowing what has been done before, synthesizing the state of the field, and identifying spaces for new research.

3 months ago ·

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Google conducts largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date

phys.org

A team of researchers with Google's AI Quantum team (working with unspecified collaborators) has conducted the largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their work and why they believe it was a step forward in quan...

3 months ago ·

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Tricking The World’s Most Accurate Deep Learning Models

medium.com

An insight into the vulnerability of using deep learning

3 months ago ·

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Immunizing the public against misinformation

www.who.int

Besides leading the global fight against COVID-19, WHO is also investing time and resources to tackle the rapid spread of misinformation, rumors, and conspiracy theories about the virus and disease.

3 months ago ·

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Product Requirements - Three Fundamental Scenarios

www.modernanalyst.com

Product configuration requirements are a specialized type of requirement when an information system supports product-related needs through data values. Where there are specific changes to business processes needed to sell and/or operate a new product, the requirements for the information system to s

3 months ago ·

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one person followed me // automatically checked by https://t.co/xWvLJmRgUlyesterday
The latest AWARE Weekly Update! https://t.co/WD0nJiffVU Thanks to @ai4optiprojects #strategy #business3 days ago
RT @TheEconomist: In countries that are poorer, less well-vaccinated or both, the effects of the virus will linger. The disparity of outcom…4 days ago
Is this an indicator of hubris - expecting rates to stay low, despite inflationary pressures such as rising costs o… https://t.co/wKSJjOBEXA9 days ago
The latest AWARE Weekly Update! https://t.co/AlR4NFckF5 Thanks to @ScottGoldmanPhD @andresvarela #strategy #business10 days ago
Amazon to stop accepting payments using UK-issued Visa credit cards | Business News | Sky News https://t.co/HWQYJ4fQXl13 days ago
Although this is an advertorial, it gives some good tips. Social Engineering is one of the best ways to gather inte… https://t.co/ghzwcybWkx14 days ago
RT @Shema_Beni: #Turkey is crazy. Tourists photo Buckingham Palace, 10 Downing Street, the White House, the Elysee Palace… and that's norma…14 days ago
Each week I trawl articles for material of relevance to #competitiveIntelligence, #OSINT, #Strategy and more. Why n… https://t.co/6MPUP1ayiz15 days ago