Digital Transformation in the Insurance Industry
The financial services industry is undergoing digital disruption and change. Insurance, as part of that industry, also faces new opportunities and challenges. To explore these issues, Michael Krigsman of ZDNet spoke with the CIO for Information at Swiss reinsurance giant, Swiss Re. Rainer Baumann handles the data and tools that experts inside the company use to understand and evaluate a broad range of insurance risks.
IBM, Visa Partner to Enable Secure Payments Via IoT Devices
IBM and Visa Inc. have collaborated allowing businesses to quickly introduce secure payments for any device connected to the Internet of Things. The collaboration brings together IBM’s Watson IoT platform and cognitive capabilities with Visa’s global payments services. IBM’s Watson IoT Platform aims to allow businesses to connect to billions of connected devices, sensors and systems around the world and then draw actionable insights.
The Collaborative Steps of Mobile App Development
According to Gartner’s “The Key Fundamentals Required to Scale Mobile App Development” report, organizations are developing far fewer apps than projected demand from business users. These organizations are struggling to develop coherent mobility strategies that integrate with their business processes. Not only are these companies dealing with rapid changes in technology, but they are also dealing with rapid changes in culture and employee expectations as consumerization takes a firm hold in the enterprise.
Google Adds Keep As A Core Service Under G Suite Agreement
Google has announced that it’s making Keep, its note-taking app that’s comparable to Evernote or Microsoft’s OneNote, a core service for G Suite customers. It’s also integrating the app with Google Docs, allowing users to search and access Keep notes without leaving Docs. The Keep notepad will be accessible to Google Docs users on the web via the Tools menu, and Keep notes will appear in a side panel within Docs.
Target Bows to Amazon Price Wars Pressure
Target CEO Brian Cornell told analysts and investors that the company would sacrifice $1 billion in operating margins in order to lower prices and make improvements around e-commerce.
B2B Bot Industry Has a “Decade of Innovation” To Come
From Domino’s Pizza, to Uber, to Bank of America, bots are one of the hottest properties in business tech right now and opening up new avenues. Yet according to Beerud Sheth, CEO of chatbot platform provider Gupshup: “I see a decade’s worth of innovation yet to come.”
World’s Largest IoT Network to Be Built in India
Tata Communications and Hewlett Packard Enterprises are partnering to build the world’s largest IoT network in India. The project involves connecting devices, applications and other IoT solutions over the LoRa network in smart buildings, campus, utilities, fleet management, security and healthcare services in nearly 2,000 communities, covering over 400 million people, making it the first-of-its-kind initiative in India.
Pinpointing Productivity and the Continued Rise of Slack in the Enterprise
At an entertaining session at Mobile World Congress, the key question arose: is technological innovation and a changing work-life balance actually making us more productive, or are the current breed of enterprise apps just another platform on which to waste time? The answer came back overwhelmingly for the former; 65 percent of the audience members polled said that they were more productive now than five years ago. When it came to the most popular apps, Office came out on top with 35 percent, ahead of WhatsApp, Slack and Skype.
Apple to Offer 10th Anniversary iPhone with Curved OLED Screen
Apple’s upcoming new iPhones reportedly will include a special 10th anniversary edition phone equipped with a curved OLED display screen and a $1,000 price tag, in addition to other traditional iPhone models with liquid-crystal displays, according to the latest rumors about the handsets. Details about the special anniversary iPhone model were described in a February 28th story in The Wall Street Journal.
Why User Experience is the Missing Piece of the Enterprise Mobile App Puzzle
There’s good news about enterprise mobile apps: according to a survey by app developer ArcTouch, there’s strong demand for work-related mobile apps. Of 487 employees surveyed, 85 percent say the app they turn to the most saves them time.
Microsoft to Begin Shipping Windows Mixed Reality Development Kits in March
Microsoft announced last year that it would be partnering with a number of device makers to create virtual-reality headsets that would pair with Windows 10 PCs running the Windows Holographic shell. On March 1 at the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft officials said the development kits for these devices would begin shipping in March. The actual headsets, starting at $299, from companies like Acer, ASUS, Lenovo, HP, Dell and more, still are expected to ship to consumers later this calendar year.
Single Typo in a Server Command Brought Down AWS’s S3
A single mistyped server command during a routine debugging of its billing system in Amazon Web Services’ northern Virginia data center turned out to be the cause of a huge outage Feb. 28 that stilled an estimated 150,000 websites and/or business services for about half the day. The problems caused websites and apps to become completely unavailable, while others indicated broken links and images, leaving users and companies around the globe frustrated and/or confused.
Amazon’s Alexa is About to Land on More Smartphones
Lenovo is making a version of Amazon’s virtual digital assistant available for its Moto Z modular smartphones. Lenovo said that “later this year” owners of its Moto Z smartphone will be able to buy a Moto Mod with Amazon Alexa.
Domino’s Partners with Nuance for DRU Artificial Intelligence
Domino’s has delivered new additions to its Domino’s Robotics Unit family, announcing the DRU Platform, an artificial intelligence-based technology that will allow customers to order a pizza using their voice.
Wendy’s Cooks Up Digital Transformation Plans
Wendy’s, best known for its square burgers, is aiming to put digital technologies at the core of its customer experience and ultimately redefine the brand. The fast-food chain, which delivered 2016 revenue of $1.43 billion with net income of $129.6 million, highlights how every company is becoming a digital one. At the center of Wendy’s digital efforts are self-service kiosks. Wendy’s was among the first to use kiosks as a way to control labor costs and the restaurant chain garnered a decent amount of attention.
Fitbit Shipped More Devices in 2016 Than Any Other Vendor
According to the latest data from IDC, wearable shipments globally hit an all-time high of 33.9 million units in Q4 2016, an increase of nearly 17 percent year over year. Shipments for the entire year grew 25 percent to 102.4 million, in part due to new vendors entering the market and a refresh of product lineups. Fitbit managed to hold on to its top spot in the vendor pool regardless of facing its largest declines ever in 2016.
Inside General Electric’s Digital Transformation
General Electric creative chief Andrew Goldberg addressed an audience in New York recently to explain how shifting popular perception of the company was fundamental to its future; one where it eyes itself as a digital behemoth that is equal to, if not more important than the likes of Amazon and Google when it comes to our digital lives.
Google Plans to Release New Pixel Smartphone in 2017
Google plans to release a second-generation Pixel smartphone as follow-up to the first version released in October 2016, Google hardware boss Rick Osterloh confirmed at Mobile World Conference this week. “There is an annual rhythm in the industry. So, you can count on us to follow it.” Osterloh reportedly told Android Pit at a closed meeting with reporters. “You can count on a successor this year, even if you don’t hear a date from me now.”
HPE Realigns Its Technical Services Unit as Pointnext
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has redesigned its tech services division to focus specifically on that ubiquitous trend: digital transformation of enterprise IT shops. As of March 2, the Palo Alto, Calif.-based IT giant is calling this team Pointnext. It will utilize the expertise of more than 25,000 specialists in 80 countries covering 30 languages and spanning a range of disciplines–from cloud consulting experts to operational services experts.
Google Makes Progress on Teaching Computers to Diagnose Cancer
An ongoing Google investigation into the use of deep-learning techniques in the field of digital pathology shows early promise the company said. Researchers from Google’s machine learning group are developing algorithms for the automated detection of breast cancer metastases from whole slide images of biological tissue samples.
