Category Archives: Technology

Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat and online privacy advocate, said in a letter released Wednesday that any digital coronavirus contact tracing should be voluntary, transparent and collect only the information needed to identify who might be at risk of contracting the respiratory ailment that has killed more than 45,000 people in the United States.

Markey urged President Donald Trump's administration to balance public health needs as states seek to allow businesses to reopen their doors with the privacy rights of individuals who may be monitored.

Alphabet's Google and Apple said recently they were collaborating on technology to create smartphone apps that would help identify people who have crossed paths with a contagious person and alert them.

"The federal government must provide leadership, coordination, and guidance to ensure that contact tracing efforts are effective and do not infringe upon individuals' civil liberties, including the right to privacy," Markey wrote in a letter to Vice President Mike Pence.

Markey urged that any contact tracing be limited to what is needed to track disease exposure, include investment in public health, and be voluntary, subject to enforceable rules and transparent about what data is collected and what happens to it.

He urged that a minimum of data be collected and that it be kept securely and discarded in a timely fashion.

Markey's concerns echoed those of fellow Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who has said that the companies face a "rightfully skeptical public" when it comes to privacy.

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US lawmaker says any COVID-19 contact tracing technology should be voluntary and limited - Gadgets Now

SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I.

Editor's note: This article was written beforesocial distancingmeasures were enforced by the Chief Public Health Office.

People involved in P.E.I.'s agriculture industry had a chance to learn about gene-editing for better foods and thermal imaging drones during last month's P.E.I. Soil and Crop Improvement Association Conference.

Put on by the P.E.I. Soil and Crop Improvement Association, the annual event brings experts and Islanders together to hear about the latest research in their field.

Ian Affleck was one of the visiting speakers. The vice-president of plant biotechnology at Crop Life Canada in Ottawa, he is originally from a potato farm in Bedeque and now works to regulate plant breeding technology and to build public trust.

Gene-editing is a method that enables plant breeders to make precise changes to the plants genetic material, which can improve their productivity and sustainability and often mirrors what happens in nature or through traditional breeding.

Gene-editing holds a lot of promise for the agriculture industry, said Affleck to a crowd of more than 100 who attended a morning session.

The gene-editing technology he works with is different from the previous techniques used to develop corn, soybean and canola crops grown now.

Those early genetically-modified crops got a bad reputation, he said.

But GMO foods arent inherently unsafe.

When the Hawaiian papaya crop was destroyed by ring spot virus in 1998, university researchers genetically engineered a new variety resistant to the disease.

Eighty-five per cent of all papaya on the market today is GMO, said Affleck.

Its rarely talked about because it isnt owned by a company. Its owned by a university and just given to the growers.

There are numerous ethical, scientific and government groups at work to ensure Canadas food is safe, said Affleck.

Helping the public engage in agriculture is really important. Especially on gene-editing, for this to come forward, the government, developers and farmers, we all have a role to play in public trust.

Right now, there are no gene-edited foods on the shelves and only a few, tightly monitored crops in fields.

Now is the time for government, developers and farmers to be talking about plant breeding technology and food safety, said Affleck.

Government and developers need to talk to the public earlier and more often, and farmers have to tell their stories about why theyre trustworthy developers of food, said Affleck.

And this is not just about gene-editing. This is right across the board. The public want to know what youre doing, and they want to trust you.

Trust in the plant science is being built all the time.

When Affleck wanted to help farmers cut down on herbicide-resistant weeds, he went for the bottom line.

But talking money was the wrong approach.

The number one thing that by far caught peoples eye was the idea that you hand your land down to your children. If you dont protect the resistance aspect of it, youll be handing down something thats broken, said Affleck.

Precision agriculture is helping farmers protect the soil they hand down to their children as well.

Special equipment helps farmers gather precise information and deliver specific treatments to their fields.

Felix Weber was part of the trade show in Summerside to introduce the eBeeSQ agricultural drone to farmers. The sleek black drone flies over a field and takes special photographs showing a thermal image.

If the crop is hot, its thirsty, said Weber. Seeing exactly where the crop needs help makes it easier for farmers to head straight to the problem area and see whats causing the issue.

The drones information will let farmers target irrigation, fertilizers and pest control to areas that need it most.

Being exact with the costly products means less expense and less run-off. Also, targeting just the areas in need means higher, more sustainable yields.

Craig Gilberts company, Cradle Ag Solutions, was demonstrating several innovations at the trade show, including the SmartFirmer.

The high-tech, electronic wand attaches to corn planters. It reads the soil temperature, moisture and capacity for nutrient uptake in the seed furrow as the seeds are planted.

Its all to help corn plants pop out of the soil at the same time. A difference of more than 36 hours in emergence makes a big difference in yields, said Gilbert.

However, the goal isnt just to grow a lot of corn and harvest a big crop.

A good yield might mine the soil and leave it depleted of essential nutrients and organic matter, said Weber.

Yield monitoring doesnt tell me the potential. It tells me what I removed, said Weber.

Sustainable farming ideally increases the harvest as well as the potential for the next year, he said.

Ian Affleck is fascinated with the science of farming. Growing up on his familys potato farm in Bedeque, P.E.I., he was keen to learn and apply his knowledge.

The science aspect of farming always caught my eye, said the son of a seed farmer. "I was always interested in the plant breeding.

Affleck was one of the presenters at the P.E.I. Soil and Crop Improvement Association Conference in Summerside last month.

I thought I was going to come home and farm. I thought I was going to get my bachelors in plant breeding and I was going to come home and maybe we'd do some plant breeding of our own.

The science aspect of farming always caught my eye. I was always interested in the plant breeding.

- Ian Affleck

But after getting his undergraduate degree at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro, now the Faculty of Agriculture at Dalhousie University, Affleck moved on to school in Ontario and fell into opportunity after opportunity in Ottawa.

Its 50 square kilometres, surrounded by reality, said Affleck, quoting his first boss in the city.

So its good to be back in reality discussing farming a little closer to where it happens.

Affleck, the vice-president of plant biotechnology at Crop Life Canada, spoke about his companys efforts to build trust in new gene-editing technology used today to develop new crops to help farmers and consumers.

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Summerside convention brings new technology to the field - The Guardian

In 2020, there is a plethora of new technology to turn your regular, old home into a smart home. Forget about vacuuming, using light switches and security systems of the past your new smarter home is waiting for you.

Smart assistants

Smart technology has on the market for many years, Apple first installed Siri on the iPhone in 2011 and smart assistants of all kinds followed today we ask Google, Alexa and Siri to turn on or up the music, to answer our questions and even to turn on and off our appliances.

The three smart speakers can do so much more than tell you the weather, turn on your music or search the internet they can turn your appliances on and off.

Inexpensive smart plugs, like the WeMo mini smart plug, connect your appliances lights, fans and more to your phone and your smart speakers. Then all you have to say is Alexa, turn on the lights.

Smart thermostats

Smart thermostats can save you money and reduce your carbon footprint while making your home more comfortable by controlling the internal temperature of your home.

Honeywell, a brand you might recognize in home products, has a Wi-Fi Smart Color Thermostat. The thermostat boasts easy set-up, an energy-saving mode, do-it-yourself installation and more. The thermostat has a Wi-Fi connection but can also be controlled via a tablet or computer or the Honeywell phone app, according to the Honeywell website.

The Google Nest thermostat has many of the same features of the Honeywell thermostat but with a very simple look. The thermostat can be installed by anyone and should take about half an hour, the Google store website says. The Nest thermostat gets to know your schedule as you turn up the heat or air conditioning at certain times and will start to do the work for you.

The thermostat can also be controlled by Amazons Alexa, according to a spokesperson for Nest, Google Nests support for new technologies like Alexa gives you more ways to control your Nest home while youre out and when youre at home.

The Nest thermostat cannot be controlled via the HomePod but can be via an Apple store app, the spokesperson said.

Smart security

Smart technology has brought a wave of new security systems for those looking to protect their homes with all of the technology at their fingertips.

Nest also makes a Google Nest camera but unlike security cameras of the past, the Nest camera doesnt use memory cards to store the video footage.

Instead, it uploads your video continuously to the cloud. This lets you view live footage on your phone or computer, and if youve subscribed to Google Nest Aware, your camera will automatically store your continuous video history in the cloud, the Nest spokesperson said.

This technology keeps security footage safe its protected from theft or damage and can be accessed from anywhere.

Ring is a security system that launched in 2012 and has gained popularity, particularly for its video doorbells. The doorbell camera detects motion when people come to your property and you receive a notification on your phone, tablet or computer, then you can open your Ring application to see who it as your door, the Ring website says.

Ring also sells several cameras and an alarm kit that will alert you when a door or window is opened or those looking for an even more secure home, the website says.

Robot vacuum cleaners

The Roomba robot vacuum cleaner has been around for nearly two decades, launched in 2002 but having a robot doing your cleaning remains part of 2020 smart home.

iRobot products, like our Roomba robot vacuums and Braava jet robot mops, help free up time by providing a helping hand around the house. Whether its scheduling a Roomba to clean up the kitchen after dinner, or helping allergy sufferers maintain a certain level of daily clean, our products are an effective tool to get more done, and give customers back time, Public Relations Manager for iRobot, James Baussmann told the newspaper.

Today there are many robot vacuum cleaners to choose from, including the classic iRobot Roomba which now has five vacuum cleaners and three robot mops. The company has now even introduced a robot lawn mower.

iRobot Roombas sweep and vacuum up dust and debris. All of its vacuums can clean carpets, and get into the edges of your home, the iRobot website says.

Certain Roomba robot vacuums and Braava jet robot mops have mapping capabilities and can understand more complex voice commands, such as, Tell Roomba to vacuum the kitchen. There are even Roomba models that can empty themselves, automatically disposing debris into a Clean Base charging station that holds 60 days of dirt, dust, and hair, Baussmann said.

No matter what kind of smart technology you are looking to integrate into your life a hands-free assistant like the Amazon Echo, a safety expert like the Ring doorbell or a maid like the iRobot Roomba, the technology exists in 2020.

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'Alexa turn on the lights;' how to add smart technology to your home - SW News Media

Education

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico -- Before the pandemic, nearly 1 in 5 public school kids in Las Cruces did not have access to the technology they need to succeed, according to the district.

"The number at first sounded extraordinary," said Kelly Jameson, a spokeswoman for the district. "But every school pooled together their resources and determined that they were able to meet that need."

An estimated 4,500 students did not have access to a laptop or tablet at home, according to the district. Around 1,700 did not have access to the internet. The district has a total of 25,000 students.

"Our first priority was addressing which students needed technology," Jameson said.

While schools pooled their resources to find laptops, Jameson told ABC-7 that Comcast provided low-cost internet to students who needed it. She said the city of Las Cruces is paying for the internet for the next few months.

Some students live in remote areas without access to internet, Jameson said. For those students, the district is providing printed materials.

"Even though we can get devices to students, not all of them had internet access," Jameson said.

Biz/Tech / New Mexico / News / Video

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How Las Cruces Public Schools is providing technology to 1 in 5 students who need it - KVIA El Paso

It used to be difficult to convince U.S. policymakers that China was stealing our intellectual property and gaining advantages over the United States in critical national security technology.

Now not so much.

And it is our current national focus on the COVID-19 pandemic that yet again reminds us of the importance of innovation, technology, and supply chains as well as Chinas aggressive behavior to undermine these at the expense of the United States.

Chinas aggressive behavior to outright steal our technological secrets, build a generic version of our technological platforms, and re-orient U.S. tech companies has been exposed, to paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, slowly... then suddenly.

From Chinas theft of intellectual property, including one in five corporations saying China has stolen their intellectual property within the last year; to Chinese influence and espionage in academia as exemplified by the recent criminal complaint against the Chair of the Harvard Chemistry and Biology Department; to Chinese investment in U.S. tech with Chinese investor-backed deals with U.S. tech startups jumping as much as 185-percent Chinas strategy has been fully exposed.

Retired Admiral William McRaven probably had it right when he said this is a holy s--- moment for the United States.

U.S. policymakers now see Chinas strategy for what it is a not-so-subtle attempt to influence and ultimately control U.S. tech. The government of China has been engaged in a deliberate campaign to re-orient U.S. technology companies towards China.

But now that Chinas true intentions have been unmasked, important questions remain: What team will U.S. tech companies ultimately choose, and what are the second and third order policy implications of such choices?

Could it now be that segments of our most prominent and successful tech companies believe that China is a credible and trusted partner?

Could it now be that some leaders of our most prominent tech companies are so drawn to the market potential of China that they forgot the market-based, democratic principles that allowed these companies to be created, grow, and thrive in the first place?

Could it now be that we are losing brilliant engineers, university researchers, and tech innovators to China?

The unfortunate reality is in some ways yes.

Indeed, answers to these questions will continue to be yes if the U.S. government does not: (1) Create new ways for emerging U.S. tech companies to be economically viable through working with the U.S. government and (2) Clearly articulate policies that are inclusive of the values and approaches that have allowed U.S. tech companies to be creative and thrive.

Luckily, the competition is still very much afoot. The successes of the Chinese government to date are not permanent.

Chinas aggressive behavior has created a new, bipartisan consensus to counter this national security challenge. And we are now seeing the White House and Congress not to mention the U.S. investment community respond accordingly.

The White House has signaled concern and moved to change the focus of the entire national security apparatus from counterterrorism to great power competition with a particular focus on China. The most prominent example of this change is the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) asserting: Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in U.S. national security...China is a strategic competitor using predatory economics. Today, the executive branch is aligning and institutionalizing resources to meet this inter-state competition with China.

We have also seen Congress respond with steps to achieve a holistic approach to the competition with China such as the creation of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. These commissions are the most significant steps to date focused towards outlining a whole-of-nation playbook to compete with China.

Moreover, we are seeing U.S. investors recognizing the strategic challenge that China presents with billions raised toward transformative defense-focused technology startups that have promising advances in AI, advanced computing power, cybersecurity, and weapon systems of tomorrow.

But these initiatives from the executive branch, Congress, and the venture capital investment community will not be enough.

U.S. tech companies small and large need to get on the record and establish a consensus view of the strategic competition with China. Do they see it the same way as the U.S. government, and what are ways the U.S. government should change policy and law to establish the appropriate environment for tech companies to thrive with the United States and our partners and allies?

Perhaps the U.S. and allied tech communities should establish a joint commission or a forum of their own on strategic competition with China?

On the government side, the United States should make it more viable for start-up tech companies to work with federal agencies. The U.S. government can achieve this through:

Even as Chinas strategy to control U.S. tech has come into the light of day, in the final analysis, it remains unclear whether such companies view the United States as the best long-term play.

Without the U.S. government shaping both the economic incentive structures for these companies as well as changing the way it communicates its moral role in the world, U.S. tech companies may inadvertently choose China over the U.S. putting at risk a U.S.-led 21st Century.

Alex Gallo is a Visiting Fellow with the National Security Institute at George Mason Universitys Antonin Scalia Law School and a former Professional Staff Member with the House Armed Services Committee.

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China's strategy to reorient US tech companies is exposed what next? | TheHill - The Hill

Welcome to a world where the government knows which cities youve visited, who youve taken train journeys with even which films you watched at the cinema.

This is China during COVID-19, as it uses every weapon in its powerful technological armoury to combat the deadly pandemic that is now sweeping the globe.

But as the country gradually emerges from lockdown, there are questions about how these surveillance tools, employed to address the public health crisis, could be used more widely and more repressively in ways that threaten privacy and curb freedom of expression.

Phones that track your travel

Most people living in China are used to giving up personal data to access public services, and during the pandemic the governments demand for it has become ever-more intrusive.

In February, Chinas top three telecom companies sent out mass text messages offering to send customers information about the cities they had visited (staying for four hours or longer) in the past 15 or 30 days.

Although the Chinese service was voluntary and for many people no doubt convenient, the information was soon being used to restrict movement. Many train stations, and even residential neighbourhoods, required passengers and residents to provide such information as a way of verifying whether they had been to areas hard-hit by the virus (such as Hubei Province) before allowing them to enter.

Its worth noting that mobile phone roaming or GPS data cant pinpoint where a person has been with 100% accuracy. Many people have complained theyve been roaming somewhere they did not physically go.

ID to use the subway or cinema

In a similar move, cities including Shanghai and Shenzhen have started requiring commuters to register for city subway services. Only those declaring their identity on a phone app can take the train. The idea is to track whether people have travelled with someone suspected of being infected, and to then monitor their close contacts.

A similar identity verification system has been suggested for cinemas when they reopen, with moviegoers asked to provide their personal details in order to take their seat.

Health codes that restrict movement

Meanwhile, tech giants such as messaging service WeChat and payment platform Alipay have released colour-based QR codes to label how safe a person is. Using a composite of voluntarily surrendered personal data and city municipal data, a three-colour code is generated: green for safe, yellow requiring a seven-day quarantine and red for a 14-day quarantine.

In Zhejiang Province alone, more than 50 million people registered for Alipays health codes within two weeks of release. According to a New York Times report, the program appears to send a users location and identifying code number to a server connected to the police. This could allow the authorities to track peoples movements over time.

Location pinpointed to a train seat

The state-owned China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC) has also launched a platform called Close Contact Detector, which pulls in traffic, rail and flight information directly from the government. According to state media, the platform can accurately pinpoint a passengers location on a flight or a train to within three rows of a confirmed or suspected virus carrier.

Different provinces, districts or even malls often require different software, meaning people have to download multiple apps. Data mining is happening on an unprecedented scale, but its unclear how it will be used by companies and the state after the pandemic.

Human rights activists targeted with technology

Intrusive surveillance has long been a reality for human rights defenders in China. Li Wenzu, wife of recently released human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, had numerous surveillance cameras installed outside her apartment by the authorities. Last year, during the Belt and Road business forum, government critics and petitioners across the country were prevented from getting train tickets to Beijing as they were blacklisted in the ticketing system. Authorities have also required certain human rights defenders to wear location-tracking wristbands at all times.

We fear the government will use the pandemic as an excuse to normalize and push forward a range of surveillance measures. The rapid adoption of stringent policies and tech tools may well accelerate Chinas ability to track citizens whereabouts and further limit freedoms.

Where will it end?

The Chinese government has spent years developing technologies that facilitate intrusive mass surveillance. During the pandemic, it is using them on a much broader scale in the name of public health and safety. This is repeatedly described as an extraordinary time requiring extraordinary measures.

But increased surveillance measures will be unlawful unless they can meet strict criteria. They must be necessary, proportionate, time-bound and transparent, and they must not do more harm than good.

The measures introduced in China do not seem to meet these conditions, and they could be a violation of the right to privacy. Technology should be deployed to save lives, but Chinas human rights record suggests the current climate of unchecked surveillance could well outlast the pandemic.

This article was originally published on The Independent

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How China used technology to combat COVID-19 and tighten its grip on citizens - Amnesty International

Tech in Fin before FinTech: The importance of technology in banking during a crisis

The emergence of financial technology (FinTech) has triggered a debate on the effect of information technology on financial stability (FSB 2019, Claessens et al. 2018). The recent literature on FinTech has mostly focused on how the latest technological developments have been changing the way information is processed and the relative consequences for credit allocation and performance (e.g. Bartlett et al. 2019, Berg et al. 2019, Buchak et al. 2018, Di Maggio and Yao 2018, Fuster et al. 2019).However, the era of FinTech has not yet been exposed to large shocks testing its resilience. Therefore, the FinTech literature cannot directly speak to the link between technology and financial stability, as predictive systems which are accurate in good times may fail to predict default during a crisis (Rajan et al. 2015).

In our recent paper (Pierri and Timmer 2020), we shed light on how banks with a varying degree of pre-Global Crisis IT adoption fared when the crisis hit in order to understand the potential impact of technology adoption in lending on financial stability. To evaluate banks resilience, we study the evolution of their non-performing loans (NPLs) which are considered an important indicator of banking sector distress. The direction of the impact of IT adoption on banks resilience to a crisis is a priori ambiguous. On one hand, IT can improve monitoring and screening by enhancing the collection, storage, communication, and processing of information. On the other hand, banks with more IT might rely too much on hard information, which are easier to report and communicate, inducing them to neglect soft information and to take on too much risk (Rajan 2006).

Figure 1 illustrates the evolution of the ratio of NPLs to assets from 1996 to 2014 for banks in the bottom and top quartiles of the distribution of IT adoption. The two series are virtually indistinguishable until 2007. However, in 2008 as NPLs start to surge the two lines diverge. The growth in NPLs is considerably more pronounced for banks with low IT adoption. For example, in 2010, banks in the top 25% of IT adoption had about half of the NPLs compared to those in the bottom 25% of IT adoption. After 2010 the two series start converging again. The lack of correlation between IT adoption and non-performing loans outside the crisis reinforces the argument that it is important to study the effects of technology adoption in finance when the economy faces a system-wide shock.

Figure 1 NPLs over assets by pre-Global Crisis IT adoption

Note: Figure 1: NPLs over Assets by pre-GFC IT adoption. This Figure plots the median share of NPLs over assets for high and low IT adopters. High IT adoption" is the median share of NPLs over assets for banks with IT above the 75th percentile.Low IT adoption" is the median share of NPLs over assets for banks with IT below the 25th percentile.

Figure 2 plots the share of total loans (normalised by pre-Global Crisis assets) for banks in the high and low IT adoption groups. We find that banks that adopted less IT before the crisis also provided less credit, suggesting real effects for the economy.

Figure 2 Loans over pre-crisis assets by pre-Global Crisis IT-adoption

Note: This Figure plots the median share of total loans scaled by average pre-crisis (2001-2006) assets for high and low IT adopters. High IT adoption" is the median share of Loan over pre-crisis assets for banks with IT above the 75th percentile.Low IT adoption is the median share of Loan over pre-crisis assets for banks with IT below the 25th percentile.

Our measure of IT adoption in banking is closely related to several seminal papers on IT adoption for non-financial firms, such as Bloom et al. (2012) or Beaudry et al. (2010). Following this literature, we use the ratio of computers per employee within a branch as the relevant measure of branch-level IT adoption for the years 1999 to 2006. We then map the bank branches to bank holding companies (BHCs) to construct a bank-level measure of pre-crisis IT adoption. In a later year (2016) we also have information on IT budgets and on the presence of new technologies, such as Cloud Computing, and we find a strong correlation between the ratio of computers per employee and these alternative measures.

Interestingly, tech-oriented banks were not ex ante more exposed to the crisis due to their geographical footprint or their business model. Hence, to understand how high-IT-adopters succeeded in containing the surge of NPLs, we analyse the performance of mortgages originated before 2007 and sold to Freddie Mac, one of the two large government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). We find that mortgages originated by high-IT-adoption banks were significantly less likely to be delinquent during the Global Crisis. Therefore, the better performance of high IT adopters during the crisis is driven at least in part by better screening of borrowers at the origin.

These results have important implications for financial stability. If high IT adopters were only better in offloading their bad loans to GSEs, then IT intensity would not enhance financial stability but instead lead to risk-shifting and exacerbate moral hazard.

Personal characteristics and experience of leaders matter for the outcomes of their organisations (Benmelech and Frydman 2015). We apply a simple text-analysis algorithm to the biographies of banks top executives hired before 2007. We search for specific tech-related keywords and use them to measure the managers predisposition toward IT. We find that banks led by more tech-oriented executives adopted IT more intensively and experienced lower NPLs during the crisis. These findings support the hypothesis that IT adoption in banking, which can be partly caused by executives personal experience and inclinations, led to more resilience during the crisis.

As the financial industry becomes more and more reliant on IT, as exemplified by the rise of FinTech players, it is extremely policy-relevant to understand the consequences of a more intense use of IT in lending decisions for financial stability. We find that IT adoption enhances banks resilience to a financial crisis. The main caveat of our analysis is that the technologies adopted by commercial banks before the Global Crisis might be significantly different than the ones that banks, FinTech firms, and financial arms of BigTech companies are implementing nowadays. However, if one focuses on the lending business, there are several commonalities between the IT-intensive methods adopted in the early 2000s and the most recent advancements. For instance, borrowers digital footprint can be an additional input for the traditional credit scores and improve risk assessment. Moreover, statistical models to predict defaults were widely used during the decade preceding the Global Crisis. The up-to-date machine learning techniques that are used to predict borrowers' behaviour are more powerful versions of the previously available statistical tools, rather than radically different systems. Therefore, and despite this caveat, our results suggest that the FinTech era is likely to be beneficial to financial stability.

Authors note: The views expressed herein are those of the author and should not be attributed to the IMF, its Executive Board, or its management.

Bartlett, R, A Morse, R Stanton and N Wallace (2018), Consumer-Lending Discrimination in the Era of FinTech, University of California, Berkeley, unpublished working paper.

Beaudry, P, M Doms and E Lewis (2010), Should the personal computer be considered a technological revolution? Evidence from US metropolitan areas, Journal of Political Economy 118(5): 9881036.

Benmelech, E and C Frydman (2015), Military CEOs, Journal of Financial Economics 117(1): 43-59.

Berg, T, V Burg, A Gombovic and M Puri (2019), On the rise of FinTechsCredit scoring using digital footprints, The Review of Financial Studies (20190912).

Bloom, N, R Sadun, and J Van Reenen (2012), Americans do IT better: US multinationals and the productivity miracle, American Economic Review 102(1): 167-101.

Buchak, G, G Matvos, T Piskorski and A Seru (2018), Fintech, regulatory arbitrage, and the rise of shadow banks, Journal of Financial Economics 130(3): 453-483.

Claessens, S, J Frost, G Turner, and F Zhu (2018), Fintech credit markets around the world: size, drivers and policy issues, BIS Quarterly Review.

Di Maggio, M and V W Yao (2018), FinTech Borrowers: Lax-Screening or Cream-Skimming?, Working Paper.

FSB (2019), FinTech and market structure in financial services: Market developments and potential financial stability implications, Basel: Financial Stability Board.

Fuster, A, M Plosser, P Schnabl, and J Vickery (2019), The role of technology in mortgage lending, The Review of Financial Studies 32(5): 1854-1899.

Pierri, N and Y Timmer (2020), Tech in Fin before FinTech: Blessing or Curse for Financial Stability?, IMF, Working Paper.

Rajan, U, A Seru, and V Vig (2015), The failure of models that predict failure: Distance, incentives, and defaults, Journal of Financial Economics 115(2): 237-260.

Rajan, R G (2006), Has finance made the world riskier?, European Financial Management 12(4): 499-533.

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The importance of technology in banking during a crisis | VOX, CEPR Policy Portal - voxeu.org

Lux Communities manages 11 properties in the Fargo-Moorhead area, seven in Grand Forks and one in Sioux Falls, S.D. As the pandemic proliferated in the United States, Lux Communities President Donna Block began to mobilize the companys response.

We met as a leadership team to discuss how quickly we needed to move and what protocols we needed to update, Block said. We looked to guidance to benchmark ourselves from other industries similar to ours as well as CDC recommendations and National Apartment Association best practices.

Lux parsed down its on-site operations to consist of only essential employees, keeping one employee in rental offices during regular business hours.

Weve instructed our on-site employees with the CDC recommendations of washing hands frequently, Block said. They are required to wash their hands every time they leave the rental office and come back and (to practice) social distancing from anyone they see in the building..

Offices are no longer available to the public, but we are still very much available to our residents, Block said. Our phone system is actually a voice over IP system, so no matter where our rental office team is, theyre able to be connected to our residents, she added.

With day-to-day operations altered, the focus shifted to ensuring the safety of residents and cleanliness of Luxs 19 apartment complexes. They closed community spaces, canceled planned events and are only completing emergency work orders.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, an outside vendor performed twice-weekly cleanings of Lux Communities properties. As the pandemic took hold, Lux instructed their contractors to perform more frequent cleanings of high touch-point surfaces such as entryway doors and access systems, mailboxes and handrails.

Goldmark, which manages properties around the Fargo-Moorhead area as well as in Grand Forks, has also placed emphasis on ensuring the cleanliness of its buildings while following government guidelines.

Our staff has given great attention to cleaning frequently touched building components such as handrails, door handles, entryways and elevators. We will continue to do our part in protecting the health and safety of our employees and residents, the rental company said in a release.

Goldmark declined to comment further on their response to the pandemic.

Lux created a page on its website for residents to view Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and read answers to frequently asked questions.

We developed communications for our residents and one of those included the COVID-19 landing page on our website so that all of our residents could get the same information quickly and as it progressed, Block said.

Coordinating a significant change to daily operations has gone smoothly thanks in large part to technological advancements the company pursued prior to the pandemic.

Weve been very technology-driven even before the pandemic. We were very fortunate that we were in a place where we could quickly go to new operations, Block said.

A large component of the push to improve technology was the implementation of an online portal for residents. Block said 97% of residents use the online portal, which allows them to view lease documents, pay rent and reach out to the rental office.

Another key focus in the last year has been creating three-dimensional virtual tours that apartment hunters can view on Luxs website. With apartment tours suddenly coming to a halt, online tours have become vital for Lux to connect with prospective renters. The company also offers video tours through FaceTime or Facebook Messenger.

Its all been part of Luxs efforts to become a paperless company.

Our efforts prior have really helped us during this time, Block commented.

With face-to-face communication on hold, Block has again turned to technology to communicate with her team across the region. Our voice-over IP system came with a video-conferencing software, so we already had that in place, she said. All our updates and communications with the team and operations are done through a video-conference meeting. Theyre all getting the same information at the same time.

Rental offices communicate with one another through a chat channel to ensure consistency and provide support to those in other cities.

Again, I think its something thats really coming to fruition with the previous efforts we were focusing on before this: business continuity and connectivity with my team members in all regions, Block said.

Block echoed Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoneys call for citizens to stay inside as much as possible.

I believe we all have a part to play, she said. Lux Communities, I believe, has shown that they are doing their part, but are still here for our residents. We are an essential business and we will always be available and able to serve them. We appreciate them doing their part as well, staying home and practicing social distancing and [following the] CDC recommendations so that we can all get through this together, Block said.

Hopefully sooner rather than later.

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Lux Communities leaning on technology amidst coronavirus pandemic - INFORUM

Up until a month ago, work life for many was routine and involved commuting into work, sending emails, and catching up with colleagues and clients in person.

But since governments worldwide began mandating for people to work from home in a bid to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak, the new norm has seen homes becoming temporary offices and many business activities shifting online.

As a result, businesses across myriad industries -- government, retail, finance, real estate, health, and education among several others -- have turned to digital tools to support this new way of working.

On one end of the spectrum, there are organisations deploying technologies for the first time to help cope with the new work environment. For instance, in Australia, the Victorian Department of Health and Humans Service (DHHS) recently partnered with Whispir to deploy a platform that would enable it to send secure interactive two-way messages and real-time updates to those who have contracted or have been in close contact with COVID-19.

The platform also allows DHHS to quickly confirm if individuals were complying with the mandatory 14-day self-isolation period or if people experienced any potential symptoms associated with COVID-19.

The Adecco Group is another firm that has had to look to new technologies, such as DocuSign's cloud-based contract management technology, to continue operations.

"As an HR company, we have relied heavily on cloud-enabled applications in order to continue imperative operations such as client billing and payroll ... With the help of DocuSign, we have continued hiring employees for our clients and processed several payroll cycles seamlessly remotely, which is typically something we usually operate from the office only," Adecco Group Asia Pacific general counsel Carlos Estrada said.

And then there are companies such as Australia's major banks like Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Westpac where the concept of relying on technology for online business activities is not so foreign.

According to a CBA spokesperson, in response to COVID-19, the organisation accelerated its existing technology strategy by investing in collaboration tools to enable staff to access essential systems while working remotely.

"In our corporate office locations, we have been moving to split-team work rosters so we can reduce the density of our people within our workspaces and practice social distancing. To support this, we have increased our use of teleconference and virtual collaboration tools across the business to reduce the number of face-to-face meetings and maintain business continuity and keep our staff connected," a CBA spokesperson told ZDNet.

"Our employees have company-issued laptops and mobile devices so they can work from whatever location they feel comfortable.

"From a technology point of view, our key focus is prioritising the stability of the IT systems to make sure our most used business applications continue to be resilient while looking to expand the capacity of our virtual private network and other tools providing our people with multiple options to access our systems remotely and securely. This is all part of our comprehensive collaboration remote access strategy.

"Our initiatives mean we are able to continue to respond to unprecedented numbers of customer requests for assistance at a time they need us more than ever."

Likewise, Westpac said it has been focused on scaling its technologies to continue to meet business needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our group technology team has been working hard to ensure that our systems can accommodate a significant increase in people working from home. Currently, more than 21,000 Westpac employees are working from home and our systems are functioning well," a Westpac spokesperson said.

"We've steadily increased the capacity to enable remote working and introduced enhanced collaboration capabilities to provide new ways for teams to collaborate digitally. This has allowed our people and our customers greater flexibility in the way they work and interact, and ensures Westpac can continue to provide essential services during this time."

The impact has also been felt by technologies companies themselves. Cisco, for example, not only found that it was assisting customers to transition to the new way of working, but it was also making that happen internally.

"What we're talking about there is 140,000 employees and partners that are critical to keeping our businesses running. Normally, an organisation of our size would take us about two years and we had about 10 days to get it ready," Cisco Australia and New Zealand CIO Julie Canepa said.

"This involved preparing over 130,000 corporate provided devices. We also have a BYOD policy at Cisco so we have about 55,000 mobile devices that our employees use, so we needed to get those ready as well across 498 offices, nine of which are here in Australia and New Zealand, and across 94 countries.

"We had a business continuity plan, but they catered for things like tornadoes and earthquakes, one site failover to another site, but I don't think any of us really planned for a global pandemic scenario."

Regardless of what stage of adoption businesses are at, there has been no shortage of evidence demonstrating the significant spike in companies uptaking technology.

For instance, when Optus compared the week ending March 29 to the average data across February, the uptake of fixed data increased by 14%, fixed voice by 18%, and mobile voice calls by 19%.

During the same period, the telco has also seen more Australians use collaboration apps on their phones, with Zoom experiencing a 1,125% spike, Webex 560%, and Microsoft Teams 108%.

It's not too dissimilar to numbers that Slack has seen worldwide. As of February 2020, Slack saw more than 277,000 daily active users in Australia and 70% of active users also used the Slack app on their mobile.

More specifically, in Sydney alone, for work-weeks between February 17-21 and March 23-27, the number of messages that were sent per user grew 39%, with the number of messages sent on desktop growing almost 50%, and from mobile just over 18%.

"Between February 1 and March 25, we added over 9,000 new paid customers, so that's 80% above what we had done in the previous two quarters -- our Q3 and Q4 of last fiscal year when we announced 5,000 new paying customers. It's just exponential growth in that respect," Slack APAC head Matt Loop said.

"The number of messages being sent has also been increasing. And most importantly ... the key number of users active on Slack each weekday is now over a billion minutes each day.

"Quite frankly this is not surprising given what's going on, but it's also promising that people are getting value and people are turning to us in this time of need."

Rival platform Microsoft Teams has seen similar uptake. Microsoft Australia national technology officer Lee Hickin pointed to how 57% of meetings in Teams in Australia now include video content, while the usage of Windows Virtual Desktop has grown threefold worldwide.

"Many customers who have had access to these tools and the ability to work in the cloud are now slicing through any lingering red tape to roll out remote virtual desktops to their staff," Hickin said.

"At the same time as we are helping our customers get their employees set up to work remotely, we are working with many of them to rapidly build and develop completely new applications for their customers helping businesses pivot in order to find fresh ways to create revenue and keep afloat."

Cisco's Webex platform also saw usage numbers skyrocket. During March, there were 14 billion minutes spent on the platform globally, nearly twice the number recorded in February. In the last week of March alone, according to Cisco Australia and New Zealand director of collaboration Peter Self, there were 28 million minutes spent on the platform.

As for Akamai, it saw global internet traffic up 30% from the end of February to the end of March, compared to a typical month-over-month growth of just 3%.

Within Australia alone, Akamai APJ managing director Graeme Beardsell said the company has being seeing "a considerable uptick".

"When I look across the region, what we've been seeing since late January is customers coming to us and asking us to help them with two things: One is a response to a brand new way of doing business, a brand new of interacting their customers and their ecosystem; and also to help them through a crisis where they have real problems to deliver services and products to their customers," he said.

From SAP's standpoint, since making its Ariba Discovery sourcing software temporarily free of charge to help businesses cope with supply chain disruptions, buyer postings have increased by 51% and supplier responses have jumped by 177%, with the Asia Pacific and Japan region seeing the second-highest level of postings at 29% of the total, after Europe, the Middle East, and Africa at 37%.

"With the breadth of our portfolio, and the different ways in which coronavirus is impacting different sectors, we are seeing varied patterns of demand depending on the product and sector," SAP ANZ president and managing director Damien Bueno said.

"For example, more businesses are relying on platforms like SAP Ariba and SAP Qualtrics to secure supply chains and understand how their customers and employees are dealing with the crisis."

"With customers covering essential service providers from healthcare to retail, government to emergency services, we have strong business continuity plans in place to secure our business, and in turn, our customers'."

Riverbed customers have also responded positively to the company's 90-day free trial offering of its Client Accelerator tool.

"A large volume of customers suddenly have a huge urgency to improve their network and app performance, so we've said to customers, 'let's just deploy the Riverbed technology now, to get you the needed performance boost and we'll worry about the commerce piece later'," said Frank Ong, Riverbed Australia and New Zealand regional vice president.

"We've seen a big uptake of the free trial and one particular local Australian customer in the engineering industry, who has 40% of their workforce in Australia and the rest dispersed globally, previously had 1,200 staff set up to work from home.

"Now they're supporting over 6,000 workers remotely. The IT team's biggest concerns were 'can our VPN handle the load?' and 'how is our WAN acceleration?' We've managed to help them increase their VPN speed by over 50% and we've managed to decrease the load on its WAN, all whilst increasing their remote workforce five-fold.

"Although it's a stressful time for many trying to get these projects off the ground, customers are achieving huge transformations in a spectacularly short space of time with very positive results."

IBM managing partner Doug Robinson revealed the company has also been an experiencing a general uplift, attributing part of it to an increase in business as a result of seeing some competitors closing shop until the pandemic blows over.

"We've seen some clients almost pause and then realise even things like workshops can be really productive online with the right tools, and they've gone from a pause to an accelerate. We've seen people adjust to thinking this is possible," he said.

"Not everyone has transitioned well, we've seen competitors are getting contracts cancelled because they can't deliver; our demand has gone up as a result."

The need to continue operating does not ring truer during this period than for those in the medical sector.

Speaking to ZDNet, Orion Health chief medical officer Dr Chris Hobson pointed to how people have turned to telehealth as a core solution to enable remote consultations.

"[Telehealth] was always there and people had the idea beforehand, but [COVID-19] has really pushed it. I think it's good. You shouldn't have to see a doctor for a lot of things unless the doctor has to put hands on patients because you can do an awful lot remotely," he said.

He added how the uptake of telehealth would alleviate growing pressures that the frontline continues to face in the wake of the pandemic, as well as reduce unnecessary visits to clinics.

"We've always had these long waiting times in emergency rooms and long queues. But some of that could be done online when the doctor is ready, so you can go about your job rather than having to sit in a waiting room for an hour," Hobson said.

Hobson attributed the wider adoption of telehealth to increased government funding, pointing to the likes of the US government's $2 trillion stimulus package and the Australian government'sAU$669 million telehealth programas examples.

"Traditionally, administrators of health pay for a face-to-face consultation but not for remote, so we've seen a lot of breakthroughs on that front," he said.

Optus Business vice president of product Deon Liebenberg explained how the pandemic in some ways has fast-tracked the adoption of new technologies.

"Our prime minister has been very active in promoting flattening the curve. For us, the curve of mobility and remote working is being brought forward during this time, which forces companies and individuals to rethink the way of working," he told ZDNet.

"Remote working and having collaboration tools is a reality for individuals who have been remote two to three days a week, and that's been easy, but imagine someone that's never worked remotely; we have to help and support that adoption curve."

Slack APAC head Matt Loop agrees that the pandemic has accelerated the technology timelines for businesses.

"I mean Slack has been, for the last six years, a rapidly growing company but without question this has moved up in the timeline, by months, if not years, perhaps for more traditionally laggard companies to get on the platform," he said.

Similarly, ServiceNow ANZ vice president and managing director David Oakley said as a result of the crisis, there has been a dramatic shift in how organisations prioritise technology to help maintain the continuity of existing business functions.

"The digital focus for business, employees, and customers, has been unprecedented," he said.

"Businesses that have established technology foundations are looking to innovate faster to meet demand. Digital workflows are already being used to manage resources, action customer service requests, and support employee work processes. There's a growing number of work apps being developed to respond quickly to communities, who are saying 'hey, we need an app for this'.

"Across more traditional industries, organisations are looking at digital workflows in two ways: The first, to reinvent the way consumers access products and services, digitally; and two, to help make work better for employees who are adjusting to new ways of working."

The shift, according to Keith Buckley, Citrix Australia and New Zealand managing director and area vice president, is indicative of how resilient and adaptable businesses can be during times of adversity.

"I would agree that the pandemic has forced many businesses to rapidly fast-track digital workspace solutions in order to maintain continuity during these uncertain times," he said.

"We've seen many Australian CEOs and their team work tirelessly to make this transition a reality and as seamless as possible for their employees -- to keep Australian workers in jobs and the economy going. We are inspired by how quickly some companies have undergone a digital transformation in the last few weeks and we feel privileged to have supported this journey in some way."

Looking ahead, Optus' Liebenberg predicts that post-COVID-19, there will be a likelihood more business will regularly practice remote working.

"At the end of this journey we'll have moved from a connected to a hyperconnected world, and the way we live, interact, the way we work, this is forcing work to be hyperconnected," he said.

"What that means is traditionally sitting in a board room with 80% of the meeting being in the room and 20% being on screen, I believe we will move to hyperconnectivity where almost 100% will be either from your phone, tablet, laptop, and that's a reality."

Slack's APAC head believes there will be an ongoing trend where corporate emails disappear before inboxes, and instead, there will be a demand for alternative communication tools.

"Companies will emerge from this time with a changed attitude and an idea as to what great collaboration will look like and how to achieve it. I think Slack will have a big part in that," Loop said.

"For existing customers of ours, we'll be put to the test to see if we can help enable remote work to ensure they can get work done, despite some of the biggest and most challenging disruptions that we've ever experienced."

There is also a firm belief from Erich Gerber, Tibco Software APJ and EMEA senior vice president, that with businesses accelerating digital transformations globally, there will be an emergence of new business models.

"Post-COVID-19, newly equipped businesses will be the new normal. This will include the even wider adoption of social collaboration platforms and video conferencing capabilities. As a natural consequence, the task to orchestrate all these data streams, correlate them, and enable them to form actionable insights will increase in its complexity. We will likely see an increased demand to protect data and remote equipment," he said.

Equally optimistic was Canepa from Cisco. She firmly believes the world will not return to a same way it did things before.

"This is a time for us to break from the past and think about how to do things differently," she said.

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Is COVID-19 the push businesses need to fast-track technology adoption? - ZDNet

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) -- The technology that keeps people connected from the comfort of their homes is also helping doctors working on the front lines exchange information.

"I am using WhatsApp chat to maintain close communication with physicians in New York, in Chicago, in Florida," said Dr. Raul Mendoza, a pulmonary specialist at Aurora Health Care.

Next to a mass increase in reliable testing, Dr. Mendoza says it is real-time data that will be crucial in tracking the spread of COVID-19 now and when the Safer at Home Order ends.

"There is a lot of uncertainty, and people are craving for information. They're craving for data. They're craving for numbers," he said.

One free smartphone app allows people to contribute symptom information. Developed by researchers at four major universities, the COVID Symptom Tracker asks users to report voluntary and anonymous data about how they feel once a day. Researchers use the information that gets entered to estimate how many people have COVID-19 symptoms in a certain area. The estimate is not confirmed cases and gets more accurate as the number of people who contribute information grows larger.

"People without any experience may misinterpret the data," said Dr. Mendoza. "It is important for us to educate the public about what is the meaning of those curves, and what is the meaning of those numbers?"

He asks people to only look at information from trusted sources calling misinformation "extremely damaging."

Google and Apple are also working on a smartphone app to make tracing the spread of COVID-19 easier.

"If you are a consumer, and you sign for the app, eventually come down with symptoms of COVID, and you test positive, that app automatically and anonymously will alert other users that potentially have been in close contact with that person to start looking for symptoms," said Mendoza.

Aurora Health Care offers patients a COVID-19 Symptom Checker online. Users who believe they may have the virus can answer a series of questions and get advice about the best way to proceed for care.

See original here:

Doctor calls technology 'instrumental' in tracking the spread of COVID-19 - WBAY