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AirAsia, a Malaysia-based low cost airline, recently revealed insight on how it's utilizing Google Cloud services and a "data-first" attitude to help passenger experiences be "more personal and less friction-filled" across their network.  These insights were shared at the Google Cloud Next '18 conference in London by AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes.

The overall goal of this technological effort is to remove the "friction" in air travel.  Friction comes about with flight delays, missed flights, passport control, and even paper waste in the form of luggage tags.  Their effort involves installing IoT sensors on their aircraft fleet to anticipate maintenance needs so that downtime can be scheduled more effectively with less passenger interruption, and also more closely analyzing the physical spaces used at airports to see if passenger foot routes are causing problems.  And, on the luggage tag front, AirAsia is investigating methods that allow for reusable tags that update based on a passenger's itinerary.

Advancements are also coming to passport and immigration controls at many major airports, such as facial recognition and automated passport checks.

AirAsia is looking to also use customer data to personalize their experience, such as seat preferences, food, and more.  With some investment into technology, AirAsia stands to set their flight experiences apart from other low cost carriers in their market.

As part of this project, the airline has also migrated major operations onto Google Cloud as part of a major IT overhaul.  Key Google Cloud resources they're utilizing include BigQuery data warehousing and Google Data Studio for business intelligence management.  They've also found great success in promoting communication between departments with the G-Suite software as well.

AirAsia has already seen benefits from their IT efforts by way of customer satisfaction and employee morale, and hopes the trend continues.

This article was based on an October 11, 2018 ComputerWeekly article by Caroline Donnelly

Car crashes at intersections account for 20% of annual traffic deaths, and automakers Honda and Volkswagen are working to lower that number.  Though the two companies aren't working together, they're approaching the problem in similar ways with the use of connected technology at smart intersections.

Honda has been working with city of Marysville, Ohio - a place best known for the Honda plant that produces the popular Accord and several Acura models - to develop and implement intersections that are compatible with future cars' onboard sensors.  Using vehicle-to-x (V2X) communications and proprietary software, Honda aims to have intersections monitor the roadway for potential hazards and alert drivers in the area to be on the lookout.  These hazards include cyclists, pedestrians, emergency vehicles, and others and they'll be watched over by a system of four cameras that continuously create a bird's eye view of the intersection.  If the system detects something it deems worth an alert, a notification will be sent to vehicles in the area via short-range (1,500') communications network.  Then, it's on drivers to heed that warning and exercise due caution.  Currently, these warnings are received in the vehicle via a third party device, but Honda hopes to have the system integrated into vehicles as standard equipment one day.

Volkswagen's system is much the same, though they're working with the city of Wolfsburg (notable as Volkswagen has offered vehicles in a special "Wolfsburg Edition" trim in the past) and Siemens.  They plan to make their entire fleet of new vehicles compatible with the system by 2019.  However, Volkswagen wants to up the ante and have the system serve double duty as a traffic mitigation tool.  By connecting vehicles to traffic signals, signals can more accurately adjust their timing and can even help cars catch a "green wave" of lights - reducing emissions, travel times, and stop and go traffic.

While most drivers do exercise caution and check for hazards, it's easy to get distracted or complacent, and unfortunately it's usually the pedestrian or cyclist that loses.  Honda's and Volkswagen's systems will be a big help to remind drivers of actual dangers, and will hopefully return the result of safer roadways.

This article was based on an October 5, 2018 Roadshow by CNET article by Andrew Krok.

Apex Oil Company, a provider of wholesale distribution, storage and transportation of petroleum products across the United States recently enlisted the M-Files platform to streamline the user experience of their enterprise service management solution Cherwell and to improve document management company-wide.  The Cherwell/M-Files integration was achieved through a custom connector developed by a M-Files partner.

M-Files' unique architecture of linking data based on relationships instead of directories proved to be especially useful for the Cherwell integration.  With it, documents can be more quickly accessed and understood, and fewer pieces of information go missing.  This, plus M-Files' Intelligent Metadata Layer sourcing data from other systems mean that Cherwell users have one point of access for all the information they need.

“We chose M-Files because it provides this great concept of organizing documents with metadata versus storing them in folders,” said Gary Fleming, director of information services at Apex Oil. “Instead of thinking about where to store a document, you simply define what it is, and then you’re able to easily find that document by searching for it using metadata or the content of the document itself. Or better, you don’t even have to search for it because it's directly related to the object you are working with in Cherwell. We knew from the beginning that integrating service and information management would be great, but when you actually see this working for the first time, with your documents in M-Files showing up right with your customers and incidents in Cherwell in a nice and structured way, you think, ‘Wow – this is really cool.’”

Apex Oil Company has seen other benefits from their M-Files integration - their security and compliance efforts have been improved with the addition of precise access rights to documents, a feature offered by M-Files to control who has access to what data.

Apex Oil Company is pleased with their M-Files solution and is reaping the benefits from it daily.  PaperFree is a M-Files partner and is ready to show you how the solution can improve your business.  Learn more about M-Files.

This article was based on a September 20, 2018 M-Files press release.

Saint Louis University (SLU) recently introduced 2,300 Amazon Echo Dot assistants to its student living spaces in an effort to make information more readily available on demand.  These devices have been customized to be able to answer specific questions about the university, such as library hours, and there are plans to expand their implementation into classrooms, offices, and meeting rooms.

Currently, the system has 130 custom queries available and SLU is working on more.  The goal is to reduce the time that students, faculty, and staff spend searching for informaiton, especially when that information is simple in nature such as locations of university services or events.

SLU isn't the only university using virtual assistants on its grounds - Arizona State University and Northeastern University have Echo programs - but SLU's program is among the largest deployments to date.  SLU believes that the devices serve to attract more students, and could even be a deciding factor to incoming freshmen making their final college picks.  In fact, SLU's Echo Dot program is just the first in a series of plans to add voice interfaces to the university, all with the goal of improving productivity through instant access to data.

SLU went through some trial and error adopting the Amazon platform, but has seen great results and eager students with their choice.  Students prefer the ease of the Amazon platform and the added functionality of the Alexa for Business platform has made managing the devices much easier for the university.  Given the volume of deployed devices, easy, centralized management is critical.

To address security, the university put the devices on their own dedicated, secure network and students are informed on how to use privacy features.  Plus, the devices are not linked to any specific accounts so there is less worry about compromised accounts.  The downside of this is that popular account-based services such as Spotify are unavailable.  The university plans to introduce individual devices in the future, but only after it has fleshed out a security plan for that use.

The university is still plotting out how best to utilize the technology at its fingertips, but has solid plans for how to improve productivity and access to information as they get more acquainted with their devices.

This article was based on an August 28, 2018 Computerworld.com article by Andrew Finnegan.

URLs have become ubiquitous in our time - nearly every company and individual has some sort of online presence - all with associated URLs.  And, while URLs for the biggest names are generally easy to guess (simply add a .com to their name) - that's not always the case, as is such with nissan.com and companies that use .biz or .info top level domain names.  Worse yet, a wrong guess can land you on a webpage that you definitely don't want to be on.  Google wants to take the guesswork out of URLs.

But they also want to do something else - they want to make URLs safer.  With more and more web traffic being handled over mobile devices it's easy for users to not be able to see complete URLs on their screens, especially now that URLs often contain long strings of dynamically-generated unintelligible characters or users travel to sites via shortened URLs like tinyurl.  This makes it easier for cyber criminals to get unsuspecting users onto their malicious lookalike sites, where they phish data, download viruses, and ultimately defraud visitors.

So, how do we make URLs easier and safer?  Well, "we haven't quite figured that part out yet", says Google.  However, they're exploring new avenues to accomplish the task and hope to have results in the coming months.  In the meantime, they're analyzing how users utilize URLs, share them, search for them, and so on so that the new solution offers all the usability that current URLs have.

Whatever the solution may be, Google expects it to be radical and controversial.

This article was based on a September 4, 2018 Wired article by Lily Hay Newman

PaperFree partner OpenText recently announced new additions to its solution lineup specifically designed for the legal sector.  OpenText™ Legal Center is a cloud-based enterprise information management product that integrates with OpenText eDOCS and is specially designed to manage client onboarding and document sharing.  In addition to this announcement, OpenText also shared news of a new suite of specialized products for the legal market.  These new additions will create new advancements and opportunities in the market, which is currently served by solutions such as eDOCS, Axcelerate, EnCase and Decisiv.

These products are aimed at large legal firms and serve their need for document management, forensics, and review both within their caseload and for regulatory compliance and investigations.

“Law firms, governments, and corporate legal departments must continually evaluate their processes to remain effective and competitive in a rapidly changing climate,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText Vice Chair, CEO, and CTO. “OpenText is a leader in legal tech with solutions to help our customers manage the huge volumes of data they collect and generate, while incorporating the benefits of automation and AI. OpenText is committed to expanding our leadership in the legal tech field and helping our legal customers manage information and apply next-generation solutions to improve operational effectiveness, deliver insights, and maximize existing technology investments”

“With our acquisitions of Guidance Software and Recommind, OpenText has expanded and enhanced our solution set,” continued Barrenechea. “Combining these solutions with our industry-leading EIM platform, new AI and ML capabilities, and our experienced professional services organizations allows OpenText to provide a range of solutions unmatched in the legal market today.”

According to OpenText, these solutions will help clients:

• Securely manage legal content and automate processes: balancing security with access, users can effectively manage sensitive documents and leverage them for repeatable processes.
• Intelligently search documents and identify experts: a powerful search function is able to locate desired documents with incomplete keywords and can help identify who within the organization is an expert in that particular piece of information.
• Forensically collect evidence: collect data from electronic devices while adhering to applicable laws.
• Expedite large-scale eDiscovery review and investigations: machine learning assists with the extensive processing of documents while ensuring compliance.

OpenText will be demonstrating their full portfolio of legal solutions at ILTACON 2018.

This article was based on a August 20, 2018 OpenText press release.

PaperFree partner M-Files recently announced the next generation of their content management solution - M-Files Online.  M-Files Online is a hybrid cloud solution that builds on the features and usability of their original product, but adds another layer of ease by being a subscription-based product.  This means that there's less software to install and maintain - in fact, M-Files Online is always up to date, automatically.

M-Files Online also includes the following features:

• Intelligent Metadata Layer core module: efficiently categorizes information, links it to other pieces of content, and enables easy searching.  Machine learning features also help it to do more of the tedious categorization work too.
• Access anywhere: M-Files' hybrid architecture makes it easy to access documents while on the road, all while retaining access for other authorized users.
• Network Folder Connector: enables communication between M-Files and SharePoint and other network folders so that content can be access without requiring data migration.
• Cloud storage: M-Files Online includes free cloud storage.  However, it still continues to support on-premise storage for maximum flexibility in IT and security environments.

M-Files Online is available now.  For more information on how M-Files Online can help you transform your content management strategy please contact PaperFree.

Believe it or not, your bank is among the experts in fraud detection.  Many of us have experienced urgent phone calls from the bank when we make a larger-than-normal purchase, and this is a good thing.  The bank's systems constantly track customers' card use - amount, locations, day of time, etc. to develop a map of your spending habits - and it's when something wanders out of this map that they alert customers before serious damage can be done.  Doing so gives customers a chance to interrupt fraud as it happens, as well as minimizing losses for the bank.

However, as our world transitions to AI and more automation, there's increasing concerns about how to protect customers from bank fraud.  Machines will begin to make purchases for us ("Alexa, order more toothpaste...") or even learn to check supplies on hand and automatically order products that are running low.  But how do we determine who authorized the machine to make the purchase?  In the first case it's fairly cut and dry, however in the second it's not so clear.  Devices in our home could even one day listen to our conversations and generate shopping lists in the background, or even anticipate that hot wings should be on hand for Super Bowl Sunday.

Another issue is how much more we're interacting with our banks - while it may seem that the opposite is true consumers have become largely reliant on card and digital payments over cash, and so many transactions are now occurring over home wifi and mobile networks.  In other words, it's getting really hard to catch the bad guys with so much banking integration in our lives.

To address this, banks are proactively gearing up and are working to track transactions across all "human-not-present" avenues.  In a case study analyzing one such effort, it was found that by tracking how fraudsters were failing call center authentication and then risk-assessing those accounts increased fraud detection rates by 2.2%, which translated to half a million dollars a year in savings for the bank.  Other analysis shows that consumers are even handling the same banking interaction on multiple channels (such as a laptop, then phone, then virtual assistant).

By looking at what's happening across all transaction channels and comparing it, banks are showing themselves to be adept and keeping your money safe in an evolving world.

This article was based on an August 13, 2018 ComputerWeekly.com article by Warwick Ashford.

Many cities, perhaps your own, are taking steps to implement "smart" measures - measures that include intelligent traffic control, streetlight management, and even tracking bicycle use.  However, a new report from IBM Security reveals concerns about how secure these measures are from hacking and malicious takeover.

The concern stems from rudimentary security features in smart technologies, and easily attainable tools that locate exposed devices.  The consequences of a compromised system could be extensive; uncontrolled traffic intersections, law enforcement chasing false alarms, and dangerous situations for public workers.  And worst of all - public panic - which would only serve to exacerbate the problem.  Earlier this year IBM and Threatcare discovered 17 critical vulnerabilities in smart city sensors and controls used around the world.  Simply put, an unauthorized operator on a smart city system can easily cause extensive chaos and damage, even if their actions are simply for "fun".

But where are these vulnerabilities?  Most commonly they're default passwords, authentication bypass, and SQL injection.  Some devices don't even require a password reset on installation.  Researchers found it incredibly easy to locate information within a system regarding the location of installed devices, what they did, and information on what safeguards they had come from the factory with.

Part of the trouble is that many of these devices are installed on legacy systems, which don't have the capability to run state of the art security measures, or have been put online without a thorough review of their security suites by a person qualified to do so.  There is no easy way to bring every last system within a system up to snuff - doing so requires incredible expenditures which many city coffers don't support.  Or, backlash from the public that may not fully understand the situation may dissuade city councils from approving upgrade projects.

While smart city device manufacturers has a responsibility to produce and support devices with current and best security practices, ultimately the onus falls on cities to ensure that they have established a solid and reliable network security plan and select products that complement it as they work towards integrating technology into the public sector.

Users of Windows 10 are well familiar with the inescapable grip of forced system updates - taking their system down for a period of time with no way to cancel or schedule it for later.  However, Microsoft took note of how inconvenient this is for users and implemented a snooze function in 2017.  Now, it's enlisting the help of machine learning to determine the best time to run mandatory updates that won't reboot your computer when you weren't expecting it (and losing all your unsaved work!).

The new procedure breaks the update down into which pieces can be handled during online phases and those can be run during offline hours.  Optimizing these steps dramatically increases the speed of updates since more can be done when the user isn't aware of it and less when the user is.  As part of the new procedure, systems will now analyze the usage patterns of users and determine when best to deploy updates.  This new model accounts for the complaints about the forced update policy as well as factors in cloud data.

According to Windows Insider chief Dona Sarkar and Senior Program Manager Brandon LeBlanc "We heard you, and to alleviate this pain, if you have an update pending we’ve updated our reboot logic to use a new system that is more adaptive and proactive. We trained a predictive model that can accurately predict when the right time to restart the device is. Meaning, that we will not only check if you are currently using your device before we restart, but we will also try to predict if you had just left the device to grab a cup of coffee and return shortly after."

But why forced updates?  Simply put - it's herd immunity.  Give users the option to dismiss an update and the vast majority will.  With Windows being the prevailing operating system the world over this is a massive security risk - systems must be updated, especially those on shared networks.

The updated logic is currently only available to users enrolled in the Windows Insider pre-release testing program, but internal testing has shown promising results - meaning that the bulk of Windows 10 users should start to benefit from the update soon.

This article was based on a July 25, 2018 Gizmodo article by Tom McKay