Author: ashton

Final release of Volkswagen combustion engine vehicles planned for 2026

Posted on by ashton

Volkswagen Group has announced that 2026 will mark the final year of production for vehicles using combustion engine technology. In total, $50bn has been earmarked for the development of next generation, carbon neutral vehicles and for the launch of self-driving cars.

“Our colleagues are working on the last platform for vehicles that aren’t CO2 neutral,” Michael Jost, Strategy Chief for the Volkswagen brand, said at an industry conference in Wolfsburg on December 4.

The world’s largest automaker has predicted that the combustion era will fade away following the roll-out of its next generation gasoline and diesel engines.

The world’s largest automaker has predicted that the combustion era will fade away following the roll-out of its next generation gasoline and diesel engines. At a press conference in November, CEO Herbert Diess described the company’s strategy as an “electric offensive”.

However, new car models have an average lifetime of roughly a decade, meaning Volkswagens that burn hydrocarbons will likely be available into the late 2030s. In the meantime, Volkswagen will continue to modify its combustion technology to meet environmental targets outlined in the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Increasing pressure on traditional automakers to reduce their CO2 emissions has prompted Volkswagen’s progressive strategy. Currently, there are just two fully electric Volkswagen models available on the UK market, the e-up! and the e-Golf, but plans are underway to launch additional electric vehicles. Porsche, part of the Volkswagen Group, is due to release an electric model, the Taycan, next year.

In 2015, the German company found itself at the centre of a scandal dubbed the ‘diesel dupe’ after it was revealed that the automaker cheated emissions tests in the US. Volkswagen was forced to pay over $31bn in fines and consequently pledged its commitment to electric vehicles.

‘London Blue’ hacker group planned attack on 35,000 CFOs

Posted on by ashton

A hacker group known as ‘London Blue’ has compiled a list of more than 35,000 CFOs, many of whom worked at the world’s largest lenders, to target them with money transfer requests.

The list was discovered by cybersecurity firm Agari. In a report on the scam, the company enumerated an additional 15,000 workers in various accountancy departments across the globe, compiled over a period of just five months.

Well over half of the 50,000 victims listed were located in the US, with the remainder spread over 82 countries

According to Agari, the list details possible targets for business email compromise (BEC) attacks, which have become more popular with hackers in recent years.

In these types of attacks, hackers send an urgent request for funds to a CFO, using a display name the CFO is likely to recognise and therefore not flag as suspicious. They will request around $35,000 on average to be transferred into a fraudulent account.

According to the FBI, this method has cost companies over $12bn since 2013, with the number of victims identified reaching 78,617.

Agari has handed its evidence to the relevant UK and US law enforcement agencies.

London Blue is a Nigeria-based hacker gang with a network of at least 19 operators. Well over half of the 50,000 victims listed were located in the US, with the remainder spread over 82 countries including the UK, Finland, the Netherlands and Mexico.

Agari’s report stated: “Nigeria has been a hub for scammers since long before the internet came into wide use, and it remains one of the world’s primary centres for active gangs, including many that are focused on BEC.”

London Blue “operates like a modern corporation”, the report found, with members carrying out a range of specialised roles including business intelligence, sales, email marketing and HR, all of which are linked to the central hacking operation.

The group works with commercial data brokers across the globe to compile its mass list of targets. Its attack emails do not typically contain any malware, meaning they will not be flagged as dangerous by the majority of email security filters.

Crane Hassold, Agari’s senior director of threat research, said in a statement that he had seen evidence that the scammers had been successful in some cases.

He described the scheme as “pure social engineering” because it is not based on sophisticated technology, but on human carelessness in not verifying email addresses. “The reason it is on the rise is because it has been proven to work,” he added.

Qatar to pull out of OPEC amid rising tension with Saudi Arabia

Posted on by ashton

Qatar will exit the OPEC after nearly 60 years of membership to focus on natural gas production, the country’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad al-Kaabi, announced on December 3.

Al-Kaabi told reporters at a news conference that the Gulf nation would cease membership of the oil cartel in January 2019, but would still attend a group meeting scheduled to take place in Vienna later this week. It has also pledged to abide by its current commitments until its departure from the group.

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, imposed a political and economic boycott on Qatar

The country is currently locked in a diplomatic dispute with Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the OPEC, amid claims that the Qatari Government is funding terrorism-related activities.

In June 2017, Saudi Arabia, along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, imposed a political and economic boycott on Qatar, which includes a trade and travel embargo for all citizens of those four countries. The Qatari Government has denied the claims.

Al-Kaabi said the decision to leave the group was not politically motivated: “I assure you this purely was a decision on what’s right for Qatar long term.” Rather, he claimed, Qatar is seeking to expand its natural gas production, which is currently limited by the country’s OPEC membership.

“For me to put efforts and resources and time in an organisation that we are a very small player in and I don’t have a say in what happens… practically it does not work, so for us it’s better to focus on our big growth potential,” he said at the news conference.

Qatar’s oil output of 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) is one of the smallest in the OPEC, and is dwarfed by Saudi Arabia’s 11 million bpd production rate. As a result, the decision to leave the group after 57 years of membership is predominantly a symbolic one and will not have a significant impact on the OPEC’s global influence.

The small Gulf nation is a powerful force in the liquid natural gas sector, though, producing more than 77 million tonnes annually. After departing the OPEC, Qatar will seek to ramp up production to 110 million tonnes annually by 2024, said al-Kaabi.

At this week’s meeting, which begins on December 6, OPEC nations are expected to agree on a supply cut in a bid to prevent oil prices from sliding any further. Prices for Brent Crude, the industry benchmark, peaked in October at $82 per barrel but have since fallen over 30 percent, and this morning was trading at $62 per barrel.

Qatar is the first nation to leave the OPEC for good since its inception in 1960. The decision could pave the way for other countries to do the same, setting the scene for the disintegration of one of the most powerful global alliances.

Despite al-Kaabi’s assertion that the decision was not politically motivated, leaving the OPEC gives Qatar the freedom to pursue new international partnerships and escape from the blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia.

Ohio accepts bitcoin as payment for corporate taxes

Posted on by ashton

In a rare governmental show of support for the volatile cryptocurrency, the US state of Ohio will now allow businesses to pay their taxes using bitcoin.

From November 26, Ohio businesses will be able to register online to pay for all kinds of corporation tax using bitcoin. The scheme will later be rolled out to individuals.

To make the bitcoin payments, businesses will input tax details into a dedicated portal called OhioCrypto.com. These will be sent to an Atlanta-based processor named BitPay, which will convert the currency to dollars.

State Treasurer Josh Mandel, a bitcoin enthusiast who has held the position since 2011, is behind the new cryptocurrency initiative. He told the Wall Street Journal that he views it as an opportunity for “planting a flag” in the currency’s adoption.

Although Ohio’s incentive doesn’t give bitcoin legal status as an official currency, it will legitimise its use at state level

“I do see [bitcoin] as a legitimate form of currency,” Mandel said, adding that he hopes other states will follow in Ohio’s footsteps. Arizona, Georgia and Illinois have all previously considered using bitcoin for taxes, but have been held back by state legislature.

At its release in 2009, bitcoin was pegged as a decentralised alternative to traditional currencies that did not require government support or backing. Despite rising dramatically in value since its inception, use of the cryptocurrency has largely been limited to specialist exchanges and it is not widely accepted as a valid currency.

Although Ohio’s incentive doesn’t give bitcoin legal status as an official currency, it will legitimise its use at state level. Mandel’s rank as an elected official means his office can accept bitcoin without requiring approval from state legislators or Ohio’s governor.

Other individual states are also beginning to recognise that accepting bitcoin marks them as technologically progressive, allowing them to attract new business and workers.

New York has long been a pioneer in the field, introducing a business licence in 2014 that allows businesses to trade, store, control and issue virtual currencies.

States such as Wyoming are now following suit, with Governor Matt Mead opting to increase regulatory leniency earlier in the year to persuade bitcoin-based businesses to register and operate in the state.

State backing will provide a welcome demonstration of encouragement for bitcoin, which has been dogged by extreme price fluctuations in recent months. After reaching a peak valuation of $15,000 per coin in December 2017, the currency has steadily been falling in value, with each coin worth around $3,900 at the time of publication.

The cryptocurrency has also suffered as a result of concerns that it could be used to fund criminal activities. Its decentralised nature means it is difficult for law enforcement officials to keep track of payments made, leading to issues with regulatory control. Ohio’s initiative will prove that the cryptocurrency has valuable, legitimate uses, helping to distance it from speculation about illegal transactions.

Lab-grown diamonds are creating a more socially responsible diamond industry

Posted on by ashton

The Millennial generation has been blamed for causing the demise of many an industry, but the diamond market is one that can make this claim with some confidence. Compared with previous generations, Millennials have a very different relationship to both money and marriage – two pillars of the $80bn mined-diamond industry.

But with sales of the precious gemstones slowing, Millennials are not the only culprits: the advancement of laboratory-grown diamonds is changing the sector for good.

In July, after six years of consulting with the industry, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) made a number of changes to its jewellery guidelines, including expanding its definition of ‘diamond’ to include synthetic diamonds grown in a lab.

“Technological advances have made it possible to create diamonds in a laboratory,” the FTC said. “These stones have essentially the same optical, physical and chemical properties as mined diamonds. Thus, they are diamonds.” The agency simply eliminated the word ‘natural’ from its 1956 definition of a diamond as a “natural mineral consisting essentially of pure carbon crystallised in the isometric system”.

An ethical solution
Diamond Foundry claims to be America’s number one man-made diamond producer. Established in 2013, the Silicon-Valley-based company boasts actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio among its investors. “I’m proud to invest in Diamond Foundry – cultivating real diamonds in America without the human and environmental toll of mining,” reads a quote on DiCaprio’s official Facebook page.

Lab-grown diamonds are guaranteed to be produced in a socially responsible way

Diamond Foundry’s own website states: “Just like ice from a freezer is as real as ice from a winter street, a diamond is a diamond regardless of origin.”

The Diamond Producers Association, an alliance of seven of the largest diamond miners, naturally disagreed with the FTC’s move to alter the definition of what constitutes a diamond.

Its CEO, Jean-Marc Lieberherr, told The New Economy: “A natural diamond is a billion-year-old precious stone, inherently rare and valuable… The true value of a diamond cannot be replicated in a lab.”

However, one of its members, industry stalwart De Beers – the very company responsible for creating the slogan ‘a diamond is forever’ and making a diamond ring essential to any proposal – recently announced it was dipping its toe into the synthetic diamond sector.

Nimesh Patel, the company’s CFO, differentiated between the two stones, however. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the company’s man-made diamonds, which will be around a fifth of the price of its mined diamonds, would be ideal for “more playful and lighter occasions” while its mined diamonds would be part of “life’s more meaningful moments”.

Significantly, lab-grown diamonds are guaranteed to be produced in a socially responsible way. Blood diamonds, or those that fuel wars and human rights abuses, are notoriously difficult to trace through the supply chain.

One way miners are trying to solve the traceability issue is by using blockchain technology. A secure ledger would track each diamond from the time it is unearthed to when it is placed in the customer’s hand.

De Beers is working on a platform that it hopes will become an industry standard. However, even if blockchain technology was used to ensure the ethical origin of natural diamonds, their synthetic counterparts still have a much lower environmental impact and cost less to produce.

Shifting perceptions
Although lab-grown diamonds make up less than one percent of the market for rough diamonds, Morgan Stanley predicts the synthetic variety could account for 7.5 percent by 2020.

Man-made diamonds are nothing new. The practice dates as far back as the 1950s, although the process then was very time consuming, expensive and unpredictable. Now, Diamond Foundry can whip up a crystal clear jewel in just two weeks.

Importantly, interest in these stones is finally starting to grow. A study by MVI Marketing found Millennial consumers are increasingly interested in lab-grown diamonds. In a survey of more than 1,000 US consumers, 70 percent said they would consider a lab-grown diamond engagement ring, up 13 percentage points from the previous year.

The changing dynamics of the market could topple an industry that was built around the perception of ever-lasting value and prominence. Even if the market for mined diamonds remains, it is clear our understanding of what a diamond is has changed forever.

Elephant grass is a low cost, carbon negative alternative to fossil fuels

Posted on by ashton

In his 2016 annual letter to shareholders, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates predicted the world would soon see an energy miracle that could solve climate change: “Within the next 15 years – and especially if young people get involved – I expect the world will discover a clean energy breakthrough that will save our planet and power our world.”

The same year Gates wrote his famous letter, NextFuel was founded in Stockholm to commercialise a new technological breakthrough that had resulted from years of R&D and millions of dollars in funding. Today, the company’s Austrian industrial pilot plant is producing a CO2-negative alternative to fossil fuels made of miscanthus giganteus – more commonly known as elephant grass – in less than 30 minutes.

The New Economy spoke to Audun Sommerli Time, the company’s chief marketing officer, to learn more about NextFuel’s technology, the power of elephant grass and the future of the energy market.

What are the advantages of using elephant grass over more traditional raw materials, like wood?
The key benefits of elephant grass are financial and environmental. Elephant grass is a specialised plant that can grow up to four metres in just 100 days, producing several crops to harvest each year.

In comparison, wood biomass takes decades to grow and requires many times the same land area. Another unique feature of elephant grass is that it can grow on marginal land that is unsuitable for food production and, therefore, is cheap to lease. Elephant grass also stores a large percentage of the carbon it absorbs from the atmosphere in its roots.

The whole energy market could stand to profit from NextFuel’s CO2-negative alternative to fossil fuels

Once the elephant grass has been harvested, our technology requires very little energy to transform it into a briquette in our factory. The whole carbon cycle, therefore, becomes negative on a yearly basis, as less CO2 is released into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned than was captured from the atmosphere a few months earlier when the grass was growing. Further, the carbon stored in the soil can make the marginal land so fertile that in 10 to 15 years it could even be used for food production.

Another raw material that can be used in this process is bagasse, the residue that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract their juice. Like elephant grass, sugarcane is a fast-growing plant with extremely efficient CO2 capture. Much of the world’s bagasse currently goes to waste, but by using this by-product to produce CO2-negative energy, we can turn waste into a valuable commodity.

Could NextFuel replace fossil fuels in the near future?
To replace fossil fuels and have a real impact on climate change, you need to provide a solution that is both cheaper and more profitable than existing alternatives. Wind and solar energy, for example, currently require expensive new energy infrastructures to scale, meaning they often rely on government subsidies to remain competitive.

NextFuel, however, can be used directly within today’s energy infrastructure, and is likely to be more profitable and cheaper than oil, coal and natural gas in most markets.

Elephant grass

100 days

Time taken to yield a crop for harvest

4m

Height of each crop

10-15 years

Time taken to fertilise unusable land

This is thanks to the fuel’s high energy content of up to 28 gigajoules per tonne and NextFuel’s ability to grow several crops each year on cheap, marginal land in close proximity to its customers. Coal and wood pellets, meanwhile, are often required to be transported long distances, adding to both their cost and carbon footprint.

Our factories also have very low energy costs due to the NextFuel reactor’s ability to produce most of its own energy during the manufacturing process.

How can other energy players incorporate NextFuel into their strategies?
Existing energy and industrial companies can lease the technology directly from us and even increase their profitability by switching fuel. With no need for additional investment in today’s coal plants, steel mills or cement factories, these industries can easily switch from using coal to NextFuel without hurting their bottom lines.

By simply changing burners, several other industries can also replace heating oil with NextFuel. And since NextFuel is cheaper than oil, the initial cost would be recuperated in less than three years.

NextFuel is also an interesting option for industries looking into carbon capture and storage technologies. Without having to make huge investments in factories to capture emissions from fossil fuels, companies can instead fund projects that plant elephant grass crops, generating further profit and reducing emissions. Ultimately, the more crops that are grown and the greater volume of fuel that is produced, the more CO2 is captured from the atmosphere.

What’s more, many of the world’s largest oil companies are currently looking at ways to shift their investments from fossil fuels to renewable energies. With high profit margins, low prices and the ability to be used directly in today’s energy infrastructure, NextFuel presents a very attractive way for them to do so.

Is NextFuel currently expanding into any new markets?
NextFuel plans to spread its technology around the world by licensing it to existing energy companies and industrial partners that want to use it to cut costs or improve their carbon footprint. To date, several companies have expressed an interest in NextFuel, and the first projects are now being implemented.

Next year, for example, a multinational company in East Africa plans to build several NextFuel production lines, replacing the more than 250,000 tonnes of coal that are currently used in a local cement factory. This client expects to drastically cut its energy costs by replacing the coal it currently imports from South Africa with a locally produced NextFuel briquette.

We think this is the perfect project to demonstrate the benefits of NextFuel to prospective customers, especially those in the utility, steel and cement industries.

What are NextFuel’s long-term plans?
Looking to the future, we aim to replace fossil fuels as the world’s leading energy source by the end of the 21st century. If the results from our first projects are as expected, our cleantech solution could quickly spread to many different industries and counter global warming. In fact, we believe the whole energy market could stand to profit from NextFuel’s CO2-negative alternative to fossil fuels.

As Gates wrote in his 2016 letter, a “miracle” isn’t something that is impossible, nor is it something that happens by chance. Instead, it is “the result of research and development, and the human capacity to innovate”. Only time will tell if NextFuel really is the energy miracle Gates predicted.

Carbon-removal projects could turn back the clock on climate change

Posted on by ashton

Germany aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions some 40 percent by 2020. This target rises to 55 percent by 2030 and 95 percent by 2050 when compared with 1990 levels. Many other countries across the world have issued similar pledges.

The bad news, though, is this won’t be good enough: efforts to decarbonise the global economy have been delayed to such an extent that reducing emissions now comes too little, too late.

Climate prediction models indicate that, in order to meet the targets established by the Paris Agreement, carbon dioxide (CO2) will have to be removed from the atmosphere on a substantial scale.

In fact, scientists now estimate limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels will require 10 billion tonnes of CO2 to be removed from the atmosphere every year from 2050 onwards.

Reforestation is the most natural way of sucking carbon out of the air, but this is time consuming and would need to take place on a gigantic scale. As global populations increase, convincing governments to plant trees on spare land, rather than build homes, is a difficult sell.

A combination of renewable energy investment and carbon-removal solutions may be the only way to avoid an environmental disaster in the coming years

Other businesses are looking at carbon capture and sequestration techniques that trap CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere, but this approach is often only carbon-neutral at best.

In order to solve the planet’s carbon conundrum, a number of businesses have started thinking outside the box, employing cutting-edge technology to remove existing CO2 from the planet’s atmosphere. In many cases, their ideas have proved to be effective; whether they are financially feasible is another matter entirely.

Removal service
With the likelihood that humanity will be able to curb its CO2 emissions in time to avert catastrophe looking increasingly slim, a number of businesses have begun to search for alternative options. Their approaches to CO2 removal vary widely, with each methodology bringing its own advantages and disadvantages.

One of the more unusual ideas involves supplying natural gas to a high-temperature fuel cell. Half of the energy created is converted into electricity, and the other half is used to decompose limestone into lime and CO2.

As this activity produces CO2, it may not initially be clear how it helps with the planet’s greenhouse gas problem. However, the entire process is actually carbon-negative. As all of the CO2 being produced – both from the fuel cell and the lime kiln – is pure, it can be used or stored underground at a low cost. The lime can also be used to trap CO2.

The company pioneering this method of carbon air capture, Origen Power, estimates it can remove 600g of CO2 from the air for every kWh of electricity generated. In contrast, electricity produced by burning natural gas typically emits around 400g of CO2 for the same energy output.

Organisations like Canada’s Carbon Engineering and the Zurich-based Climeworks have opted for a different approach, utilising direct air capture technology. The latter develops, builds and operates plants that capture CO2 from ambient air through a cyclic adsorption-desorption process.

“At the heart of the process is a filter material, which selectively captures CO2,” Louise Charles, Communications Manager at Climeworks, told The New Economy. “The first step involves air being drawn into a collector using a fan.

“CO2 is then captured on the surface of a filter material – also known as the adsorption stage. The second step begins when saturation has occurred. Then, the collector is closed and the temperature increased to 100 degrees Celsius, releasing the CO2 (desorption) at a purity of over 99 percent. The CO2 is then cooled to 45 degrees Celsius, collected and delivered where necessary.”

Cost of carbon removal (per tonne)

$907

2011

$94

2018

It should be remembered there is no silver bullet to the problem of climate change. The disparate ideas that businesses like Origen Power and Climeworks are exploring may all need to be deployed together if a decarbonised future is to be achieved.

Ultimately, a combination of renewable energy investment and carbon removal solutions may be the only way to avoid an environmental disaster in the coming years.

Costing the Earth
The suitability of carbon-removal projects is not in doubt – their affordability is. In 2011, a study led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that, when focusing on ambient air, the cost of carbon removal was likely to be more than $907 per tonne of CO2 removed.

Although they are not truly carbon-negative, powerplant scrubbers can boast a figure of between $50 and $100 for every tonne of CO2 prevented from reaching the atmosphere.

Recently, however, scientists have become increasingly optimistic that carbon removal is not as expensive as first feared. An updated analysis, published in June, suggested carbon capture could be achieved at a price between $94 and $232 per tonne if existing technologies were scaled up. Many of the businesses working in this field are working on the assumption that their current costs can be significantly reduced.

“We are already commercially viable and, as we continue to develop our technology, we will become increasingly cost competitive across the world,” Charles explained. “We have a detailed cost-reduction roadmap in place and are confident we’ll reach a price level of $200 per tonne of CO2 in three to four years’ time. Our long-term goal of $100 per tonne of CO2 is achievable within the next five to 10 years – or by 2030 at the very latest.”

Scaling up will be key to optimising outgoings, and progress on this front has been steady, if not spectacular. When Climeworks was founded in 2009, it was only capable of removing a few milligrams of CO2 in a 24-hour period; now, several tonnes are being captured every day.

The company is aiming to scale up by a factor of one million in the next five to 10 years in order to make a broader impact. To achieve this, more customers and additional funding will be required.

The next step
Carbon capture, in one form or another, has been implemented since the 1970s, but the technology’s progress has been slow. Globally, there are 17 large-scale plants dedicated to carbon capture, most of which are in the US. Altogether, they remove around 40 million tonnes of CO2 per annum – equivalent to just one percent of yearly global emissions.

Guaranteeing these facilities receive the right government support will be vital to their development. Subsidies for carbon removal need to be implemented to ensure the right economic incentives are in place for firms. Renewable energies have benefitted hugely from this approach and there is no reason why CO2 removal wouldn’t similarly profit.

Businesses also need to think carefully about what they do with the CO2 once they remove it from the air. Making it into synthetic fuels is one option; burying it underground is another.

Charles said her company “sells high-purity, high-concentration, air-captured CO2 to the food, beverage and agriculture market, [as well as] for the synthesis of renewable fuels and materials”. By forging external partnerships, carbon-removal firms gain access to additional revenue streams and ensure companies can purchase sustainable supplies of CO2.

It is regrettable that mankind has reached a stage where reducing carbon emissions will not be sufficient to stop temperatures exceeding globally agreed targets. But all hope is not lost: while CO2 removal can’t turn back the clock on decades of polluting human activity, it could provide a way to avoid the potentially devastating consequences of climate change.

AI helps businesses make better decisions

Posted on by ashton

Just as the Industrial Revolution transformed the world during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the ‘AI revolution’ will engender an equally far-reaching change in the coming years. AI has reached a point where it is capable of surpassing human decision-making in many situations – consistently, accurately and continuously. But why is this revolution happening now, and how do businesses harness this capability?

AI has been around since the 1960s, but only now is the necessary confluence of three key factors coming to fruition. First, AI was initially dismissed by industry commentators as a ‘disembodied brain in a jar’, isolated from real-world situations.

Today, however, we have reached the point where digital channels are becoming the norm and provide the brain with all the senses and limbs it needs. Our customers and suppliers communicate with us electronically, so it makes little sense to introduce a human into the loop to make decisions.

The AI revolution is set to take the service industry by storm, changing the role of the white-collar worker irrevocably

The second major change is the availability of data – the new ‘digital fuel’. Data lakes are popping up everywhere, application-programming interfaces are available on the internet allowing us to access all manner of data, and we (as individuals and businesses) are generating a huge but insightful ‘digital exhaust’.

Finally, just as steam engines were fashioned out of steel to improve efficiency and reduce production costs during the Industrial Revolution, the increase in cloud computing capacity has allowed large swathes of data to be stored for mere dollars within a matter of seconds. As a result of these developments, the AI revolution is set to take the service industry by storm, changing the role of the white-collar worker irrevocably.

Race to embrace AI
Organisations are scrambling to become AI leaders in their respective fields. All manner of companies are searching for opportunities to automate or augment numerous decision-making tasks by using more information in real time. But the starting gun has already fired and a leading pack has emerged, with the likes of Amazon, PayPal, Google and Facebook stealing a march on the rest.

And with their low cost bases, seamless, real-time customer interactions and competitively priced products, these companies could become impossible to catch if competitors delay further. These stakes are compounded by governmental regulations such as the UK’s Open Banking initiative and the EU’s Second Payment Services Directive, which are driving competition in this space.

AI can generate significant insights into a company’s customers, suppliers and business relationships by utilising huge volumes of seemingly disparate data. This underpins the ability to make automated – but unique – decisions for each individual or organisation on a whole range of topics. The applications are potentially limitless, so it’s imperative companies adopt a proactive, rather than reactive, approach to AI.

Superior outcomes
Imagine being able to increase your customer prospects by 80 percent, simultaneously making them more targeted and pre-qualified without adding to your workload. By combining global lists of businesses, directors, investors and shareholders with your existing customer base, AI systems can do just that.

AI systems will study the characteristics of your best customers, scour the globe to find similar businesses, and rate them based on a whole range of factors before presenting you with the best opportunities. They will even go as far as telling you which of your current customers could make an introduction.

AI systems can also help manage compliance, reducing the hefty costs financial institutions face when employing tens of thousands of staff to perform Know Your Customer checks and anti-money-laundering transaction monitoring.

This financial outlay is often exacerbated by public reaction to negative news stories, such as the Panama Papers leak in 2015. However, by providing a full contextual overview of prospects and customers, and by linking data across numerous sources, AI systems can automatically classify potential criminality far more accurately than traditional rule-based systems or humans following guidelines.

In fact, through the identification of illicit money movements and the improvement of false-positive rates, AI can reduce staff effort by up to 70 percent.

In addition to the numerous business benefits, improvements in compliance will also help to minimise the funding of organised crime, reducing incidents of human trafficking, terrorism, radicalisation, corruption and inequality through tax evasion.

Put simply, by providing more contextual information on the businesses being assessed, AI can identify and predict risk more accurately. After all, you wouldn’t choose to buy a house by simply looking through the letterbox: you would go inside, look around the neighbourhood, compare it to similar properties and then make your decision.

Seeing eye to AI
In order to keep pace, businesses must prepare their data properly. While many organisations understand that data provides fresh insights into both businesses and customers – employing chief data officers and setting up data lakes – not all have realised the value of adding automated AI decision-making capabilities. People also panic about data quality.

They shouldn’t – it will never be perfect. AI is a game of statistics, and you can use quantity to overcome quality. Just remember that context is critical; the AI engine needs to be fed with networked data that provides the full picture.

For example, you shouldn’t assess a claim in isolation when you could look at a network of connected claims to prove whether it is genuine or part of an organised fraud ring.

The second step is understanding AI. Many businesses confuse AI with robotic process automation, which is a basic capability that introduces another computer to automate existing legacy systems by following the same rules a human operator would.

AI, meanwhile, is a step change to achieve superior decision-making based on deeper insight and more data. Don’t think of AI as simply being machine or deep learning: AI is more effective as a combination of techniques.

The third step involves identifying the right problems. Organisations that have struggled with AI will likely have either applied it to an unsuitable situation, prepared the data incorrectly or alienated the user.

It is very important, therefore, to carefully select problems that can be solved by the available data. To solve the user interaction issue, you have to move past the belief that AI is purely a machine-learning tool providing yes or no answers. Engage users by ensuring the interface presents the full picture and explains the reasons underpinning its decisions.

The final step is ensuring you have a well-structured programme in place. You need streams of work to underpin a series of AI pilots and projects, such as data acquisition, data science skills, data lake environments, IT engagement, pilot-to-production processes, awareness and communicating success. Don’t wait for the race to be won: make a start today, take baby steps and reap the benefits of AI success.

Top 5 reasons to do business in North Rhine-Westphalia

Posted on by ashton

The state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is the most important economic region in Germany and has for years been one of the most popular locations for foreign companies in Europe to base their operations.

Approximately 20,000 foreign companies have settled in NRW, including global players such as 3M, BP, Ericsson, Ford, Huawei, QVC, Toyota and Vodafone, as well as numerous SMEs.

For these businesses, location is a real factor in their success. The New Economy outlines five features of the state that make it so attractive to businesses.

A dynamic business location at the centre of Europe
NRW is the beating heart of the German economy. With 17.9 million inhabitants, NRW is the most populous of Germany’s 16 federal states. It generates more than one fifth of the total German GDP, totalling €691.5bn ($778.4bn).

From no other location in Europe can so many people with such high purchasing power be reached within such short distances

If NRW were a country in its own right, it would rank 19th internationally in terms of GDP, ahead of Switzerland, Saudi Arabia and Argentina. Around 160 million people live within 500km of the state capital, Düsseldorf.

From no other location in Europe can so many people with such high purchasing power be reached within such short distances.

The home of world market leaders
One out of four German market leaders from all economic sectors comes from NRW. Out of the 50 highest grossing German companies, 20 have their headquarters in NRW, including Bayer, Bertelsmann, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, E.ON, Henkel and ThyssenKrupp.

Moreover, around 712,000 SMEs form the economic backbone of the state. This broad economic base of established and up-and-coming businesses produces a dynamic business environment.

A gateway to Europe with excellent transport infrastructure
NRW supports mobility by providing outstanding infrastructure in the state and in connection with other locations. All major European cities can be reached within three hours from the two major international airports: Düsseldorf and Cologne Bonn, which is Germany’s third largest cargo airport.

A dense network of waterways, railways and roads provides fast routes to the sales and procurement markets in Europe and the rest of the world. Duisburg is home to the world’s largest inland port, which handles more than 131 million tons of goods per year and ensures reliable connections to Belgian and Dutch seaports. These factors mean the logistics industry is among the fastest growing business sectors in NRW.

World-class research and development
More than 110 technology centres and non-university research institutes deliver first-class research in NRW and provide ideal conditions for technology transfer. The wide range of courses offered by the 70 universities in the state means companies from all industries can find qualified employees.

The 764,000 students at the state’s universities, 92,000 of whom are from abroad, form a considerable pool of talent that German and foreign companies profit from. That is more than in the Paris metropolitan area and four times as many as in Berlin.

A future-orientated digital location
NRW is poised to become the leading location for the digital economy in Germany. The state is already ahead of all other German regions, including Berlin, in terms of the number of digital start-up companies it hosts. Every fifth German start-up comes from NRW, and they are rising in number.

The NRW economy is taking major steps towards digitalisation along the entire value-added chain, offering excellent market opportunities for digital companies. Moreover, young start-ups in the seed and foundation phase have access to a great deal of support in NRW in the form of incubators as well as public and private accelerators.

The regional government has established six digital hubs to connect start-ups with SMEs and large industrial companies, laying the groundwork for the development of new technologies and the economy’s digital transformation.

How Fortnite became the most successful free-to-play game ever

Posted on by ashton

What do you get when you combine Minecraft with Call of Duty, and then add vital elements from PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)? The biggest video game on the planet right now. Fortnite is a battle-royale-style multiplayer, filled with cartoonish characters and played across numerous platforms. It’s colourful, fun, easy to play, hard to master and enjoyable to spectate.

Released in September 2017, the current version of the game sees 100 players parachuted onto an island where they fight to survive, building forts and collecting weapons to bolster their position. According to SuperData, Fortnite made over $1.2bn in its first 10 months of operation – an extraordinary feat, especially for a game that is free to download.

With more than 125 million players around the world, Fortnite’s fan base is both colossal and incredibly varied. It has grabbed headlines and been obsessed over. In other words, there’s a buzz around Fortnite that puts it in a league of its own.

Getting under the skin
Fortnite has been a long time in the making. It’s the sum of many different parts – an amalgamation of creator Epic Games’ previous successes (think Gears of War, Paragon and Fortnite’s predecessor, Save the World). When it was first released in July 2017, Fortnite held the usual $40 price tag, and sales were steady. It wasn’t until the free version was introduced a couple of months later, however, that Fortnite became a global phenomenon.

While Fortnite is free to play, Epic Games charges for new player outfits, weapons, celebratory dances and even special missions

When asked what makes Fortnite so popular, Piers Harding-Rolls, Director of Research and Analysis at IHS Markit, told The New Economy: “It’s a mixture of things, really. The game is free to download. It is available across a wide number of devices and platforms – console, PC and mobile. It uses a genre, battle royale, which is highly engaging both as a gamer and as a live streamer.”

The move to make Fortnite a free download was an inspired decision by Epic, opening the game to new audiences beyond the die-hard gamer. But the question many still ask is how has a free online game made so much money in such a short period of time?

Here comes the clever bit: microtransactions. While Fortnite is free to play, Epic charges for new player outfits (known as ‘skins’), weapons, celebratory dances (‘emotes’) and even special missions. Bought with V-Bucks, items are only available for a few days at a time, making them all the more coveted. Players see others wearing something they like and, knowing it’ll soon be gone forever, they rush to buy it before missing out – a classic behavioural psychology trick.

Value of Epic Games

$825m

2012

$5-8bn

2018

Interestingly, despite being entirely superficial, items can cost as much as $20 a pop. “[Fortnite] monetises through [the] sale of an in-game currency [that can only be used] for cosmetic items… which means a level playing field for all gamers,” Harding-Rolls said. Again, Epic has understood the social psychology behind its customers – a natural inclination to be different, while also joining in.

In fact, those who fail to buy the optional extras are often referred to as ‘no skins’. As such, players are motivated to spend money on features that have absolutely no impact on their gameplay.

For all seasons
But that’s not the only shrewd element of Epic’s business strategy: Fortnite is also divided into seasons, introducing new themes and a number of major changes to gameplay and landscape on a regular basis.

Season five, for example, featured rifts (cracks in the space-time continuum) that players could interact with. Seasons also come with the chance to buy new ‘Battle Passes’, which, for 950 V-Bucks or $9.99, give players access to new items, providing they manage to level up during the season.

“Fortnite uses a two-tier approach to its in-game monetisation,” Harding-Rolls told The New Economy. “A low-priced Battle Pass, which refreshes every season, gives players the ability to access better in-game items (emotes, skins etc.) than [those] playing for free.

Players can then go on to spend more on these cosmetic items if they want immediate access and don’t want to grind for them in-game. This Battle Pass strategy has driven high conversion, which has led to better overall [average revenue per user] for the game.

“For a session-based online game, content updates are its lifeblood. Without updates, engagement will fall and the user base will inevitably decline. The season strategy is core to the monetisation of the game. The season approach also fits with the eSports format, so I can see these two aligning in the future as Fortnite builds out that part of its scene.”

The overhaul of each season, coupled with the drip-feeding of content, ensures the game never gets old. “For many watching, Fortnite is high-quality entertainment, as every match is different, which keeps the experience fresh,” Harding-Rolls added.

Major players
The aesthetics of Fortnite is yet another stratagem for attracting a diverse fan base. As Harding-Rolls explained: “Fortnite uses cartoon-like graphics and avoids realism (blood etc.) to attract a younger audience and broaden its appeal.”

That’s why Fortnite is talked about with as much enthusiasm in the playground – many parents now worry their children are addicted to the game – as it is among seasoned gamers. With so many people playing, there’s a greater desire to stand out and show off, further feeding the appeal of buying seemingly pointless skins and emotes.

Famous fans have further cemented the game’s worldwide status. From rapper Drake and DJ Deadmau5 to Los Angeles Lakers’ Josh Hart and Boston Red Sox’s David Price (who reportedly had to stop playing the game due to carpal tunnel syndrome), almost everyone is talking about Fortnite.

And when French footballer Antoine Griezmann celebrated his goal against Croatia in the World Cup final with Fortnite’s ‘Take the L’ dance, he thrust the game onto a truly global stage. “The game has turned into a viral phenomenon,” Harding-Rolls said. “[Principally] through [the] real-life sharing of in-game emotes, which has had a bigger impact than spending on marketing.”

Then there’s the game’s accessibility. Fortnite is available on various consoles, including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, as well as on both iOS and Android mobile platforms. What’s more, it allows for seamless cross-play between devices – a rarity in the gaming world.

Knowing the significance of the multiplatform advantage, Epic was quick to release the game on mobile and, unlike rival PUBG, avoided signing an exclusivity deal with a platform.

Next level
Epic doesn’t just make games, either: it’s also responsible for providing one of the most widely used operating systems in game development, Unreal Engine. And with Unreal Engine underpinning Fortnite, Epic has managed to eradicate the need for a middleman: rather than purchasing through a third-party platform like Steam, customers buy directly from Epic, streamlining the process for players and, more importantly, removing approximately 30 percent in commission fees from Epic’s outgoings.

With so many successful moving parts in play, Epic’s value has soared. In 2012, when Chinese tech giant Tencent bought a 40 percent stake in the company, Epic was valued at just $825m. Today, it is estimated to be worth between $5bn and $8bn.

Fortnite’s success isn’t down to good luck, nor is it a case of being in the right place at the right time: it rests on an ingenious business model that understands human behaviour, appeals to the masses and keeps them coming back for more.

Naturally, other industry players will attempt to emulate Fortnite’s success, but replicating each element of this particular formula will be far from easy. To paraphrase the growing contingent of schoolchildren, celebrities and professional athletes who have entered the gaming community via Fortnite, Epic has well and truly ‘ganked’ its rivals.

Big Oil spent only 1.3 percent of capital expenditure on green energy in 2018

Posted on by ashton

The world’s largest oil companies spent just 1.3 percent of their annual budgets on climate change reduction initiatives, a new report has found.

Environmental research charity CDP studied the top 24 publicly listed firms across the globe, including oil giants Royal Dutch Shell, Total and BP, and found that these firms spent a collective $3.38bn on low-carbon energy in 2018, just 1.3 percent of the firms’ combined $260bn budget.

Jeanne Martin, a representative of responsible investment charity ShareAction, told Reuters: “This one percent figure pales in comparison with the amount of money Big Oil spends blocking climate initiatives and regulations, and invests in fossil fuel projects that have no place in a well-below two degree Celsius world.”

Green investments by European oil firms far outweighed those of their US and Asian counterparts

Green investments by European oil firms far outweighed those of their US and Asian counterparts, the report showed. Initiatives by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total, based in the Netherlands, the UK and France respectively, accounted for 70 percent of the entire sector’s renewable capacity and almost all of the capacity under development today.

Shell is leading the way in terms of monetary investment, with plans to spend between $1bn and $2bn a year on renewable technologies, out of a total budget of $25bn to $30bn.

Norwegian firm Equinor also has ambitious spending targets, pledging to allocate between 15 and 20 percent of its budget to clean energy by 2030. Meanwhile, French giant Total has set the bar high by spending the most on low-carbon energy since 2010, an average of 4.3 percent of its budget.

At the other end of the league table, Russia, China and the US’ biggest players have paid little regard to investing in green initiatives while also producing the highest CO2 emissions.

Chinese firms PetroChina and Sinopoec, Russia’s Gazprom and the US’ ExxonMobil produced more CO2 than the other 22 firms combined.

“With less domestic pressure to diversify, US companies have not embraced renewables in the same way as their European peers,” said CDP the report.

Overall green investment accelerated in the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement, during which 195 governments agreed to reduce net emissions to zero by 2100 in order to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius.

A number of positive initiatives have been put in place, such as the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, a 13-strong group of the worlds’ top oil and gas companies, members of which have accelerated spending on wind and solar power and rechargeable battery technology.

Nevertheless, the IPCC’s landmark climate report, released last month, indicates that current efforts will not be enough to deliver on the most ambitious targets set out at the Paris Agreement.

According to the IPCC report, even if global warming doesn’t surpass the 1.5-degree lower limit set by scientists, over 70 percent of the world’s coral reefs will be destroyed.

If the upper two-degree limit is reached, 99 percent of reefs would be lost and global sea levels would rise by an additional 10cm, affecting 10 million more people.

Oil and gas is the most polluting sector in the world and, as such, firms within the sector have a responsibility to tackle climate change. This includes acting in accordance with the Paris climate agreement on renewables and clean energy initiatives.

The latest CDP report is proof that these firms are not doing as much as they could; their inaction will have severe consequences for the planet.

The internet never forgets, but people do

Posted on by ashton

Like the proverbial elephant, the internet has an infallible and durable memory. Year on year it grows, swelling with news reports, videos, photographs and games; an intangible brain that millions of users can tap into at any moment. As more aspects of our lives shift online, the internet is storing more and more information about us in its vast database.

This wealth of data is having a profound effect on our human collective memory – that is to say, the shared pool of information that society can tap into. On the one hand, technology is providing us with more sources of information, giving us access to a wider range of communities and a new way of storing memories. On the other, it’s bombarding us with so much content, of varying degrees of legitimacy, that we’re struggling to process information in the same way as before.

Collaborative thinking
Collective memory is a communal pot of information that appears in the memories of two or more members of a social group. The term was coined in the 1920s by philosopher and sociologist Maurice Halbwachs, who wrote La Mémoire Collective (The Collective Memory). But the age of mass media and, more recently, the digital era, has introduced new elements to our understanding of collective memory and the way modern society remembers.

Sharing in the same cultural moment and subsequently sharing our memories of that moment allows us to feel part of something greater than ourselves

Dr Stephanie Baker, a sociology lecturer at City, University of London, explained: “When we speak about collective memory, we still mean what we meant 20 years ago, prior to the ubiquity of the internet. What has changed, though, is our means of accessing collective memories, storing, discovering and retrieving them. It is our interaction with our memories that has changed.”

The digital age has provided us with a wealth of new collective memories, from the news and film to photographs, quotes, songs, adverts and more. Thanks to the internet, we can store those memories in a far more accessible way, meaning a wider range of users can tap into them with the click of a button.

Social media has also attributed a new quality to those memories by allowing us to actively contribute to them, whether that’s by sharing a homemade video, liking a Facebook post or watching a live stream on Twitter. “Events are not only collectively committed to memory now, but also actively collectively produced,” said Dr Taha Yassieri, a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute.

This type of collaborative, mass, collective memory is closely linked to the formation of a new sort of community. Sharing in the same cultural moment and subsequently sharing our memories of that moment allows us to feel part of something greater than ourselves. It allows us to connect with people, creating new kinds of communities that don’t rely on physical proximity, but on shared interests and memories. It affords a new sense of belonging, kinship and commonality that didn’t previously exist in the same way.

Baker offers an example: “In 2015, a girl named Emily Trunko set up a Tumblr account [called] The Last Message Received in order to document the last messages people received from ex-significant others, deceased friends and relatives. Beyond providing a digital space to store memories, the account became this collective space where strangers who had this shared experience of loss could express their grief. Occupying this common space, albeit online, actually changed their experience and how they engaged with their memories. So the fact that digital technologies enable us to access communities in vast temporal and spatial settings has changed the ways in which we interact with memories and our past.”

Trust issues
While the construction of new communities is undoubtedly positive, the ability to contribute to collective memory through digital platforms can also pose issues, especially with regards to reliability. Digitalisation and online communities have generated a wealth of data that is accessible to anyone with an internet connection. That data can be reproduced and reframed as new events take place and related information, verifiable or not, comes to light.

Every one of our online actions is committed to a digital record and stored online to be accessed at any moment, by either ourselves or another party

Wikipedia is a key example of this, and offers insights into the shape-shifting nature of collective memory. From 2015 to 2016, Yassieri and his team at Oxford conducted a study that aimed to quantify collective memory through measuring page view statistics on Wikipedia. The team suggested that for a term, event or phenomenon to be searched for on Wikipedia it must exist in collective memory.

“One of our findings was that we have a very large collective memory,” Yassieri told The New Economy. “Events that are happening now trigger links to events that had happened even 30 or 40 years ago.” He argues that Wikipedia facilitates a better understanding of the world around us because it gives us easy access to information that we previously would have had to research in a library. “Digital media and digital encyclopaedias like Wikipedia mean that we’re just a click away from information relating to events happening around you at any given moment,” Yassieri added.

Yassieri notes that in the pre-internet era, information would have come from traditional media outlets such as newspapers, which are arguably far more reliable sources than Wikipedia or social media sites. He cites the Wikipedia entry about the Arab Spring, which is “different to what you might find in a monograph that doesn’t have a collective aspect to it”, such as an encyclopaedia or book. “[On Wikipedia,] there are different versions of the same truth that are being revised and rewritten every now and then. That introduced a whole new aspect to collective memory because it becomes a dynamic thing.”

Baker notes the dynamic aspect of the platform but argues that there are limitations to its collective nature. “Wikipedia is a very interesting example because it is often held up as this example of the democratisation of knowledge by virtue of the fact that anyone can contribute in theory,” she said. “But in practice, [it doesn’t] – there is actually a very small number of editors who are the gatekeepers of knowledge. So even though this knowledge can be updated more frequently than, say, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is still essentially edited by a minority of experts.”

Nevertheless, the reliability of information available remains a concern. “While online platforms have granted us access to untold datasets and insights, they are, as has been seen recently, also tools and targets for disinformation,” explained Paul Armstrong, founder of technology advisory firm Here/Forth. “Trustworthiness is a huge focus and on-going issue [for businesses,] whether big or small.” He argues, though, that platforms such as Facebook and Google have as much responsibility to ensure trustworthiness as their users. “After all, if no one trusts you, why will they return or use your products? This issue is as much a PR one as [a] usability one.”

Information overload
Aside from concerns surrounding trustworthiness, the sheer volume of information available online may also pose an issue for our collective minds. Technology gives us access to a digital world that is so large we simply can’t take all of it in or hope to remember its contents. The English version of Wikipedia has more than 29 million pages, 10 million of which are in the encyclopaedia, 4.1 million are articles and the rest are redirects. Social media is just as overwhelming, with more than 4.75 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook on a daily basis, and an average of 500 million tweets posted every 24 hours.

Baker argues that due to confirmation bias the amount of information we’re exposed to on a daily basis is a tiny proportion of what is actually out there. “Despite the so-called data deluge, most people only really select the media and information that appeals to them, particularly in terms of partisan interests,” she said. “The issue of storage is somewhat different, because now there are so many specialist interests that we don’t all become privy to the same information and so, unless something is a major world event, you don’t have the same collective memories that you would have had in the past, especially on a national level.”

In that sense, collective memory is becoming more segregated, with groups having different shared memories depending on their interests. Baker explained that both online and offline most people make friends with people who are similar to them: “They share similar values, so it is unlikely that they will be exposed to radically different views or new information on social media. A case in point is Brexit – people who were Remainers tended to be friends with Remainers and so they were shocked when the Leave campaign was successful. In this regard, social media exaggerates what happens offline – we interact with people like us and we’re largely surrounded by homogenous voices.”

Distance from reality
Certain events do have a national impact and, as such, are more likely to be committed to the collective memory. These tend to be traumatic events such as natural disasters, wars or political uprisings, which uphold the pre-internet understanding of collective memory that states trauma is most likely to leave a lasting mark on the hive mind.

Some have argued that digital sharing is having a detrimental effect on our processing and memory of traumatic events because of the distance that technology grants us from those events. “The attention span of users on social media is extremely short… No matter how big the impact, no matter how many people died, for example, we tend to forget about it and stop paying attention to it after five or six minutes,” said Yassieri. This is also true of political or social movements: “When it comes to online mobilisations of movements or information, things explode within a couple of hours, at most a day, then from there they only decay.”

This shortened attention span could also be attributed to the physical manner in which we use technology such as mobile phones. The swipe-left, swipe-right function effectively creates a physical gesture of dismissal, which triggers our brain into dismissing that piece of information too, rather than committing it to memory. Moreover, technology distances us from the world around us, making us insular and limiting our real-life interactions. This distance can also make us feel removed from events or conversations that we see taking place online, allowing us to dismiss and forget things that we may have remembered far better in the past.

Digital records after death
It’s not just human collective memory that we must consider; the internet has a memory too and it is not as quick to forget as we are. Every one of our online actions is committed to a digital record and stored online to be accessed at any moment, by either ourselves or another party. This ranges from regretted social media posts to personal documents such as bank statements, tax records and medical records.

There have been various attempts in recent years to give us more control over our digital records, one of which was the introduction of European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the right to erasure clause. This grants a person the right to have their data deleted if they no longer want it to be processed by another party, assuming that party has no legitimate reason to keep it. This data could be anything from an email address to a medical or legal record. The regulation is designed to address the fact that consent to access someone’s personal record is not enduring – allowing someone to view personal information once does not grant them the right to do so forever.

The enduring nature of our online record can also be problematic if we become unable to access or control our online presence. A key example of this is what to do with a person’s social media account after they have died. Most other digital services have systems in place for making information inaccessible to any unauthorised parties and even destroying it after death, but social media platforms do not. In August this year, Australian Instagram star Sinead McNamara died during her stewardship on a luxury yacht. McNamara had a substantial Instagram following and after her death her final post was flooded with comments, many of love and respect, but a significant proportion of which were attacks from online trolls.

As the majority of social platforms do not have transfer of ownership policies in place for their users’ deaths, McNamara’s friends and family have been unable to access her account. Her online profile has been harmed by malicious comments, which have denigrated the way she will now appear in the collective memory.

Safeguarding shared recollection
To some extent, there are certain aspects of collective memory that will always remain the same, regardless of the impact of technology. Collective memory will always be fallible because it relies on the unpredictable human mind. Similarly, it will always be transitory as it fluctuates with each generation. Certain events and images are ingrained in the collective consciousness now, but when this generation is no longer here, many memories will be lost to the past. Instead, we’ll rely on fragmented accounts from factual material rather than a retelling of what it was actually like to live through certain cultural moments.

Technology goes some way towards accelerating the forgetting and fragmenting process. The segmenting of collective memories and increased control over the internet’s hive mind means some events will be forgotten, even if the generation that experienced them is still alive. It also presents the risk that we won’t remember the things that really matter because they were presented in a transient way in the online world.

Being aware of this fact means we can take steps to make the most of technology. We can do this by taking advantage of the access to communities that technology affords while ensuring we don’t get so caught up in the online world that it has a detrimental effect on our memory function. There’s little research in the public domain about this issue and more awareness is needed, particularly to safeguard future generations from irreparable losses to their shared recollection. Technology should be a tool rather than a crutch – it should be a singular aspect of our collective memory, rather than its sole underpinning.