Categories
Analytics News Outils 2.0 politic Réseaux sociaux

OSINT – L’art du renseignement sur internet

Vous n’avez jamais entendu parler d’OSINT ? Découvrez l’art du renseignement sur internet : l’OSINT. Vous utilisez sans le savoir certaines de ses informations et de ses outils tous les jours.

Qu’est-ce que l’OSINT ?

« OSINT » est l’abréviation de « Open-source intelligence » en anglais. En français, le « ROSO » pour « Renseignement d’origine sources ouvertes » qui désigne l’utilisation des informations publiques.

L’OSINT permet d’enquêter depuis votre bureau, devant votre écran. Cette technique profite des multiples possibilités que permet le web de trouver des informations. En effet cela fait appel à de nombreux outils du quotidien ainsi que des outils plus sophistiqués afin de collecter, de traiter et d’analyser des informations. Toutes les informations trouvées sont disponibles sur internet ou sur n’importe quel autre média public, généralement dans le cadre d’une enquête.

En application, l’OSINT peut vous permettre grâce à simple une photo, une vidéo ou un profil de réseau social de retrouver un certain nombre d’informations. Par exemple : une localisation, une identité, une date ou n’importe quel autre type d’information.

Introduction à l’OSINT

Les différentes branches de l’OSINT

Il existe plusieurs branches à l’OSINT, comme l’explique le site de la communauté française OSINT-FR :

  • SOCMINT (Social Media Intelligence) : l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux pour obtenir des informations.
  • IMINT (Imagery Intelligence) : l’analyse de tout type d’images comme les photos classiques. On peut aussi citer l’utilisation d’images de satellites, infrarouges, radar, etc.
  • GEOINT (Geospatial Intelligence) : l’analyse combinée des informations de géolocalisation, géologiques et météorologiques tout en faisant appel à l’IMINT.
  • SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) : elle, est décrite comme « l’analyse des signaux électromagnétiques et communications radio ».
  • MASINT (Measurement and signature intelligence) : désigne l’utilisation et l’analyse des informations issues de tout type de capteur.

Qui peut faire de l’OSINT ?

Les professions utilisant l’OSINT sont généralement des journalistes, des enquêteurs, des professionnels de l’informatique et des hackers. Même si l’OSINT peut faire appel à des connaissances en informatique elle n’est pas limitée aux professionnels. Cette méthode passe aussi par l’utilisation des réseaux sociaux et d’outils comme Google Maps ou Google Earth, connu de tous. Par définition, tout le monde peut faire de l’OSINT. L’information étant disponible à tous, n’importe quel internaute est libre de pratiquer les techniques qui y sont associées.

L’OSINT se base énormément sur des communautés de passionnés partageant techniques, outils et informations. Les enquêtes sont souvent longues et nécessitent de la patience et de investissement personnel. En effet, celles-ci demandent de recouper les informations et de les vérifier tout en exploitant un maximum de sources. C’est pour ces raisons que les enquêtes sont aussi menées à plusieurs ainsi qu’entre communautés.

Ces méthodes ont permis d’aider de nombreuses enquêtes. Leurs actions aident par exemple à retrouver des individus disparus. Mais aussi à résoudre des crises géopolitiques mondiales et permettent de dénoncer des crimes et actions terroristes.

Les objectifs de l’OSINT : l’exemple de Bell¿ngcat

Afin de montrer les possibilités qu’offrent l’application de techniques d’OSINT, parlons de l’exemple de Bell¿ngcat.

Logo de Bell¿ngcat

L’une des communautés les plus connues médiatiquement qui utilise l’OSINT pour mener ses enquêtes se nomme Bell¿ngcat que l’on lit « Bellingcat ». Cette communauté s’articule autour d’un site web crée par un blogueur nommé Eliot Higgings en juillet 2014 et regroupe un certain nombre de journalistes d’investigation ainsi que des citoyens volontaires. Le site est spécialisé dans la vérification d’information ainsi que dans le renseignement de type OSINT.

Les objectifs de cette communauté sont de d’archiver et de protéger les différents contenus qui selon eux, pourraient être utilisés dans le cadre d’enquêtes officielles. Aussi, ils œuvrent dans le but de rendre accessible et publiques toutes informations qui sont utiles à dévoiler la vérité sur des crimes et des violations des droits de l’Homme, dans l’objectif que justice soit rendue.

Dans les faits d’arme du collectif nous retrouvons :

  • La mise en accusation de la Russie dans le cadre de l’enquête sur le vol MH17. Le vol de la compagnie Malaysia Airlines provenant d’Amsterdam et en direction de Kuala Lumpur a été abattu au-dessus du territoire ukrainien. Bellingcat à montré qu’un missile antiaérien avait tiré par tiré par un lanceur d’une brigade de l’armée russe.
  • Le groupe a permis grâce à ses méthodes d’enquête de retrouver des membres de l’armée régulière du Cameroun et de démontrer leur culpabilité dans le meurtre de deux femmes et deux jeunes enfants.
  • Les Bell¿ngcats ont confirmer l’empoisonnement du ressortissant russe Alexeï Navalny. En s’appuyant sur des faits similaires survenu auparavant et impliquant la Russie.
  • Comme dernier exemple nous pouvons citer l’identification d’un des auteurs d’actes criminels à Charlottesville en 2017 lors des émeutes dû à un rassemblement de l’extrême droite américaine.

Conclusion

L’OSINT est une pratique entièrement légale car n’utilisant que des informations en libre-accès. Les outils mis en place sont aussi légaux et pour la plupart utilisables sans compétences particulières. Comme présenté précédemment, elle est une méthode de renseignement ouverte à tous. L’OSINT sert à des fins d’enquête et permet à certaines communautés de trouver des éléments clés dans certaines affaires. Cela touche des enquêtes d’ampleur ou plus classiques grâce à un maniement intelligent d’internet. L’open source intelligence se sert des informations libres d’accès à des fins de renseignement avancés.

Néanmoins l’OSINT peut aussi être utile à des fins personnelles. Par exemple, pour observer le nombre d’information que l’on sème sur internet. En effet, nous laissons transparaitre des informations sans même en avoir conscience. Ces informations sont en libre accès par le biais de nos réseaux sociaux par exemple. Expliquer l’OSINT ainsi que ses pratiques pourrait amener plus d’utilisateurs à s’en rendre compte. Ou bien, à mettre en perspective la quantité d’informations personnelles qu’ils laissent en libre accès. Et par conséquent, de mettre en avant l’importance de la protection des données.

Pour aller plus loin sur le sujet de la protection des données privées :

Categories
Analytics Digital Business Interview Marketing Outils 2.0

A gateway into the matrix with Mathilde Parlant (Data Analyst)

Meet Mathilde Parlant, former business student at ESSCA, who has a strong appetite for Data collection and analysis. She shares with us her keys to understanding the technical and human aspects of her job as Data Business Analyst in a major French bank institution.

 

Hello Mathilde, can you introduce yourself in a few words?

I’m currently a Data Business Analyst at Société Générale. Before getting to this point, I went to ESSCA, a business school, and I decided to do a general master’s degree in international business because it seemed to me to be the most general and because it offered the possibility of doing it in China in Shanghai. It was there that I could really discover the digital world which is booming and moreover is much more developed than in France. That’s how I managed to get an internship at KPMG with missions in digital marketing and content creation. This experience gave me a taste for data. That’s why I decided to follow a master specialized in digital marketing and Big data for value and ended up at Société Générale as a Data Business Analyst where I am currently working.

 

Can you explain me your job and your relationship with data ?

The job of Data Analyst is a job in which your head is really immersed in the data and all the information of the company in which you work. For my part, I work more on data projects in general, so it will be for example the management of banners in marketing and it will be necessary to make queries to try to recover the data that would allow to improve the performance or the actions of the company and also to allow to convince more easily the customers. This job relies mainly on several technical skills such as queries in several programming languages such as SQL or Python and SAS which allow to build data bases that are more specific and linked to the subject we want to treat. These data bases are then used to create dashboards which allow to have a visualization of all the different campaigns and thus to be able to make forecasts and to lead actions accordingly.

 

What skills do you think you need to perform the Data Analyst job?

I think that it is necessary to know how to work with a team. because it rests much on the mutual aid, it is a little the policy of our service. Therefore yes our teamwork is very important, but it is necessary of course to have a lot of rigour and to know to check that the data are correct, that there are no errors in the sources of data and in the data bases. Then I would say that you need patience, because the queries don’t always work the first time, so you have to start again, you have to do other research and always go further.

 

What do you think about the relationship between humans and machines in your sector?

So precisely in what I do on a daily basis one could quickly think that it is rather machines work since we always have our hands in the data, to be on our computers to make our data bases and our dashboards exepts that yes that is important. It is necessary, but there is also the human aspect precisely in the team where I work, as I said before  because everyone has more or less the same needs and so we will discuss between us to see what we can bring to each other and to help each other in general. So it’s going to reconcile the two to some extent. As data analysts, we’ll create our queries, we’ll set up the different formulas and processes to follow and then we’ll do just that. Then it’s the role of the data scientists who will actually model these different tables and then automate them, and from then on it can be considered as being “machines and algorithms work”.

 

If you could describe the Data Analysis job in 3 words?

Rigor, technique and perseverance.

 

Can you introduce me to La Société Générale and your activities?

Société Générale is a large banking group and I work in the retail banking sector in France, which means everything that corresponds to private individuals living in France. The market structure is divided into 3 parts: private clients, commercial clients and all the clients that correspond to companies or associations. I work more in the area of individuals.

 

What are your plans for the future?

So for now, since I’m really learning every day about programming languages and all the technical side, I think I’m going to try to consolidate my bases and continue in this path for at least 5 years, so that I can really have a solid basis to then become a data scientist and develop new skills to do data modeling and data automation.

 

Categories
A.I Augmented Reality COVID-19 Events Newtech Outils 2.0 Tech News Tokyo

Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games Tech innovations

Here we are, Tokyo’s 2020 Olympic Games have finally started this Friday, on 23rd July. The games formerly scheduled to be held during summer 2020 were delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These Olympics are gathering around 11,000 athletes from 206 countries, and it is also the opportunity for Japan to perform a real show of technological innovations.

Robotic guides, autonomous cars, crowd control directed by artificial intelligence, facial recognition and immersive virtual reality are among the technologies presented at the Olympics. Let’s take a look at some of these technologies.

 

What are the technological challenges for the city of Tokyo?

For these Olympic games and especially because of the pandemic, security will be a key concern, and high-tech may help with crowd control and infection risk management.

These technological innovations are not just created for the Olympics. The city is actually studying how can IoTs be used to improve everyday life in Tokyo. However, such a big event is the perfect opportunity to implement and test them.

Tokyo has already implemented many smart city ideas using IoT technology. For instance, in the public transports an IoT-based smart maintenance system was introduced to minimize disruption. Sensors can collect data to identify weak points, predict equipment failures, and inform when and where maintenance is needed.

Tokyo also wants to use IoTs to help reduce carbon emissions and become a more environmentally friendly city. For instance, parts of the Olympic village are meant to be turn into fully hydrogen-powered smart districts after the Games.

 

How IoT solutions will be apply to the Olympic Games?

 

 

Robots

In Japan, Robots are an emblem of the technological innovation. This is why we could not imagine Tokyo 2020s Olympic Games without those humanoids. If you watched the Opening Ceremony, you probably have already seen some of them. Robots are puts in the airport to welcome visitors and ensure multilingual guidance. Olympic athletes can meet no less than six different models of robots. All robots are there to provide an assistance to the spectators and the personnel of the Olympics. Since no foreign spectators are allowed to come to the Olympics, Robots are also equipped with cameras which allow to live a virtual experience, as if you were in the heart of the Olympic sites in order to give access to the greatest number.

 

Immersive Live Viewing

As stated before, since no foreign spectator can assist to these Olympic Games, immersive virtual-reality experiences are available. It will allow them to enjoy the event in a more engaging manner. Viewers can enjoy the events in such a way that it really feels like they are sitting in the stadium.

 

Autonomous Cars

Autonomous vehicles will be used during the Olympics. These cars are made to drive passengers on some specific trips like from the airport to the Olympic village and around different Olympic places in Tokyo. It will ensure the transportation of athletes and staff. Around 100 self-driving cars will be on the road during the Olympics. This new technology is not only useful during the Olympics but if it works properly, it can become one of the next generations of public transport in Tokyo. In partnership with Toyota, the International Olympic Committee has developed vehicles powered by artificial intelligence.

 

Facial Recognition Systems

The Facial Recognition technology is going to be used at Tokyo Olympics 2021. Autonomous cars will be equipped with a facial recognition system to identify athletesstaff members and journalists and prevent from identity usurpationfalsification and use of lost or stolen accreditations.

Facial recognition will also provide a way to prevent from coronavirus spread by using touchless security screening process. It will also track people’s moves to identified infected ones and find out those who were in close contact.

 

Language Translators

Olympics games gather people from all over the world speaking many different languages. To help passing through the language barrier Japan has developed instant translation systems. English to Japanese translation AI chatbots will be available on the robots. 

 

As you can see, these Tokyo 2020’s Olympic Games are not just a sport event, it is also an opportunity for Japan to show its technological innovations. We will have the opportunity to support our team for two weeks until August 8th.

Next Olympic Games will be held in China during winter 2022. These games will also be challenging for China regarding the pandemic.

But, for the moment, let’s enjoy the games. Which sport do you prefer to watch ?

 

References :

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/les-jeux-olympiques/jo-2021-quand-le-coronavirus-bouscule-les-jeux-les-plus-technologiques-de-lhistoire_4661127.html

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/use-of-technology-in-tokyo-olympics-2021/

https://www.raconteur.net/technology/internet-of-things/iot-tokyo-2020/

Categories
Business China Digital Business eCommerce entertainment Fashion Luxury Marketing Outils 2.0 Retail Services

Fiche de lecture : Luxe & Digital de Eric Briones

Adepte du digital depuis quelques années, je me suis souvent posée la question de me tourner vers une carrière dans le luxe mais aussi dans le digital. En parcourant les ouvrages sur le sujet du digital dans ma librairie je suis tombée sur ce livre qui allie ces deux sujets. Je connaissais l’auteur puisque nous avions la chance de voir un de ces webinars lors du HUB institute forum fin 2020. C’est donc avec attention que j’ai commencé la lecture.

Qui est Eric Briones ? 

Aussi connu sous son nom de bloggeur Darkplanneur, il est le co-fondateur de la Paris School of Luxury. Expert dans le luxe, il a exercé le métier de directeur du planning stratégique pour Publicis et Nous pendant plusieurs années. Il a également pu travailler et conseiller de nombreuses maisons de luxe telles que L’Oréal, LVMH ou encore Longchamps.

Aujourd’hui il écrit beaucoup de livres souvent avant-gardiste sur le luxe, le marketing ou bien les différentes générations.

Luxe & Digital

Le livre Luxe & Digital est sorti en 2016 mais il affirmait déjà certaines tendances actuelles. A l’aide de témoignages d’autres experts, Eric Briones donne les clés pour réussir à manier le luxe avec le digital.

Dans la première partie, il énumère les 10 clés du luxe Postdigital :

  • Clé 1 : Installer une culture de singularité digitale
  • Clé 2 : Avoir deux maîtres mots, clairvoyance et magie
  • Clé 3 : Régénérer sa puissance de fascination par sa communauté
  • Clé 4 : Passer du fan à l’inité
  • Clé 5 : Élire un enchanteur des conversations
  • Clé 6 : Imagery is currency
  • Clé 7 : Ouvrir les portes aux artisants Postdigitaux
  • Clé 8 : Ensorceler vos boutiques, développer l’expérience digitale augmentée
  • Clé 9 : Recharger vos histoires
  • Clé 10 : être à l’avant-garde du post-contemporain

 

Dans une seconde partie, il fait appel à des confrères pour répondre à plusieurs questions et étudier plusieurs grands thèmes, passant de la big data, de l’expérience, au retail entre autres.

En tant qu’étudiante MBD DMB Shanghai, l’un des sujets intéressants de ce livre fut évidemment la partie Chine. “Les chinois ne s’intéressent pas à notre passé mais à leur futur”. Cette phrase, Fred Raillard et Farid Mokart l’ont très bien comprise. Aujourd’hui, le digital chinois est en continuel changement. “Il ne s’agit plus d’aller quelque part pour acheter, c’est à la consommation de se déplacer”. Comme ils le soulignent tout est “commerce-tainment”. L’écosystème digital chinois est devenu présent dans la vie quotidienne et le mobile est roi. Les maisons de luxe doivent comprendre qu’ils faut aller à l’encontre de leur audience mais tout en gardant leurs valeurs.

 

Enfin, de manière générale, ce livre montre que pour faire du luxe dans les prochaines années, le digital doit devenir un des piliers fondateurs.

Bien que le digital change constamment, il est intéressant de lire ce livre qui approche les différents composants du luxe et se questionne déjà sur les meilleures façons de les aborder. Si vous êtes adeptes de luxe ou du digital en général, n’hésitez pas !

Manon Anger

 

Categories
A.I BAT China Outils 2.0 Strategy Success in China Tech News

Reading Sheet of “AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order”

About the author

Kai Fu Lee is born in Taiwan from Chinese parents, he emigrated to the USA at the age of 11, with a passion for mathematics. He did a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, “the incubator of cutting-edge AI research” and became passionate about machine learning and voice recognition. After having held executive positions at Apple and Microsoft, he went to China and became the first Chinese investor in venture capital with his company Sinovation Ventures. He advised many students and trained more than 5000 specialists in AI, including several senior executives of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.

His 30 years of experience makes him one of the world’s leading experts in AI. His book traces the evolution of AI from 1970 to 2017, when the Chinese government declares AI a top priority. “Sillicon Valley and China have an ecosystem born of very different cultural backgrounds” and this play a significant role in the approach and evolution of each country. China is known to have copied in many areas, often in low-end items, but these copiers have learned, assimilate with impressive speed and have launched into the creation of products and services tailored to the needs of the Chinese market. Indeed, China has been able to collect masses of valuable data that feed the algorithms in their purchases, their habits and their movements, ensuring a global advance compared to the rest of the world. The deep learning feeding on all these data to recognize the images, understand the spoken language, propose solutions after analyzing and cross-checking databases.

To date, China has an undeniable lead in the collection of these data with Tencent (owner of WeChat), as well as Alibaba with e-commerce and strong of more than one billion users with the intensive use of mobile (mobile only). But AI will affect all industrial structures, all areas of life and its progress will harm the professional environment, massive unemployment, greater inequality and bringing social crises. “AI would replace 40 to 50% of US jobs within 15 years while fortunes would accumulate at the big AI companies.”

The author makes a fine analysis and gives advice on the measures to be taken by the governments in all countries and asks them to think now about the sectors that will be affected.

 

Revelation

In 2016, 280 million Chinese viewers follow an Alpha Go confrontation with the best Korean player who succumbs to the machine. The Go is a 2500 years old game in China and still practiced in the 21th century. In 2017, the best player in the world, a young Chinese of 19 years old (Ke Jie) was beaten by the machine. With stupefaction and awareness, China governs immediately by mobilizing all its actors to meet the challenge of AI. The author compares this moment to the one experienced by the US when the first Soviet satellite “Sputnik” was launched in 1957. “This triggered the creation of NASA, the teaching of mathematics subsidized on a large scale and allowed 12 years later to send the first man to set foot on the moon: Niel Armstrong! ”

It is thanks to deep learning and machine learning, that the capabilities of AI have allowed a machine to win the Alpha Go. The author specifies the need to have “a large mass of data, experts, engineers, calculation capabilities out of the ordinary, colossal sums to advance everything”. It is indeed in this race that all the means have been put in China, as a proof the current level of AI in China. After Alpha Go, China launches a major plan to develop AI. Objectives are set for 2020 to 2025, the stated goal is to be the world leader by 2030.

 

The 4 waves of IA

Each wave will spread out in time, each one will exploit in its own way the power of this technology to submerge us. The successive waves will each bring facilities in all fields, each of them feeding on the previous one, affecting all economic sectors and our daily life. Already online AI and professional AI are present; the financial field is an example with the algorithms at work on the stock markets.

 

1st wave : AI online for more than a decade

Around 2012, the internet has propelled us to it: our video choices, purchases, our questions in all areas have been recorded, this data allows to display the target of the company that will give a positive image to customers, and will know our habits, our preferences, while the customer will get among other things personalized offers, “the algorithms are transformed into a tool for recommendations. “This wave remains confined to the technological sphere and the digital world”, Chinese and US are equal according to the author, who sees China in the lead in 5 years.

 

2nd wave : professional AI

According to Kai Fu Lee, this is the only field where the US domination is unquestionable. All the labeled data accumulated over the years in the insurance, banking and hospital sectors will allow algorithms to make particularly effective optimizations.
“As early as 2004, companies (Palantir – IBM) were advising companies and governments on big data”. The author sees a great evolution in China for the medical field, the algorithms would establish the dignostic which in the country would decrease the inequalities between big cities well equipped and countryside under equipped in this sector; similarly in the judicial sector to guide the magistrates, to pronounce the verdict and “to contribute to put in the right way the customary judges. At this stage, the US is in the lead (90/10) thanks to optimizations in banking and insurance among others. China will be in the lead within 5 years (70/30) by taking the lead especially in services.

 

3rd wave : perceptive AI

The digitization of the physical world will be implemented in the commercial sectors as a priority: it is necessary to rethink all human activity, to recognize objects, voice and sound data. The author warns that algorithms “will perform the bulk of interactions with the customer” and gives Exemples: Amazon Echo that digitizes the sound environment of the home, the city brain of Alibaba that digitizes the flow of traffic or Apple and Face ID cameras that do the same with the faces. In 2017, during the 1st visit of Trump in China, his speech in English on large screen began to speak Chinese. The AI is transforming the world. The Chinese company Yflytech had specialized in the field of AI to train its algorithms, respecting all the characteristics of the voice: intonation, pronunciation, all recalibrated in Mandarin. In the next few years, cities and supermarkets will be transformed, the author already cites KFC, associated with Alipay, which has installed in some of its restaurants a system that allows facial recognition, with a terminal recording the order, scanning the face, ensuring the presence of the person in the premises and debiting his account.

Moreover, this process will be used to educate, to detect delays or talents, to follow each one and to take in hand the delays of the pupils. The AI will be in the homes, the teachers will ensure the lectures, or will make individual sessions and many other fields will benefit from this process. That implies to recover important data of the physical world. “the US is reluctant, china is more open and has passed a cyber security law. Europe having adopted a more restrictive approach with the RGDP.” From this perceptive, AI needs all kinds of devices with sensors. In anticipation, China has created “the made in Shenzen, by rallying in one place of the chain studies, researchers and manufacturers of intelligent devices; with the largest network: 85 Billion connected objects, various products, reduced prices, amassing important data and preparing the 4th wave of autonomous AI.

 

4th wave : autonomous AI

For the author, the impact will be more important, it is a culmination: the machines were automated and they will be autonomous. To quote the example: harvesting strawberries in California by a machine guided by an algorithm picking without damage the ripe strawberries, the autonomous robots that prepare the orders at Amazon and eventually drones that will be able to supply isolated populations or put out forest fires.

On their side, Google and Telsa are working on autonomous cars, as well as Baidu, Uber, Didi and car manufacturers. Our daily life will be impacted: urban spaces, roads and already Chinese territories are modifying traffic lanes, adapting supply circuits. In the US, it is the new vehicles that will adapt to the existing roads. Indeed, he US have the most experienced specialists and have a 2/3 year lead over China. The observation made by the author at this stage comparing China/US is as follows: AI : online 50/50 ; pro 10/90 ; perceptive 60/40 ; autonomous 10/90 and the forecast 5 years ahead China/US: online 60/40 ; pro 30/70 ; perceptive 80/20 ; autonomous 50/50. China and US are moving forward, but in the long run developing countries will use them. US are trying to sell their standardized products while China chooses to finance native startups: Tencent or Alibaba in India and South East Asia or even Didi developing in US, Singapore, India or Middle East.

 

How to react

At the heart of this revolution, the new norm would become full employment for intelligent machines and eternal stagnation for the average worker because the faster, larger AI will surpass humans in physical and cognitive tasks. Solutions are studied taking into account the extent of the destruction of jobs, primarily among the most qualified and among workers, the author describes and gives examples: jobs concerning intellectual tasks in danger: technical translator, scientists etc. Those easy for AI alone : radiologists, accountants, trade unionists or those mixing AI and human as criminal lawyer, doctor and teacher. Similarly for jobs with physical tasks, would be preserved: home help, physiotherapist, hairdresser, aeronautical mechanic and in danger the easy jobs for AI : agricultural worker and truck driver for example.

Different approaches are evoked by the US or by the silicon valley: requalify thanks to continuous training to adapt and bring the necessary competences to the workers, but this would be permanent because of the fast evolution of AI and very quickly arriving at saturation, or redistribute the jobs by decreasing the working time to 3 days per week or share a job which would be held by two people, it would be or partial unemployment or lower wages. Other concepts are debated: the universal basic income which is far from being unanimous, or the minimum income guarantee which would be reserved for the poorest accompanied by heavy taxes imposed on AI companies.

Kai Fu Lee proposes rather a “social investment allowance, with guarantee of care, services, education” that the state would pay to associations “dedicated, creative, volunteers” all this of course after the completion of AI and takes appropriate measures before this time by paying “people caring for the elderly or parents of young children” for example and encourages the private sector to be “pioneer in the creation of human jobs that will be at the heart of this revolution”. The author also suggests to be inspired by other countries, to emphasize the craft knowledge, the culture of volunteering! “With AI, there can only be one winner. US and China will compete to make the most of this technology. Governments around the world must connect permanently to compare US/CHINA/EUR regulation policies and keep an open mind about the different ways to consider AI governance.

 

Conclusion

After this evolutionary assessment of AI and its disastrous consequences in the professional world (progress on the one hand, destruction on the other, questioning the life of everyone, our environment and our organizations), the author ends on a more optimistic note thanks to his personal experience and the questioning of his own life, due to the occurrence of cancer that has allowed him to become aware of a life other than the one he led. The presence and support of his family during his illness, the strength of love “which we know gives meaning to our lives” and the meeting with a Buddhist monk in a monastery in Taiwan, which led him with wisdom to rearrange the priorities of his life.

As for the end of Kai Fu Lee’s convalescence, he gives us the content “I considered my recovery from two angles, one technical, the other emotional” the two pillars of our future AI.

 

Categories
Apps Business China Chinese Chinese E-Commerce Plateforms Digital Business eCommerce Marketing Outils 2.0 platforms TikTok

TikTok, more than a social network?

 

 

TikTok to expand new business branches

 

TikTok, a LinkedIn competitor?

The network that everyone talks about, is getting a new haircut. Actually, new implants of hair so to speak. In deed, the famous short-video entertaining company is developping new tools in order to its user to find a job. Directly in competition with LinkedIn, how could this new branche look like? The idea is to create a webpage that you can access through TikTok, where you will find the different offers.

How will you be able to apply? Well, through the very principle of the app : video. You will have to record a “video CV”, which you will eventually be able to display on your TikTok account. The latter will be optional of course, only if you want to promote this new service or not. That being said, you can already find those kind of video on the app : people showing their daily routine, their skills or their job. Either way, this update will surely bring more traffic to the app, a younger audience looking for beginner jobs. Let’s juste hope that TikTok secures the different job posts and ensure to authenticate each recruiter.

 

The first steps of E-commerce on TikTok

Let’s talk about e-commerce now, a sector roughly installed nowadays. We saw Facebook and Instagram inaugurating their marketplace, which draw the first steps of social media into this sector. The thing is that in Asia, e-commerce is way more developed and number of social media are based on that, like Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book). the thing is that TikTok is precisely owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company. In that regard, of course you will want to develop an e-commerce branch of the app.

The recent agreement between the application and Shopify explains itself: a business oriented aspect shows its face, bigger than ad targeting. This functionality is being tested right now in UK and Europe, so we will surely find out soon what it is about.
Moreover, advertisements diversification are expanding with new formats, and that is another thing that will bring announcers to the platform. TikTok is already like any other social media app, soon we will find out to what extent company can get money from it.

 

A business friendly app

We talked about companies, well TikTok is warmly welcoming them. Indeed, the platform launched brand new tools to manage the different posts. One of them is a video editor, a smart software that will help brands to advertise correctly on this social network. It can unlock native content from TikTok, like popular music, typo or colors matching with its environnement. Brands can add custom subtitles, cut scenes and many other things.

The other tool is a platform that helps to create new content, called Business Creative Hub. This free extension, usable by TikTok Business users, offers the current trends, best practices and gives advice about advertising on the app. There is also tab with specific indications for video, with three feeds : Trending Business, Engaging Business and Trending Community, each one translating a special advertising goal. With such range of tools, companies in the Occident will quickly master the art of digital communication just like those in Asia.

 

The ongoing issues of an ambitious network

Although TikTok provides many tools that will help the platform grow, we can observe many drawbacks due to the immense userbase (around 689 million active users). Along with many pedophilia reports, TikTok UK recently dealt with accusation saying that ByteDance was collecting information on children on the platform and selling it to third party entities. If the app itself is making money over the youngest, what to do then? A true problem, as data privacy is an important matter nowadays. A matter that TikTok Italy took in its responsibility, as the local branch took down half a million accounts, as their users didn’t respected the age minimum of 13 years old. We would like to see some more of this policy for the app in other countries. Data issues shouldn’t rely on the local policy, other wise you always end up in an unbalanced situation.

 

What to retain?

Anyway, TikTok seems to possess all the tools to please both brands and users, but also any deviant behavior. The total success of the app is now resolving in its capacity to implement maximum data security and protection, especially for the youngest users.

 

 

References:

Al-Heeti A., April 21st, 2021, TikTok hit with child privacy lawsuit“, cnet.com

Al-Heeti A., May 11th, 2021, TikTok is reportedly launching a tool to help users find jobs“, cnet.com

Aballéa A., April 7th, 2021, “TikTok lance un nouvel éditeur vidéo entièrement dédié aux marques“, blogdumoderateur.com

Aballéa A., April 19th, 2021, “TikTok lance Business Creative Hub : conseils, inspiration et bonnes pratiques“, blogdumoderateur.com

Hay J., May 14th, 2021, “TikTok va marcher sur les plates-bandes de LinkedIn“, journaldugeek.com

Jaimes N., Feb 23rd, 2021, “Avec Shopify, TikTok veut montrer aux e-commerçants français qu’il sait vendre“, journaldunet.com

Jonniaux A., May 14th, 2021, “TikTok supprime plus de 500 000 comptes de mineurs en Italie“, journaldugeek.com

Rochefort M., May 12th, 2021, “TikTok teste actuellement un outil de recrutement“, siecledigital.fr

Rosso S., May 12th, 2021, “TikTok en route vers l’e-commerce“, siecledigital.fr

 

Categories
Analytics eCommerce Marketing Outils 2.0

5 REASONS YOU SHOULD USE GOOGLE DATA STUDIO

Data is gold for companies wishing to develop their business and turnover. But you still need to know how to use it to achieve your goals, in this article we will show you one of the essential tools in this field: Google data studio.

In the world of digital marketing, any individual, whether advertiser, service provider, web agency, is led to use data to understand the relevance of its actions and to be able to optimize them.

To achieve these goals, a task consists in visually formatting this data, called “data visualization”, to allow humans to understand more quickly and easily this flow of data and thus make the right decisions.

For anyone who wants to accomplish, in a fast and eye-catching way, immediate reports or more personalized and editable presentations of their data, Google Data Studio facilitates these tasks by being a tool for visual data formatting.

Here is a brief overview of the advantages of Google Data Studio.

 

Connect with (almost everything)

This is one of the great strengths of this tool.. Data Studio allows to centralize on its dashboard data coming from various sources. being proposed by the firm of Mountain view, Dat Studio is obviously compatible with all the other Google tools, namely:

  • Google Analytics
  • Google Ads
  • Youtube Analytics
  • Search Console
  • And more

 

In addition, since Data Studio is very popular in its genre, data connectors have been created with the other major platforms that already exist, including :

  • Facebook Ads
  • SEM Rush
  • Twitter
  • Amazon seller
  • And more

 

Advanced graphical customization of performance reports (data visualization)

the creation of your report starts either on a blank page or you have the choice to start from a template already created.

If you start from scratch, to customize your report, you have a wide range of choices, including the size of the information, the number of charts and widgets that fit your types of needs.

To take personalization even further, a wide range of colors, fonts and page format options also allow you to create the style that is unique to your client or company. The same goes for the styles of graphics and tables.

 

A collaborative tool

Data Studio’s rules for sharing, access rights management, and ownership of reports and data sources are similar to those of Google Drive.

Concerning data sharing. It is possible to share a report as you share any document in Google Drive. You can also download the report in PDF format.

 

Easy to use

The tool is very easy to use, and accessible to all.

Once you have logged in to the interface, you will be able to see some sample reports showing you the types of information you can bring up in your own custom reports. As you view each report, you’ll learn more about the possibilities available to you with this tool.

To get you started, you can click on the link “Welcome to Data Studio! (Start here)” link. This is an interactive step-by-step tutorial explaining the many features of Data Studio.

In addition, Google also provides you with a YouTube video that gives you a quick overview of the tool.

 

Freemium TOOL

Another strong point of the tool is that it is completely free. You will probably have to pay for access to data connectors for third-party applications, but the Data Studio service is still free. This is not necessarily the case with all other solutions on the market.

Categories
Applications Culture Events Lifestyle Outils 2.0 platforms

Samuel Étienne, connecting Twitch with Television

 

Samuel Étienne: from TV presenter to Twitch streamer

 

Who is Samuel Étienne ?

Samuel Étienne was far from being a Twitch streamer at first. He gained fame since he was chosen to host the most famous cultural French TV show named “Questions pour un Champion“. With his joyful behavior, he created an attraction among the youngest, and succeeded to increase the number of viewers in a show with decreasing audience when its former presenter, Julien Lepers, retired. As a journalist, Samuel is quite active in many domains. He is the presenter of “Questions pour un Champion” but also of “La Matinale” show, from the France Info channel.
He really is considered by his audience has someone very dynamic, playful, and most of all very humorous. His interactions with others through the Twitch platform has valued him to be loved by the public, especially the 15-34 age group.

 

The arrival on Twitch

An opening on the streaming world

With such an aura Samuel was bound to be brought to a wider, different audience. His show “Questions pour un Champion” fed the interest of someone that would later change his life. His pseudo is Étoiles. He is a young Twitch streamer who grew found of general culture. Since the moto of Twitch is to share content with an audience, Étoiles created a format where he could review the different episodes of “Questions pour un Champion” with his viewers and a guest, interacting while the broadcast, whether to guess the answers or to analyse them. The name of this format is “La Nuit de la Culture” and it began to get bigger as time passes, particularly during the French lockdown in March 2020 due to Covid-19.

As more and more viewers came, “La Nuit de la Culture” came to be mentioned in the news and on TV, right into the ears of Samuel Étienne. The latter then contacted Étoiles, intrigued by the show purely focused on culture he was hosting. Then, after some texts exchanges, Samuel got its first hosting of “La Nuit de la Culture” on Twitch with Étoiles on April 10th 2020. A new chapter in the life of Samuel Étienne just opened.

 

La Nuit de la Culture x Samuel Étienne

The results were beyond the expectations. The whole French Twitch community knew about this incredible achievement, and the program eventually gained awareness. Étoiles’ channel was growing at high speed, and Samuel Étienne grabbed the attention and the liking of a whole new audience, Twitch audience. A public that wanted to see more of Samuel’s personality, his passions and activities, in order to be inspired or just because he was quite friendly and attaching. The media then declared him “the ambassador of TV on Twitch”, though he only cared about meeting and exchanging with this new world, these new faces.

La Nuit de la Culture Program

 

Hosting Twitch events

Rapidly, he was invited by another famous streamer called Ponce, who is used to hosting a program with different guests about their passions and hobbies, like music. Participating to this program, “Ponce la Nuit” was also a success. People discovered a Samuel Étienne with multiple interests, a whole new face that he used to show on stage. He truly became the most loved TV personality on Twitch France.
His fame grew up even more when he hosted a special show “Questions pour un Streamer” with Étoiles during the Z Event, a streaming event supporting the Amnesty International association that gathered €5.7M. This precise show got the highest count of viewers of the event, with more than 200,000 viewers total, contributing to the expansion of Samuel’s story on Twitch.

Ponce la Nuit program      Questions pour un Streamer program

 

A new Twitch channel

While watching Étoiles streams, Samuel actually created a Twitch account on his own. Boosted by the success of “La Nuit de la Culture” and willing to know more about the Twitch platform, he made official his Twitch channel with a stream of “La Nuit de la Culture” with Étoiles. The official arrival of a someone from the world of Television made quite some noise and everyone on Twitch France enjoyed to see the confidence he obtained following his first apparition. The viewers saw his as a sympathetic, understanding and open individual from a sector that had hardships to understand the streaming sphere, yet who gained the heart of thousands.

First stream of Samuel Étienne      La Matinée Est Tienne program

With time, Samuel Étienne came to bring new content and programs on his channel, now streaming several times a week. His main program, “La Matinée Est Tienne”, with a 12,000 viewers average on its first edition, consists in reviewing daily newspapers and basically exchanging about them, taking position and debating with the viewers through the chat. This program, based around culture and information, helped Samuel to familiarize with the different tools of the platform and gave him even more confidence than before. While still pursuing his job in “La Matinale” and “Questions pour un Champion”, he is now a fully active streamer in the top 10 France, and gathers every week people interested in culture.

 

The alliance of Twitch and TV

With the creation of his Twitch channel, Samuel opened a bridge between the platform and the world of Television. In that regard, France Television launched a show on its own Twitch channel on January 22nd 2021, co-hosted with Samuel Étienne. The doctor Damien Mascret represented France Television. The goal of this show was to answer the viewers’ questions about the Covid crisis with a focus on the vaccine. The results: a 16,000 viewers average, ranking top 8 stream in the morning. The experience turned out to be a triumph for France Television, which will reiterate as soon as possible.

Samuel Étienne x France Télévision

 

What about the future of Samuel Étienne on Twitch?

Samuel Étienne showed in 2020 a courage and an attitude that deserve a praise. He entered in contact with a world he didn’t know a thing about, with an audience quite different that he used too see. His personality, full of surprises and ambition, took the heart of the Twitch viewers in an instant. He really is the exemple of a good transition between Television and Twitch. We shall see in the future more collaborations with television channels, as Samuel defined the termes of a perfect agreement between the two worlds. Hopefully they will get along following that way of thinking.

As a Twitch viewer, I personally followed his path along the platform and I was quite surprised when I discovered how interesting his tastes and stories are, how captivating he is, gaining the approval of everyone on Twitch. I really hope that his channel will continue to grow and that it will share the raw aspect of culture to everyone. Thanks to him, new generations get a taste of what culture and knowledge is.
I wish all the best to Samuel, may he be continuing to cary the flag of culture on Twitch as long as he can.

 

 

References

Arthur V, Jan 20th 2021, “Propulsée par Samuel Étienne, France Télévision débarque sur Twitch

CharlanMhg, Jan 22nd 2021, “Twitch : Samuel Étienne et France Television, une réussite !

Claire P, Jan 22nd 2021, “Sur Twitch, Samuel Étienne amène la télévision vers la nouvelle génération

Cyril P, Jan 20th 2021, “France TV se lance sur Twitch avec une émission de Samuel Étienne

Isabelle T, Dec 18th 2020, “Samuel Etienne fait ses débuts sur Twitch en compagnie d’Etoiles

 

Categories
Alibaba Chinese E-Commerce Plateforms COVID-19 eCommerce Marketing Mobile Outils 2.0

The revolution of e-commerce livestreaming in China in 2020.

Livestreaming is getting more and more popular recently. Creators and brands search for new ways to communicate with their community.

In China, e-commerce livestreaming increased its popularity over the last years. The pandemic situation implemented a new change in our lives and our use of social media. While it was easy for brands or creators of content to meetup in real life with their audience, the pandemic put a barrier between them.

One of the most famous platforms in China is Taobao live. The platform allows from small to large, offline to online business to livestream and easily showcase their products or services.

If you want to read more about it, check my article here !

Categories
A.I Augmented Reality comportement Digital Business Hardware Human Outils 2.0 Start-up Virtual Reality

Neuralink by Elon Musk, merging with the machine?

 

Neuralink: what if you could stream music directly in your head?

 

What is Neuralink?

A technology called Neuralink, as in “neural link”. Maybe you have heard about it, an idea from fiction brought to life, presented during a YouTube livestream. A creation with the promise from simply helping paraplegics to the highest hopes such as treating cancer.

Who created it? What is it? The experience of a mad scientist? Well, many of his colleagues, and many others around Earth consider him as one. He is the man who dreams of a colonized Mars, and who will do anything to achieve his dream: Elon Musk.

Once again, the Founder of Tesla and SpaceX created a start-up that would aim for a future where human and machine would make one: Neuralink.

Indeed, Neuralink has been created in 2016, but it is only during the YouTube livestream on August 28th, 2020 that people realized how big of a project it was. During this exhibition, Elon showed that Neuralink was a chip placed in the brain.

The Neuralink

 

How does Neuralink work?

This chip would be used to detect when nerves are sending messages to each other, thus accumulating data on how you behave. However, the true meaning of Neuralink is to be able to send neurological signals from the brain to computers, hence the title of this article. We would indeed become part human part machine, being able to communicate with computers, and receiving information from it.

You can only imagine the possibilities that unveils… from functioning in symbiosis with prosthesis to curing mental diseases: Elon proclaimed its main purpose would be to treat spinal cord disorders or illnesses such as depression, Alzheimer, Parkinson, and addiction.

A robot made for this very purpose will process the surgery, with maximum precision, in less than an hour. The idea is to remove a part of the upper skull, totally harmless for the patient, and place the chip in it. A surgery team will monitor the whole process alongside the robot. Elon even said the operation and remission was that fast that you could even go in the morning and be back to your home in the evening!

Neuralink's surgical robot      Neuralink's process of implantation

 

A brand new digital usage

From a digital point of view, this technology will act as an intermediary between human and machine, making us do thing a computer couldn’t understand before. In the case of the prosthesis, the chip will memorize the movements the body does and predict them, resulting in transmitting the right information from the brain to the prosthetic arm for example.

But even before that, the very beginnings of the product would be simple tasks such as using an smartphone and making mouse clicks on a computer, by making no physical movement. The whole meaning of “digital” would go up another level. Being able to connect our very mind to a computer would brings its lot of innovations, interacting on a totally different scale. Imagine being able to write Tweets within your mind! Or even for mute people, being able to directly speak through a speaker from their mind; a way improved version of the device Stephen Hawking used to speak.

New ways of communication would be developed, the famous “ok Google” will happen directly in the brain, reaching exactly the information needed without saying anything. Think and everything happens.

 

A good idea?

However, referring to the title of this article, would it be such a good idea? This improvement wouldn’t be too much, the step humanity would take before falling into an era of improved humans, cyborgs even? This is pure speculation, but I shall remind that Neuralink will enable contact with the machine, thus Internet.
It wouldn’t be surprising if “mental advertising” happens to be a thing; ads sent directly to the brain with an effect way more powerful than normal ads.

Aside business issues, neuronal issues could take place. Neuralink can act on emotions, to reduce sadness and stress. Could you imagine if the chip happened to be “hacked” and let someone literally play with your emotions? Shall the human essence to be free and unpredictable, taking it away, even partially, wouldn’t make humans better than machines.

 

What to think of Neuralink?

Though I am not quite supporting this innovation, I have to say that the idea itself to help incapacitated people it praiseworthy. I completely agree with the fact that the human needs a new technology to evolve and face the multiple health issues he deals with. Getting the world rid of diseases would be breaking the last obstacle of medical researches, thus giving more attention for the tech and space industries. At least this is what I hope, humanity turning to space in order to expand instead of pilling its population on such a small planet. I am all for it, a medical solution thanks to machines.

However what I fear are the possible abuses. It is easy to guess that such a technology will have to be legally supervised and defined, in order to avoid things like hacking or prohibited experiments to happen. It is certain that the more time passes the more mankind will reach for the machines, but I feel like it is necessary to keep our human side and not become complete cyborgs.

 

In conclusion

I will give Neuralink a chance, as this is a path we are fully discovering right now, and which deserve more in-depth exploration. Still, I will stay wary of the side effects, not that my voice can change anything, but I do hope people such as Elon Musk intend to put machines and technology to good use.

And with those words I shall end my thinking, joining what Elon said: “At some point machines will catch up to us and get way past us. If we want to keep the rhythm, we will have to team with them if we don’t want become outdated”.

Now let’s hope that we won’t give up our humanity to keep this rhythm going.

 

 

References:

Catherine C, Dec 5th 2020, “Elon Musk’s brain-computer interface company Neuralink has money and buzz, but hurdles too

Joséphine JR, Dec 23rd 2020, “Can technologies become therapeutic tools?

Kenny L, Jul 18th 2019, “What Is Neuralink: A Look At What It Is, What It Wants to Be, and What It Could Become

YouTube channel CNET, Aug 28th 2020, “Neuralink: Elon Musk’s entire brain chip presentation in 14 minutes (supercut)

YouTube channel Neuralink, Aug 28th 2020, “Neuralink Progress Update, Summer 2020