Two friends from Moray have launched their functional mushrooms brand into Tesco. Erik Lang and Smith Feeney are supplying 250 of the supermarket’s stores across the country with five Love Mushrooms products. The entrepreneurs have their own organic mushroom farm and laboratory on Marcassie Farm in Forres. They uniquely use ultrasonic assisted extraction, which they…
For Piotr Olbryś, a 19-year-old from Poland, it was his brother’s hearing aid that motivated him to look into how to make lithium-ion batteries more environmentally friendly. His work earned him one of the four first prizes, each worth € 7 000, at the 2024 edition of the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). “My brother has a hearing aid,” he said. “So, he’s constantly changing and throwing away batteries. That caused me to start thinking about the waste this generates.” Lithium-ion batteries are found in almost every electronic gadget.Olbryś was one of 143 young scientists from 37 countries, all aged between 14 and 20, who came together from 9 to 14 September in Katowice, Poland, to present their research.Most of them were there because they had won similar contests in their home countries. EUCYS 2024 was funded by the European Commission, which co-organised it with the University of Silesia, Katowice, and the Polish Children’s Fund.In the end, the four first prizes were awarded to contestants from Austria, Bulgaria, Poland and the United States.Better way to tune instruments The young scientists presented their projects at booths in front of visitors and judges. Their research focused on an amazingly diverse range of fields.Paula Morata González, an 18-year-old from Spain, is keen to improve the tuning of musical instruments.“I play the harpsichord and study at the conservatory,” she said. “During tuning classes, I found it much more intuitive to find beautiful notes by looking at their mathematical proportions.”“It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school. I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.Lamia MusicEventually she built a model that could help tune instruments. “At first my music teacher thought I was crazy,” she laughed. “But I love combining science and art.” González starts university this year, where she hopes to continue on this interdisciplinary path, double-majoring in music and biomedical sciences.Artificial intelligenceAt their booths, the contestants were interviewed by a team of judges, mostly scientists themselves, who were duly impressed. “The quality of the projects was very impressive this year,” said Milan Macek, president of the jury. “A trend seems to be the increased use of artificial intelligence.”Macek has been a judge at the seven previous editions of EUCYS. He is a professor of genetics at Prague’s Charles University, but in Katowice, he was hard-pressed to pick the winners.“There are not enough prizes for all the talent here, so hard choices had to be made.”Over 100 young scientists gathered for the EU TalentOn 2024 contest in Katowice, Poland. © EU TalentOn 2024In parallel with EUCYS, another contest was held in Katowice, in the style of a hackathon. During EU TalentOn 2024, 108 participants aged between 21 and 35 developed scientific projects to address societal challenges such as climate change and water management.The grand prize was won by a team of young researchers from the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Italy for their cancer prevention project Breath for Life. It received an award of €12 000.High-speed camera or chessboard?Most EUCYS contestants also targeted societal challenges with their projects. The work of another winner, 17-year-old Aleksandra Petkova from Bulgaria, might, for example, help design more efficient ships. “It can help us build ships that use less fuel, reducing emissions,” she said. In her research project, she used sources like drone and satellite imagery to study the wakes of ships and make them more efficient, combining physics with a very practical goal.Petkova hails from a family of scientists, which influenced her to take part in science contests like EUCYS. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing something with science,” she said. “As a small child, I was already playing with magnets and mirrors, trying to understand the deeper principles of how they worked.”She’s still overwhelmed by the accolades her work received. “I don’t know what I’ll do with the money. Maybe I’ll buy a new chessboard,” she laughed. “On the other hand, I would like a high-speed camera for experiments. A few thousand more frames per second would make a big difference.”Organic batteriesOlbryś from Poland looked at organic cathodes in batteries, which are easier to recycle than today’s cathodes, but lack the energy density of less green versions. This is why he researched new material combinations and found options that combine the best of both worlds.“I didn’t have access to a supercomputer, so I just did them on my home laptop,” he said. “Sometimes one calculation would take two or three entire days. The sound of the cooling fans caused me to have a lot of dreams about helicopters,” he joked.Starting university in Warsaw in two weeks, Olbryś hopes to continue his research. “I love projects where science can change the world.”Go for itLamia Music, a 15-year-old Austrian who looked at new kinds of solar cells, was giddy upon receiving first prize, in addition to an award from the London International Youth Science Forum. “I almost didn’t go to my national competition,” she said. “I just went there for fun, to meet interesting people. Now I suddenly have this prize,” she laughs. “Sometimes you just need to go for it I guess.”Her project worked on new types of solar cells, the central component of solar panels. “It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school,” she remembers. “I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.”“Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.Nikhil VemuriFor Music, the prize, however, wasn’t the most important thing about the contest. “What I love about science is that you can learn new things, and meet new people,” she said. “That’s what I did here. I was fascinated just walking around and learning about fields I didn’t know anything about.”For the young Austrian, science is a passion. “Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night with ideas,” she said.For now, she wants to continue with her research, partly under the auspices of a local university. Nitrogen pollutionNot all winners at EUCYS were from Europe. Nikhil Vemuri, 17, from the United States, won the fourth first prize.“I live in North Carolina, in an area with a lot of farms. Today, they use too much fertiliser on their fields, which causes environmental problems, such as nitrogen pollution. I wanted to help.”He designed a software tool that could predict, based on satellite imagery, where over- and under-fertilisation is likely to happen. For example, if a field slopes downwards, fertiliser will likely concentrate at the bottom. Vemuri’s tool allows farmers to use fertiliser more efficiently and sparingly, reducing pollution.“Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.”Beyond being celebrated for his project, Vemuri repeated what other participants already said. Sure, receiving awards is nice. But what really makes EUCYS special is the connections made.“I talked to some fascinating projects here,” he said. “But more importantly, I made some great friends. That’s what makes an event like this so amazing.”
For Piotr Olbryś, a 19-year-old from Poland, it was his brother’s hearing aid that motivated him to look into how to make lithium-ion batteries more environmentally friendly. His work earned him one of the four first prizes, each worth € 7 000, at the 2024 edition of the EU Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS). “My brother has a hearing aid,” he said. “So, he’s constantly changing and throwing away batteries. That caused me to start thinking about the waste this generates.” Lithium-ion batteries are found in almost every electronic gadget.Olbryś was one of 143 young scientists from 37 countries, all aged between 14 and 20, who came together from 9 to 14 September in Katowice, Poland, to present their research.Most of them were there because they had won similar contests in their home countries. EUCYS 2024 was funded by the European Commission, which co-organised it with the University of Silesia, Katowice, and the Polish Children’s Fund.In the end, the four first prizes were awarded to contestants from Austria, Bulgaria, Poland and the United States.Better way to tune instruments The young scientists presented their projects at booths in front of visitors and judges. Their research focused on an amazingly diverse range of fields.Paula Morata González, an 18-year-old from Spain, is keen to improve the tuning of musical instruments.“I play the harpsichord and study at the conservatory,” she said. “During tuning classes, I found it much more intuitive to find beautiful notes by looking at their mathematical proportions.”“It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school. I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.Lamia MusicEventually she built a model that could help tune instruments. “At first my music teacher thought I was crazy,” she laughed. “But I love combining science and art.” González starts university this year, where she hopes to continue on this interdisciplinary path, double-majoring in music and biomedical sciences.Artificial intelligenceAt their booths, the contestants were interviewed by a team of judges, mostly scientists themselves, who were duly impressed. “The quality of the projects was very impressive this year,” said Milan Macek, president of the jury. “A trend seems to be the increased use of artificial intelligence.”Macek has been a judge at the seven previous editions of EUCYS. He is a professor of genetics at Prague’s Charles University, but in Katowice, he was hard-pressed to pick the winners.“There are not enough prizes for all the talent here, so hard choices had to be made.”Over 100 young scientists gathered for the EU TalentOn 2024 contest in Katowice, Poland. © EU TalentOn 2024In parallel with EUCYS, another contest was held in Katowice, in the style of a hackathon. During EU TalentOn 2024, 108 participants aged between 21 and 35 developed scientific projects to address societal challenges such as climate change and water management.The grand prize was won by a team of young researchers from the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Italy for their cancer prevention project Breath for Life. It received an award of €12 000.High-speed camera or chessboard?Most EUCYS contestants also targeted societal challenges with their projects. The work of another winner, 17-year-old Aleksandra Petkova from Bulgaria, might, for example, help design more efficient ships. “It can help us build ships that use less fuel, reducing emissions,” she said. In her research project, she used sources like drone and satellite imagery to study the wakes of ships and make them more efficient, combining physics with a very practical goal.Petkova hails from a family of scientists, which influenced her to take part in science contests like EUCYS. “I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing something with science,” she said. “As a small child, I was already playing with magnets and mirrors, trying to understand the deeper principles of how they worked.”She’s still overwhelmed by the accolades her work received. “I don’t know what I’ll do with the money. Maybe I’ll buy a new chessboard,” she laughed. “On the other hand, I would like a high-speed camera for experiments. A few thousand more frames per second would make a big difference.”Organic batteriesOlbryś from Poland looked at organic cathodes in batteries, which are easier to recycle than today’s cathodes, but lack the energy density of less green versions. This is why he researched new material combinations and found options that combine the best of both worlds.“I didn’t have access to a supercomputer, so I just did them on my home laptop,” he said. “Sometimes one calculation would take two or three entire days. The sound of the cooling fans caused me to have a lot of dreams about helicopters,” he joked.Starting university in Warsaw in two weeks, Olbryś hopes to continue his research. “I love projects where science can change the world.”Go for itLamia Music, a 15-year-old Austrian who looked at new kinds of solar cells, was giddy upon receiving first prize, in addition to an award from the London International Youth Science Forum. “I almost didn’t go to my national competition,” she said. “I just went there for fun, to meet interesting people. Now I suddenly have this prize,” she laughs. “Sometimes you just need to go for it I guess.”Her project worked on new types of solar cells, the central component of solar panels. “It all started when I learned about photosynthesis in high school,” she remembers. “I wanted to know more, and just kept digging.”“Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.Nikhil VemuriFor Music, the prize, however, wasn’t the most important thing about the contest. “What I love about science is that you can learn new things, and meet new people,” she said. “That’s what I did here. I was fascinated just walking around and learning about fields I didn’t know anything about.”For the young Austrian, science is a passion. “Sometimes I will wake up in the middle of the night with ideas,” she said.For now, she wants to continue with her research, partly under the auspices of a local university. Nitrogen pollutionNot all winners at EUCYS were from Europe. Nikhil Vemuri, 17, from the United States, won the fourth first prize.“I live in North Carolina, in an area with a lot of farms. Today, they use too much fertiliser on their fields, which causes environmental problems, such as nitrogen pollution. I wanted to help.”He designed a software tool that could predict, based on satellite imagery, where over- and under-fertilisation is likely to happen. For example, if a field slopes downwards, fertiliser will likely concentrate at the bottom. Vemuri’s tool allows farmers to use fertiliser more efficiently and sparingly, reducing pollution.“Farmers are really struggling with this. I wanted to do something real for the world.”Beyond being celebrated for his project, Vemuri repeated what other participants already said. Sure, receiving awards is nice. But what really makes EUCYS special is the connections made.“I talked to some fascinating projects here,” he said. “But more importantly, I made some great friends. That’s what makes an event like this so amazing.”
Scientists have found evidence that Earth may have once had a ring system similar to Saturn’s. It appears to have existed about 466 million years ago and may have both rained down meteorites on Earth’s surface and caused an ice age.
“Over millions of years, material from this ring gradually fell to Earth, creating the spike in meteorite impacts observed in the geological record,” said Professor Andy Tomkins at the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of a study published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Impact Craters
Using reconstructions of plate tectonics from this period, called the Ordovician, the researchers found 21 asteroid impact craters within 30 degrees of the equator despite over 70 percent of Earth’s continental crust being outside this region.
That’s an anomaly that conventional theories cannot explain. “We also see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain extraordinary amounts of meteorite debris,” said Tomkins. During the Ordovician, Earth was continually struck by meteorites.
Close Encounter
The researchers think the multiple asteroid impacts were caused by one giant object coming close to Earth. When that happens, debris is the result. That’s because of the “Roche limit,” about 20,000 km from Earth. Once a large object gets within that distance, gravitational forces can cause it to break up.
Cue a debris ring encircling Earth similar to the rings now enveloping Saturn. Over millions of years, the ring caused a shower of debris to fall upon Earth’s surface. The timing matches a surge of meteorite impacts preserved in the geological record, say the researchers.
Ring Shadow
The debris ring may also have cast a shadow on Earth, which has implications for the planet’s climate. The ice age at the end of the Ordovician period is considered one of the coldest periods in Earth’s history in the last 500 million years, with cold temperatures, glaciers and huge drop in sea level.
If the ring around Earth was the cause of a significant global cooling event — known as the Hirnantian — there could be other rings in Earth’s more distant history that had similar climatic consequences.
“The idea that a ring system could have influenced global temperatures adds a new layer of complexity to our understanding of how extra-terrestrial events may have shaped Earth’s climate,” said Tomkins.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Scientists have found evidence that Earth may have once had a ring system similar to Saturn’s. It appears to have existed about 466 million years ago and may have both rained down meteorites on Earth’s surface and caused an ice age.
“Over millions of years, material from this ring gradually fell to Earth, creating the spike in meteorite impacts observed in the geological record,” said Professor Andy Tomkins at the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of a study published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Impact Craters
Using reconstructions of plate tectonics from this period, called the Ordovician, the researchers found 21 asteroid impact craters within 30 degrees of the equator despite over 70 percent of Earth’s continental crust being outside this region.
That’s an anomaly that conventional theories cannot explain. “We also see that layers in sedimentary rocks from this period contain extraordinary amounts of meteorite debris,” said Tomkins. During the Ordovician, Earth was continually struck by meteorites.
Close Encounter
The researchers think the multiple asteroid impacts were caused by one giant object coming close to Earth. When that happens, debris is the result. That’s because of the “Roche limit,” about 20,000 km from Earth. Once a large object gets within that distance, gravitational forces can cause it to break up.
Cue a debris ring encircling Earth similar to the rings now enveloping Saturn. Over millions of years, the ring caused a shower of debris to fall upon Earth’s surface. The timing matches a surge of meteorite impacts preserved in the geological record, say the researchers.
Ring Shadow
The debris ring may also have cast a shadow on Earth, which has implications for the planet’s climate. The ice age at the end of the Ordovician period is considered one of the coldest periods in Earth’s history in the last 500 million years, with cold temperatures, glaciers and huge drop in sea level.
If the ring around Earth was the cause of a significant global cooling event — known as the Hirnantian — there could be other rings in Earth’s more distant history that had similar climatic consequences.
“The idea that a ring system could have influenced global temperatures adds a new layer of complexity to our understanding of how extra-terrestrial events may have shaped Earth’s climate,” said Tomkins.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Two exciting potential therapies that act like Trojan horses to remove the tau ‘tangles’ that form in Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases have been developed by Cambridge scientists. They are able to destroy the tau aggregates that are linked to disease, while leaving healthy tau proteins in the brain intact – and have been shown…
E-commerce has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, transforming how businesses operate and consumers shop.
From its early days of essential online shopping carts and limited product options, the e-commerce landscape has become a global marketplace where buyers and sellers can connect seamlessly across borders.
One of the most significant advancements in this sector is the development of print-on-demand (POD) services. As e-commerce continues to evolve, POD e-commerce integration has emerged as a game-changer for businesses looking to streamline operations, minimize costs, and offer customizable products without the burden of inventory management.
The E-commerce Boom and Changing Consumer Expectations
Initially e-business was pioneered by companies such as Amazon and eBay, which allowed consumers to buy products through the Internet at cheaper prices than other physical stores. In this process, consumers’ expectations changed with the development of technologies. Consumers today expect efficiency, personalization, and timeliness. They demand the availability of a broad range of goods, most of which they believe should be made to order.
This change in consumer expectations has led organizations to look for solutions that are more flexible and scalable to demand. The days when companies could mass-produce their products for the audience are long gone, and it is time to move forward. A contemporary customer expects to get a special product that may be tailored to his or her needs. However, the current mass production, inventory storage, and distribution model is expensive and ineffective in addressing such requirements.
The Emergence of Print-on-Demand and Its Role in Streamlining Business Operations
Printing on demand has emerged as the solution to the increasing customization of products and low inventory risks. To summarize, POD enables businesses to produce goods after receiving an order or when an order has been placed. This helps to avoid the accumulation of large stocks of products, which significantly lowers warehousing costs, product returns, and other losses due to overstocking.
The POD model is most attractive to businesses because it requires less capital investment in manufacturing equipment, printing, and delivery since these responsibilities are delegated to POD vendors. This shift is beneficial to businesses because they no longer have to manage a supply chain, which is a source of hassle. Print-on-demand allows businesses to provide customers with a vast selection of personalized items, including apparel, living, accessories, and many others, without the need to stock up on any products.
Another advantage of print-on-demand is its ability to scale. Companies can begin with a few designs or products and then add more products to their menu as market demands increase. This scalability helps minimize financial risk and makes it possible for new entrants to venture into e-commerce.
Customization and Personalization: Meeting the Modern Consumer’s Needs
Personalization is a new trend now dominant in today’s e-commerce, and print-on-demand is an essential part of this phenomenon. Today, customers not only need products that can save them time but also want products that reflect their personalities and preferences. In this case, POD services enable businesses to sell products as different as one person from another, be it a t-shirt with a specific design, a mug with a favorite quote, or a phone case with a favorite picture.
This level of personalization also results in higher levels of customer satisfaction and, hence, better brand loyalty. When consumers can buy a product that they feel was made for them alone, they are more likely to go back to that business and even refer other people to it. For companies, this means that POD is not just a process of efficiency but also a way to improve customer relations and increase brand loyalty.
Furthermore, print-on-demand services allow testing new products without risking much money in production. Companies can use new designs as a market probe to introduce different designs or product variants and make changes depending on the response. Such flexibility enables firms to remain relevant and meet customer needs as they change over time.
Environmental and Ethical Benefits of Print-on-Demand
Besides the operational benefits, print-on-demand services meet emerging customer trends that are environmentally friendly and socially responsible. Conventional manufacturing frameworks lead to accumulating unsold products, wastage of raw materials, and high amounts of greenhouse gases due to the required storage space for mass-produced items. Print-on-demand is still different from the two as it does not require the printing of products until they are bought. This results in improved recycling rates for unsold products and decreased energy use in manufacturing and transportation.
The Future of Print-on-Demand in E-commerce
The role of print-on-demand is likely to increase as e-commerce continues to evolve as one of the most promising industries. New innovations in printing and production will possibly increase firms’ ability to deliver more customized goods in a shorter time. The use of artificial intelligence and data analytics will also help companies predict customers’ needs and provide products that suit consumer trends.
Print-on-demand is set to become a significant aspect of the digital commerce solution that offers businesses the means to run their operations more effectively and meet the rising demands of customers. POD will continue to play an essential role as the digital marketplace progresses as it enables businesses to sell personalized products, optimize their processes, and embrace the sustainability agenda.
Therefore, print-on-demand can be concluded as a powerful tool that has changed the e-commerce market, allowing businesses to adapt to the needs of modern consumers and avoid an increased level of difficulty and expenses. That is why using POD services, companies can free up time for growth, customer satisfaction, and being ahead of competitors in terms of services rendered. Print-on-demand is one of the developments that will define the future of e-commerce as businesses continue to search for new ways to respond to a more volatile economy.
The use of pagers and walkie-talkies in back-to-back coordinated explosions in Lebanon has drawn scrutiny to the security of global supply chains and their vulnerability to tampering by governments or other actors.The utilisation of thousands of electronic devices in the apparent attacks, which are widely believed to have been orchestrated by Israel as part of an operation targeting Lebanon’s armed group Hezbollah, has raised the spectre of everyday communications equipment being weaponised in the future.
Tech companies are likely to see the attacks as a powerful reminder of the importance of securing their supply chains, while the general public’s trust in technology may also take a hit, tech industry and supply chain analysts told Al Jazeera.
“Every company that makes or sells physical devices will be worrying about the integrity of their supply chain,” said James Grimmelmann, Tessler Family professor of digital and information law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School in the United States.
“They are likely to consider adding additional safeguards and verifications so that they can better detect and prevent moves like this.”
While Israel has been implicated in assassinations using tampered communications devices before – including the 1996 killing of Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash via an explosives-rigged mobile phone – the scale of the attacks, involving thousands of simultaneous detonations, was unprecedented.
At least 32 people were killed and more than 3,100 were injured in the explosions on Tuesday and Wednesday, including Hezbollah members and civilians, according to Lebanese authorities.
Erosion of public trust
Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in the US, described the attacks as a potential watershed for the public’s trust in their electronic devices.
“Somehow thousands of devices were turned into weapons without anyone noticing it. How widespread are these explosive devices? How did the explosives get into the devices or the device supply chains? This attack raises terrifying questions that were never even considered before,” Green said.
Mariarosaria Taddeo, a professor of digital ethics and defence technologies at University of Oxford, said the attacks set a concerning precedent as they involved interference with the supply chain “not for a specific act of sabotage but for a distributed, highly impactful attack”.
“This scenario has been considered by experts but less so by state actors. If something good comes out of them, this is going to a public debate on control of the supply chain, strategic autonomy over digital assets, and digital sovereignty,” Taddeo said.
While it is unclear exactly how the pagers and walkie-talkies were turned into explosive devices, Lebanese and US officials have told multiple media outlets that Israeli intelligence booby-trapped the devices with explosive materials.
Israel has not commented to either confirm or deny responsibility.
Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, whose brand of pagers were used in the attacks, on Wednesday denied manufacturing the deadly devices, saying they had been made under licence by a company called BAC.
Gold Apollo’s CEO Hsu Ching-kuang told US radio NPR that BAC had paid his company through a Middle Eastern bank account that was blocked at least once by his firm’s Taiwanese bank.
BAC, which is based in Hungary’s capital Budapest, has not responded to requests for comment.
On Thursday, The New York Times, citing three unnamed intelligence officials, reported that BAC was an Israeli front set up to manufacture the explosive pagers.
Icom, a radio equipment maker based in Japan, said it had stopped producing the model of radios reportedly used in the attacks about 10 years ago.
“It was discontinued about 10 years ago, and since then, it has not been shipped from our company,” Icom said in a statement.
“The production of the batteries needed to operate the main unit has also been discontinued, and a hologram seal to distinguish counterfeit products was not attached, so it is not possible to confirm whether the product shipped from our company.”
Patrick Lin, director of Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), said there are important questions about where in the supply chain the devices were compromised.
“Was it during the manufacturing process, or in transit, or at the system operator’s level right before the devices are assigned to individuals?” Lin said.
“If it were done during the manufacturing process, then other technology manufacturers should be more concerned, as the other ways are outside their control. If the pager manufacturer wasn’t a willing accomplice in such a scenario, then their operational security was seriously compromised.”
How will tech companies respond?
However the devices may have been tampered with, the attacks could further accelerate moves towards technology that is “homegrown within a nation’s borders for tighter control of supply-chain security, whether it’s smartphones, drones, social media apps, whatever,” Lin said.
Milad Haghani, a supply chain expert at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said he expects to see a “widespread reckoning” that will lead companies to tighten their supply chain security protocols.
“For tech companies in general, this situation is unprecedented in its scale, and many likely haven’t taken the security of their production processes as seriously before,” Haghani said.
“Many companies may not have been fully equipped to handle such threats,” he said, adding that the explosions in Lebanon will lead to a significant ramp-up in security efforts within organisations.
Smartphone giants such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiomi and LG are viewed as less vulnerable to being compromised than smaller companies, analysts said, citing reasons including their greater attention to security, the relatively targeted nature of the operation against Hezbollah, and the more limited space in their devices in which to place substances such as explosives.
“There will be curiosity but their production and delivery chains are completely different to small-scale companies, including vendors of counterfeit transceivers. So at least now there’s no reason to consider that they may be affected,” said Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow of the Department of War Studies of King’s College London.
“However, the big companies may be inclined to highlight the differences in their ways of doing things.”
Others expressed less confidence that Big Tech is immune from such concerns, pointing to the fact that companies rely on smaller suppliers that may make for easier targets or that they have cooperated with governments to target individuals in less deadly ways, most notably to spy on their communications.
“The Israeli government has already been accused of essentially using the NSO group’s spyware as a privatised intelligence service, and indeed just this week Apple dropped its suit against NSO out of fear that its security secrets would leak,” Grimmelmann said.
“This is deeply disturbing, and citizens should not allow their governments to literally weaponise consumer technology like this.”
Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Xiomi and LG did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Andrew Maynard, a professor at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University (ASU), said the attacks are bound to shift perceptions of personal electronics “from devices that are absolutely safe, to devices that could possibly be co-opted and used to cause serious harm”.
“I wouldn’t be surprised to see this leading to growing suspicion and anxiety over whether the devices people use on an everyday basis are safe, and serious efforts from major companies to assure their customers that they are,” Maynard said.
“There are also a number of broader ramifications to the attacks. Before September 17, the idea of using personal devices to take out a well-defined group of people wasn’t part of the global zeitgeist. Now it is.”
While supporters and critics of Israel have clashed over whether the attacks should be viewed as a discriminating blow against military targets or a reckless act that put civilians in harm’s way, the blasts have also raised the possibility of other actors taking inspiration from such tactics.
Haghani said that while it would be difficult for most actors to pull off such attacks, they raised the need to ensure that “non-state actors, who might have fewer moral boundaries, don’t exploit supply chains in this way”.
Maynard, the ASU professor, said non-state armed groups could see such tactics as a “plausible way to create fear and push their agendas”.
“In effect, a door has been opened to a new form of terror campaign – one where individuals face the possibility of the device in their pocket – or their child’s hand – becoming an agent of destruction,” he said.
“The counterargument to this is that it is still likely to be exceptionally costly and challenging to take an off-the-shelf phone for instance and weaponize it. But now that the idea is out there, the possibility of this has likely increased.”
Sep. 19, 2024
University of Arkansas
Thriving businesses rely on people who can make data-driven decisions, and the U of A offers an online Introduction to Data Science training course that can prepare participants for several career paths.
The self-paced course offered by the Professional and Workforce Development division of Global Campus runs from Oct. 10 through Dec. 27 for a total of 40 hours of coursework, but participants have access to it for three months. The cost is $1,195. Some non-credit courses offer a 10 percent discount to U of A faculty, staff, current students and alumni.
This crash course in data science teaches how to wrangle, cleanse, analyze and visualize data. Participants also learn statistical concepts and the basics of machine learning.
The course offers comprehensive coverage of the full data science life cycle, real-world applications and career-boosting skills. Participants will be able to dissect and understand complex datasets, extract actionable insights from data trends and translate technical results into business strategy.
By covering a variety of concepts, this course will help participants discover which aspects of data science interest them the most and what career path they would like to pursue. Possibilities include business intelligence analyst, data analyst, data scientist, data engineer, data architect and data administrator.
The main components of data science included in the course are business intelligence, data management/data engineering, statistics, machine learning, advanced computing/programming and data visualization. The course emphasizes hands-on learning, with weekly practical exercises that build on each other. It integrates ChatGPT, an AI tool, for code troubleshooting and project development.
This course is ideal for undergraduates, graduates and professionals interested in entering the field of data science, as well as for those in other disciplines seeking to apply data science principles in their fields.
Data science is commonly a collaborative field in which team members with expert knowledge in particular areas work together. Effective team members must have a base level of knowledge in other data science areas and soft skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking, communication and learning agility.
The Global Campus Professional and Workforce Development team in the Collaborative in Bentonville nurtures relationships with business and industry partners that lead to U of A training programs that help reduce skills gaps in Northwest Arkansas and across the state. These programs help professionals advance in their careers, stay up to date in their fields and move from one career to another.
Four years after Covid, videoconferencing is an inevitable part of life for manyREAD MORE: Amazon orders staff back to the office as it ends hybrid work By Jonathan Chadwick For Mailonline Published: 00:00 EDT, 19 September 2024 | Updated: 00:00 EDT, 19 September 2024