Saturday 25 March 2017

The future of banking and cyber security

The Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) has introduced a new product (CBA Loop) that targets young urban professionals who want to bank on the go while on their smartphone or computer. The account can be opened from an app, Android at the moment, and on the web.

Kenyan banks have been increasingly creating digital products geared at getting customers who do not want to visit bank branches and CBA are taking the same route. CBA is not new to digital finance products as they partnered with Safaricom to launch M-Pesa and thereafter launched the mobile digital loan product, M-shwari.

Somewhere else you do not needing your debit card to get cash is the way of the future. Or was it Bitcoin ATMs that were the way of the future? Hmm. We forgot. Either way, the future is totally here and it's totally cardless. " Instead of the old fashioned insert-a-card-into-the-machine routine, customers can use the Wells Fargo app to generate an eight-digit code. That code, plus a customer's PIN number, will allow the withdraw of cash.

Security certainly was a big aspect of the cardless feature and the two-step identification helps reduce the risk of fraud. Thanks to Wells Fargo the San Francisco-based company is giving its account holders a way to access their money at 13,000 Wells Fargo ATMs across the U.S. without the use of a physical ATM card. When can this be deployed in Africa? I really cant wait for the same.

Earlier in 2016 when Banks were continually taking steps to enhance security, Wells Fargo just took a big leap forward by announcing that they will start using a new biometric technology called eyeprint authentication from tech startup. The technology creates a digital map of a person's eye through a smartphone camera by analyzing unique details such as blood vessels. A user then logs in by holding the camera up to his or her eye, and the software matches their eye to the stored blueprint.

This comes when a hacking group known as "Turkish Crime Family" is threatening to wipe the devices of millions of iPhone users unless Apple pays them a hefty ransom. The hackers say that they have access to hundreds of millions of email addresses of people who use @icloud and @me domains, and they even allegedly uploaded a video on YouTube that shows them breaking into some users' accounts.

In Kenya we recently have faced such cyber crimes targeting government institutions and private firms but with the current technology threats, no firm is immune from the coming disruption and every company must have a strategy to harness the powerful advantages of the new fintech revolution.

Users are not save either, but to protect against these type of attacks, I always recommend that users always use strong passwords, not use those same passwords across sites, and turn on two-factor authentication. It's a good idea to make sure that your passwords are always unique and random, and that you have a different password for every site or app. It can be a pain to manage all those different passwords, but it's also extremely important to keep your online identity safe.

Friday 24 March 2017

Quantum Computing

I like research and with the current state of technology in which everyday has its intrilling technological advancement, it takes more than general knowledge to unfold some hidens. Nowadays, artificial intelligence is in our homes and not just on the television, it might seem that computers can solve almost every problem. But in reality, progress in numerous areas of science and technology is limited because current computers are too inefficient. Even the most powerful supercomputers cannot accurately calculate the properties of novel materials, chemical structures or biological systems when there are too many interacting elements. Classical computing has dominated the world but soon enough we are expecting a  new and furious guy in town QUANTUM COMPUTING.
Quantum computing will not replace classical computing, but it will excel at tasks that are too complex for current computers, such as searching through huge databases or finding prime factors of large numbers. The latter is so hard that it forms the basis of encryption, which protects online activities.

 Quantum states can also be used for more-secure communication schemes. One application of quantum computers is to calculate the behaviour of other quantum systems. For example, quantum computing could be used to fully understand the chemistry of molecules, which requires knowledge of the quantum mechanics of their electrons, or to find the optimal configuration of a folded protein, for which there are vast numbers of arrangements.

 Classical computers can calculate the behaviour of quantum systems of about 50 qubits. When quantum computers with more than 50 usable qubits become available, they are set to establish ‘quantum supremacy’.

A new type of computing is needed, one that can take advantage of the very complexity that computers are trying to penetrate. Enter quantum computers, which were first mooted in the 1980s, when it was suggested that it might be possible to construct computers based on the laws of quantum physics instead of on classical physics.

Physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers at universities around the world are wrestling with the issue of how to construct and operate a quantum computer that is sufficiently large to beat classical computers at certain tasks. Commercial companies are getting involved, too. Just what a quantum computer will eventually look like, which quantum systems it will use, and which problems it will solve remain open questions. And these are fuelling exciting research.

Why Digital Transformations Fails

Organizations are all feeling the sudden and increased urgency of digital transformation.  But there’s still a lack of clarity o...