Each year, NORAD’s Santa Tracker combines cutting-edge technology and the festive spirit of volunteers to monitor Santa’s magical journey around the world on Christmas Eve, delighting children by fielding millions of their questions.

McCall shares how this heartwarming tradition began in 1955 when a misprinted ad accidentally directed kids to NORAD’s predecessor, sparking a legacy of holiday cheer that’s lasted ever since.

Over coffee — plain for him, gingerbread-flavoured for us — McCall delves into the workings of this festive mission, fuelled by dedicated local volunteers, tech sponsors, mince pies, and plenty of Christmas tunes!

The post A coffee with…Luke McCall, Santa Tracker volunteer, NORAD appeared first on TechInformed.

We must add that it is not the bargain variety you might find on the discount store’s own shelves, or the branded variety that cyber security vendors dispense at trade shows — although he does admit to liking these — but an external Security Operations Centre that can monitor and respond to security incidents around the clock.

“I’m finally getting my SOC! It was approved last week, so I’m happy to be getting a team for 24/7 coverage from a firm already very knowledgeable about our environment,” he says.

McCourt adds that having “eyes on the glass” 24/7 all year round will ensure that alerts are promptly addressed overnight and that triage is handled.

“It’s about having that staff augmentation and those extra capabilities and 24/7 coverage that I’m excited about. Especially leading up to Christmas when staff are off for a period. I want to take time off, too.”

For McCourt, the SOC means he might also have time to reflect on what has been an eventful year for his organisation.

Parent company Pepco acquired rival retailer Poundshop last year and inherited an e-commerce platform, creating new security challenges.

Last month, the retailer also introduced an online web and mobile loyalty programme, Poundland Perks, which has given the team additional GDPR, data protection, and data security issues to manage.

“These developments mean that we have taken a new step in terms of what we’ve had to manage and maintain, and it’s really putting the focus on the digital side of our business,” he says.

“It’s made us look at where we have visibility from in terms of a basic GDPR perspective and whether we have the processes and procedures in place to accommodate these protections.

“It’s also introduced a lot of new challenges not only from a capability perspective but from a capacity perspective,” he adds.

Structure

Given the organisation’s size, McCourt says he manages a relatively small security team. The London-based Pepco Group encompasses 850 Poundland stores in the UK, along with Dealz stores in Ireland and Poland.

The Pepco brand also has 4,500 value stores in 20+ European countries. Another part of the business is China-based PGS, which helps with supply chain management and product acquisition.

“My role is specifically at Poundland and Dealz, and I have counterparts that work independently at Pepco and PGS. We all help support our parent company,” McCourt explains.

“Compared to other categories of business, we have a relatively small IT team for what we manage and maintain. So really, it’s a prioritisation of products and projects as well as ensuring that we dedicate time to increase the resiliency of our internal processes,” he says.

“It all boils down to that security triad of ‘confidentiality, integrity and availability’ into the digital estate,” he adds.

Hungarian phishing attack

According to McCourt, cyber awareness training has always been central to Poundland’s security posture — even before Pepco disclosed that a phishing attack earlier this year caused one of its European branches to lose €15.5 million (roughly $16.8 million).

Initial reports suggested it was a BEC (Business Email Compromise) attack. In contrast, others claim it was a sophisticated phishing attack, in which scammers impersonated trusted entities to trick people into revealing sensitive information.

Because the incident is still being investigated by the Hungarian police, Interpol, and other law enforcement agencies, McCourt says he can’t provide details.

“I can’t comment on what happened, but I can say what it wasn’t; it wasn’t a BEC attack. But ultimately, there were elements of phishing and communication through nonstandard company protocols, which resulted in quite a loss overall,” he says.

In terms of lessons learned, McCourt says the group has added more processes and procedures around how transactions occur.

The key message he wants to convey to staff is that if something doesn’t feel right, they should try and verify it “because, in this case, as well as the issues caused by the attackers, there was also some breakdown in the process,” he adds.

Verification may even involve picking up one of those old-fashioned devices called ‘telephones’ and checking with a line manager or CFO before making large or unusual transactions.

Poundland has been working with KnowBe4, a security awareness training platform that increases awareness through regular security exercises, for about a year.

Initially, McCourt used the platform for small-scale phishing exercises, but it recently expanded to 1,600 users.

The intention now, he adds, is to roll these regular training exercises out at a group level and add the training to its physical retail store environment, bringing the total number of Pepco users to 10,000.

A coffee with…Erich Kron, security awareness advocate, KnowBe4

According to Javvad Malik, Knowbe4’s lead security awareness advocate, most exercises can be reduced to empowering staff to say no to something and ensuring they verify requests.

“That is probably your biggest defence. And if the phone isn’t the norm, it should be the norm.

“Or, some other process needs to be put in place because while it’s true that AI and deepfakes are on the rise, ultimately, they still target human emotion and trigger someone into doing something within a short time while trying to establish some authority.”

Thinking fast, thinking slow

Malik says that nearly every work-based social engineering attack has three core components. The first is the attacker asserting an authoritative identity. “They will either try to claim to be your boss, a partner, or someone important.”

Then, he says, there is ‘the ask’: “This is often strange or not business as usual, like ‘we’ve just swapped banks’ or something that is not a regular occurrence.”

The third aspect is time pressure: “The tone usually is ‘I’m the CEO, and we need to make this payment to a new partner, and we need this to happen within the next two hours, or we’re going to lose the deal.”

Malik says the only way to avoid falling for such scams — whether it’s an apparent physical likeness of a CEO on a video conference call or an urgent email sent from an official-looking address — is “to slow down, take a deep breath, and reevaluate.”

The security expert cites a book by Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, categorising thinking and decision-making into two systems.

“System 1 is your reactive brain, which is saying, ‘I’m pressured, I’m angry, I’m depressed, so I must react quickly,’ and that’s where most mistakes happen,” Malik explains.

System 2 results from slower, more rational thinking, which tends to occur when one takes a step back or consults with someone else.

“So, when you get an email or a video call asking for something unusual. Take a moment, or better still, pass it on to someone else to have another pair of eyes on it. Or validate it, and your perspective becomes much more rational,” says Malik.

“For instance, if you get a letter through the door from HMRC informing you that you owe tax and need to pay immediately, your heart rate will immediately start to increase.

“But if your neighbour comes around and takes a look, they will be much calmer and can say, ‘Oh, look, this is a scam because of this, this, and this.’ It’s easier if you have someone else to bounce off.”

According to McCourt, Poundland is sending out phishing simulations once every few weeks.

“Sometimes the response is ‘You almost caught me with that one!’ but that’s not what this exercise is about. It’s about understanding the red flags and knowing what to do with them,” he says.

“The chances are the scam is going to more than one staff member, so if they know how to use that phishing alert button or to report it to IT Security, then that puts us in a good position to get those alarm bells going,” he adds.

When asked if Poundland has become a target since a store within its group fell prey to an attack, McCourt said: “We’ve had a couple of similar attacks that we could identify rather quickly, which all had the same M.O.

“We identified them very quickly and nipped them in the bud.”

Regarding other preventive measures Poundland takes, McCourt adds that the company continues to use technologies that identify malicious emails using Microsoft and other third-party tools.

Both Poundland and KnowBe4 (which itself was almost infiltrated by a fake employee/North Korean hacker earlier this year) have been publicly open about the security incidents they have experienced.

Do they think there needs to be more openness and information exchange about such attacks between companies rather than a secretive approach that might stem from concerns over reputational damage or loss of consumer or client trust?

McCourt says it would make his Christmas if firms shared a little more. “I think it’s important, especially for those CIOs and CFOs who do horizon scanning. It’s those individuals who start asking questions that I get involved with and start to answer.

“If there were more details in those reports that said, ‘These were the failings, and this is where people need to enhance their security footprint’, I’d be up for that.

“We all want to learn from each other. I don’t care if I’m talking to B&M or my other competitors because it’s all about keeping people safe. As soon as we lose trust in people, the threat field becomes more valuable for other criminals to get involved.”

The post Getting SOCs for Christmas: Poundland’s cybersecurity journey and lessons learned appeared first on TechInformed.

Romania’s scrapped presidential election was targeted by Russian cyberattacks, misinformation, and propaganda, the country’s parliamentary committee has concluded.

Two weeks ago, the presidential election was annulled after far-right, NATO-sceptic Calin Georgescu secured victory in the first round.

The court reached its decision following the revelation of five declassified documents by the EU and NATO’s top security council, which suggested that election interference may have occurred.

At the time, the court suspected Georgescu benefited from a mass influence operation created to influence the result of the vote, believed to be Russia. Russia has denied these claims.

The FBI, the Officer of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have long since warned that Russia was “the most active threat” for misinformation.

Ahead of this year’s US election, they released this joint statement: “We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close.”

Now, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SIE) has shown more findings allegedly confirming interference to the Romanian parliamentary committee in charge of overseeing it.

“There were cyberattacks meant to influence the fairness of the election, particularly from Russia, to influence the public agenda by using artificial intelligence and aggressive online promotion,” commission chief Mihai Weber said.

Intelligence agencies reported that around 85,000 attempted hacks were made to access electoral data and change content, including on election day.

“There were [also] misinformation and propaganda campaigns to support Eurosceptic candidates, who were favoured compared with other competitors,” Weber added.

Separately, the EU has also launched an investigation into TikTok for allegedly failing to curb Romanian election interference.

Romanian intelligence reports indicate that Georgescu’s surge in popularity was driven by a “highly organised” and “guerrilla” social media campaign on the platform, which utilised identical messaging and influencers.

The declassified documents that led to the annulment of the election revealed that paid content promoting Georgescu was shared on TikTok without proper labelling as election-related, breaching both TikTok’s own guidelines and Romania’s electoral laws.

One declassified file highlighted that $381,000 was paid towards TikTok influencers in a single month to promote him on the platform.

At the time, Georgescu denied any knowledge of the influencers or financial backers involved in the campaign.

TikTok said in a statement that it has “protected the integrity” of its platform in over 150 elections around the world and is continuing to address these “industry-wide” challenges.

If the EU finds that TikTok breached its digital rulebook, it could face fines worth up to 6% of its total global revenue and be forced to make changes to fix the problem.

To read more on technology and 2024’s eventful election year, click here.

The post Romania’s election was target of cyberattacks and misinformation, parliament finds appeared first on TechInformed.

At a glance…

• Accenture and Nvidia partnered to advance agentic AI
• The US presidential election shook up the tech sector
• Vodafone and Three merger created UK telco buzz

October: Big Movements in Big Tech

Google invested $1 billion into data centre regions in Thailand

Data centre and cloud investments continued to surge in the last quarter of the year, as Alphabet’s Google announced a $1 billion investment towards building data centre regions in Thailand.

The goal was to support AI adoption in Southeast Asia — as Deloitte forecasted, the investment would create an average of 14,000 jobs annually by 2029.

Accenture and Nvidia expanded their partnership to scale agentic AI adoption

In terms of Gen AI, there’s a new kid on the block. Agentic AI has seen a steady rise in search results, particularly in the last quarter of this year.

This may be linked to companies such as Accenture and Nvidia announcing joint plans to accelerate agentic AI adoption (as well as Honeywell and Google Cloud).

Unlike traditional AI that merely responds to prompts, agentic AI autonomously creates workflows and acts based on user intent.

See worldwide search results for ‘agentic AI’ below.

OpenAI closed a $6.6 billion investment round

OpenAI secured a groundbreaking $6.6bn in its latest funding round, hailed as the “largest venture capital deal of all time.”

The fundraising valued the creator of ChatGPT at $157bn following its announcement of plans to transition to a for-profit structure within the next two years.

Notable investors included Microsoft, Nvidia, SoftBank, Fidelity, Altimeter Capital, Khosla Ventures, MGX, and Thrive Capital.

Microsoft accused Google of a campaign to mislead the public and cloud regulators

In a Big Tech spat, Microsoft claimed Google initiated a covert campaign to “discredit” Microsoft and “tilt the regulatory landscape in favour of its cloud services.”

In a blog by Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, Rima Alaily, he stated that Google was about to launch a lobby group with a handful of smaller European cloud providers.

Alaily claimed that Google planned to remain a “backseat member” and allow the other cloud providers to be the group’s face. Still, one firm that chose not to join told Microsoft that the group’s purpose was to criticise Microsoft’s practices in Europe.

UK tech provided mixed reactions to the new government’s first budget

The UK’s new Labour government released its first budget statement, which included increased taxes for employers, an uptick in public spending, and a renewed commitment to focus on growth.

November: US Presidential Election Shakes Tech Sector

Trump vs Harris: key tech policies in the US presidential election

As the US presidential election approached, TI covered the key tech policies proposed by the Republican and Democratic parties.

These included AI and automation plans, such as Trump’s push to minimise AI regulation and Harris’s focus on promoting ethical AI use.

Both parties emphasised strengthening cybersecurity and taking antitrust actions against monopolistic companies.

However, they differed on cryptocurrency: Trump advocated for limited regulation to position the US as a crypto hub, while Harris supported stronger regulation to secure crypto markets and protect consumers.

What does Big Tech stand to gain or lose under a second Trump presidency?

Trump won the US presidential election, and TI analysed the pros and cons of a Republican party for Big Tech.

For instance, Trump threatened to impose 60-100% tariffs on goods from China, which could heavily affect companies such as Apple and Tesla. These companies depend heavily on continued access to the Chinese market and supply chains.

On the other hand, lighter regulation may benefit sectors such as crypto.

Air fryers may be secretly sizzling data

When you threw those sweet potato fries into the air fryer drawer, did you consider that your data may have been stolen in the process?

Consumer rights watchdog Which? warned shoppers that air fryers and other electronic products made in China may collect unnecessary data and share it with third parties.

According to Which? the Xiamoi app, which comes with smart air fryers like Xiaomoi, Cosori, and Aigostar, was linked to ad trackers on platforms such as Facebook and Tencent.

It also requested gender and date of birth when users set up an account, which it reportedly shared with servers in China.

Coca-Cola’s AI-generated ‘Holidays are coming’ ad sparked debate

Coca-Cola’s annual fleet of trucks appeared on our screens — except this time, the entire ad was AI-generated.

The ad sparked controversy online, with one X user calling it “soulless garbage.” It was produced by three AI studios, using generative AI models Leonardo, Luma, Runway, and Kling.

Two subsea cables were severed in the Baltic Sea

Two subsea cables connecting Germany with Finland and Lithuania with Sweden were severed over the course of one weekend.

While the cause remained unknown, Finnish state-controlled cybersecurity and telecoms company Cinia stated such an event does not happen “without an outside impact.”

Neither of the incidents affected internet traffic, as other subsea cable routes were available.

December: The Law Denies Big Tech’s Appeals

A US judge rejected Elon Musk’s Tesla pay package

Elon Musk’s four-year-old child (X Æ A-12) may not get so many presents this Christmas, as a Delaware judge upheld her decision to void his $56bn Tesla pay package.

The judge ruled that the car manufacturer’s board of directors failed to act in the best interests of shareholders when devising Musk’s 2018 compensation deal. She cited conflicts of interest and material misstatements made to investors.

ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus warned of AI in the music industry

A study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) found that human creators are “set to lose billions” due to GenAI.

Abba’s co-founder and president of CISAC, Björn Ulvaeus, responded to the report by warning that poorly regulated AI has “the power to cause great damage to human creators, to their careers and livelihoods.”

The CMA approved the £16.5bn Vodafone and Three deal and set terms for UK telecom’s future

The British telecoms sector saw a significant milestone as the UK Competition and Markets Authority approved the merger of Vodafone and Three, paving the way for a £16.5bn ($21bn) alliance.

The deal required several legal obligations, including a commitment to spend £11bn ($14bn) improving 5G connectivity services nationwide. (London is rated one of the worst capital cities in Europe for 5G connectivity). The deal brings together the UK’s fourth and third biggest operators.

A federal court upheld a ruling on TikTok forcing it to sell or face a US ban by 2025

A federal appeals court supported its decision requiring TikTok’s Chinese partner company, ByteDance, to sell its US operations or face a nationwide ban. It has until 19 January 2025 to comply with the ruling. If it fails, the app could be disabled for 170 million American users.

However, TikTok has vowed to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law infringes on free speech rights and unfairly singles out the platform.

Google unveiled a quantum chip

Finally, as a holiday gift, Google unveiled its quantum chip, Willow. It said that the chip could perform a standard computation in under five minutes, which would take today’s fastest supercomputer an inconceivable amount of time (ten septillion years).

Google Quantum AI’s founder and lead, Hartmut Neven, added that the new chip moves the firm “significantly” toward commercially relevant applications.

Missed the rest of the year? Read our roundups of Q1, Q2, and Q3 to catch up.

The post Q4 Wrapped Up: the top tech stories of October to December 2024 appeared first on TechInformed.

Over the past few months, we’ve gathered insightful clips from various tech voices, answering one poignant question: “What are your 2025 tech trend predictions?”

We cover the direction of AI applications, green tech and sustainability developments, payment solutions, HealthTech advancements, the pervasive threats of cybersecurity, and more.

Watch here to find out which predictions from last year came true; TI:TALKS — 2024 Tech Predictions

The post TI:TALKS — 2025 Tech Predictions appeared first on TechInformed.

At a glance…

• • ✦ Exploding pagers threatened a new era of warfare
• ✦ Social media giants were brought down a peg by law enforcement and legislation
• ✦ That whole Crowdstrike situation…

July: Crowdstrike.

A Crowdstrike outage took down millions of Windows computers

The biggest story of July (and perhaps all of 2024) was the massive IT outage that took down millions of Windows devices thanks to a fudged update by security vendor Crowdstrike.

The outage, caused by an update to Crowdstrike’s Falcon sensor, affected dozens of banks, supermarkets, broadcasters, stock exchanges, airports, and train lines worldwide — leaving Windows users stuck on the so-called ‘blue screen of death’.

More than 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers crashed, resulting in Microsoft and CrowdStrike issuing grovelling apologies.

Google introduced rules to fight election deepfakes

In a year of elections, including the UK general election (more on that shortly) and the US presidential election, Google introduced new rules in an effort to combat deepfaked election ads.

The Labour party was elected in the UK

July saw the UK elect a new government for the first time. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a landslide victory, promising numerous tech developments.

The party’s election manifesto promised a 10-year digital infrastructure plan, national 5G coverage by 2030, a tax overhaul to encourage entrepreneurship and growth, and investment in and regulation of AI.

The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation was hit with a cyber-attack

There was also a cyber-attack on the Republican Party thinktank The Heritage Foundation, reportedly carried out by hacktivist group SiegedSec, which immediately disbanded after its actions drew the attention of the FBI.

Alphabet axed a planned $23bn Wiz acquisition

In M&A news, Google-parent Alphabet bit and agreed to buy cybersecurity firm Wiz for around $23 billion in what would have been the tech giant’s biggest acquisition of all time.

Within days of the announcement of the negotiations, the proposed deal collapsed as internal opposition at Wiz reportedly grew stronger. Reports claimed the boards at both firms had concerns about the deal, including whether it would clear potential regulatory hurdles.

August: Social Media Giants Brought Down to Size

Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, was arrested in France

In perhaps the most shocking development in August, the authorities arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov as he entered France concerning an investigation into online child sexual abuse, drug sales, fraud, and other criminal activity carried out on the platform.

The prosecutors stated that Durov was being held in custody as part of a cyber-crime investigation assessing twelve offences linked to organised crime.

Telegram said, “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse of that platform.” However, Durov has remained in France ever since, unable to travel.

A “DDoS” attack delayed Musk’s X-clusive Trump interview

Elon Musk made headlines again. The Tesla boss had openly announced his support of Donald Trump in his race to regain the US Presidency. Still, the two men sat down for an exclusive interview to be broadcast on Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter).

The stream was delayed due to technical issues, and thousands of users complained they could not access the interview. Musk later blamed a DDoS attack for the glitch.

After 40 minutes, the interview went live again on Spaces, and according to Musk’s figures, more than 16.4 million people listened to the conversation within the first 12 hours.

The CAA created a flightpath for drone deliveries

The UK Civil Aviation Authority approved Amazon’s drone delivery service, paving the way for the future of autonomous logistics.

Amazon had already operated drone deliveries in several US states, and the bots do not require human control.

The retail giant was one of six firms the CAA greenlit. The project aims to gather critical data on drone safety and performance, which will inform the development of comprehensive regulations for wider drone operations.

The EU AI Act came into effect

The European Union’s AI Act came into effect in August, enforcing the world’s first comprehensive AI rulebook after four years of deliberation.

The legislation, approved in March, influences businesses within the European Union and has substantial ramifications for technology giants in the US and UK.

Like the GDPR, the AIA’s extraterritorial reach mandates compliance for any AI systems marketed or intended for use within the EU, regardless of origin.

As companies worldwide adjust to the new regulatory landscape, understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by the AIA will be crucial for future-proofing operations and maintaining competitive advantage.

September: Exploding Pagers & Landmark Legislation

Exploding pagers left dozens dead in Lebanon

One of the most shocking stories in September was when news broke about a spate of pagers, walkie-talkies, and other electronic devices exploding across Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring thousands of people.

The ensuing panic reportedly caused local residents to tear batteries from their smartphones, afraid that any electronic device could be affected.

Details emerged that the explosions were part of a coordinated attack allegedly carried out by Israel’s IDF, who were targeting leaders of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The attacks came in two waves and raised questions about whether we were about to see a new form of warfare involving electronic devices.

The California governor blocked the AI Safety Bill

California Governor Gavin Newsom intervened to veto the controversial AI Safety Bill, claiming the legislation could stifle innovation.

The proposed bill, the Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act (SB 1047), would have targeted companies developing generative AI. This type of AI can respond to prompts with fully formed text, images, or audio and perform repetitive tasks with minimal intervention.

As one of the first pieces of law focusing on AI safety in the US, it would have required the most advanced AI models to undergo safety testing.

Without the legislation, Senator Scott Wiener, who wrote the bill, said companies could continue developing an “extremely powerful technology” without government oversight.

He claimed Newsom’s block was “a setback for everyone who believes in oversight of massive corporations,” adding that “we are all less safe as a result.”

The EU issued landmark rulings against Big Tech

The European Court of Justice announced dual landmark rulings against Apple and Google in cases around corporate tax avoidance and market dominance abuse.

The rulings, led by European Union antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, saw Apple ordered to pay Ireland €13bn ($14.4bn) in back taxes, while Google was fined €2.4bn ($2.7bn) for antitrust violations.

The cases were undoubtedly closely observed across the EU as a significant moment for Big Tech’s European tax affairs — especially as the EU’s investigations between companies and member states have faced setbacks.

Just last year, Amazon successfully defended its tax arrangements in Luxembourg in a court battle, and the Commission similarly lost a case involving the Netherlands’ tax treatment of Starbucks, though it chose not to appeal.

AI went Agentic with the Salesforce “Agentforce” launch

As AI continued to develop, Salesforce showed us where the technology is headed as it unwrapped its Agentic AI solution, Agentforce, at a packed Dreamforce 2024 in San Francisco.

Marc Benioff, CEO of the world’s second-largest software vendor, attacked rivals focused on developing copilot and co-owned AI solutions with enterprises. He said businesses wanted out-of-the-box AI tools, and this, he added, was where Agentic AI would play a key role.

Agentforce is a suite of autonomous AI agents that Salesforce claims will “augment employees” by handling service, sales, marketing, and commerce tasks.

Continue reading — Q4 Wrapped Up: The Top Tech Stories of October to December

The post Q3 Wrapped Up: the top tech stories of July to September 2024 appeared first on TechInformed.

Her core research interest is the development of Neuromorphic Computing – a nascent technology inspired by the efficiency of the human brain, with potential applications in AI, autonomous vehicles, healthcare, and space exploration.

Over the course of our chat Majumdar claimed that this next generation of intelligent and adaptive computing and sensing also offers significant energy savings and more effective real-time decision-making, and that the smartest, most efficient LLMs are to be found in nature rather than code.

Majumdar also talks about the joys of being an international scientist and the benefits of the Finnish system, which has enabled her to conduct academic research while raising a young family.

When did you land in Finland?

My husband got a post-doctoral position in Turku when my eldest son was a few months old. We lived there for about nine years, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

In the beginning I thought ‘let’s take some time off’ but it was quite isolating being on my own all day, so I started looking at options and through the university there I managed to get a scholarship sponsored by a private foundation – which funded my first research project.

What do you like about researching and working in Finland?

The independence you are given worked well for me as a young mother. No one interferes in anything, it’s a very trust-based system. You know your responsibilities and you know what needs to be done. When my son was sick, I was not in the lab, but when he was fine, I worked during my weekend. That kind of flexibility was helpful, and the supervisors were also supportive.

Another thing is that the childcare support is incredibly good. When I dropped my son off at daycare, I didn’t even worry about what he was doing. That’s something I think in those initial years, helped a lot.

What is neuromorphic computing?

It is about making computing more human-centric and studying also how the human brain processes data.

The human brain works completely differently to a computer’s and this requires a complete paradigm shift. The way current computers run means that the AI algorithms are very power hungry. And that’s because these computers were not designed for this kind of task. AI depends on a huge amount of data – billions of data sets – to make it understand what the correct answer or action is.

But humans, and even the smallest of insects, are good at certain things without any specific training. Take one small insect, the navigation path, or the collision avoidance path they have, it’s hard to replicate that in drones or in current machines.

It sounds like our brains are a lot more efficient that ChatGPT!

The human brain works in spikes whenever an event occurs, whereas computers transmit stuff all the time to the cloud which is a lot less efficient and more energy intensive.

So, a 24/7 surveillance camera. Or a health monitor. When there is nothing happening, a computer will continuously transmit data to cloud just not knowing what to look out for because there’s no ‘local intelligence.’

To imitate biological intelligence, the chips need to be more localised – you need to put them closer to the sensor so that it only communicates the relevant data to cloud, allowing it to work more efficiently.

With arrhythmia detection, for example, personalised trained chips can do 24×7 heartbeat monitoring of patients and can do anomaly detection at a much lower power and communication bandwidth cost than the current systems.

Besides healthcare and security surveillance, are there other applications?

Autonomous cars are another. Anywhere where you need chips to integrate and process data from multiple sensory sources simultaneously. Neuromorphic systems can adapt and “learn” from scenarios, improving their functionality over time.

For instance, if a car’s sensor when it is foggy or there is low visibility, the system can compensate by relying on data from other sensors, through associative learning, to make a safer judgement.

In space exploration, its use is also being actively being discussed. Space missions often have limited power sources, such as solar panels. Neuromorphic chips consume far less power than traditional processors, making them ideal for energy-constrained missions.

So, when Mars is at its farthest distance from Earth it takes more than 50 minutes to communicate in one direction so a simple instruction could take two hours. Chips that enable localised, event-based decision-making without the need for constant instructions from Earth, could be critical for autonomous operations in space.

You referred to a 2019 report that said training a single AI model takes up the same amount of carbon as five cars during their lifetime. What does this mean for the future of LLM development?

And that report was published in 2019 – the power demand from LLMs like GPT-4 are increasing exponentially.

The problem is that so far, we can actually keep up with these energy demands, but what will be challenging is when the hardware cannot keep up – in five-or ten-year’s time.

Moore’s Law – which states that the number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years while costs halve – is widely considered to be nearing its practical limits due to physical constraints in semiconductor fabrication. We simply cannot get these chips any smaller or squeeze more onto them.

The artificial intelligence we are seeing today is coming from the software side but if the hardware cannot give enough support to the software when AI workload magnifies enormously, then things will go very wrong.

How much energy would we save using neuromorphic computing?

Individual components wise: they can save a million-fold energy compared to current devices. But then we are still not able to switch fully to new technology. We are currently working towards a hybrid model.

You say there’s a need for innovation not only from device level but also in architecture for hardware support…

Algorithms need to understand the new devices because the ones we are using are based on old hardware. So, if the new algorithm can exploit the full potential of the new hardware, the system could become more efficient.

Are you investigating partnerships in this area?

Yes, in the US we have projects with the University of Massachusetts (UMAS) where they are doing pressure sensor-based computing. There are also other European projects. But hardware fabrication is expensive – you can spend billions on chip design and development – it’s very resource hungry.

Given how expensive it is, shouldn’t enterprises be more involved?

The big players are there- IBM, Intel, Samsung – they are running activities in this direction, but it is very good to have collaboration between industry and university together. It is not a mature technology yet, but it is coming….

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The best thing is nothing is repetitive, it’s something new all the time and it is always something challenging that you need to solve a problem. Also, getting to know so many very brilliant people and having the opportunity to work with the most brilliant minds. It is the human connection – you get to know so many people, their stories and how and why they chose this field. It is nice.

What do you do to relax, and switch off from work?

I enjoy listening to music. I used to be a singer a long time ago. My mother was a very good singer, and she trained me, mostly in songs from our Calcutta heritage. And when I am stressed or sad I find myself back in those words and connected to them. They are a vastly different collection of songs on many different topics, some of them are on nature, love, spirituality. They have the power to touch you.

How do you take your coffee (or tea)?

I am a very big tea fan. I come from the land of Darjeeling, and it is my favourite morning tea. Luckily in Europe now there are lots of sellers. I make it with loose leaves, the traditional way. No milk, no sugar.

Read more here: Will neuromorphic-controlled robots soon become a reality?

The post A coffee with… Sayani Majumdar, Associate Professor, Tampere University appeared first on TechInformed.

An own goal for cyber?

Cybersecurity own goals don’t come much bigger than the CrowdStrike/Microsoft IT outage. A botched automated update in the cyber security firm’s endpoint security tool Falcon caused a global outage that grounded planes, shut down cash points and TV stations, and caused hospitals to resort to pen and paper.

The outage, which occurred during one of the busiest periods in the summer calendar, affected around 8.5 million Windows devices who were hit with the blue screen of death. A fix was delivered in just over an hour, an apology from the security firm’s CEO, George Kurtz, took a bit longer.

There was no ‘quick fix’ for many however, with companies reporting having to work through every single device and manually reboot in ‘safe mode’.

Compounding the issue, threat actors exploited the situation by creating malicious domains and distributing malware disguised as recovery tools, exacerbating the challenges for affected users and businesses.

However, for a sector built on trust, the most damaging outcome was a broken trust in cyber security products, meaning that CTOs and CIOs already working hard to convince boards to invest more in security tooling now face a greater task.

The mass X-odus

X, the micro-messaging platform formerly known as Twitter, already entered the year reeling from the reaction to its premium service tier, which many users found underwhelming and overhyped.

Operationally, Twitter/X had struggled with significant technical challenges and controversies since it was acquired in 2022 by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

The rapid reduction in content moderation staff contributed to a rise in misinformation and extremism on the platform, while system reliability issues emerged due to a high turnover of engineers.

Financially, the company continued to experience advertising losses, with a 24% year-over-year decline. Its subscription-based revenue models remained insufficient to offset these challenges.

Even brands who used the platform to engage with audiences left in droves this year, citing concerns over brand safety, content moderation, and the platform’s increasingly polarising environment as the main reasons.

These included a slew of accounts representing a diverse range of organisations, from The Guardian newspaper to The Clifton Suspension Bridge. Others to quit the platform included Best Buy, Target, 3M, UnitedHealth Group, and Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

The chief beneficiaries of these departures were its rivals, including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s new social network, Bluesky, and Meta’s Threads — a former TI Turkey whose fortunes could yet improve.

TechInformed’s top tech turkeys of 2023

While we’re on Musk, it would be prudent to mention the recall of Tesla’s Cybertruck.

The most recent recall involved about 2,500 Cybertrucks produced between late 2023 and mid-2024. This issue was linked to a faulty drive inverter component that could lead to sudden propulsion loss, increasing collision risks.

Additional issues included malfunctioning windshield wipers, trim detachment, accelerator pedal issues, and a delayed rearview camera display.

Two turkeys for the price of one. And yet, the Musk name guarantees both hits and headlines – meaning that he’s the most likely shortlisted candidate for Time’s Person of the Year.

Not Ok Robot

Amazon Astro, a home robot designed for domestic patrolling tasks, introduced in 2021, faced production setbacks and criticism for limited functionality relative to its high price point.

In 2023, the tech giant pivoted with the bot into enterprise by giving it a better job as a camera-equipped patrol dog.

It used an HD periscope and night vision technology to autonomously patrol and map up to 5,000 square feet of space. It followed preprogrammed routes and routines and could be controlled manually and remotely via the Amazon Astro app.

But in July, Amazon notified its customers that every one of the 20-pound wheeled robots would stop working on 25 September. The tech giant then automatically issued full refunds for the $2,349.99 bot, plus a $300 credit.

The bricking of Astro comes during a tumultuous time for Amazon’s devices business as it seeks to transform its ten-year-old Alexa voice assistant into a generative AI-powered bot.

A $3,500 solution looking for a problem?

When it was first announced, Apple’s Vision Pro was greeted with much fanfare. However, its high price point positioned it as an elite device, limiting its appeal in a market dominated by cheaper alternatives like Meta’s Oculus.

Some users reported health concerns, although these seem largely related to overuse and wearers forgetting to blink while using it, leading to dry eyes and irritation.

Prolonged use of a headset that is already bulky also led to reports of neck fatigue and strain.

Regarding enterprise use cases, limited integration into professional workflows has hindered adoption. The Vision Pro’s software ecosystem is still developing.

Unlike other headsets designed for specific professional use cases (e.g., CAD design, virtual collaboration), the Vision Pro lacked robust, enterprise-grade applications at launch.

In short, it is not the game-changer Apple envisioned. Yet.

Read all about 2024’s top tech triumphs, too!

The post 2024’s Top Tech Turkeys: Musk Malaise, Heavy Headsets, and… CrowdStrike appeared first on TechInformed.

No technology topic was discussed more at major tech conferences, in press releases, or even by politicians than artificial intelligence, especially the various forms of GenAI and large language models.

We’ve seen a whole host of new AI launches, with Cisco, Salesforce, and even Amazon jumping aboard the AI train. Meanwhile, industry leaders such as OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google have all rolled out new products and unveiled new partnerships.

There were also signs of a shift in AI technology as more and more firms revealed “agentic” models—AI agents designed to serve users by automating mind-numbing processes or handling elements such as customer services.

Three years after the public launch of ChatGPT overturned our understanding of AI, it doesn’t appear to be losing momentum… meaning 2025 could bring even more exciting developments.

When the chips are up

Perhaps no other tech company has had a better year than chipmaker Nvidia, which has positioned itself at the forefront of the AI revolution.

Once a relatively modest chipset maker known for its graphic processing units (GPU), Nvidia has metamorphosised into one of the world’s most valuable public companies.

It has partnerships with all the big AI players, including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, and the company’s value has almost doubled in the last 12 months.

Can Nvidia’s incredible success last? Several factors favour leather jacket-wearing enthusiast CEO Jensen Huang and his firm. This year, Nvidia unveiled its new computing architecture, Blackwell, which is specifically designed for AI, positioning it to benefit even further from the AI boom.

However, one negative is on the horizon — China has just announced an antitrust probe in an escalation of its tech war with the US.

Connecting the world at the Olympics

2024 was a massive year for major events, including the UEFA European Championships in Germany and a spate of major elections worldwide. However, no event was bigger than the 2024 Olympic Games held in Paris over the summer.

A record-breaking 12.1 million tickets were sold for the Paris Olympics and Paralympics, which saw athletes compete in more than 329 events across 32 sports in a three-week stint.

Logistically, the games were a huge challenge for the organisers of the International Olympic Committee and the French Government.

The event got off to an auspicious start when a sabotage attack damaged several rail networks. Though these were denied, there were also reports of blackouts and attacks on telecom infrastructure.

Deepfakes and cyber-attacks: How the Paris 2024 Olympics became a hotspot for digital warfare

Orange, the IOC’s broadcast and connectivity partner, supported the entire event. Orange provided a private 5G network throughout Paris to power the games.

The 5G network provided capacity across 32 spots and 120 official sites across the city and was made available for broadcasters and teams on the ground, as well as spectators visiting Paris.

According to the telco, around 20,000 photos were transferred on its network in the first week of the Games alone.

Orange also supported the opening ceremony by providing 5G smartphones, which were used to live broadcast the parade down the River Seine.

The French incumbent has since revealed a partnership with the French postal service to give new life to network equipment used during the games.

Beginning in 2025, around 90% of the Wi-Fi terminals and 78% of the switches from the Olympic sites will be refurbished and installed at La Poste’s locations in France.

Musk ado about nothing

A controversial pick now — and they don’t come much more controversial than Tesla owner, SpaceX boss, and soon-to-be US government consultant/DOGE chief, Elon Musk.

To say it has been an outright fantastic year for the billionaire wouldn’t really be accurate — no single person in tech has generated more headlines than Musk in 2024, though not all have been positive.

Musk has certainly faced numerous challenges, including questions about his proposed pay, the performance of his social media platform Twitter/X, and disputes with regulators in regions from Brazil to Europe.

However, one major decision looks set to pay off handsomely: his call to throw his considerable might behind Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

For Musk, Trump’s win in November means he is now arguably one of the most powerful non-politicians on the planet. The incoming President is set to hand him his own department (DOGE) tasked with reducing governmental waste.

Musk remains the world’s richest man, but according to Fortune, his net worth was buoyed by Tesla’s growth (up around 37%) and success at SpaceX.

Speaking of SpaceX, Musk’s rocket company continued to push the boundaries of space exploration technology with the sixth flight test of Starship last month. At the same time, its Polaris Dawn mission saw the world’s first privately funded spacewalk.

With Trump due to return to power in January, this year could just be one small step for his billionaire best friend.

Reaching for the Bluesky

As we already mentioned, not everything went Elon Musk’s way, and our final tech triumph in 2024 is for a company that tried to capitalise on — and seemingly succeeded in — some of Musk’s misfortunes.

Elon may be looking beyond the clouds with his space exploration, but it’d be remiss to ignore the sky… Bluesky, that is.

Created in 2019 by founder Jack Dorsey, previously of Twitter, Bluesky has quickly become the alternative microblogging platform to Musk’s X — or the home of the ex-Xers, so to speak.

Bluesky launched as an invite-only service in February 2023 and opened registrations in February 2024. However, the platform’s growth skyrocketed around the US Presidential Election as users sought an alternative to X.

Today, Bluesky has around 25 million registered users and has more than tripled its user base within the last three months.

Though it is still way behind the former Twitter’s estimated 600 million monthly users, Bluesky could position itself as a true alternative to Elon Musk’s platform in a way that previous rivals, such as Threads, have failed.

You’ve read about the tops, now read the bottoms: the top tech turkeys of 2024!

The post 2024’s Top Tech Triumphs: AI Domination, Nvidia’s Rise, and Musk’s Mixed Year appeared first on TechInformed.

At a glance…

• • ✦ Meta and OpenAI expanded their AI offerings to the world
• ✦ The threat of AI shook governments around the world into action
• ✦ Sustainability: Poo-powered planes to the rescue!

April: Earthquakes and Space Grapes

Amazon cuts hundreds of roles at AWS

Amazon Web Services announced plans to axe hundreds of jobs across sales, marketing and global services. The plans were revealed in an email sent to staff, as executives said the cloud company was to shift its focus to self-serve digital training and training programs run by external partners.

AWS senior vice president Matt Garman said, “The changes we are making are preparing the organisation for the future, aligning with our strategy and priorities, and reducing duplication and inefficiency.”

Amazon also announced it would be ditching AI-powered checkouts in the US.

Meta released its AI service, Llama, to the public

Meta released Llama 3, an advanced AI model that claimed to be more powerful than OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. It featured significant upgrades, including reasoning abilities, multilingual support, and multimodal potential, driven by its 8B and 70B parameter models—seven times larger than its predecessor, Llama 2.

Integrated with Meta AI, it became accessible on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp in the US. In the same month, OpenAI released its voice engine to select partners.

UK Space Agency awards grant to grow food in space

The UK Space Agency granted agritech firm Vertical Future (VF) £1.5 million to advance its mission of taking vertical farms into outer space.

VF, a UK-based specialist in vertical farming technology, initiated the second phase of its Autonomous Agriculture for Space Exploration project. It is adapting its Earth-based controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) systems for Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which is expected to launch in 2026.

VF’s project, part of the UK Space Agency’s £20 million International Bilateral Fund, aimed to expand its CEA systems to the Moon and Mars in the 2030s.

Chip plant evacuations follow strong Taiwan earthquake

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), a key supplier for Apple and Nvidia, evacuated several fabrication plants following a powerful 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan. The quake, the strongest in 25 years, struck the eastern province of Hualien, claiming seven lives, injuring 700, and leaving 77 trapped in tunnels.

Taiwan, responsible for producing 60% of the world’s semiconductors, faced significant global supply chain risks when its fabs were affected, as seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the same month, just across the East China Sea, South Korea pledged to invest $7 billion in AI to retain its edge in chip manufacturing.

May: AI Deepfakes and Cyber-Attacks

An ad agency boss was the target of a deepfake scam

Mark Read, CEO of advertising giant WPP, was targeted in a sophisticated deepfake scam. Scammers used a fake WhatsApp account with Read’s publicly available image to initiate a Microsoft Teams meeting with a senior WPP executive.

During the call, they employed a voice clone and YouTube footage of Read, impersonating him in real-time to request sensitive information and financial actions.

The attempt failed due to the vigilance of WPP staff. In an email, Read warned employees about evolving cyber threats and urged them to be cautious of suspicious requests involving money, passports, or “secret” transactions.

Expedia unveiled a travel buddy AI app for US customers

Expedia has unveiled Romie, an AI-powered travel assistant, along with additional features at its Explore event in Las Vegas.

Romie’s capabilities include learning travellers’ preferences for activities, food, and accommodations, integrating into group trip planning chats, summarising discussions, and making suggestions. The app also extracts travel details from emails and recommends nearby restaurants or activities during trips.

Expedia also extended AI-powered tools to partners, including personalised itineraries, price comparison tools, and guest review summaries for app users in the US.

UK Ministry of Defence hit by major cyber-attack

The UK Ministry of Defence’s payroll system, managed by SSCL, was hacked, exposing sensitive data of 270,000 armed forces personnel, including names, bank details, and addresses. While Whitehall sources suggested Chinese involvement, the government did not officially name a perpetrator, and China denied any role.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps announced an eight-point response plan, including system security measures, investigations, data monitoring, and a helpline for affected individuals. No operational data was compromised, but the breach raised concerns about supply chain vulnerabilities.

Global AI regulation efforts prompted US-China talks

The US and China convened in Geneva to discuss artificial intelligence’s risks and governance challenges, focusing on security and ethical concerns. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed misunderstandings and explored global AI norms despite competitive tensions.

Experts emphasised the importance of cooperation, highlighting the need for privacy, fairness, and adherence to regulations for AI to succeed globally. However, trust issues and safeguarding strategic sectors like healthcare and energy remained critical barriers.

Did the FBI misidentify the leader of Lockbit?

The FBI and the UK’s National Crime Agency identified Dmitry Khoroshev as the leader of the ransomware gang LockBit following a cyberattack on the group earlier in the year. Khoroshev was sanctioned and banned from travelling to the US, UK, and Australia. He denied the allegations, claiming to have no connection to the gang.

LockBit dismissed the claims, offering a reward to confirm Khoroshev’s well-being. While experts were uncertain if the FBI correctly unmasked the leader, they believed Khoroshev was connected to the group.

June: Self-Driving Taxis in San Fran, plus the NHS Got Hacked

Ransomware gang leak 400GB of NHS data from London hospital hack

Hackers from the Russian gang Qilin leaked nearly 400GB of sensitive patient data stolen during a ransomware attack on Synnovis, an NHS blood testing partner. The attack disrupted pathology services across London hospitals, delaying over 3,000 appointments and operations.

Despite demands for $50 million, Synnovis and NHS officials refused to pay. The leaked data reportedly included patient names, dates of birth, and blood test results.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX was hired to decommission the International Space Station

NASA awarded SpaceX a contract worth $843 million (£668 million) to safely decommission the International Space Station (ISS) early next decade. SpaceX will develop a de-orbit vehicle to guide the 430-tonne station into Earth’s atmosphere, ensuring a controlled descent to Point Nemo, a remote Pacific location.

Operational since 2000, the ISS remains structurally sound, but NASA aims to prevent uncontrolled re-entry. After the ISS’s retirement, the agency will focus on commercial space stations and the Lunar Gateway project, a moon-orbiting platform.

Nvidia was named the world’s most valuable listed company (again)

Nvidia leapfrogged Apple and Microsoft to become the world’s most valuable listed company, driven by the AI boom. The American chipmaker’s share price hit an all-time high, with the company valued at $3.34tn (£2.63tn) at the time — almost double the value at the start of 2024.

Apple partnered with ChatGPT for AI integration in iPhones

Apple unveiled “Apple Intelligence” at its Worldwide Developers Conference, integrating ChatGPT into Siri to enhance AI-driven features across iOS, iPad, and Mac devices. CEO Tim Cook emphasised privacy, with local AI processing and minimal data collection.

Siri gained improved context-aware capabilities, while new tools like “Rewrite” and “Proofread” refined text and tone. The event also highlighted the global rollout of the Vision Pro headset.

Waymo made its self-driving taxis available to everyone in San Francisco

Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous driving company, made its self-driving taxi service available to everyone in San Francisco. After receiving approval from the California Public Utilities Commission, Waymo operated its commercial driverless service 24/7, despite earlier complaints about traffic disruptions.

Previously limited to a waitlist, the service became accessible via the Waymo app. Nearly 300,000 people signed up for rides as the company sought to build public trust in autonomous vehicles. Waymo operated around 300 self-driving taxis in San Francisco, with additional fleets in Phoenix and Los Angeles.

Continue reading — Q3 Wrapped Up: The Top Tech Stories of July to September

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