This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 6, 2021 - December 12, 2021

CTOS IDGuard has prevented confirmed fraudulent credit applications worth 

RM28 million in the first 12 months of operations, it said in a press statement. A further RM51 million in suspicious applications were flagged to its partners.

The companies currently using this service include Malayan Banking Bhd, RHB Bank Bhd, CIMB, Alliance Bank (M) Bhd, AmBank Group and BMW Financial Services. Hong Leong Bank Bhd and six other banks are in the process of implementing it.

Most of the flagged applications were from credit cards, and over half of these alerts were due to applications made by known fraudsters or syndicates. CTOS IDGuard was able to identify them using multiple pools of partner data. 

Omnilytics, a retail market intelligence platform, has launched a free 7-Day trial for its latest analytics product, Fashion Trade Insights.

The programme provides access to data from over 75,000 brands worldwide, addressing the needs of management teams, merchandisers and buyers as well as designers. It includes assortment planning, competitor shopping analysis, pricing planning, trends analysis and trading and reporting capabilities.

Aimed at small and medium enterprises and smaller fashion brands, the programme enables brands to make strategic choices quickly and accurately while keeping the pulse on their competitors and identifying gaps in the market.

Singapore-based start-up Transcelestial Technologies, which is building technology for super-fast global internet distribution, is accelerating the deployment of its laser network into Malaysia and several other Asia-Pacific countries — Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Macau, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Higher internet demand of up to 70% in some countries, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, has brought global telecom infrastructure closer to a tipping point, and it is no longer sustainable to rely on physical cables for online connectivity,” says Trancelestial CEO and co-founder Rohit Jha.

“Bringing our wireless laser communication technology across Asia-Pacific with Exclusive Networks marks our first major investment to help bridge the connectivity divide in weeks as opposed to months or years with fibre-optic cables,” he says.

Most of the world’s population does not have access to the internet, the company says, with almost two billion people being within just 10km of the nearest fibre-optic cable. The main deterrent to universal internet delivery in cities is the physical fibre cable network itself, which is usually very costly and slow to implement.

UOB Malaysia, Plenitude Solutions and Visa have launched UOB Visa Payables Automation (VPA), the country’s first end-to-end procurement solution to help local businesses manage costs efficiently and raise productivity. 

The suite enables companies to procure goods with Plenitude’s e-procurement solution and to pay their vendors through UOB’s virtual Visa commercial credit card account, even if these vendors do not accept card payments. 

The UOB VPA suite automates the purchasing process, from requesting quotations and issuing purchase orders to invoicing and payments, offering the convenience of a fully integrated supply chain solution. Businesses can also enjoy interest-free credit on their purchases and extend their cash flow for up to 60 days. Their vendors will also be able to receive payment immediately. 

As the account reconciliation process is also automated, businesses will be less reliant on manual processing and can redeploy their resources to focus on other areas of business. 

With Visa Payment Controls, the UOB VPA suite offers businesses peace of mind when setting spending controls and payment authorisation. These enable them to reduce the risk of fraud and misuse of facilities by their employees. As an added layer of security, every transaction done with the UOB VPA suite is provided with a Visa Commercial Token that shields the primary account number from any unauthorised usage. 

Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has announced the appointment of Datuk Seri Md Alwi Che Ahmad as its non-executive chairman, effective Dec 1, for a period of two years.

The state assemblyman for Kok Lanas, Kelantan, Md Alwi, a professional licensed land surveyor, is a principal of AA Geomatics and Survey Consultants.

He has served as chairman of Yayasan Kemiskinan Kelantan since 1993 and held corporate positions including chairman of Silver Ridge Bhd, Syarikat Permodalan Risda Bhd and KEMUBU Agricultural Development Authority, at various times from 2004 to 2018. He is currently a board member of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

The former head of commercial at Pos Logistics Bhd, Mohd Aznan Aziz has joined Signature Market. He will take charge of the operations team in preparing Signature Market’s debut on the ACE Market next year and transfer to the Main Market in 2023. Aznan will focus on three areas: delighting customers, thrilling shareholders and satisfying the employees. 

According to his LinkedIn profile, Aznan holds an MSc in Food Technology and Processing from Université Aix Marseille III in France and a Diploma in Food and Biological Industries from Institut Universitaire de Technologie, Nancy, also in France.

Smartphone cameras may have improved by leaps and bounds, but there is something inherently fun about shooting polaroids. Point, click, wait — and out comes a photo that may surprise you.

Fujifilm has been producing Instax cameras for more than two decades, but the standard edition’s plastic finish made them feel more like toys than a proper camera. On Nov 17, Fujifilm launched the newer Mini Evo, a much more mature take on polaroid photography that still retains the fun aspects of the original.

Unlike the standard editions, the Mini Evo weighs and operates more like a professional camera. The faux-leather finish fits comfortably in the hand and pays homage to the classic film cameras of yesteryear. It comes equipped with a three-inch LCD display, finally allowing users to preview their photos before shooting. 

Built into the camera is a 35mm equivalent lens with an F/2.0 aperture, a versatile lens for most uses. There is also a turning dial that cycles between the multiple lens modes such as monochrome, heavy vignette and fisheye. The Mini Evo is also essentially a mini printer, allowing users to print polaroid photos directly from their smartphones. 

Unlike the standard Instax, the Mini Evo actually has a small 1/5-inch CMOS sensor, providing a lo-fi image profile that can be hard to replicate through the latest crisp, high-resolution sensors. The addition of a camera sensor may turn away many diehard “authentic” instant camera fans, but it is a great entry point for photography enthusiasts looking to explore polaroid as a creative medium. 

The Instax Mini Evo is set to retail at US$199.95 and will first be released in Japan on Dec 3, with the US market to follow sometime in February next year. According to a banner in Fujifilm Malaysia’s official store on Shopee, the new camera is also expected to be “coming soon” to the local market. The company has yet to announce its local pricing.

Superintelligence asks the questions: What happens when machines surpass humans in general intelligence? Will artificial agents save or destroy us? Author Nick Bostrom lays the foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life.

The human brain has some capabilities that other animals lack and we owe our dominant position to these. If machine brains surpass human brains in general intelligence, they will become extremely powerful and, possibly, beyond our control.

As the fate of the gorillas depends more on humans than on the species itself, so would the fate of humankind depend on the actions of machines.

But we have one advantage: We get to make the first move. Will it be possible to construct a seed artificial intelligence, to engineer initial conditions so as to make an intelligence explosion survivable? How could one achieve a controlled detonation?

This profoundly ambitious and original book breaks down a vast tract of difficult intellectual terrain. After an utterly engrossing journey that takes us to the frontiers of thinking about the human condition and the future of intelligent life, we find in Bostrom’s work nothing less than a re-conceptualisation of the essential task of our time. Available on Amazon.

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