This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 8, 2023 - May 14, 2023

HOMA Sdn Bhd (HOMA2U), a Malaysian marketplace for renovation and interior design, announced that it has secured US$875,000 (RM3.9 million) in its pre-series A funding led by Quest Ventures Asia Fund II, an early-stage venture capital fund managed by Singapore-based Quest Ventures Pte Ltd.

The investment round also includes Worldwide Management Solutions and Qhazanah Sabah Bhd, the strategic investment arm of the Sabah government. This is Quest Ventures Asia Fund II’s second cheque for HOMA2U.

The funds will support HOMA2U’s regional expansion plans, accelerate its product development and expand its market capitalisation value.

The funds will also be used to help clients meet their environmental, social and governance commitment through HOMA2U's Yellow Boxes and online platform. Yellow Boxes — Malaysia’s first unmanned interior product showrooms — are mobile pop-up outlets that offer offline-to-online purchasing services for visitors.

HOMA2U aims to grow its business threefold and will be focusing its efforts on opening 18 Yellow Boxes throughout Malaysia and establishing its first Yellow Box in Singapore by 3Q2023.

The investment will also be used to support HOMA2U’s growth and scaling plans to realise its goal of becoming a company that generates RM100 million in annual revenue before 2025.

In an effort to address and curb online scams, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has directed all telcos in the country to block links sent via SMS.

Maxis has become the first telco to comply with the directive as it started blocking short-message-service (SMS) containing URLs from May 2. In an announcement, Maxis stated that the blocking of such SMS will prevent users from falling prey to online scams.

The block will be applicable to messages sent or received from local and international mobile numbers. The telco advises users to share links via social apps or other instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger or WeChat.

Users are reminded to be wary of links sent by strangers. In instances where access to online banking accounts or e-wallets are required, users should always use the official app or visit the website directly instead of clicking on links.

MSIG Insurance (Malaysia) Bhd has launched a new motor add-on called “EZ-Mile” for selected comprehensive private car insurance. The motor add-on allows new and existing MSIG motor insurance customers to reduce their comprehensive motor insurance premium by choosing any of the three mileage-based usage plans of 5,000km, 10,000km or 15,000km — with each offering premium savings on selected comprehensive motor insurance packages.

This provides MSIG customers, particularly those who have low mileage each year, the flexibility to choose packages that best reflect their expected car usage and still benefit fully from the protection offered by MSIG.

The new feature, which also reduces motor users’ carbon footprint, is in line with MSIG’s support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 13: climate action.

Customers who opt for the add-on will have their mileage measured by a small wireless device called the “Microtag” that is linked via Bluetooth to their smartphone. When the mileage allowance looks likely to be exceeded, motorists can purchase a “top-up” to maintain their comprehensive motor insurance.

The Microtag also enables more effective roadside assistance with two services - eCall and bCall. The eCall feature will automatically call for assistance when an impact is detected to ensure that, in the event of an accident, emergency services are alerted early. In the event of a breakdown, the user can also use the bCall feature to quickly access the 24-hour assistance hotline.

Yellow.ai, a conversational artificial intelligence platform, has launched a dynamic automation platform (DAP) powered by generative AI that enables enterprises to automate customer and employee experiences at scale with a 60% reduction in their operational costs.

“We strongly believe in the potential of generative AI to enhance our capabilities, foster innovation and drive business growth. We are investing heavily in domain-specific LLMs (large language models) to facilitate dynamic content creation, providing our customers with a comprehensive experience through our enterprise-grade dynamic AI agents,” said Raghu Ravinutala, co-founder and CEO of Yellow.ai.

The company is combining generative AI technology with DAP, which runs on its proprietary and multi-LLM AI engine, DynamicNLP. Businesses leveraging DAP for Yellow.ai’s suite of solutions can go live with their deployments two times faster.

Luno, Malaysia’s leading regulated digital asset exchange, has made some changes to its leadership line-up.

Aaron Tang (pictured below, left), country manager of Luno Malaysia, will assume the role of general manager for Asia-Pacific starting May 15. Tang is taking over the role from David Low (pictured, right), who is taking a career break after stepping down from the position the latter has held since August 2018.

Tang joined Luno Malaysia as its marketing and community lead in 2018. He was most recently country manager of Luno Malaysia, having served in the position since August 2019.

Scarlett Chai (pictured, centre) will take over as the new country manager, having previously served as marketing and partnerships lead from 2019 to 2021, and then as marketing manager, a role she has held since July 2021.

Capital A’s venture company, BigPay, has appointed Zubin Rada Krishnan as acting group CEO. Zubin was the Malaysia country head of BigPay and he succeeds Salim Dhanani, who stepped down in February.

Before joining BigPay, Zubin was a partner at Boston Consulting Group for over six years, focusing on financial services, including the design of digital banks in Singapore and Malaysia, large-scale bank operating model transformations and the build and launch of innovative digital products.

HSBC Malaysia has announced the appointment of Linda Yip as head of wealth and personal banking (WPB), with effect from June 15. She will report to Datuk Omar Siddiq, CEO of HSBC Malaysia, and Greg Hingston, CEO of HSBC Global Insurance and Partnerships and interim head of WPB, South Asia.

Yip is currently the head of WPB in Taiwan and brings with her 25 years of experience in the finance industry across the retail, wealth management and private banking segments. She has successfully led the WPB business in Taiwan, achieving exponential growth and making HSBC a leading international wealth manager in Taiwan.

As cloud adoption continues to surge, with a projected market size of RM3.7 trillion in 2025, threat actors are increasingly targeting common vulnerabilities in the cloud.

Palo Alto Networks, a global cybersecurity company, has published Volume 7 of its Unit 42 Cloud Threat Report, which shows that while cloud migration is expected to continue to surge, threat actors are on the lookout to exploit common issues that arise in cloud environments, such as misconfigurations, weak credentials, lack of authentication, unpatched vulnerabilities and malicious open-source software packages.

Some of the key findings from the report are:

● Cloud users repeat common mistakes, which trigger most security alerts. In most organisations’ cloud environments, 5% of the security rules trigger 80% of the alerts;

● Security alerts take too long to resolve: it takes an average of 145 hours (six days) for security teams to resolve an alert, providing a lengthy window of opportunity for potential adversaries;

● Sensitive data in the cloud is at risk. Sensitive data is found in 66% of storage buckets and 63% of publicly exposed storage buckets, and is vulnerable to insider and external threats;

● Leaked credentials are pervasive and central to cloud breaches. Some 83% of organisations have hard-coded credentials in their source control management systems, and 85% have hard-coded credentials in virtual machines’ user data. Credential access continues to be a common tactic across all cloud threat actors;

● Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is not enforced for cloud users. Some 76% of organisations don’t enforce MFA for console users, and 58% don’t enforce MFA for root or admin users, making console access susceptible to brute-force attacks;

● Attacks on software supply chains are on the rise. More than 7,300 malicious operational support system packages were discovered in 2022, impacting tech giants and other organisations;

● Managing code dependencies is challenging. Some 51% of codebases depend on over 100 open-source packages, and only 23% are directly imported by developers. Vulnerabilities are introduced by non-root packages, which can pose risks to the entire cloud infrastructure; and

● Unpatched vulnerabilities are a low-hanging fruit for attacks. Some 63% of codebases in production and 11% of public cloud hosts have high or critical unpatched vulnerabilities, posing risks to the entire cloud infrastructure.

Not so long ago, we embraced social media as a life-changing opportunity to connect with friends and family all across the globe. Today, the pendulum of public opinion is swinging in the opposite direction as Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and similar sites are being accused of corrupting our democracy, spreading disinformation and fanning the flames of hatred.

We once marvelled at the revolutionary convenience of ordering items online and having them show up on our doorsteps, sometimes overnight. Now we fret about Amazon outsourcing our jobs overseas or building robots to do them for us.

Here, with insightful analysis and in-depth research, Robby Soave explores some of the biggest issues animating both the right and the left: bias, censorship, disinformation, privacy, screen addiction, crime and more. Far from polemical, Tech Panic is grounded in interviews with insiders at companies like Facebook and Twitter, as well as expert analysis by both tech boosters and sceptics — from Mark Zuckerberg to Josh Hawley.

Readers will learn not just about the consequences of Big Tech, but also the consequences of altering the ecosystem that allowed tech to get big. Offering a fresh and crucial perspective on one of the biggest influences of the 21st century, Soave seeks to stand against history and yell, “Wait, are we sure we really want to do this?” — Amazon

PanaCast 20 is a personal camera that knows exactly what you need, when you need it. It uses advanced processors, powerful on-board artificial intelligence (AI) and a 13-megapixel camera to deliver an impressive real-time 4K Ultra-HD image that is crystal clear with virtually no latency.

The built-in intelligent Zoom feature uses powerful AI to continuously scan and adjust your picture in real time, ensuring you are always in the centre of the frame. Now you can experience more immersive, natural video collaboration without having to stay rooted to the spot.

PanaCast 20 is also engineered for data security. An advanced on-board Edge AI chipset drives all of the intelligent features as well as processing videos on the device itself to reduce the risk of data breaches. So you can get on with whatever you are doing, without worrying.

It retails for US$139.30 (RM620) and is available at www.jabra.com/business/video-conferencing/jabra-panacast-20.

John McFall is the European Space Agency’s first ever para-astronaut, selected to study how feasible it is for someone with a physical disability to live and work in space. BBC News joined him on board a parabolic flight, where he experienced weightlessness for the first time.

Insead develops poetic generative AI application, TotoPoetry

A recent media report concluded that “ChatGPT Is Pretty Bad At Poetry, According To Poets”. Yet that does not mean that the literary ability of all artificial intelligence (AI) should be disregarded. Applications created by Insead’s AI lab using exacting rules could potentially be more useful and reliable than ChatGPT.

One of those applications is TotoPoetry, a poetry generator trained on a rule-oriented approach to AI. Philip M Parker, Insead chaired professor of management science and founder of the Insead AI lab called TotoGEO, claims that the lab’s algorithms have generated the world’s longest poem, the first unabridged dictionary consisting of definitions written in verse across 20 genres of poetry, and the largest collection of poetry written by the same source.

TotoPoetry’s long poem consists of 799,278 stanzas, 4.2 million verse lines and over 13.9 million words.

Here are the results when the two AI applications are prompted to write a didactic limerick about love:

Poem #2 is the better limerick, says Parker, because it is a limerick and defines love as affection. The ChatGPT-generated poem, in contrast, does not conform to the strict rhyme scheme of limericks. It also does not inform the reader that it does not know how to write limericks. As a result, a young reader might infer that Poem #1 is a limerick and forever be misinformed.

Following TotoPoetry, the Insead TotoGEO AI lab will be launching more groundbreaking AI applications in the coming months, including a powerful search engine, a newspaper generator and a Wikipedia-like website.

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play.