Magazine menu Close Magazine menu

Author

David Silverberg

David Silverberg is a freelance journalist in Toronto who writes for BBC News, Business Insider, The Washington Post, Fodor's, Vice, and many more outlets. He specializes in writing about technology, digital media, business trends, startup culture and science. He is also a published poet and touring theatre artist.

Latest stories by David

disinformation technology

Can AI help mend trust in business damaged by trolling and fakes?

  • Artificial intelligence
  • min read
    • In 2021, artificial intelligence (AI) might have finally become better than humans at being human. A study found people trust AI-made fake faces more than real people's faces. The researchers warn their findings show widespread use of AI poses a threat to the public. They recommend stronger safeguards restricting code to those with good reason to use it. As deepfakes and manipulated imagery increase, we've seen a counter-balance in businesses wanting to communicate with customers in a more authentic voice. This also means rooting out manipulated sentiment and trolling, so we see governments and brands contracting tech firms to reveal those spreading disinformation on social media. Could we get better at spotting fakes? In a world where four in ten teens can't tell the difference between fake and real news, rebuilding trust must be a business priority. But how AI technology has advanced makes it complex. It's now easy to create many synthetic images and videos using AI systems that analyze thousands of real images to learn how to make fakes. In the past, that workload would've needed many trained people. The FBI recently alerted that HR managers have spotted people using deepfakes to apply for remote jobs. But why? "Fake employment applicants may be hoping to access and hack the hiring company's IT systems," says Kaspersky senior data scientist Dmitry Anikin. "It's happening, but today, it's hard to do well. Making a high-quality deepfake needs much data and computing power, especially for online meetings. We should prepare for the threat to grow, because technology doesn't stand still." Fighting to maintain online credibility All business relies on trust. So how can business operate with the albatross of fakery hovering above? Luckily, companies like Truepic offer solutions. Truepic's software development kit (SDK) integrates with apps that rely on images, verifying media in real time. It checks image metadata – like when, where and on which device it was created – then cryptographically signs it, embedding validation in the file. This lets businesses on the back end know if content is real or synthetic. Truepic's clients include credit reporting company Equifax and car manufacturer Ford. When Ford pays out on a warranty claim, they need to know if car parts or damage photographs are legitimate or have been manipulated or pulled from the web. Brown says tagging tools like Truepic come at a time of brand and consumer frustration with social media companies doing little to stem disinformation. "We're in that sea change now. A consumer push for authenticity is starting to pressure social media platforms to take notice." But firms like Truepic aren't sitting on their hands waiting for Facebook, Twitter and TikTok to act differently. Truepic belongs to Adobe's Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), a community of tech companies, media, non-government organizations (NGOs) and others promoting an open industry standard for proving content authenticity. This year, Adobe released a three-part open-source toolkit to help get trust-building technology into developers' hands faster. Rooting out social media trolls ZeroFox, Astroscreen and Cyabra use AI to identify disinformation disseminators and 'sock puppets' – fake profiles creating an illusion of wider support for (or opposition to) an idea or company. Cyabra calls itself a "social media search engine designed to track and measure the impact of fake accounts." Companies like Cyabra recognize social media platforms aren't doing this enough. Rafi Mendelsohn, vice president of marketing at Cyabra, says, "We look at the 'breadcrumbs' to find out if an account is real or not." Breadcrumbs might be, for example, a user posting 23 hours a day or multiple users Tweeting the same text. Brands using Cyabra include Warner Media, which faced a deluge of Twitter trolling when they announced the first female-led superhero film, Wonder Woman, in 2017. "We helped Warner recognize authentic enthusiasm for the film and what was false," says Mendelsohn. Cyabra works with Brazilian, Colombian and US state governments to track fake narratives leading up to major elections. Mendelsohn notes, "Human analysts have done this work for years, but we can do it at scale with AI." In the highly publicized battle between Elon Musk and Twitter, Musk contracted Cyabra to find out how many Twitter users were fake before confirming purchase – their analysis found about 11 percent. Towards a more authentic internet Those studying distrust online have found language is important in identifying disinformation. Victoria Rubin, associate professor of information and media studies at University of Western Ontario, has tracked disinformation spreaders for several years and noticed some hallmarks. "Those who lie don't often reference themselves in posts and prefer to use 'they' in language." She says fake news and election lies spread fast when people don't look critically at what they see. It's common – haven't we all reacted to a news item after just reading the headline? Disinformation isn't going anywhere soon, so to attack it requires greater vigilance. Those I interviewed said education and company responsibility must be part of confronting it. They agree we must teach people how bad actors use new technologies to fool us something's real when it's not. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook must also do as much as possible to rebuild trust, says Truepic's Brown. "Our big-picture goal is an internet with built-in authenticity infrastructure, so everyone has the right data to make decisions that affect their lives."
drones emergency response

Will drones be the next tech to transform healthcare?

  • Emerging tech
  • min read
    • It was the longest five seconds of Dr. Shaf Keshavjee's life. On a late afternoon in 2021, he waited on the rooftop of Canada's Toronto General Hospital, watching a drone crest the horizon and hover above its landing pad. "It seemed to hover forever," says the director of the Toronto Lung Transplant Program. "In medicine, you do many stressful things with unknown outcomes. You're trained to handle it, because you have complete control of the situation," he tells me. "But this was different. I had to trust technology out of my control." The lungs, filled with oxygen and set at the correct temperature, traveled hundreds of feet in the air for nearly a mile over busy downtown Toronto. It took six minutes. This breakthrough flight was another rung on the ladder of a new application for drones in healthcare: Delivering organs quickly and efficiently for life-saving surgery. But at each rung, there are challenges – like responsible management of the crowded airspace of a new kind of highway. Flying medical supplies to kidneys and corneas Drones, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) were once regarded mainly as a hobby. But they're now poised to reach a market value of 40 billion US dollars by 2027. Some hope autonomous aircraft like MightyFly will soon deliver goods to shoppers. Hunter Kosar, owner of US shipping company Twisted Nail Broker Services, noted a niche hybrid-electric, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) autonomous aircraft could focus on transporting time-sensitive supplies like organs. "Organs are light, expensive and needed fast. Healthcare would pay a lot to receive a heart for transplant in 90 minutes instead of 4 hours." In 2019, Zipline crafted a fleet of drones to carry medical supplies to Ghana's remote areas. In 2021, UPS Flight Forward achieved a US first by drone-delivering COVID-19 vaccines in North Carolina. To healthcare specialists, drones are an obvious next step for delivering organs beyond the usual helicopter or plane. In 2020 drone start-up MissionGO Unmanned Systems' medical cargo branch partnered with Nevada Donor Network to successfully deliver kidneys and corneas. The 10-mile (16 km) kidney delivery was the longest organ delivery flight in drone history. The organs were intentionally unusable as the flight's purpose was research. Lab technicians took a graft of the delivered kidney and found no negative effects from the flight. "The organs didn't degrade," says MissionGO CEO Scott Plank. Plank is encouraged by healthcare working with airspace "to solve a major problem, produce a lower carbon footprint and foster a more efficient supply chain." MissionGO is one of the few drone firms with US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification to deliver human organs for transplant. It all began at University of Maryland in 2019 when a university team used a drone to deliver kidneys to a patient 2.8 miles (4.5km) away within 10 minutes. University of Maryland Medical Center's Dr. Joseph Scalea recognized he was onto something monumental and, within months, co-founded MissionGO. While organ delivery by drone is in its infancy, a concern nags enthusiasts like Dr. Keshavjee. "There must be a focus on safety and compliance. What will happen when drones take to the skies and start running into each other?" Managing a new kind of highway "Call us the Google Maps for drones, but the roads don't exist yet," says Michael Healander. His Detroit-based start-up Airspace Link may be about to become the US air traffic control system for drones. Already FAA-approved to oversee low altitude flights, Airspace Link helps drone pilots know where they can fly, any temporary flight restrictions ahead and nearest airport locations. They also communicate with 2,700 US airports, alerting them to any drones coming into their airspace. They use more than 50 datasets, from building footprints and heights to helipad locations to hyperlocal weather. Healander says drones are the future of delivering organs safely and efficiently. He also foresees other medical uses for drone delivery. "Delivering prescriptions to people with mobility challenges or in rural areas," he suggests. "Blood samples have to go to a lab, so instead of a patient waiting days, the drone could deliver the samples and the patient receive results in hours." Next time you happen to catch sight of a drone careening across the sky, it might be more than a tech lover having fun with a new toy. You may be witnessing a seismic shift in how we deliver critical medical treatment to those most in need.

Autonomous or VR-controlled, this robot adapts to humans

  • Emerging tech
  • min read
    • Fingers grip a kettle's handle and pour you a perfect cup of coffee. Then, they lift a suitcase, open a door and hand you a bottle of water. But this is no human assistant – under its sleek, white aluminum and plastic body, wheels shuttle this social robot to its next task. Its manipulating, gripping hands are innovative for robots. You can manage this next-gen robot's controls using virtual reality (VR.) The human behind these movements can be close or miles away. Humanoid robot EVE performs motions and actions useful in human settings. From the video promo for next-gen humanoid robot EVE, it's clear manufacturer Halodi Robotics of Norway wants to change the fast-moving robotics industry. Designing robots for human lives During our recent interview, Halodi's CEO Bernt Øivind Børnich said the company wanted to explore a different route. Launched in early 2020, the first version of EVE is designed to work with people with mobility issues or patrol areas unsafe for human guards, like nuclear waste sites or places with inhospitable weather. "We want to build robots that are safe, capable and affordable," says Børnich. "They can patrol autonomously without much human intervention. If a situation comes up, the owner can take control using a VR headset, rather than send in a human to do a dangerous task." All about robot EVE EVE is around the average height of an NFL player (6 foot 1 inches or 1.86 m,) but rather lighter at 174 pounds (less than 80 kg.) It can lift 17 pounds (8 kg) per arm and zips along at speeds of up to 14 miles (22 km) per hour. Cameras linked to Intel CPUs act as sensors that let EVE navigate its environment, whether in a home or traversing rough terrain outside a nuclear plant. EVE's face was designed to look like a robot, rather than human, face. Børnich says he was inspired by the 2008 Pixar and Disney film Wall-E: "Those eyebrows can express so much emotion, and we didn't want the robot to look too much like a human." He's no doubt aware of the 'uncanny valley' where people find robots creepy when their appearance is too human-like. Layered with AI, EVE can understand more human commands over time, as Halodi keeps feeding the software more data. So, in a home setting, someone could say, "bring me a bottle of water" and EVE will understand the command without any controller needed. EVE has been deployed for testing at the Toyota Research Institute in California, which specializes in nuclear research. A university in Norway is using the robot for research and teaching next-gen robotics. Børnich explains the next phase will bring another iteration of EVE to more pilot trials for commercial applications, including retail, in 2021. "Robots controlled by VR open many possibilities," said Darrell West, author of The future of work: Robots, AI and automation, when I interviewed him. "If they can help humans can avoid dangerous places, like minefields and extreme weather events, they can live up to the buzz." VR-controlled robots aren't new, as ABI Research analyst Rian Whitton said when I spoke to her. Notably, medical robotics let surgeons to remotely operate on patients using VR. "The more impressive innovations we've seen are in navigation [of rough terrain,] and the software stack to allow robots to work more autonomously," he adds. DaVinci robot controlled by a surgeon using toggles and buttons. Where to next for robotics? Here's the thing: robots controlled with VR aren't often in the public eye beyond healthcare and manufacturing. EVE could invite more innovations riffing of the theme of connecting these robots with more widespread applications. As Whitton noted in my interview with him, Halodi's market space is increasingly competitive and lucrative. Major players from the US, China and Europe are all vying for a piece of the 32 billion US dollar robotics industry, according to the 2020 estimates of robotics researchers ABI Research. Børnich contends what will separate winners from the 'also ran' manufacturers are general purpose robots. "The more tasks you can solve with one platform, the better positioned you are to bring more value to your customers. Look at smartphones: Before they came around, we had separate devices for GPS tech, telling the time, managing our schedules, and so on. Once you can put all that into one device and bring the cost down, everyone finds that new technology useful. It's the same with robotics." As progress in robotics accelerates, forward-thinking businesses shouldn't twiddle their thumbs on the sidelines. They should use the advancements these new technologies bring to healthcare, supply chains and everyday life. When opportunity knocks, the door should open as fast as possible.
by Innovating leaders.
Innovative tech.
About Secure Futures

Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

  • For all other countries