Useful Features with Fingerprint IDs

Touch and fingerprint scanning have become essential at protecting our digital identities. Before the technology, entering a passcode was the only alternative to secure your smartphone. Fingerprint scanning has been available to laptops for years. However, the technology had quirks.

Customers demand more stringent security for their digital devices. Apple and other large tech companies stepped in to solve the situation. Fingerprint scanning is now a standard component for every smartphone sold today, except the iPhone. The start of the technology was awkward. Finally, fingerprint ID was located in the most logical place, the home button.

Touch and fingerprint scanning have become essential at protecting our digital identities.

The security of the Touch ID is irrefutable. Incorporate Touch ID into your daily life and you wonder why there were passwords in the first place. From biometric facial scanning to fingerprint ID, there is a security level to match every smartphone user’s personal preference.

Following Apple’s lead, every other smartphone operating system has enhanced their biometric security features. None are quite at the level of Apple’s Touch ID or biometric facial scanning. Customers are demanding better security.

Securing Your Smartphone and Apps with a Fingerprint

The obvious use of a fingerprint ID is to keep others from accessing your phone. However, what if several people need access to that phone? There are plenty of valid scenarios where more than one user needs to access a single phone. Both Apple and Android anticipated this need, with both operating systems allowing multiple fingerprints.

Two outstanding password managers, 1Password and LastPass both allow the use of biometric security. Downloading apps is a breeze when you set up Touch Id for the iPhone and fingerprint scanning for your Android device. Keeping your documents and notes safe can be a headache. Again, securing your digital life can be just as important as a secure car or home.

The need to place a physical signature on paper documents is becoming less and less critical. A secure digital world is evolving. Millions of people and their companies are now trusting electronic signatures. SignEasy and DocuSign are two of the best electronic signature applications, and both have integrated fingerprint scanning.

Alternative Uses for Touch ID and Fingerprint Scanning

Keeping your smartphone secure with a fingerprint is not the only thing the home button does. The obvious choice is buying merchandise from your favorite online store or brick and mortar. Place your finger on the home button make your purchase, and you have less money in the bank. With Apple’s Touch ID, a fingerprint can make purchases from iTunes, App Store and iBook Store. Amazon has integrated Touch ID into its app. You can make purchases, save searches and verify your identity when logging on.

Use Touch ID to protect your Evernote, Mint Personal Money Management and a burgeoning array of credit cards.

Here are some great apps for Touch ID. After a night on the town, a fingerprint scanner can be used to detect your blood alcohol level. The Blood Alcohol Content Analyzer tells you how long to wait before getting behind the wheel of a car. Use Touch ID and turn your iPhone into a scanner. Use Touch ID to protect your Evernote, Mint Personal Money Management and a burgeoning array of credit cards.

Touch ID uses the same technology as their Facial ID scanning. The original copy of your fingerprint is stored in a secure enclave within the hardware itself. Each time you press the home button, Touch ID improves its biometric characteristics. When your fingerprint changes over time, the system recognizes those changes and stores the new copy.

How Does Face ID Work?

Face ID and biometric scanning are now mainstream. The launch of Apple’s iPhone X put security front and center. Manufacturers are scrambling to catch up to the iPhone. There are apps with facial scanning but not as sophisticated as the iPhone X.

Face ID and biometric scanning are now mainstream.

Apple has incorporated facial scanning throughout their product line. The scan can unlock downloaded apps and ApplePay is also participating in the transformation. With certain retailers, you can check out by looking at an installed face scanner.

Face Id is the ultimate form of recognition, just like fingerprint security. The process analyzes individual features and converts those biometric features into computer algorithms. The iPhone X generates a mathematical reproduction of your face. Starting with your first login, the iPhone sets up the original scan. All subsequent logins are measured to this original. Patience is a virtue while setting up your initial scan.

TrueDepth Camera

The entire security system of your phone starts with Apple’s amazing TrueDepth Camera. Depth mapping is utilized when examining your face and there are eight separate functions of the camera which allows for facial scanning. You must face directly at your phone for the Face ID to work.

Biometric identifiers are used to construct the original ID. These identifiers are physiological characteristics. The shape of the face, is it more round or oval? What is the relative size of your chin or nose? How close are your eyes and what color? These are just a few of the structural characteristics that Biometric scanning refers too.

The original scan is not stored in the operating system. Instead, it becomes part of the A11 Biometric chip. The initial scan is impossible to share, even with Apple servers. The company asserts there is virtually no way to bypass the system. When logging into your phone utilizing face ID, the system cannot be tricked. Even identical twins cannot access the system.

Adapting to Change

The original scan of your face is integral to the future success or failure of the security system. There are two modules used to produce the scan. The first module projects a grid onto your face. This grid consists of more than 30,000 infrared dots, generating a 3D map of your physiological identifiers. The second module confirms your identity by matching to the original embedded scan. A secure enclave in the A11 chip is where the initial scan is stored. Hackers always try to find ways around the Face ID scan with next to zero results.

The face ID system is not a photograph, and it will not work if your eyes are closed. The iPhone X adapts to changing details and the embedded neural network learns over time. If you get a haircut or start wearing glasses, the Biometric A11 chip remembers this and makes those adjustments. The basic structure of your face never changes. Physical attributes, such as the shape of your head and the length of your nose, is the original scan embedded into the A11 chip.

The iPhone X includes a Require Attention feature. This function means you must show the iPhone you are cognizant of the scan. This is the reason why you must be facing straight at the screen to log in. This convenient feature prevents others from scanning your face while you sleep or merely are unaware of the scan. Apple’s Facial ID scanning system works exceptionally well to identify only your face.

Drive without Human Driver

In 1870 Siegfried Marcus created the first gasoline powered car. From there engines were further developed, there were different sources of power such as gasoline and petroleum. Years later in 1897 the first motor car was developed in Czech. Once motor cars were developed, the creation of some of the cars we know today began to become popular as early as 1920. Some of these cars were: BMW, Nissan, Bugatti, Ford and much more. Into the 1960’s racecars were beginning to be built. Now, in the modern era, 2012 to present day, there has been a big development in electric cars. The development of electric cars has made just the thought of self-driving cars possible.

The development of electric cars has made just the thought of self-driving cars possible.

Progression of Self Driving Cars

It is estimated that by 2030 25 percent of driving in the United States will be done by self-driving cars. Some may see this as a long time for a minimal percentage reached, but driving is extremely tedious when trying to develop a feat as such. In 2016 driving accidents were classified as the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. Knowing this, when trying to make self-driving cars, the testing must be extremely accurate. If a product comes out that causes more harm than good then it would be deemed as useless. The reason self-driving cars are being created is because there has been a huge increase in the interest of electric vehicles. These self-driving cars will also include a huge price increase. It is estimated that those who decide to purchase a self-driven car over a man operated car will be paying around 60 percent more. Due to this, it is also believed that the car sales market will not suffer a bit. There will still be the same amount of interest in man operated vehicles as there was before the self-driving cars.

Testing of Self Driving Vehicles

As stated before, these cars need to be as close to perfection as possible. To ensure safety, there is a thirty month trial of these vehicles. This testing is funded by an 8.6m euro grant. This amounts to a little over 10 million U.S. dollars. There are also re-insurer XL Catlin, and Nominet and the Atomic Energy Authority. These trials began in the beginning of May 2017 in the United Kingdom. They plan to gather data from multiple aspects of these autonomous vehicles. This data can show what needs to be fixed and how. They are being tested on public roads between London and Oxford. The reason behind testing these cars on public roads is to verify that they are able to succeed in real conditions on regular roads. Thus far, it looks as if they are being precautious and considering various factors to ensure the crucial safety expected from higher technology.

Bots for Social Business

When you want to leave a comment or have a question about a product or on a social media account you are more than likely being responded to or interacting with a bot. With major business and some small ones, some kind automated messaging system is used. A business will use social bots if they want to increase the efficiency of responding to customers. This gives better customer service and can possibly even boost the reviews of your company. A socialbot is “a type of bot that controls a social media account.” The way a socialbot is designed makes it act as if it is an actual human. Their responses are set to convince one that they are being responded to by a representative of your company. Therefore, the purpose of a bot is not to acting like humans but simply to make life for the business and customer a little easier.

A business will use social bots if they want to increase the efficiency of responding to customers.

Why should you use Bots for Social Business?

There are many factors that determine if a bot is necessary. For some businesses, social bots are necessary to keep customer satisfaction high. If you already have a system and it doesn’t include a bot, but your customer satisfaction is high, then replacing it with a bot could be detrimental. The main thing that should be determined is if your company receives a lot of inquiries. Is your business getting multiple messages a day? If so, then getting a bot could help your business. Another factor to consider is if a bot will help improve the quality of customer service. You can determine this by seeing your response time before getting a bot. If you are receiving multiple messages in a short amount of time then having a bot could almost be a necessity.

The Pros of having Bots for Social Business

There are many beneficiary aspects that come with using bots for social business. Some of these benefits are: efficiency, faster service and full control. Your business could be more efficient and provide faster service in the sense that bots would be able to complete tasks and solve problems faster. When things get confusing to the point where you send in a question it is nice to receive a quick response. Bots make this quick response possible and it leads to higher customer satisfactory. What is meant by having full control is that you can decide how your bot responds. Your company has its own brand and you can design a bot that has an attitude that represents your brand. He or she can be flirty, nice, and funny or even mean. This could also improve customer satisfactory because it can draw attention and contribute to customer experience when using your company site.

Chatbots: The Future of Communication

What is a Chat Bot?

A chat bot is a computer program or a service that is made to interact with you. It may help you by answering important questions or you may just use for fun. Chat bots replicate conversing with a person and imitate a person’s behavior by hearing or writing, mainly on the internet. Chat bots are very useful for everyday tasks and have a big and promising future in the online world in many different fields.

Future of Communication

The Future of Chat Bots – A Bot That Helps You Decide What to Buy

Micheal Mauldin created the first verbot, named Julia, in 1994. This was a chatterbot programm for Windows and an Artificial Intelligence Software Development Kit (SDK). Since then, the chatterbot programs and different technologies of natural language processing (NLP) have experienced rapid growth and further development.

Imagine if you could have your own individual shopper to help you pick out clothes. You tell them your skin tone, what type of skin you have, your measurements, and they do the rest. With this information, the bot will tell you what type of clothes are best suited for your body, where you may purchase them, and even gives you some kind words.

The start-up “Spring”, founded by David and Alan Tisch, uses one of the first assistant for your individual shopping experience provided by a new API from Facebook. Kik has developed a “bot shop” for chat bots working together with H&M, Sephora and others.

The Sympathetic Sports Bot

If your favorite player has played their last game or your favorite team lost a game, the sports bot is there for you. They lend a sympathetic ear when your friends are picking on you. Along with the latest game score, they will tell you about the world of sports around the world.

One example is the “theScore”, working via the Facebook messenger, which aloows users to get sport news as quick as possible such as new scores of their favorite teams.

A Boyfriend or Girlfriend Bot

Are you unlucky in love? Do you need daily compliments and reassurance? Chat bots may will provide meeting all your needs in the love area, most of them anyway. Chatbots created by “chatbot4u” or “Love Droids” or the “Mitsuku bot” can communicate with you and say something good about you every hour. Some will give you heartfelt messages to wake up to, and even feel bad if you happen to go on an actual date. You can tell them all of your thoughts and feelings as you are basically “dating” a real person – except they are only digital and virtual. If you do happen to find a real relationship, be prepared to really break up with this kind of bot.

The Einstein Bot That Knows “Everything”

This bot, called “iEinstein” or only “Einstein bot” knows everything from e = m x c2 to how humpback whales migrate. This kind of chat bots you find on Facebook, Twitter and other sites, and was, for example, developed by Thunder Walk Productions. This special bot was created for education and intelligent communication in 2006 and uses Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML).

If people could have their cellular phones with them during exams, many more would pass their classes. If you need to know something, but do not want to be embarrassed by asking someone younger than you, then the Einstein is just for you. You will have a plethora of information to share with your friends and family members.

The Doctor is in

After you put your symptoms in a search engine and it comes up with a terminal illness, the “family physician bot” is there for you. Medical artificial intelligence (MAI) connects chat bot’s features with medical knowledge, such as “HealthTap”, a health bot working via the Facebook messenger. It gives you medical advice and can even tell you what medicines to take.

But, you still have to be cautious with the information you receive because its always better to consult a doctor if you have contracted some serious illness.

There is an upside since medical professionals from all around the globe help provide the information available on this bot. Therefore, dealing with diseases from the common cold is just a click away. Though, there is no guarantee that this bot will provide great bedside manner.

A Bot That Helps Balance Your Budget

Are you having trouble balancing your budget? Is there too much month left at the end of the money? Do you want to know your bank balance without ever having to go to the bank? The “Finance bot”, such as “Abe”, can help you with that and a lot more. These chat bots will guide you through the world of finances and give you tips about anything that is related to money.

Some topics that this kind of bots helps with are the following: investing your savings in the housing market or determining whether you have enough money to purchase a new car. These bots also explain all the difficult financial terms that leave many people frustrated and that helps you before you participate in a large purchase. For everything that has to do with any financial subject, the “Finance bot” will be your new best friend.

These chat bots, along with many others to come, are the future of chat bots. Some patience and time will give technology the opportunity to meet our individual needs and wants even more better. At some point in the near or distant future, dates and doctors will just be a click away. It may be a good or a bad thing, but it will never ever be dull. We just have to be patient and wait for these chat bots that we need and want.

Whether you need medical care, help with shopping, someone to talk to, a virtual boyfriend or girlfriend, or someone to help you perform tasks for your business or to meet your individual work needs, chat bots can help you meet some of these needs effectually.

Virtual Assistants Are a Big Part of the Future Communication

Virtual Assistants (VA) are also a big part of the future of communication. A virtual assistant is an administrative, personal or creative assistant who works for themselve, often at home, for probably, many different clients. In this day and age, virtual assistants are very important to busy professionals because they make everyday business easier and can save time.

Why Virtual Assistants Are an Asset

Some people do wonder how virtual assistants make any money. There are a lot of reasons why an individual would rather employ a virtual assistant instead of a regular, full time administrative assistant.

The main reasons are that virtual assistants are hired to help businesses meet their needs and help them save money. Having a full-time administrative is very expensive, especially when a business only needs a person temporarily or on a project-by-project basis. A regular administrative assistant can cost a company anywhere from thirty-five thousand to fifty-thousand a year. That is a lot of money to pay a person when someone is needed just on a temporary basis.

A virtual assistant can also work for more than one company or person at a time. Therefore, they can be employed for only the hours or job that they are needed for whenever a business needs them. They can often work extra hours when the need arises.

Depending on the terms of the contract a business or person has with their virtual assistant, they can temporarily terminate their services if they are having financial issues. There are many tasks that a virtual assistant does in their daily work.

The Variety of Tasks a Virtual Assistant Does

There are many different jobs that a virtual assistant can do dependent on its skills. Some may do more logistic and scheduling tasks, while others do internet-based jobs like operating e-mail accounts, doing research, or keeping social media accounts active.

Other jobs that they may do are: manage blogs, send out e-mail newsletters, put voice memos, conference calls, and more in written form. They also can operate a business calendar, plan travels, do research, work with vendors, order items that are needed for the business, and transform data into well-thought out spreadsheets.

Some other jobs that they can do are: any jobs that take a lot of time or are repetitive, help companies hire other staff members by finding out information about potential employees, write and give out regular business communications, create presentations, and manage social media accounts.

These are just some of the jobs that virtual assistants can do. To list them all, would virtually take forever. There are certain tips to consider when hiring a virtual assistant for a business or individual.

Virtual Assistants Should Meet Your Special Needs

Every virtual assistant can basically do the same jobs or tasks. However, like any person, each one of them has its own individual talents. A person who wants to buy a virtual assistant has to look for one that will meet its special needs.

An example of this is that many virtual assistants can write press releases. But, it is a good idea to hire a virtual assistant which has profounded “knowledge” in writing. A virtual assistant that is good at writing press releases may not be good at other tasks like keeping track of a very busy schedule.

Prior to hiring a virtual assistant, it is a good idea to write down all the jobs that you need to complete to ensure all the work that you need to be done gets done.

There are a lot of platforms where you can find a personal virtual assistant or companies which organize your stuff like an optimal virtual assistant team, such as “zirtual”, “Brickwork India” or “Get Friday”.

In this fast-paced day and age, a lot of companies and individuals cannot have their daily tasks properly completed on a regular basis without the assistance of a virtual assistant.

Virtual assistants are very essential and helpful in this busy day and age when business people and individuals are often on-the-go. They can help people make sure that their everyday tasks are completed.