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2 Metaverse Stocks That Could Make You Richer in 2023 – The Motley Fool

It wasn't all that long ago that investors were excited about the potential for the metaverse. Some analysts were tossing around projections that the market for the virtual world could eventually be in the trillions of dollars. The stocks of companies with major metaverse initiatives were on fire.

That was then. Today, there isn't nearly as much talk about the metaverse. Most of those once-sizzling stocks have flamed out.

But don't think for a second that the metaverse opportunity isn't significant. There's still a lot of money to be made -- by companies and investors.Here are two metaverse stocks that could make you richer in 2023.

You might not think ofAmazon (AMZN 1.74%) as a metaverse stock. After all, the company's head of devices Dave Limp said earlier this year that Amazon is focused on "the real world" and not the metaverse.

However, there's more to the story. In February, Amazon posted a job opening for a product manager on its Amazon Web Services (AWS) team who "will own the delivery of cloud-based metaverse services." This job posting shows that the company actually is more focused on the metaverse than you might think.

This shouldn't be surprising. AWS reigns as the leading provider of cloud hosting services. The metaverse will present a massive growth opportunity for the cloud hosting market.

Amazon would be crazy to ignore the metaverse. And it isn't crazy.

I predict that Amazon will ultimately be among the big winners if and when the vision of the metaverse becomes a reality. Before that happens, though, the stock could (and will, in my view) make investors money in 2023 for a completely different reason.

Amazon stock is historically cheap after plunging close to 50% this year. Much of this decline is related to macroeconomic factors, rather than anything specific to the company. I'm not in the camp that believes a new bull market is imminent. But I do think it's quite possible that we could see a big stock market rebound in the second half of next year.

Meta Platforms (META 0.79%) provided the main catalyst for investors' initial enthusiasm about the metaverse opportunity. The company even changed its name from Facebook to reflect its big focus on it.

That metaverse pivot appears to have backfired badly. Meta stock has plunged close to 65% this year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been raked over the coals by some investors for spending too much money on what they view as a quixotic dream.

It's true that Meta's Reality Labs, the home to its metaverse initiatives, is burning through cash. However, Zuckerberg made a pretty good case for this spending in an interview earlier this month.

He noted that 90% of Reality Labs' research and development investments are going toward virtual-reality headsets and augmented-reality glasses. Those efforts could pay off handsomely, even if Zuckerberg's metaverse vision isn't achieved.

The metaverse won't be a moneymaker for Meta anytime soon. But the company's social networking apps continue to generate enormous revenue. In the third quarter alone, Meta raked in $27.7 billion in sales with profits of nearly $4.4 billion. Although both numbers reflected year-over-year declines, that's still a lot of money.

Like Amazon, Meta is feeling the impact of macroeconomic headwinds. Advertising spending has fallen. However, if a recession is avoided (as Goldman Sachsexpects), the ad market could regain momentum next year. Even if a recession comes, many economists predict that it will be short and mild.

Importantly, Meta's user base continues to grow. In Q3, the numbers of daily and monthly active users across its family of social apps both increased by 4% year over year to 2.93 billion and 3.71 billion, respectively.

The company is also rolling out new products that should retain existing users and attract new ones. It's retooled its feeds to focus more on content curated by artificial intelligence (AI). And Meta is working hard to increase monetization, as well, especially with its WhatsApp messaging app.

Meanwhile, Meta stock is attractively valued. Shares trade at only 14.5 times expected earnings. Aswath Damodaran, the NYU finance professor who literally wrote the book on valuing companies (actually, he's written several of them), believes that the stock has practically all upside potential based on its current valuation.

With all of this in mind, Meta looks like a stock that could very well make investors richer in 2023. If its monetization and metaverse efforts pay off, that increased wealth could be multiplied over the long term.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keith Speights has positions in Amazon.com and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs Group, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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2 Metaverse Stocks That Could Make You Richer in 2023 - The Motley Fool

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EDNS inks a partnership deal with Alibaba Cloud to explore the … – PR Newswire

SINGAPORE, Dec. 23, 2022 /PRNewswire/ --Ether Domain Name Services (EDNS) proudly announces that it inked a partnership deal with Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, to explore the possibilities of Web3 adoption.

Under the partnership, EDNS, a Web3 pioneer and enthusiast, will work with Alibaba Cloud, Asia Pacific's leading infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provider, to discover the potential of integrating their scalable, high performance and stable infrastructure with blockchain to bring products to Web3 frontiers.

The collaboration between EDNS and Alibaba Cloud was launched at a workshop themed "The Power of Web 3.0" on November 29, 2022, where Joey Lam, EDNS Founder & CEO and Derek Wang, General Manager of Singapore, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).

Joey Lam, EDNS Founder & CEO and Mike Ng, EDNS Co-founder & Technical Director discussed extensively about Web3, followed by a panel on the future of Web3 projects led by Emil Chan, Chairman of The Association of Cloud and Mobile Computing Professionals, and blockchain Lawyer Henry Yu.

Consequently, EDNS will also participate in "Web3.0 Cloud Day Singapore 2022" co-hosted by Alibaba Cloud and Odaily. "At EDNS, we are actively building the infrastructure for the upcoming Web 3.0 revolution. Right now, is the best time to reach out for strategic partnerships to strengthen our ecosystem. We are honored that what we have achieved so far has been recognized by Alibaba Cloud.

"The motivation behind this partnership is joining hands to deliver disruptive Web3 solutions that are demanded by the market, especially in the storage area," said EDNS CEO Ms Joey Lam.

About EDNS Domains

Ether Domain Name Services (EDNS) is an Ethereum-based lookup service built on the polygon blockchain. It also leverages name and lookup service built on the Polygon blockchain. Since it is compatible with Ethereum, crypto users can translate their machine-readable addresses to human-readable addresses. It provides a Decentralized Domain Naming Service for Web 3.0-related demands, including NFT, digital assets, Web hosting, and DeFi in the Digital world. More info: https://www.edns.domains/.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973329/From_Left_Right_Ms_Joey_Lam_Tsz_Yin_Founder_EDNS_Domains.jpg

SOURCE EDNS Domains

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Looking for a Surefire Winner in the Next Bull Market? Buy Amazon … – The Motley Fool

You can easily find numerous predictions online that a new bull market is coming. I personally don't expect we'll see the stock market surge in the near term. Warren Buffett doesn't seem to think a bull market is imminent, either.

However, you can rest assured that there will be a new bull market on the way -- at some point. It's not too soon to begin planning your investment strategy for the eventual and inevitable stock market comeback. If you're looking for a surefire winner in the next bull market, here's a compelling case to buy Amazon (AMZN 1.74%) stock.

You've probably heard the old saying that "history doesn't repeat itself" more times than you can count. While it's true, the adage shouldn't be construed to mean that we can't learn from the past to gain a better understanding of how the future might unfold. I think it's helpful to look at how Amazon stock has performed in previous bull markets.

Amazon conducted its initial public offering (IPO) in the midst of the dot-com boom. The chart below shows how the stock performed as compared to the S&P 500 from its IPO in 1997 through the end of 1999.

AMZN data by YCharts.

To say that Amazon outperformed the S&P during the heady dot-com bull market is an understatement. However, Amazon (like many other tech stocks) began to decline significantly well before the S&P 500 entered into a bear market.

But the e-commerce stock started to rally well in advance of the S&P's next bull market, too.Amazon again trounced the S&P 500 in the bull market that began in late 2002.

AMZN data by YCharts.

When the bear market associated with the Great Recession began, Amazon stock began to fall before the S&P did and plunged much more deeply. As it did in the previous cycle, though, Amazon's shares rebounded sooner than the major index. The stock also delivered a much greater gain during the subsequent 11-year bull market.

AMZN data by YCharts.

There's been a clear pattern for Amazon stock in the past. It falls well before the S&P 500 enters a bear market. It begins to rebound well before the S&P does. And it rises a lot more than the index does in the following bull market.

Maybe Amazon will break this cycle in the next bull market. But is there any reason to expect that it will? I don't think so.

Some might point out that, unlike in the past, the company's growth is slowing. However, the reasons why Amazon's growth is slowing appear to be primarily related to the highest inflation rates in four decades. If you believe that the next bull market will be accompanied by lower inflation (which seems to be a good bet), Amazon's biggest current headwinds shouldn't be so problematic.

The reality is that Amazon still has a huge competitive moat. No other player comes close to beating Amazon in e-commerce. The company's brand and infrastructure are simply unmatched. Amazon also reigns as the leader in the cloud-hosting market, a position that it doesn't appear likely to relinquish anytime soon.

Growth opportunities for Amazon are easy to find. E-commerce only made up 14.1% of total retail sales in the U.S. in the third quarter of 2022. There's more room to run for the cloud-hosting market, especially as artificial intelligence systems advance in capabilities. Amazon's digital advertising business is growing by leaps and bounds. Don't forget new markets, notably including healthcare.

One reason why Amazon stock has beaten the S&P 500 in bull markets is that it gets beaten down a lot more in bear markets. That's exactly what has happened this time around.

But investors should recognize that Amazon stock has never been this cheap -- at least not based on share price-to-projected free cash flow. The last time Amazon's shares were down this much from the previous high was in early 2009. And we know what happened afterward.

No one knows for sure when a new bull market is coming. Make no mistake, though, the stock market will roar again. When it does, Amazon should be a surefire winner.

John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keith Speights has positions in Amazon.com. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon.com. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Looking for a Surefire Winner in the Next Bull Market? Buy Amazon ... - The Motley Fool

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Bank of England mulls future regulatory oversight over Ethereum … – Ledger Insights

This week theBank of Englandpublished ablog postsummarizing its analysis of the governance of public blockchains. It asks how one should govern a blockchain that becomes a critical piece of financial infrastructure. The focus was on permissionless blockchains and, for now Ethereum, although it notes that it does not consider the blockchain as critical. Yet.

In the traditional financial system, critical financial infrastructure is regulated to deliver an appropriate level of responsibility, accountability, and control, says the blog post. So, there is a question as to what appropriate regulatory oversight of a blockchain could entail, were it to become a more critical piece of infrastructure in the financial system.

It pointed to the Ethereum Merge, a highly risky move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake to secure the network. Frankly, its hard to criticize the transition at a technical or process level, and one has to question whether conventional institutions could have handled it better.

However, thats not what the Bank is concerned about. It wants to know what would have happened if something went wrong. Who would have taken responsibility and would be accountable for the financial loss? Wed hazard an answer on the loss: the token holders.

The Bank also mentioned that the UK is looking to extend responsibilities to critical third parties involved in the financial sector, such as cloud hosting companies.

Many in the crypto world are concerned that the move from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake makes the network more susceptible to oversight.

On the flip side, the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision also has concerns about permissionless blockchains. Digital securities are treated (more or less) in the same way as conventional securities for Basel III risk assessments. These lower risk crypto-assets are classified in Group 1 compared to cryptocurrencies that fall under the higher risk Group 2.

Last week the Basel Committee published thefinal version of the crypto-asset rules. It states, The Committee will continue to reflect on whether the risks posed by cryptoassets that use permissionless blockchains can be sufficiently mitigated to allow for their inclusion in Group 1 and, if so, what adjustments to the classification conditions would be needed.

Digressing from the Banks blog post, wed like to point to other networks that have been free from oversight. And how there could also be new permissioned blockchain networks that also become powerful and are not directly regulated.

Take the example of SWIFT. It isnot a payment systemand hence is not covered by conventional payment regulations. You read that correctly. At a technical level, SWIFT simply transmits messages across its network. It doesnt actually make any payments. As a result, until 1998, it had a free pass from regulators. At that point, the central banks concluded that it was too large and important and hence needed to be overseen by central banks as a critical service provider.

And thats how the Bank would view Ethereum if it became critical.

As a side observation, the choice of how a blockchain network is structured is critical to its ability to grow unencumbered by regulation.

Take the example ofFnality, the permissioned payment network backed by 17 financial institutions. Its chosen path is to have an omnibus central bank account, where its shareholder banks deposit money which is then tokenized for on-chain payments. This choice is the result of the goal to create a single liquidity pool that a bank can use for several applications and platforms.

However, as a result,Fnalityhas to get clearance from every central bank in any jurisdiction in which it plans to operate. Thats a slow painful process. It is already designated as a systemic payment provider in the UK, and the Bank of Englanddelayed its planned 2022launch.

In contrast, SingaporesPartior, in which JP Morgan is one of four founding shareholders, does not have a central bank account. Instead, its the network operator in which banks have nodes. So its far more like SWIFT. As a result, Partior is going to be able to expand relatively quickly.

Thats not to say the Partior route is better than the Fnality route. Theyre both targeting interbank payments but with different priorities.And in both cases, if something went wrong, the legal liability would be clearer compared to Ethereum.

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Year end note from Redington’s key business heads – CRN … – CRN.in

Digital PrintingRamesh Kalpathy, VP, Digital Printing, Redington Limited

3D printing has become a popular manufacturing technology due to the time andcost savings it offers in design development, prototyping and production. Thefinished products also generate less waste and showcase increased effectiveness.Redington aims to democratize digital manufacturing and 3D printing acrossindustries for effective and precise product design and production.

Redington Limited has partnered with Wipro 3D for the distribution of the newlylaunched polymer 3D printer across the country, which will boost and support theefforts to democratize 3D printing via indigenous products in India. The collaborationwill accelerate the adoption of additive manufacturing technology across industrieswhich will also support Wipro 3Ds foray into indigenous design & development of 3Dprinters, with its dense distribution network across MSMEs, Education Institutes & Industrial firms.

MobilityAthreya K Prasad, Group Head- AMG, Redington Limited

With a presence of about two decades in the mobility business, Redington has been part of theevolution of this category in India from a nascent stage. Its mobility business offers a portfolio of world-class brands and products including Smartphones, Wearables, and accessories. It partnerswith the best of brands and is instrumental in evolving several GTMs in association with its brand partners. It integrates multiple Omni channel touch points to provide end customers a seamlessconsumer experience, with no technology friction, in terms of buying, payments and timed-delivery.

SolarPradeep Srikanthan, Vice President and SBU Head, Redington Limited

Governments around the world are focusing on sustainable development andrenewable energy, which is driving demand for solar solutions. Companies are alsolooking to decarbonize their business processes, which is likely to accelerate thedeployment of clean energy. Indias renewable energy capacity has more thandoubled in the last five years, with solar energy expanding almost five times. As Indiaaims to become a net-zero economy by 2070, the democratization and ease ofadoption of solar products at a domestic scale will be crucial.

CloudRakshit Bhatt, Head Cloud, Business Group, Redington Limited

The adoption of cloud technology is increasingly growing as economies recover fromthe impact of the pandemic. New trends in cloud computing such as hybrid cloud,personal cloud technologies are on the rise, due to the return to office trend. As perindustry forecasts, the global cloud services market is expected to grow at 20.7% in2023, which is higher than the 18.8% growth registered in 2022.

Redington enables cloud implementation across industries for all company sizes. Its partnership with hyper scalers like AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud, integrated SIpartnership network helps businesses to avail services like Cloud adoption,assessment, modernization, optimization, automation and operations along withhybrid hosting models while ensuring a secure transition. Migration to the cloud is ajourney and will continue in 2023, as businesses will accelerate their inclinationtoward IT modernization initiatives and look to adopt additional cloud services.

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The UAE’s economic horizons broadened in 2022, and more is in prospect – The National

At the 2015 World Government Summit, President Sheikh Mohamed said: We think and plan for the next 50 years, and for the benefit of next generations, by building a diversified, solid and sustainable economy that does not depend only on traditional resources, and opens promising prospects that contribute to strengthen the foundations and capabilities of the nation.

Since those words nearly eight years ago, our national aspirations have been continually refined into focused, actionable plans, resulting in new trade and investment records as we chart a new, accelerated economic development path.

But while huge progress has been made, this is a nation that looks at achievements as milestones on a journey of continuous improvement. We are always looking at what comes next. This month, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, launched the governments new national vision, We The UAE 2031, saying that the country will maintain its position as an economic destination and focus on strengthening the UAEs economic partnerships with the world and consolidating its development model".

The ambition of the words is matched by the scale of the numbers involved. Over the next nine years, we aim to double the gross national product to Dh3 trillion ($810 billion), raise the value of non-oil foreign trade to Dh4 trillion, raise non-oil exports to Dh800 billion and increase the tourism sectors contribution to GDP to Dh450 billion.

We are confident we can get there. The total value of the UAEs non-oil trade between January and September this year reached Dh1.6 trillion, a near-20 per cent rise from the same period in 2021. Exports are climbing as a percentage of total trade, and the third quarter non-oil trade broke previous records, topping Dh580 billion. The UAEs foreign trade agenda is delivering unprecedented results and it encourages us to stretch for more.

Our status as a major trade hub is at the heart of our economic ambition. In 2022, we signed our first Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India (Cepa), the worlds fastest-growing economy, and soon to be the worlds third largest, which has helped propel bilateral trade to $38.6 billion in the first nine months of 2022 almost exactly double the figure recorded in the same period of 2020.

We have also concluded Cepas with Indonesia, the worlds seventh-largest economy in terms of GDP, and Israel, the start-up nation that is home to a dynamic advanced technology ecosystem.

Advanced negotiations are under way with a number of other fast-growth economies, too, which will significantly affect trade volumes, exports and GDP.

We continue to pursue Cepas with nations in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America and position ourselves as a driver of a newly invigorated Global South, and a fulcrum between East and West. We are a global market and the gateway to the worlds fastest-growing economies.

Importantly, this activity is helping to attract new investments, new businesses, and new talent to the UAE.

More from Thani Al Zeyoudi

According to the Institute of International Finance, the UAE will attract $22 billion in Foreign Direct Investment inflows by the end of 2022, the highest in the Mena region.

Not only are we leading in FDI attraction, we are also redefining it. In July 2022, the Ministry of Economy launched the initiative NextGenFDI, designed to attract leading advanced technology and Web3 companies to the UAE and facilitate the development of a world-class digital ecosystem. In just a few months, NextGenFDI has welcomed pioneers in robotics, food technology, cloud computing, blockchain and fintech to the UAE, with dozens more 4IR companies from across the world actively signing up. This approach is more focused on technology transfer and driving long-term value creation than just attracting short-term capital inflows.

Throughout 2022, we have turned policy into results. The extent of our success is reflected in the latest UAE Central Bank forecast, which projects that the UAEs GDP growth in 2022 will be 7.6 per cent the highest in over a decade. With the International Monetary Fund predicting global growth slowing from 3.2 per cent in 2022 to 2.7 per cent in 2023, the UAE is now one of the centres of global growth.

We are also an international meeting point. In 2023, we aim to follow Dubais Expo success by hosting the international climate conference Cop28, which will be succeeded by the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in early 2024, when the leadership of the WTOs 164 member states will gather in Abu Dhabi to shape the future of trade.

Momentum is on our side. As we approach 2023, and set our sights on the goals of We The UAE 2031, we can say with confidence: no matter the scale of the ambition, the UAE is already well on the way to achieving it.

Published: December 26, 2022, 4:00 AM

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No, You Havent Won a Yeti Cooler From Dicks Sporting Goods – WIRED

Congratulations: Youve been chosen for a Yeti Hopper M20 Cooler. Youve been chosen many, many times. Its right there, in your inbox.

The email is from Dicks Sporting Goods. Never mind that it reads asDicks Sporting Goods, minus the apostrophe, orDicks SportingGoods, orDicks SPORTING Goods. Search for Dicks in your Gmail and youll find it. Search for Dicks on Twitter andwell, something else might come up. But then youll see them, the complaints from people who, like you, have been getting incessant emails from Dicks Sporting Goods about the Yeti Hopper M20. The emails urge the receipts to click the link and claim their prize.

You should not click on any part of this email. The Dicks Sporting Goods/Yeti Hopper Cooler contest isnt legitimate, and it does not originate from the sporting goods brand. Its a phishing scam, something that most of us have encountered at some point in our online lives.

But its an especially pernicious form of spam, one that has circumvented some of Googles robust anti-spam tools for Gmail. Google has acknowledged that this spam campaign is particularly aggressive. A security research firm that has been closely tracking this latest batch of spam told WIRED that the techniques being used are fairly novel, and point to a future in which more email spam could slip past even the most sophisticated anti-fraud systems.

We train [machine learning] models to look at all of the different elements of an email and decompose it, and for a brief period of time, that actually worked well in stopping spam, says Ryan Kalember, executive vice president of cybersecurity strategy at Proofpoint, a US-based security firm. But unfortunately, there are some effective ways to get around that. Whats happening now is, all the fancy machine-learning models just dont see where the bad stuff is in the emails, because of some clever redirection.

People who liberally use the Report Spam & Unsubscribe tool in Gmail might think that would put an end to the Yeti cooler emails; mark an email as spam enough times, and eventually it will go away. That hasnt worked in this case. Justin Watkins, a popular YouTuber,tweeted in frustration about this back in September, begging Google to fine-tune its filters and send the Yeti Hopper emails to spam after receiving the emails for several consecutive months. Its a cat-and-mouse thing, Watkins tells me. Ill mark it as spam and itll, like, disappear for a week, and then Ill get two or three a day again.

What the email spammers are doing now, according to Kalember, is creating a scheme where machine-learning models dont actually get to the point where they see the bad stuff in the email. Theyre using what he calls an HTML anchor technique, which is relatively rare. This differs from the old-school, well-worn ways for scammers to slip past spam filters, which might include rotating which cloud hosting service theyre using, or creating a URL redirect, where the person opening the email clicks on the link and is redirected to several other places on the web before they land on the malicious site. The new spam campaign relies on something more interesting, says Kalember. (Assuming you find email spam interesting and not infuriating.)

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Banking’s Future Requires Greater Confidence About The Cloud … – International Banker

By Damon Clarke-Sutton, Director, UK Finance,Telehouse

Banks and financial institutions are among the most regulated organisations in the free world and are encouraged to take the question of risk extremely seriously.

This precautionary principle extends to IT architectures where the notion of if it aint broke, dont fix it holds sway. Change equates to risk and risk is something banks need to manage carefully. The penalties are high for breaches of regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, MIFID II, and Basel III. The burdens of ensuring the highest levels of data security in line with regulatory requirements cause many banks to be reluctant to make any significant infrastructure or technical changes.

Yet in the contemporary climate of digital disruption, excessive conservatism threatens to be the undoing of any incumbent organisation. Irrespective of all the challenger brands entering the market, many of which were born in the cloud, changes in demand mean banks simply cannot afford to stand still. No organisation can.

The pressures for cloud-adoption

Banks own finance departments continue to put pressure on IT to expedite achievement of the cost-benefits from migration to cloud infrastructure. At the same time, banks must adapt their IT to meet another powerful business imperative the need to collaborate effectively with fintech innovators and niche solution-providers from all over the world. Many of these organisations are native to the cloud and provide their solutions as-a-service.

Far-reaching changes in consumer and business behaviour also demand that financial institutions have a robust infrastructure that enables them to adapt quickly and with maximum effectiveness. Covid-19 demonstrated the critical importance of organisational agility, which can be achieved with more flexible IT architectures. Every bank must be capable of change and those not continuously transforming will soon find themselves left on the side-lines.

The After you approach

Despite these obvious requirements and pressures, many banks prefer to sit back and wait and learn from competitors mistakes before embarking on significant digital transformation initiatives. Hesitation about fully embracing cloud is not down to a lack of will. In fact, many have already begun to modernise their outdated Legacy IT environments and switch to the cloud for scalability and reliability. On average, financial organisations now place 39 per cent of their IT infrastructure in the cloud according toTelehouse Research, projected to rise to 44 per cent within the next five years. Progress is patchy, however and many banks are only at the start of their transformation journey.

On-premises environments and poor cyber-security

Their biggest challenge is still security. While banks want to reap the benefits of cloud, no CTO or IT Director is willing to opt for a move that could open the organisation up to more threats and end a promising career. The penalties can indeed be high and regulatory compliance must be the top priority, making many reluctant to implement significant infrastructural or technical changes.

However, many finance professionals still have excessive faith in traditional on-premises infrastructure, failing to grasp how it can actually increase exposure to sophisticated cyber-attacks. Cloud security has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years, with leading cloud providers investing heavily in a multitude of measures like zero trust verification, data encryption and access controls to ensure secure connections and full visibility of the data stored in each cloud environment.

Hybrid IT for banks the benefits

One of the major misconceptions among non-specialists in the financial world is that cloud migration means shifting all the assets, applications and systems to the cloud. A cloud-only approach, however, is rarely suitable.

Rather than plunging head-first into the cloud, banks need to explore the practicalities and benefits of adopting more hybrid approaches, for example with cloud and colocation. This allows institutions toidentify and take the right level of risk and establish what to outsource, when and how. The major advantage of hosting IT infrastructure in a colocation data centre is that financial institutions can control the migration process, stay on top of regulatory requirements and keep costs under control.

The benefits of running a hybrid IT architecture run much further. Through the deployment of a combination of cloud and colocation environments, banks can create a more resilient and secure foundation for growth, significant improvements in customer experience and the creation and development of new services. This is crucial as the retail and commercial banking markets continue to evolve in many directions and competition increases. Competitor organisations with leaner IT have higher levels of agility and can more easily pivot and adopt new solutions to meet changes in market demand or amplify their attractiveness to customers.

Cloud and colocation for big data analytics and AI

To increase market-share in such a challenging environment where customers demand more connected and personal experiences, incumbent banks need watertight IT infrastructure and faster cloud-adoption, even if it is not a total embrace of the cloud. With the current outdated legacy infrastructure, banks will continue to face the limitations of high costs, lack of flexibility and inability to respond rapidly to technological advances such as machine learning or artificial intelligence.

Shifting to modern hybrid environments, by contrast, will enable financial firms to realise all these benefits and progress faster with digital transformation strategies and innovation initiatives. A combination of colocation and cloud facilitates adoption of the latest technologies so banks can compete more effectively with digitally native players. Colocation can better support the computing requirements, data processing needs and real-time analysis that AI applications require, which in turn, can translate to firms adding new and attractive services more swiftly.

Colocation data centres can also provide access to leading cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and AWS, and enable financial firms to benefit from connected ecosystems of partners while extending network reach and reducing latency (the time it takes for a data packet to make the round trip between designated points). For AI and ML applications, low latency is often a make-or-break requirement.

5G mobile connectivity is often seen as an important piece of infrastructure for retail banking, enabling many new smartphone-based services for consumers. However, as is typically the case with any new wireless communications technology, the volume of data will rise significantly over time, putting more stress on backbone networks. To succeed, organisations must rapidly ingest and process data and this depends on having a connected, secure, scalable, flexible, resilient and low latency IT infrastructure.

Once a bank has the right balance between cloud and colocation, however, it can achieve innumerable fruitful collaborations with service providers (and regulators) to help future-proof processes, operations and business models. In the UK there are obvious advantages to choosing a data centre partner on the edge of the City, for example. Proximity means being able to conduct real-time big data analysis at low latency to improve the speed of transactions and online services, and ultimately, the entire customer experience.

What banks should aim for in cloud and colocation

While recognising no two organisations are alike, it is possible to say banking institutions and financial services providers should be aiming for at least a 50 per cent migration to the cloud to prevent them from being left behind. IT leaders within organisations should be working to ensure they have uninterrupted cloud access and highly reliable power provision so they can offer their boards peace-of-mind that key data, such as personal consumer information can be accessed securely at all times by employees.

The responsiveness that comes from fast access to data and analytics, allied to flexible infrastructure, will open financial institutions to a new level of opportunities in the era of truly digital banking and hyper-personalised microservices. Banks will have frontline access to more advanced analytics, enjoy greater resilience, and new business-critical connections that boost long-term growth. Overcoming cloud-anxiety to mature their infrastructure will improve business performance from top to bottom and create a greater appetite for innovation that will ultimately shape a brighter future for the sector.

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Free and Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft Planner – It’s FOSS

Microsoft Planner is a tool that lets organizations help manage teams using a kanban-style board and more options.

Of course, it is not an open-source solution and cannot be accessed using a personal account. You need an Office 365 subscription and are invited to an organization to access Microsoft Planner.

While it is a popular task management and team collaboration platform, it is not for everyone. So, here, let me highlight some free and open-source alternatives to Microsoft Planner. Furthermore, these options can also act as an open-source alternative to Asana, Trello, and Notion.

Note: You will find both hosted and self-hosted tools among the options listed.

Focalboard is an open-source project and task management software by Mattermost. Yes, it is backed by one of the best open-source Slack alternatives, which makes it an interesting option.

It is a self-hosted solution and is also bundled with Mattermost. So, you can download and install it on your server or use the Mattermost cloud edition to access the board feature.

You can get started for free with the cloud edition. However, you can self-host it if you want more control and customization options.

Additionally, there is a desktop edition, and it should be suitable for single users to help manage individual tasks.

To explore more about it, head to its GitHub page.

TaskBoard is a simple approach to task management with a straightforward user interface and essential features.

It is a self-hosted option but way easier to set up than other implementations. It does support essential user management and some customization options.

The key highlight for being a simple option is that it has no external dependencies.

Unfortunately, it is no longer being actively maintained due to a lack of maintainers, but you can still try it or head to its GitHub page to lend some help.

Taiga is a fantastic alternative to Microsoft Planner by the creators of Penpot (open-source Figma replacement).

You can self-host and use it for free with all the customization abilities or control. If you want convenience, the cloud version is free to get started. But, if you need commercial support, you must opt for a premium plan.

It features a Kanban board and supports a scrum framework for agile development teams. You can explore its GitHub page to know all about it.

WeKan is a Trello-like open source kanban board that lets you self-host it on your system. A Snap package is available for Linux, but you must follow its setup instructions.

You can add rules to automate task management and import things from the Trello board. It can be set up using Docker desktop on your computer or get it running on your server.

Planka is yet another project that tries to mimic the Trello board and offers real-time updates.

It is built using React and Redux. You get a limited set of features, which should be helpful for most simple use cases.

You can find instructions to deploy it on your server with or without Docker on its GitHub page.

Kanboard is a simple project management software that utilizes the kanban style to manage and organize tasks/projects.

A straightforward user interface and a simple installation procedure. One should have no issues self-hosting Kanboard.

It is actively maintained. However, you may not see big feature additions regularly. So, if you want the basic feature set and stability for your project management requirements, Kanboard can be a good fit.

Explore its GitHub page to know more.

Unless your organization or team has a strict requirement to use Microsoft products, it is easy to find a Microsoft Planner replacement.

There are multiple options when it comes to open-source alternatives, and some proprietary services do better than Microsoft as well. So, you might want to evaluate your priorities and consider data privacy/transparency as one of the factors in choosing a Microsoft Planner replacement.

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Free and Open-Source Alternatives to Microsoft Planner - It's FOSS

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Who is Funding ChatGPT and OpenAI? – Goosed.ie

Welcome to the mysterious world of ChatGPT, where artificial intelligence and humour collide. But who is funding this wacky machine-learning experiment? Is it the government? A group of rogue hackers? Or maybe a group of mischievous monkeys with a knack for coding?

Well, the truth is (drumroll please)

Right, so theres no conspiracy here. You can even ask ChatGPT itself and it will tell you whos funding it. Or at least who is funding OpenAI, the company that built it.

OpenAI is a research organization that focuses on the development and promotion of friendly artificial intelligence. OpenAI was founded in 2015 by a group of entrepreneurs, researchers, and philanthropists, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and Wojciech Zaremba.

OpenAI has received funding from a variety of sources, including private investments, grants, and partnerships with organizations and companies. Some of the investors and partners that have supported OpenAI include Microsoft, Reid Hoffmans charitable fund, Khosla Ventures, and Infosys.

In addition to these private sources of funding, OpenAI has also received support from government agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This support has allowed OpenAI to conduct research and development on a wide range of AI-related projects, including natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning.

On the website, they state that OpenAI is governed by the board of the OpenAI nonprofit, comprised of OpenAILP employees Greg Brockman (Chairman and President), Ilya Sutskever (Chief Scientist), and Sam Altman (CEO), and non-employees Adam DAngelo, Reid Hoffman, Will Hurd, Tasha McCauley, Helen Toner, and Shivon Zilis.

Investors include Microsoft, Reid Hoffmans charitable foundation, and Khosla Ventures.

In terms of daily costs, a figure of $3 million has been circulating on social media over the past few days. Unfortunately, there is no solid number known. That estimate is just that an estimate, based on AWS calculations for cloud hosting and processing costs.

This would be problematic for a start given their funding. If being heavily backed by Microsoft, I would expect to see OpenAI using Azure Microsofts cloud platform, not AWS which belongs to Amazon.

Im sure well learn a lot more about ChatGPT, the people behind it and how much it costs. But for now, what worries me

Ads To Pay The Bills

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Who is Funding ChatGPT and OpenAI? - Goosed.ie