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The Linux Foundation Announces the Launch of the OpenWallet Foundation to Strengthen Interoperability Between Digital Wallets

OpenWallet Foundation

The European branch of the Linux Foundation recently announced the formation of the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF), a collaborative effort to promote interoperability between digital wallets through open-source software. The organization aims to develop and promote the technological foundation for creating digital wallets, focusing on interoperability, security, and privacy.

Digital wallets have become increasingly popular for conducting financial transactions, as well as for storing documents. However, existing digital wallets do not work well together, and users of one wallet cannot send money to users of another wallet. 

OWF aims to address this challenge by developing an “open-source engine” that enables interoperable digital wallets for various use cases, including identity storage, payments, and personal credentials such as employment and education.

The OpenWallet Foundation is not focused on developing proprietary digital wallets but on creating an open-source technology foundation that organizations and businesses can use to create their digital wallets. The technology foundation consists of engines covering use cases such as identity, payments, and digital keys, to be on par with the best available options in the industry.

The OpenWallet Foundation is the latest in a series of similar efforts launched by the Linux Foundation to promote interoperability in various industries.

The OWF’s announcement marks a significant step towards the interoperability of digital wallets, which could have significant implications for users, businesses, and organizations. As digital wallets become increasingly popular for various use cases, the ability to use them across different platforms and services could lead to increased convenience, security, and privacy. 

The OWF’s focus on open-source technology could also foster innovation and collaboration in developing digital wallets, leading to better solutions for users and organizations alike.

How Business Apps And Software Boost Efficiency And Productivity

Boost Efficiency And Productivity

Despite the economic downturn, spending on enterprise software and IT services will increase to $4.5 trillion in 2023, an increase of 2.4% from 2022, according to a market research by Gartner. There are a variety of technology solutions every business needs to improve communication, customer relationships, data management, and employee performance. And as an entrepreneur, it’s important to understand how these solutions work to make the workplace productive. Then choose software and mobile apps that suit your needs. 

Typically, companies that don’t use software are far behind in efficiency and productivity. Low productivity and efficiency equals low sales and revenue. It is, therefore, crucial to invest highly in mobile apps and enterprise software to optimize workflows. Keep reading to learn how business apps and software boost efficiencies and productivity. 

Business Software Support Collaboration

Poor collaboration among teams lowers employee engagement, leading to problems like project delays and customer dissatisfaction. To ensure teams collaborate despite time zone differences, consider integrating collaboration software into your business. Collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, Trello, and Asana help project managers to monitor teams and project progress. 

Organizations also enjoy enhanced communications, and employees can contribute, critique, and improve on each other’s opinions. When teams collaborate effectively, their morale increases and productivity levels improve. Collaboration tools also save time by eliminating the need for teams to wait for feedback, as they can easily share documents and work on projects in real-time from anywhere. 

Improve Workflow Automation

Since many business software have automation features, you can use them to set custom rules for menial tasks like lead generation, scheduling, and data entry to be completed automatically. For example, you can automate email marketing with an email automation tool like MailChimp. That way email newsletters are sent to recipients automatically. You can also leverage CRM software, like Salesforce, to store and access customer data, change customer service issues, and manage marketing campaigns. 

Other benefits of workflow automation include streamlined communication between teams, cost savings, and increased accountability. However, to enjoy these perks, you must know how to use different automation software because each tool has unique features. For example, if you choose Salesforce CRM to manage and improve customer relationships, study the Salesforce tutorial for beginners on trusted online sites. Doing so helps you learn how to update records in Quick Action, fix errors, create custom links, and other functions of the software. Ideally, learning how to use different automation software is key to streamlining business processes. 

Apps Reduce Errors and Save Time

Traditional business methods like filing customer information in cabinets and filling forms manually take up a lot of time. In most cases, employees have to call customers back to clarify information handwritten poorly on a piece of paper. Typing and storing customer information on a desktop might seem ideal, but it’s also time consuming. Leveraging business software like document management solutions can save time and reduce costly errors. Instead of writing data on paper or desktop, document management systems simplify how you capture customer data, store, access, and distribute documents. You’ll also be confident that customer information is safe in the cloud. 

Software has become an integral part of running a business because of its ability to increase efficiency and productivity. Different software solutions have unique features that help teams handle tasks efficiently by promoting collaboration, simplifying project management, and reducing costly errors. Business software and apps also automate workflows, ensuring teams direct valuable time to important tasks. 

Google’s Magic Eraser Tool Now Available to All Google One Subscribers

Google Magic Eraser Tool

Google Pixel phones are well-known for their superior photography features, such as the “Magic Eraser” tool, which utilises artificial intelligence to erase unwanted stuff from photographs. Until recently, this utility was only available to owners of Pixel 6 and Pixel 7. Google has now made it available to all Google One subscribers on Android and iOS devices.

Subscribers to Google One will now get access to this popular photo editing tool as part of their subscription. Google is also adding new HDR video effects and distinct collage styles to the Magic Eraser tool. These tools are intended to enhance users’ overall video editing experience.

Pixel users can still use these capabilities without subscribing to Google One. But, for those looking for a more comprehensive set of premium services, Google One is a good choice. Google One began as a method to pay extra for cloud storage. Still, it has now grown to include a VPN, the ability to organise longer group video chats on Google Meet, and another premium Google Photos features such as softening backgrounds and enhancing subjects’ faces.

Members-only advantages include portrait lighting that may be adjusted in position and brightness. This tool helps users to improve and make their portraits look professional.

eCommerce Software: Saas, FEaaS, And Everything Composable In Between

online ecommerce business

Online shopping is a way of life now, and eCommerce software is the key to making it happen. From Saas to FEaaS and everything in between, eCommerce software offers a variety of features and services that can help businesses of all sizes to succeed in the digital world. Whether you’re a small business looking to get started with eCommerce or a large enterprise hoping to streamline operations, there is an eCommerce software solution that is perfect for you.

With the right technology, you can create a user-friendly online store, manage inventory, process payments, and more. With eCommerce software, the possibilities are endless. Take the time to explore the different options and find the one that works best for your business needs.

All about SaaS

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software delivery model in which applications are hosted by a provider and made available to customers over the internet. SaaS provides a complete software solution that a business can use to manage its operations, without having to purchase, install, or maintain its own software. Instead, customers pay a subscription fee to access the provider’s software and use it for as long as they need it.

SaaS has become increasingly popular in recent years, as businesses look for ways to reduce IT costs and streamline operations. With SaaS, businesses don’t need to worry about installing or maintaining their own software, as the provider handles all of that for them. This allows businesses to focus on their core operations, rather than worrying about software maintenance and updates.

SaaS is also highly scalable, which means businesses can increase or decrease their usage of the software as needed. This makes it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes, as they can easily adjust their usage to match their changing needs. Additionally, SaaS is typically less expensive than other software delivery models, as customers only pay for the features they use.

Furthermore, SaaS enables businesses to access the latest features and updates without having to install a new version of the software. Instead, the provider takes care of all of the maintenance and updates, so businesses can take advantage of the latest features without having to do any additional work. This ensures businesses always have access to the latest version of the software.

In conclusion, Software as a Service is a popular software delivery model that enables businesses to access the software they need without having to purchase, install, or maintain it. It is highly scalable, cost-effective, and allows businesses to access the latest features and updates without any additional work.

All about FEaaS (FaaS)

Frontend as a Service (FEaaS) offers eCommerce businesses a single, comprehensive solution for creating high-functioning websites from the ground up. It includes a variety of cloud-native, microservices-based, and API-first modules that can be combined to expedite the process of creating an effective service.

FEaaS allows developers to quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively generate optimized, tested, and consumer-oriented interfaces without dedicating months to the development of a custom-made front end. With this service, developers are provided with pre-integrated, Packaged Business Capabilities, powerful and customizable user interfaces, middleware, and hosting, granting them the capability to create an eCommerce frontend that is high-performing and dependable.

Frontend as a Service enables businesses to quickly and easily create a frontend user interface for their applications and services. It is a cloud-based software platform that provides a user-friendly interface for developing, managing, and deploying web applications. It is designed to make it easier for developers to create and maintain a unified front for multiple applications.

FEaaS simplifies the development process by providing a single platform for all front-end development needs. It automates the creation of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, so developers don’t have to write it from scratch. The platform also provides tools for quickly testing and deploying applications. FaaS also enables developers to quickly create user interfaces for mobile and desktop applications, allowing them to quickly deploy updates and changes without having to rewrite code.

FEaaS provides a comprehensive suite of front-end development tools and services. It includes features such as automated code generation, visual editors, and integration with backend systems. This allows developers to create and manage applications quickly and easily. Additionally, FEaaS provides a library of pre-built components to help developers create a unified experience across their applications.

FEaaS is an important tool for businesses looking to quickly and easily create a unified front-end user experience. It eliminates the need to rewrite code for each application and provides a unified platform for all front-end development needs. Developers can quickly create, test, and deploy applications on FaaS, allowing them to quickly and easily create a unified user experience across multiple applications.

What does MACH have to do with it all?

Back in 2020, Commercetools, Contentstack, EPAM Systems, and Valtech combined forces to set up MACH Alliance, a non-profit organization that helps eCommerce operations gain important knowledge and understanding of modern technologies and how they affect customer experience, revenue, and efficiency.

The MACH approach is based on four concepts: Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, and Headless. To gain a complete understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, each one of these should be seen in detail, especially knowing what is headless commerce. But, essentially, MACH is all about the capability to mold the IT environment to meet the demands of the business, thus making it more composable.

The future is composable

Making use of the MACH approach to digital transformation helps to tackle the problem of inadequate web performance. In the context of eCommerce, time is synonymous with profit: websites that are sluggish due to monolithic structures miss out on orders, while those created through the MACH process are quick and agile and gain the upper hand.

Artifact: The AI-Based News App by Instagram Founders Goes Public with New Social Features

Artifact

Artifact, an AI-powered news app created by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, has gone public with new social features. 

The app aims to deliver personalized news content without sign-up requirements. Users can upload their contacts and check popular articles among friends. Artifact’s algorithms also personalize news feeds based on the user’s interests and reading history.

The app’s first social feature allows users to upload their contacts to see what articles their friends are reading. A badge appears next to popular articles among the user’s contacts. However, the app does not reveal which friends have read a particular article or the number of people reading it.

Artifact is currently in beta, with plans to introduce more social features enabling users to share and comment on articles within the app. The app can already group articles into narrower topics and provides users with statistics on their reading preferences. The app offers feedback controls that let users personalize their browsing experience.

Systrom told TechCrunch that Artifact’s algorithms could visualize which categories and publishers’ users read the most, making it easier to tailor their news feeds. If a user doesn’t like a particular article or publisher, they can provide feedback to the app to reduce the number of articles displayed from that source.

In conclusion, Artifact’s AI-based approach to personalized news delivery is an exciting development. With new social features, users can share and discover articles with their contacts. While the app is currently in beta, it has the potential to become a popular news app that combines the best of AI-based content curation with social media features.

What’s a Digital Signage System, and Why It’s Important for Your Business

Digital Signage

Run a digital sign within your business, and you have a digital sign. Run more than one digital sign in your business, and you have a digital signage system. Figuring out how important they are for your business depends on the innovative ways you intend to use them. Are they going to guide people around your store? Will they be used to test your marketing? Are they going to create an atmosphere, or will you use them to sell your food?

The Power of Your Digital Signage System

Check out a digital signage blog and see how other people are using digital signage systems. Let them inspire you because digital signs are only tools. They are powerful tools, but tools nonetheless. Here are a few ideas that perhaps you can copy or adapt to fit your business.

Showing Videos of Food

Why do you think McDonald’s photograph their fries stood up straight in the box? Why are their buns, lettuce and burgers fluffed and puffed up? It is because photographing food and making it look appealing is incredibly difficult. However, with a bit of creative video capture, you can show people videos of your food. Don’t just have photos and posters of your food, have digital signs showing how thick the gravy is, and how green the cabbage is, and let people see that whiff of steam coming off your food in the video.

Funneling People Around the Store

We all know about sales funnels online. You get people into the funnel and take them on a journey that results in a sale. With digital signs, you can influence where people go in your business. You can lead them past products that appeal to them and even strategically place items near the beginning that help sell the items nearer the end of the journey. By directing traffic and showing people where things are (without them having to search or ask), you can target them with your product lines.

Offer a bit of Infotainment

Veterinary clinics are amazing at this. They give you cartoons on their digital screens in the waiting room. Poor Rover keeps scratching because he caught fleas from something he walked over in a field. Did you know that 1 out of 7 dogs has fleas or mites? Oh, and by the way, we sell flea shampoo right here. They mix in advice about pets, and interesting facts, and then swing the subject back around to items that they sell. 

Replacing Your Posters

People put posters in their stores and businesses. They display offers and perhaps show products. Every wall and surface that has a poster can be replaced with digital signs. You don’t have to run videos on your signs, you can have poster images on them. Plus, you can change them daily or hourly if you wish. Plus, a lit-up sign is far more eye-catching than a piece of glossy paper on a wall. You can also test your posters to see if they improve the sales of their advertised items. You can run branding exercises using a similar methodology.

Communicate With Your Staff

Modern call centers and live-chat centers use digital signs to tell staff snippets of important information. They show staff how close they are to meeting their current KPIs. They tell staff things like call-waiting times so they can improve them when they are getting too high. Some will have digital signs in the canteen because staff don’t read their newsletter emails, but they will read and discuss things written on the digital sign in the canteen. The signs can even show which people are running which shift next so that the entire team knows who is working on the current project and who isn’t.

Qualcomm AI Breakthrough: Stable Diffusion AI Model Runs as Fast as Desktop on Smartphones

Qualcomm AI Stable Diffusion

Generative AI image generation has come a long way since its introduction. Recent advancements in AI have made it possible to generate high-quality images virtually indistinguishable from those captured by a camera. The introduction of Stable Diffusion, an AI model capable of generating incredibly real images, was a huge milestone in this field.

Stable Diffusion became a hot topic in 2021 when it was announced that it could be deployed in smartphone apps running on powerful servers in the cloud. However, Qualcomm has taken things a step further by modifying Stable Diffusion to run on smartphones, making it run as fast as a powerful desktop machine. This breakthrough presents new possibilities for AI processing on smartphones.

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 can now generate a 512 x 512 cat image with Stable Diffusion in just 14.4 seconds, a record-breaking result made possible by Hexagon digital signal processors. These processors have been given AI-specific enhancements in recent generations, making it possible to run large, sophisticated AI models on mobile devices.

To make Stable Diffusion suitable for running on smartphones, Qualcomm engineers used a technique called quantization to shrink the model. The model was based on v1.5 of Stable Diffusion released in FP32 format and uses the latest AI research to compress the model to INT8 (8-bit data space). This allows Stable Diffusion models to run more efficiently and faster on mobile hardware. Technologies such as Qualcomm’s Adaptive Rounding help maintain model accuracy without retraining.

This breakthrough is just the beginning of what Qualcomm calls “AI at the edge,” where personal devices will be powerful enough to run AI models locally without relying on the cloud. With the ability to run large, sophisticated AI models like Stable Diffusion on mobile phones, they can also run on devices with similar hardware, such as VR/AR headsets, tablets, and laptops.

Despite this breakthrough, Qualcomm has not announced any plans to build this version of Stable Diffusion for internal testing or public release. However, this breakthrough is a promising sign of what’s to come in AI and mobile computing. With the ability to generate high-quality images quickly and efficiently on mobile devices, the possibilities for AI-based applications are endless.

How to Select a Software Outsourcing Vendor in Vietnam

Dedicated Software Development Team

Outsourcing software development these days has become more and more popular. India and China were previously the leaders in the industry. Today, however, Vietnam has emerged as one of the bright stars in the software outsourcing market. Saigon Technology has stated that there are numerous reasons why foreign organizations are considering outsourcing their software development requirements to Vietnam. 

Nevertheless, with so many outsourcing vendors in the country, choosing an outsourcing partner could be a difficult endeavor. Furthermore, there are several things to take into consideration. You do not only have to consider the price, but you also have to consider how the company of your choice could best build the software that you have in mind. How should you choose your software outsourcing partner in Vietnam? Let’s check out this guide. 

Tips for Choosing a Vietnamese Software Outsourcing Vendor

1. Determine your project scope and goals

Usually, a project fails because of common reasons, such as a lack of understanding of its scope and goals. When it comes to software outsourcing, this is even more complex. That’s why, before you start software outsourcing to Vietnam, defining the business requirements and establishing clear objectives are paramount. 

Several points to take into account include features, tasks, expenses, deadlines, the scope of work, timeline, technologies, and so on. It’s always a good idea to establish a complete plan for your software project, including business goals, issues, and specific requirements for you to be able to find the right Vietnamese software development team to partner with. 

2. Research their website

The website of a company is its face, and this holds true for all sectors, not just in IT. The website of a reputable Vietnamese software development company should have a description of its services as well as examples of projects completed. Consider looking at a blog or blogs as well. 

Blogs are proof that the development team in a particular company is really working and has ample experience to share its expertise with others. Furthermore, study the websites thoroughly and make sure that the service provider has an office as well as a designated representative. 

3. Inquire about relevant technology and experience

Always ask about projects they have done and are doing and in what industry verticals. When choosing an outsourcing company in Vietnam, previous projects are paramount. If the team has done a project in line with your business, then it’s most certainly easier for them to organize their work. 

Furthermore, there is a great chance that they have successful, tried-and-tested solutions already. Make sure to also ask the company representative about the technologies they will work with to develop your software. A professional service provider could provide you with a different solution than what you originally had in mind that’s more affordable and effective. 

4. Check out customer reviews

Customer reviews may be published on their website or on third-party resources. Consider reviews on Clutch.co since they’re checked carefully by management for authenticity. Furthermore, the reviews contain plenty of information about the projects accomplished by your prospective outsourcing partner. 

Keep in mind that reviews from previous and present customers say a lot about what the software outsourcing vendor could do as well as its limitations. 

5. Ask about methods and stages of development

Ask the representatives of the service provider about the methods they use during software development. Nowadays, the two main methods are Agile and Waterfall and each has its own pros and cons. The trend today is Agile methodologies, such as Scrum. 

The best development process should include adaptive planning, project updates, early delivery, as well as the necessary communication tools. Based on the methodologies that they use you can test your project at any sprint. At the end of every couple of weeks, make sure that you get results that could clearly signal how the development is progressing. 

6. Create an effective communication and management system

To avoid issues involving communication gaps, you and the development team should create effective communication channels early on. Consider several pre-built project management solutions, which include Trello, ClickUp, and Jira to support the work. Remember that good communication is essential for any software development project. 

There should be clear and fruitful communication right from the start until the end. As a client, make sure to communicate your requirements and expectations clearly to your software development partner. Determine the kinds of communication tools that they use. Vietnamese service providers are in a different time zone and could make contact more difficult, thus, effective communication is important. 

7. Check prices and payment model

Pricing and payment models are extremely important for both big and small companies. One of the first questions that you should ask is the price. The price of your project would depend on its type, size, and the size of the development team you hire. Furthermore, geographical location also plays a big role in the payment process. 

Vietnam has lower rates. Still, determining the price of your project as well as the payment method will impact your decision-making process. Furthermore, these are the final steps to take when choosing the right software development outsourcing vendor in Vietnam. 

Conclusion

The race to partner with a qualified software developer in Vietnam is getting fiercer by the minute. This is because the country has become the hotspot for outsourcing IT requirements, particularly software development. The tips on choosing the right Vietnamese vendor above could hopefully help you prepare a good strategy and build an excellent offshore software development center in the country.