Author: Danielle

BBC Click’s Marc Cieslak looks at some of the best technology news stories of the week including:

• The Irish Data Protection Commission launches a formal investigation into Facebook’s recent data breach
• Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Institute develops a robot that can do DIY
• Disney Research and ETH Zurich collaborate to create a drone with a spray-paint gun which could replace the need for scaffolding and ladders in industrial tasks

See more at Click’s website and @BBCClick.

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Early on the morning of October 4, Bloomberg’s Businessweek published a report detailing a concerted effort by Chinese government spies to install data-gathering hardware on server computers sold by China’s SuperMicro to Amazon and Apple, among other US companies. Both Amazon and Apple are now publicly denying these claims.

“As we have previously informed Bloomberg, this is completely untrue,” part of Apple’s public statement reads. “Apple has never found malicious chips in our servers.”

Apple’s response attempts to address nearly every point of Bloomberg’s report citing anonymous sources, directly refuting all of its claims. And, so does Amazon’s response. 

Each response appears to be chiefly concerned about the claim in Bloomberg’s report that both companies learned of these Chinese intrusions and reported them to US federal authorities while keeping the issues secret from the public.

Massive implications

While it’s impossible to know who is wrong in this scenario, we do know the implications of such a claim much less such a reality. The Super Micro servers in question in this report have powered some of the most ubiquitous apps and services  around the world, like Amazon Web Services cloud hosting and the  search function of Apple’s Siri digital assistant.

If true, this means that the Chinese government may well have been harvesting data from two of the world’s largest corporations and service providers since 2014 – all with a microchip ‘the size of a grain of rice,’ as Businessweek puts it.

So, you can clearly see why Apple and Amazon have so directly gotten in front of this report, something either company very rarely does, with statements nearly as long and detailed as the report itself. Regardless of what you think after reading Businessweek’s report and these statements, what’s crystal clear is that this storm is far from over.

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Remaining agile is a key component of growing a successful business, especially in an environment where everything is changing, from technology, to various flexible working arrangements and the way a business invests in office space.

In our latest report, Building agile businesses in a changing world, we delved into what it takes to be an agile business, garnering feedback from some of today’s emerging tech firms on why agility matters, the obstacles they face, as well as why preparation is crucial to long term success.

We’ve uncovered four key areas that high-growth tech companies should keep in mind when it comes to planning for agility and avoiding the pitfalls associated with it. 

When it comes to recruitment, look for change-ready talent

Over the past decade, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) created a stir in the employment arena. This is especially true for the role of robots in the workplace and the debate between human employment and the reliance upon technology to create a more efficient workforce. The findings within our report pointed out that 91 percent of employers favour permanent employees over the latest in AI technology when it comes to building out a team. 

The reason? Long-term employees can be trained and developed around the company as it changes. Loyal and permanent employees will be able to adapt to the shifts in the business having a greater grasp over the company. Securing a change-ready team is a critical first step for remaining agile. 

Understand your business and the supply chain associated with it

It’s also important for growing businesses to have full picture of the industry they operate in in order to know what you’re up against. This means conducting primary research and recognising how quickly the market may move. Surveying customers and prospective clients on a regular basis means you’ll have an accurate and up-to-date report on what it is the industry wants and where your objectives should be focused. Relying upon data you’ve gathered first hand will be more reliable than hearsay. Understanding what your customers want will only come from asking them directly. 

Identify and protect your IP from the outset

Identifying the Intellectual Property rights you create and should retain is key from inception. Many companies run into the issue of not securing the IP rights to the technology that underpins their business, running the risk that a customer, competitor, or even worse, a disgruntled former employee, has the ability to use on departure from the business.  Understanding your IP rights will help build value in the business and protect the business and its products in the future, giving you ownership over what is inherently yours in the first place.

Prepare for investment and international growth as early on as possible

Finally, a tech firm’s usual trajectory is developing a product or service that serves a gap in the market, followed by securing investment opportunities. Early investor conversations can progress quite quickly from preliminary interest, to the offering of seed funding or a Series A round. 

Ensuring you retain investor confidence during these conversations, it’s important you go into the process prepared. This includes making sure you understand what you’re willing to sacrifice as a founder in return for funding. Outline your stance on things like the vesting of shares, shareholder rights and outside investment opportunities. Also, be sure to bring your legal team in early on to ensure you understand your rights from the initial Heads of Terms Stage. Having a plan in place for securing funding, also means being equipped for what investors may expect. 

There are a number of ways tech companies can plan for agility. The more a business prepares to be agile, the better prepared it will be to avoid the pitfalls that arise in the course of events of change. 

Mark Blunden is Partner and Head of the Commercial and Technology Group at Boyes Turner

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We said last year that Sony had put Bose “on notice” when it comes to active noise-cancelling headphones. Our review of Sony’s WH-1000XM2 reported that Sony not only delivered incredible audio quality, but that the company offered some high-tech features Bose couldn’t match.   

This year, Sony fully eclipses Bose with its third-generation noise-cancelling cans: The WH-1000XM3. These headphones are superior to the Bose QuietComfort 35 II in almost every way. Sony retained all the features that we liked in the previous iteration, including adaptive sound control, gesture recognition, and great audio reproduction (at least when powered), and made significant improvements to its active noise-cancellation technology. Sony’s new headphones are also more comfortable to wear for long listening sessions. 

Adam Patrick Murray/IDG

The great features Sony retained

First up is the gesture control pad located on the right-hand cup. After a brief learning curve, I grew accustomed to controlling my music and podcasts with simple swipes.

Swiping up and down with your fingertip raises and lowers volume, while back-to-front and front-to-back strokes move up and down your playlist respectively. Holding your finger down for a few seconds activates Google Assistant on Android devices, or Siri for iOS hardware. This worked flawlessly, though I do wish the virtual assistant appeared more quickly after being summoned. Perhaps Sony can add a preference setting to its app.

Dan Masaoka/IDG

Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control is something special. When this mode is selected, the headphones monitor your level of activity and automatically choose the appropriate noise-cancelling profile. You can also customize these profiles using Sony’s excellent Headphone Connect app.

Adam Patrick Murray/IDG

If I’ve been sitting still for a bit, for example, the Staying profile will kick in with a short notification chime. This one uses the headphone’s onboard microphones to monitor ambient sound, so those noises can be cancelled out, while allowing the sound of human voices to come through. You get a personalized mix of your music and the sound of the outside world, with 20 levels of noise cancellation available. The Bose QC35 II offer just three stages of cancellation, so there’s no way to fine-tune the mix of music and ambient sound.

When I listen to music while walking home after work, I want to hear the environment around me, so I don’t get run over by a cranky San Francisco driver. I quickly learned that I couldn’t do that with Bose QC35 II. No matter which settings I applied, I couldn’t hear enough of what was going on. Sony’s headphones not only delivered a great listening experience—even at low volume—but I was always able to maintain situational awareness.

Adam Patrick Murray/IDG

In conditions where it’s inconvenient to launch Sony’s app, you can control the headphones’ active noise cancellation using the NC/Ambient button on the left-hand ear cup. This limits you, however, to three values: Fully engaged (the strongest level of active noise cancellation), fully open (the least amount of active noise cancellation, with the mics piping ambient noise into the ear cups), or active noise cancellation turned off (in which case, the headphones behave as conventional Bluetooth headphones).

GOG is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and marking that milestone with some impressive discounts on big-name games, not to mention a tempting freebie in the form of Shadow Warrior 2.

Yes, you can grab the sequel to the cult first-person shooter for absolutely nothing (the original was first released way back in 1997, can you believe, and subsequently rebooted 16 years later).

That’s a pretty sweet deal, to say the least, because Shadow Warrior 2 was a generally well-received game, particularly as a co-op blast. The offer has just kicked off, and will run for two days, so don’t hang about.

But what about the other deals GOG is offering? We’ve picked out some of the best of the bunch, as follows…

There are loads more games on offer over at GOG, so be sure to have a browse yourself, and see if you can pick out your favorite classics and more contemporary hits alike.

And don’t forget that Black Friday rolls around again next month, so we’re bound to see some bargain games, and indeed gaming hardware, in November.

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