The hack, one of the most dramatic since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, knocked out services provided by Ukraine’s biggest telecoms operator for some 24 million users for days from Dec. 12.

In an interview, Illia Vitiuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) cybersecurity department, disclosed exclusive details about the hack, which he said caused “disastrous” destruction and aimed to land a psychological blow and gather intelligence.

“This attack is a big message, a big warning, not only to Ukraine, but for the whole Western world to understand that no one is actually untouchable,” he said. He noted Kyivstar was a wealthy, private company that invested a lot in cybersecurity.

The attack wiped “almost everything”, including thousands of virtual servers and PCs, he said, describing it as probably the first example of a destructive cyberattack that “completely destroyed the core of a telecoms operator.”

During its investigation, the SBU found the hackers probably attempted to penetrate Kyivstar in March or earlier, he said in a Zoom interview on Dec. 27.

“For now, we can say securely, that they were in the system at least since May 2023,” he said. “I cannot say right now, since what time they had … full access: probably at least since November.”

The SBU assessed the hackers would have been able to steal personal information, understand the locations of phones, intercept SMS-messages and perhaps steal Telegram accounts with the level of access they gained, he said.

A Kyivstar spokesperson said the company was working closely with the SBU to investigate the attack and would take all necessary steps to eliminate future risks, adding: “No facts of leakage of personal and subscriber data have been revealed.”

Mr. Vitiuk said the SBU helped Kyivstar restore its systems within days and to repel new cyber attacks.

“After the major break there were a number of new attempts aimed at dealing more damage to the operator,” he said.

Kyivstar is the biggest of Ukraine’s three main telecoms operators and there are some 1.1 million Ukrainians who live in small towns and villages where there are no other providers, Mr. Vitiuk said.

People rushed to buy other SIM cards because of the attack, creating large queues. ATMs using Kyivstar SIM cards for the internet ceased to work and the air-raid siren – used during missile and drone attacks – did not function properly in some regions, he said.

He said the attack had no big impact on Ukraine’s military, which did not rely on telecoms operators and made use of what he described as “different algorithms and protocols”.

“Speaking about drone detection, speaking about missile detection, luckily, no, this situation didn’t affect us strongly,” he said.

RUSSIAN SANDWORM
Investigating the attack is harder because of the wiping of Kyivstar’s infrastructure.

Mr. Vitiuk said he was “pretty sure” it was carried out by Sandworm, a Russian military intelligence cyberwarfare unit that has been linked to cyberattacks in Ukraine and elsewhere.

A year ago, Sandworm penetrated a Ukrainian telecoms operator, but was detected by Kyiv because the SBU had itself been inside Russian systems, Mr.. Vitiuk said, declining to identify the company. The earlier hack has not been previously reported.

Russia’s defense ministry did not respond to a written request for comment on Vitiuk’s remarks.

Mr. Vitiuk said the pattern of behavior suggested telecoms operators could remain a target of Russian hackers. The SBU thwarted over 4,500 major cyberattacks on Ukrainian governmental bodies and critical infrastructure last year, he said.

A group called Solntsepyok, believed by the SBU to be affiliated with Sandworm, said it was responsible for the attack.

Nr. Vitiuk said SBU investigators were still working to establish how Kyivstar was penetrated or what type of trojan horse malware could have been used to break in, adding that it could have been phishing, someone helping on the inside or something else.

If it was an inside job, the insider who helped the hackers did not have a high level of clearance in the company, as the hackers made use of malware used to steal hashes of passwords, he said.

Samples of that malware have been recovered and are being analyzed, he added.

Kyivstar’s CEO, Oleksandr Komarov, said on Dec. 20 that all the company’s services had been fully restored throughout the country. Mr. Vitiuk praised the SBU’s incident response effort to safely restore the systems.

The attack on Kyivstar may have been made easier because of similarities between it and Russian mobile operator Beeline, which was built with similar infrastructure, Mr. Vitiuk said.

The sheer size of Kyivstar’s infrastructure would have been easier to navigate with expert guidance, he added.

The destruction at Kyivstar began at around 5:00 a.m. local time while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was in Washington, pressing the West to continue supplying aid.

Mr. Vitiuk said the attack was not accompanied by a major missile and drone strike at a time when people were having communication difficulties, limiting its impact while also relinquishing a powerful intelligence-gathering tool.

Why the hackers chose Dec. 12 was unclear, he said, adding: “Maybe some colonel wanted to become a general.” — Reuters

MAJORITY of Filipinos expect more online data leaks and growing artificial intelligence (AI) adoption to affect their jobs this year, according to global market research company Ipsos.

It also found that Filipinos expect decreased use of social media platforms this year.

The Ipsos Global Advisor 2024 Predictions survey showed the Philippines was one of the top countries with these expectations, with the share of respondents agreeing with these three categories at about 11% above the global average.

The company surveyed 34 countries through its online platform, with 1,000 respondents coming from the Philippines.

The report showed that 64% of Filipino respondents believe their personal data could be leaked on the Internet, higher than the global average of 55%.

The Philippines was the second most attacked country by web threats in 2022, with 39,387,052 internet-borne threats detected, according to data from Kaspersky. It recorded 24,737 crypto-phishing cases, 15,732 mobile malware cases, and 50 mobile banking Trojan cases in 2022.

Sam Jacoba, founding president of the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines, likewise expects more incidents of cyberattacks this year.

“The government, private sector, and communities of practice have to be more vigilant,” he told BusinessWorld in an interview. “Do not let up in awareness, education, training, certification, and consistent hardening of critical infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, AI continued to affect the livelihood expectations of Filipinos, with 73% of respondents believing that growing adoption of the technology will likely lead to job losses versus the global average of 64%.

Some 48% of Filipinos said AI is unlikely to help create new jobs, above the 44% global average.

Data and analytics firm GlobalData said generative AI job posts spiked in the third quarter of last year amid competition in the digital landscape, with medium- and long-term talent plans in development for adaptability.

Analytics from the employment-focused social media platform LinkedIn also showed a 2.4 times increase in job posts mentioning AI in Southeast Asian markets from three years ago, with a 1.7 times growth in applications versus those that do not mention it.

It observed that 76% of Filipino professionals expect a significant change in their jobs driven by AI, with 55% already using generative AI, citing efficiency and productivity benefits.

Sergio R. Ortiz-Luis, Jr., president of the Employers Confederation of the Philippines, told BusinessWorld that the labor force must recognize and adapt to both challenges and opportunities presented by technological advancements.

“Job seekers and employees need to adapt to maintain their availability for the job market,” he said. “Know what areas they can skill themselves in.”

Meanwhile, 56% of Filipinos expect to use social media less this year, higher than the 41% global average. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola

PRIVATE-PUBLIC startup platform QBO Innovation Hub wants to build a community of angel investors to help foster growth for the Philippines’ startup industry.

The company closed last year’s initiatives with its AQTIVATE angel investing short course and summit, in partnership with the United States Embassy in the Philippines and IdeaSpace Investments.

“We believe unlocking private capital plays a key role in fueling growth within the startup landscape in the Philippines,” Katrina Rausa Chan, executive director at QBO Innovation Hub, said in a statement on Wednesday.

“We’re committed to cultivating the next generation of local angel investors, and in doing so, significantly increasing the volume of investments and opportunities for early-stage ventures in the years ahead,” she added, noting they aim to develop 1,000 angel investors through the program.

Pauline Anderson, US Embassy deputy director for public engagement, said their initiatives with QBO “promote inclusive economic growth” and “establish a globally competitive and innovative industry and services sector.”

Securing capital continues to be a challenge among entrepreneurs, QBO said, which is a gap that angel investors can bridge. A collaborative and knowledgeable network of people who share insights and strategies could help them tap these investors, it added.

“Not only do angel investors seize the opportunity to yield profit, but also significantly influence the trajectory of promising startups,” Ms. Chan said.

In an interview with BusinessWorld during the Philippine Startup Week 2023, she said strengthening business education, funding mechanisms, mentoring programs, and international exposure opportunities are the keys to boosting the local startup industry. — M.H.L. Antivola

THE ROLE OF DATA IN THE PHILIPPINE BANKING SYSTEM
Today, financial institutions must possess the capability to amass, comprehend, and exploit data effectively to secure a competitive edge and achieve success. The same holds for local banks where, as Mc-Kinsey highlights, the combined value generated by the three major fintech and digital banks in the Philippines surpassed that of all traditional banks in the country over the past two years.

For the latter to thrive, they must acquire, comprehend, and capitalize on data swiftly. According to a report by IDC, organizations with a high degree of data intelligence experience a 40% financial improvement, and a 20% enhancement to operations compared with those grappling with a lower level of data intelligence.

Nevertheless, analyzing and acting upon organizational data has usually been confined to specific groups of employees within businesses for an extended period. This, in turn, has impeded decision-making and even led to decisions being made without robust data to substantiate them, placing organizations at a disadvantage.

REALIZING THE FULL POTENTIAL OF DATA
Want to know why democratizing data enables organizations to pivot towards data-driven practices? It’s because it allows employees of all stripes to access the data they need readily, empowering them to act on insights and with greater efficacy. For instance, this can be leveraged for customized and personalized customer experiences, ultimately leading to heightened levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

By embracing data democratization, banks arm their employees with highly available, reliable, and secure data. Not only does this enable processes to be streamlined and bottlenecks to be overcome, it also ensures data can be used to identify and comprehend emerging market and behavioral trends.

DATA DEMOCRATIZATION IN A PREDOMINANTLY HYBRID LANDSCAPE
The era where an organization’s data resided solely in a singular location is long gone. In today’s landscape, both business and technical users must possess the ability to fully harness data that spans diverse infrastructures, including cloud, distributed systems, and mainframes. When assessing data intelligence tools, organizations should prioritize solutions that not only enable data democratization within the business but also seamlessly integrate across diverse IT systems.

This need becomes increasingly critical as a growing number of organizations adopts hybrid solutions to leverage the advantages offered by both the cloud and the mainframe. In a recent survey conducted by Rocket Software, a staggering 93% of respondents strongly felt that their organizations should embrace a hybrid infrastructure model that encompasses both the mainframe and the cloud.

BENEFITS TO USERS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION
Different roles have different goals. Therefore, data intelligence tools must provide benefits to users across the entire organization and be user-friendly enough for employees with varying backgrounds to leverage. This requires an intuitive interface and clear visualizations.

Tools with intuitive interface and clear visualization allow users to quickly and comprehensively identify critical data, regardless of their level of expertise in data science. It also allows users to create robust plans for change, such as updating data flows and managing cloud migration, ensuring that data management is efficient and effective.

This enables business users to gain a comprehensive view of the organization’s data landscape and understand the trustworthiness of the data. Data teams can focus on delivering exceptional value, IT can plan for IT modernization initiatives more effectively, and lines of business can execute business reporting more efficiently.

Praveen Kumar is the vice-president for Asia Pacific at Rocket Software.

Odogwu Banye Mmobuosi, the former co-chief executive officer of Tingo Group, was charged with securities fraud, making false US Securities and Exchange Commission filings, and conspiracy in an indictment made public on Tuesday.

Prosecutors said the defendant, known as Dozy, falsely represented that his Tingo Mobile and Tingo Foods were profitable businesses generating hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue.

Mmobuosi sold the businesses to Tingo Group and Agri-Fintech Holdings, caused them to falsely portray his businesses as “cash-rich, revenue-generating companies,” and looted millions of dollars by misappropriating cash and selling stock at inflated prices, the indictment said.

A lawyer for Mr. Mmobuosi could not immediately be identified. Tingo Group, based in Montvale, New Jersey, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The alleged scheme occurred from 2019 to 2023, prosecutors said.

Mr. Mmobuosi temporarily stepped down as Tingo Group’s co-CEO last month, after the SEC filed civil charges accusing him of orchestrating a “staggering” fraud.

The SEC said Mr. Mmobuosi siphoned at least $16 million from Tingo Group and used it to buy luxury cars and travel on private jets, and try to buy the Sheffield United soccer team.

According to the SEC complaint, Tingo Mobile purportedly supplies mobile handsets and related services to farmers in Nigeria, while Tingo Foods is a purported food processor.

Tingo Group is a defendant in the SEC case, and has said it intended to vigorously defend itself.

The indictment was made public nearly seven months after the short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Tingo Group of having “fabricated” its financials, and challenged Mr. Mmobuosi’s claim to have developed Nigeria’s first mobile payment app.

The case is US v. Mmobuosi, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 23-cr-00601. – Reuters

“Based on investigations to-date, the company is in the process of notifying a small number of individuals identified who may face serious risk of data misuse,” the automotive retailer said in a statement.

The company did not reveal the exact number of individuals whose data was directly compromised as a result of the cyber incident.

Australian corporations have seen an alarming rise in cyber security breaches since last year, prompting the country’s government to reform cyber security rules. Australia set up an agency in February this year to oversee government investment and help coordinate responses to hacker attacks.

Last week, Eagers flagged a cyber incident that hit some of its IT systems, affecting the company’s ability to finalize transactions for certain new vehicles that were sold and ready for delivery.

The impact of cyber incident, however, is not expected to be material for the 2023 financial year, it added. – Reuters

Here is a look at what the case means for consumers and what is next for Apple.

Why was the ban imposed?

The US International Trade Commission in October ordered Apple to stop importing and selling some Apple Watches following a complaint from medical-monitoring technology company Masimo.

The ITC, a federal agency that handles international trade disputes, found that an Apple Watch feature for reading blood-oxygen levels infringed on Masimo’s pulse oximetry patents.

President Joe Biden’s administration had until Dec. 25 to veto the order based on public policy concerns but did not do so.

Cupertino, California-based Apple had preemptively paused US sales of its latest high-end Series 9 and Ultra 2 models ahead of the Christmas Day deadline.

Apple appealed the ban to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The court halted the ban on Wednesday while it considers the company’s request for a longer-term pause during the appeals process.

How are US Apple Watch sales affected?

Wednesday’s decision allows Apple to continue importing and selling infringing Apple Watches while the court considers whether to put the ban on hold for the duration of the appeals process.

Apple Stores in New York and San Francisco told Reuters on Wednesday that they had yet to resume selling Series 9 and Ultra 2 Apple Watches and did not know when they would be available.

The ITC’s order does not affect the lower-priced Apple Watch SE, which does not have pulse-oximetry capabilities and remains on sale from Apple.

The ITC decision says it applies only to Apple Watches with the light-based pulse oximetry capability in question, but does not specify which models with that technology are affected. Apple first introduced pulse oximetry in its Series 6 watches, and Masimo has argued that all Apple Watches with the technology infringe its patents.

Apple said it would also stop replacing out-of-warranty watches going back to Series 6 based on the ban.

The ban specifically applies to Apple and its “affiliated companies, parents, subsidiaries, or other related business entities,” and may not affect other retailers.

Series 9 and Ultra 2 Apple Watches are still available from third-party sellers including Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart.

What are the accusations against Apple?

Masimo, which released a watch last year that also reads blood-oxygen levels and tracks other health indicators, accused Apple of hiring away its employees and stealing its technology after discussing a potential collaboration. A jury trial on Masimo’s allegations in California federal court ended with a mistrial in May and has yet to be rescheduled.

Apple has called Irvine, California-based Masimo’s legal actions a scheme to clear a path for its competing smartwatch, and has countersued Masimo for patent infringement in Delaware federal court.

What are Apple’s other options?

In addition to its appeal, Apple is working on a redesign that would enable its watches to operate without infringing on Masimo’s patents. It could import and sell the redesigned watches regardless of the ITC’s ban if US Customs and Border Protection approves the workaround.

Apple told the Federal Circuit on Tuesday that the customs agency is scheduled to make its decision on the workaround on Jan. 12.

Masimo has said that its patents cover hardware, and that a software fix would not work.

Masimo CEO Joe Kiani has also indicated that he is willing to settle the dispute. – Reuters

US District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan said Kelly Toys, whose parent Jazwares is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, plausibly alleged that Alibaba knew about and contributed to the merchants’ infringement of its copyrights and trademarks.

Kelly Toys said the sale of counterfeits on Alibaba has persisted despite six earlier lawsuits to stop it, with Alibaba ignoring its own “three-strike” policies and awarding some infringing merchants “Gold Supplier” and “Verified” status.

Alibaba and lawyers for the Chinese e-commerce company did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Furman did not rule on the lawsuit’s merits.

Kelly Toys had in November 2022 sued about 90 merchants it accused of selling counterfeit Squishmallows, and obtained an injunction two months later. It added Alibaba as a defendant in March.

In seeking a dismissal, Alibaba said Kelly Toys failed to allege it had any involvement in infringements, and was trying to improperly shift the burden of policing its intellectual property by requiring “draconian” measures against sellers.

Jazwares bought a majority stake in Kelly Toys in April 2020. Berkshire bought Jazwares’ parent, the insurance holding company Alleghany, in October 2022. Revenue at Jazwares totaled $847 million in the first nine months of 2023.

The case is Kelly Toys Holdings LLC v 19885566 Store et al, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-09384. – Reuters

The tech giant had filed an emergency request for the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to halt the order after appealing the US International Trade Commission’s (ITC) decision that it had infringed Masimo’s patents.

US President Joe Biden’s administration declined to veto the ban on Dec. 26, allowing it to take effect. Apple asked for a pause of the ban later that day.

Masimo has accused Apple of hiring away its employees, stealing its pulse oximetry technology and incorporating it into Apple Watches.

The ITC barred imports and sales of Apple Watches with technology for reading blood-oxygen levels. Apple has included a pulse oximeter feature in its smartwatches starting with its Series 6 model in 2020.

Apple has paused sales of its Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches in the US, though the watches have remained available at other retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Costco and Walmart.

The ban does not affect the Apple Watch SE, a less-expensive model without a pulse oximeter. Previously sold watches also will not be affected by the ban.

A jury trial on Masimo’s allegations against Apple in California federal court ended with a mistrial in May. Apple has separately sued Masimo for patent infringement in federal court in Delaware and called Masimo’s legal actions a “maneuver to clear a path” for its own competing smartwatch.

Apple’s wearables, home and accessory business, which includes the Apple Watch, AirPods earbuds and other products, brought in $8.28 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2023, according to a company report. – Reuters

Energies PH, Inc. (EPHI) is looking to launch the Energy Community Digital Platform next year, which consists of Tier 3 colocation data centers for energy firms and use blockchain algorithms to accurately measure electricity consumption, cost, and efficiency, said Antonio A. Ver, EPHI chief executive officer.

“It’s a community of players in the industry that is striving to go digital and compute the real price of electricity,” Mr. Ver said about EPHI in an interview with BusinessWorld.

Their digital platform will help improve power price discovery, he said, as it will also allow people to verify their own meter readings via a website.

“For the benefit of everyone in the marketplace, nobody will be overpriced and you can know the correct amount of your electricity use,” he said.

“Consumers will be given access to the data produced by the data center,” Mr. Ver added.

He said he expects EPHI’s initiative to empower the ecosystem against the rising prices of electricity in the country, fostering awareness about how much one should actually pay for energy.

“Sellers and buyers will be very careful,” he said. “People will also be more comfortable buying renewable energy because they will pay right amount.”

Firms and small electric cooperative resellers can also have a reliable source of prices through shared data centers, he added.

EPHI’s platform includes initial sites in Baras, Rizal and Jaro, Iloilo, with plans to build three more in the second half of next year, including a data center complex in the Mambulao Special Economic Zone, Camarines Norte to cater South Luzon, Mr. Ver said.

He added that the company has already signed an agreement with a telco provider for the data centers’ broadband and fiber networks powered by dense wavelength-division multiplexing.

Peering agreements are in place with tech giants such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, which Mr. Ver said will allow them to strategically expand operations in the country.

He cited as an example of a scheme akin to EPHI’s Energy Community Digital Platform a partnership between Emirates Water and Electric Co. and Energy Exemplar, an optimization-based market simulation software provider for the energy sector, which was announced last week.

The collaboration aims to improve energy modeling capacity and integrated system planning through techno-economic cloud solutions, Mr. Ver noted. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola

MORE THAN two decades after J.K. Rowling introduced the world to a universe of magical creatures, forbidden forests, and a teenage wizard, Harry Potter is finding renewed relevance in a very different body of literature: AI research.

A growing number of researchers are using the best-selling Harry Potter books to experiment with generative artificial intelligence (AI), technology, citing the series’ enduring influence in popular culture and the wide range of language data and complex wordplay within its pages. Reviewing a list of studies and academic papers referencing Harry Potter offers a snapshot into cutting-edge AI research — and some of the thorniest questions facing the technology.

In perhaps the most notable recent example, Harry, Hermione, and Ron star in a paper titled “Who’s Harry Potter?” that sheds light on a new technique helping large language models to selectively forget information. It’s a high-stakes task for the industry: Large language models, which power AI chatbots, are built on vast amounts of online data, including copyrighted material and other problematic content. That has led to lawsuits and public scrutiny for some AI companies.

The paper’s authors, Microsoft researchers Mark Russinovich and Ronen Eldan, said they’ve demonstrated that AI models can be altered or edited to remove any knowledge of the existence of the Harry Potter books, including characters and plots, without sacrificing the AI system’s overall decision-making and analytical abilities.

The duo said they chose the books because of their universal familiarity. “We believed that it would be easier for people in the research community to evaluate the model resulting from our technique and confirm for themselves that the content has indeed been ‘unlearned,’” said Mr. Russinovich, chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure. “Almost anyone can come up with prompts for the model that would probe whether or not it ‘knows’ the books. Even people who haven’t read the books would be aware of plot elements and characters.”

In another study, researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle, University of California at Berkeley, and the Allen Institute for AI developed a new language model called Silo that can remove data to reduce legal risks. However, the model’s performance significantly dropped if trained only on low-risk text such as out-of-copyright books or government documents, they said in a paper published earlier this year.

To go deeper, the researchers used Harry Potter books to see if individual pieces of text influence an AI system’s performance. They created two datastores, or  collections of websites and documents. The first included all published books except the first Harry Potter book; another included all books in the series but the second, and so on. “When the Harry Potter books are removed from the datastore, the perplexity gets worse,” the researchers said, referring to the measure of accuracy of AI models. 

AI studies have cited Harry Potter for at least a decade, but it’s become more common as academics and technologists have focused on AI tools that can process and respond to natural language with relevant answers. With Harry Potter, “the abundance of scenes, dialogs, emotional moments make it very relevant to the specific area of natural language processing,” said Leila Wehbe, a Carnegie Mellon researcher who ran a set of experiments in 2014 collecting brain MRI data from people reading Harry Potter stories to better understand language mechanisms.

On arXiv, an open-access repository of scientific research, recent papers include, “Machine learning for potion development at Hogwarts,” “Large Language Models Meet Harry Potter” and “Detecting Spells in Fantasy Literature with a Transformer Based Artificial Intelligence.”

Even when it’s not central to the research, Harry Potter is also a favorite literary reference for researchers. One study, for example, used Rowling’s works to test the intelligence of AI systems such as those that spawned the chatbot ChatGPT, a topic that has generated much heat in recent debates. Terrence Sejnowski, who directs the computational neurobiology laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, argued in the paper that chatbots merely reflect the intelligence and biases of their users, like the Mirror of Erised in the first Harry Potter book, which reflects a person’s desires back to them

“Harry Potter is popular with younger researchers,” said Ms. Wehbe. “They would have read them as children or adolescents, thus thinking of them when choosing a written or spoken text corpus.” — Bloomberg

Following were ‘precinct finder’ due to the recent Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, and ‘persona non grata’ after the public uproar over a drag performance by Amadeus Fernando Pagente, stage-named Pura Luka Vega, resulting in their arrest. 

Additionally, the ‘Israel-Hamas war’ ranked fifth on the list, indicating significant international events that are highly recognized by Filipinos. 

“Filipinos use Google search to stay informed about current events, both locally and globally,” Mervin Teo V. Wenke, communications and public affairs head at Google Philippines, told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s Year in Search 2023 briefing. 

He noted that the Year in Search was compiled from large aggregates of anonymous data in the Philippines from January to the fourth quarter of this year, with specific dates undisclosed.

“Movies is one of the few categories cutting across the region,” Mr. Wenke said on comparing results in the Philippines to its Southeast Asian neighbors. 

Top searched movies include Oppenheimer, John Wick: Chapter 4, Barbie, Insidious; The Red Door, and The Menu. 

“But K-drama is a unique category to the Philippines,” he added. “This speaks volumes of Filipinos’ love for hallyu or the Korean wave.” 

This included peak search hits on K-dramas Duty After School, Moving, The Glory, Twinkling Watermelon, and King the Land. But the local series Maria Clara at Ibarra landed the second spot among shows in general. 

For sports, basketball still dominated the top ten queries amid other major sports events in the country this year. 

Top searched female personalities included British actress Katy Louise Saunders, Filipino actress-model Cristine Reyes, British actress Millie Bobby Brown, South Korean actress Lee Da-in, and Filipino model-actress Issa Pressman. 

For top searched male personalities: South Korean actor-model Ahn Bo-hyun, Japanese actor Mackenyu, Filipino actor-model Marco Gumabao, American actor Taylor Lautner, and American football player Travis Kelce. 

However, Mr. Wenke stressed that the top search queries are only reflective of Filipinos’ interest, and not the popularity of a certain term over the other. 

Google has improved its search experience powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI). “We will continue to leverage the power of AI to improve our products and services next year,” Mr. Wenke said. 

“AI inspires us to further deliver our mission and help more people around the world lead better lives,” he added. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola 

US-BASED audio product brand Sonos has launched in the Philippines its new speakers, the Era 100, Era 300, and Move 2, its local distributor said.

Sonos speakers are available at its exclusive distributor Mod Audio Philippines’ physical and online stores, as well as its official retail partners Power Mac Center and SM Appliance Center, it said in a statement.

The Sonos Era 100 is priced at P16,990, while the Era 300 and Move 2 are available for pre-order for P31,990 and P30,990 respectively. Reservations can be done by messaging Mod Audio Philippines’ Facebook or Instagram pages.

“Sonos, the wireless home sound system brand, introduces three new audio devices to fill your experiences with astonishingly brilliant and clear sound — the Sonos Era 100, Era 300, and Move 2. With these innovations, Sonos continues its commitment to reinventing sonic experiences through first-of-its-kind technology and impeccable design, allowing users to fill a room with rich sound,” Mod Audio Philippines said.

“With Sonos devices, you have everything you need to experience brilliant sound whenever, wherever,” it added.

The Sonos Era 100, which features “finely tuned stereo sound and rich bass lines,” can be connected via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Airplay, the company said.

“Weighing just over 2kg, Sonos Era 100’s size allows users to place the speaker in any part of the room, and even pair with a second device for an even more immersive audio experience,” it said.

“Despite its compact design, the Sonos Era 100 packs a punch to allow sound to permeate your surroundings. Powering the Sonos Era 100 to create a full sonic experience include two angled tweeters, which balance left and right frequencies; a midwoofer 25% larger than in the Sonos One for rich bass; and custom waveguides to amplify soundwaves. Users can easily control and adjust their soundscapes, like volume, bass, and treble, through intuitive touch controls or through the Sonos App,” the company added.

Meanwhile, the Sonos Era 300 offers a “more immersive spatial audio experience” as it has six drivers placed on its front, sides and top and supports Dolby Atmos sound.

“Adding to the clean aesthetic of any home while simultaneously enabling a realistic surround sound experience, the Sonos Era 300 boasts a first of-its-kind design, balancing visual appeal with the pioneering technical specs. Inside the device are four tweeters meant to ensure faithful playback across a range of frequencies, from wall to wall, and floor to ceiling fully enveloping the space. Dual woofers and custom waveguides round out the interior specs for a balanced bassline and widely spaced audio output,” the company said.

The Era 300 can likewise be connected via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, an auxiliary cable, or touch controls, among others.

Lastly, the Sonos Move 2 can be used indoors and outdoors as it adjusts its sound based on the acoustics of the location, the company said.

“Among its upgrades include a more powerful battery, allowing users to enjoy up to 24 hours of non-stop playback. Plus, its Wireless Charging Base with a more compact adapter makes charging more convenient. The Sonos Move 2 boasts 30% more energy efficiency and also comes with a replaceable battery, extending the life of the speaker,” it said.

“Inside the Move 2, the new and improved acoustic architecture includes dual angles tweeters for stunning sound on each side and one midwoofer with precisely-tuned bass lines… It boasts not only IP56 rating for dust and water resistance, but is also made with shock-absorbent materials to protect the device from drops. At just 3kg, the speaker is easy to bring along for all your getaways,” it added.

Mod Audio Philippines said the Era 100 now uses less energy than the earlier model Sonos One, and the Era 100 and Era 300 are made with post consumer-reycled plastics. The speakers also come in 100% recyclable packaging. — BVR

“The models represent a technological leap forward in terms of inclusivity, offering optimized support for local languages in the region including Tagalog, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, Khmer, Lao, and Burmese,” Alibaba said in a statement late last week.

“The conversational models, SeaLLM-chat, exhibit great adaptability to the unique cultural fabric of each market, aligning with local customs, styles, and legal frameworks, and emerging as an invaluable chatbot assistant for businesses engaging with SEA markets,” it added.

LLMs are a type of generative AI meant to help produce and predict text content.

Alibaba said SeaLLMs have 13-billion-parameter and 7-billion-parameter versions and are meant to cater to the “linguistic diversity” of Southeast Asia. SeaLLMs are now open-sourced on AI community Hugging Face and can be used for research and commercial purposes.

“In our ongoing effort to bridge the technological divide, we are thrilled to introduce SeaLLMs, a series of AI models that not only understand local languages but also embrace the cultural richness of Southeast Asia,” Lidong Bing, director of the Language Technology Lab at Alibaba DAMO Academy, said. “This innovation is set to hasten the democratization of AI, empowering communities historically underrepresented in the digital realm.”

“Alibaba’s strides in creating a multi-lingual LLM are impressive. This initiative has the potential to unlock new opportunities for millions who speak languages beyond English and Chinese. Alibaba’s efforts in championing inclusive technology have now reached a milestone with SeaLLMs’ launch,” said Luu Anh Tuan, assistant professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Nanyang Technological University, which is a partner of Alibaba in multi-language AI study.

The SeaLLM-base models went through pre-training on a data set including Southeast Asian languages to ensure understanding of local nuances and native communication contexts, Alibaba said.

“This foundational work lays the groundwork for chat models, SeaLLM-chat models, which benefit from advanced fine-tuning techniques and a custom-built multilingual dataset. As a result, chatbot assistants based on these models can not only comprehend but respect and accurately reflect the cultural context of these languages in the region, such as social norms and customs, stylistic preferences, and legal considerations,” it added.

“A notable technical advantage of SeaLLMs are their efficiency, particularly with non-Latin languages. They can interpret and process up to 9 times longer text (or fewer tokens for the same length of text) than other models like ChatGPT for non-Latin languages such as Burmese, Khmer, Lao, and Thai. That translates into more complex task execution capabilities, reduced operational and computational costs, and a lower environmental footprint,” Alibaba said. — BVR

HIGH INTEREST, LOW FOLLOW THROUGH
A growing appetite for credit products is an encouraging sign for those of us already in the formal financial sector. After all, credit can open opportunities for people to enhance their quality of life by enabling access to money for their immediate and long-term goals. While I believe that Filipinos are credit-ready, there is more we can do to convert interested consumers into active, responsible credit users.

Additional findings from the study showed that while 60% of respondents intend to use a greater range of financial products and services in the next year, only 21% are considering borrowing or using credit products in that same period. These figures hint at consumers’ caution about using credit products.

UNPACKING WHY FILIPINOS STAY CREDIT-HUNGRY
One way to understand why Filipinos are reluctant to use credit is to analyze how they see themselves and their finances. Despite 79% of the study respondents claiming to have a strong understanding of their finances and 69% claiming to be knowledgeable on the general definition of credit, 51% said that they have limited money at the end of the month.

Additional findings showed that only one third (33%) of Filipinos believe that users of credit-based financial products save more money — a stark contrast to those who believe that users of credit-based financial products overspend (57%), and those who see users of such products as financial risk-takers (65%).

With 90% of people expressing a desire to save more in the next year, these findings imply a gap in Filipinos’ knowledge about credit and how it can support their plans for the future. When used wisely and responsibly, credit can help people save money. Certain credit products offer perks and benefits such as redeemable rewards points and cashbacks, for example. Regularly paying off credit balances also helps build a good credit score, which helps secure lower rates on future credit products such as loans for houses or cars.

This gap in knowledge is also compounded by a long-standing stigma in the country that paints the act of seeking credit products as a gateway to bad debt and financial irresponsibility.

READYING FILIPINOS TO EMBRACE THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF CREDIT
I believe we can bridge the gap to help more Filipinos see the value in using credit wisely and diversifying the credit products they use. One way we can do this is to keep working with the formal financial sector to educate consumers about how the responsible use of credit can impact their lives beyond just giving them the ability to borrow money.

When told how having a credit score can positively influence loan approvals, job applications, and help achieve their financial goals, 90% of study respondents expressed how that information may influence their likelihood to use credit-based products in the future.

Across the formal financial sector, we must focus our efforts to connect the benefits of credit with important life events such as buying a house or securing the funds needed to start a business. Alongside the continued promotion of healthy financial habits to improve and maintain a good credit score, we can help more Filipinos to dismiss the negative stigma surrounding credit.

Credit can help Filipinos save more money, be better prepared in the event of an emergency, and gain access to more opportunities that make their lives better. More Filipinos stand to benefit from being empowered to use credit responsibly, and, on a larger scale, responsible credit use can also serve as a wider catalyst for economic growth.

For more information and insights, please view the full report of the TransUnion Credit Perception Index study.

Pia Arellano is the president and CEO of TransUnion Philippines and has over 28 years of industry experience across banking, payment solutions, telecommunications, and remittance services. She has been instrumental in establishing TransUnion as a leading private consumer credit reference agency and an information and insights partner of banks, fintech companies, and other institutions in the Philippine financial system. You can e-mail questions to tuphcomms@transunion.com.

The Philippines needs to address the growing threat of info stealers and phishing scams, according to experts.

A report by the threat intelligence firm Cyberint found that the Philippines is the third most targeted in the Asia Pacific by info stealers, a growing special type of malware, with 523,561 recorded cases.

“Infostealers work by harvesting sensitive data from a compromised computer or server, then sending it to attackers,” Adrianne Chester Camat, threat intelligence lead at Cyberint, said in the study. 

“[It] can lead to breaches of access credentials, financial information, personal information, website cookies, offline wallets, operating system details, and even screenshots of the machine’s desktop and file structure,” he added. 

Mr. Camat noted that info stealer families operate similarly to a legitimate company, “complete with a CEO, support staff, technical staff, research and development, and so on.”

Top families in the APAC region include RedLine (51.4%), Aurora (39%), and Raccoon (9.52%), the study said.

The study also observed the growth of social media impersonations in the region, which is more prominent in the Philippines, where threat actors first monitor the comments section of institutional pages online, such as banks. 

“Then, they contact those users, claiming to be representatives of the bank and using fake social media profiles to make themselves appear legitimate,” Mr. Camat said. 

“This approach allows them to trick users into sharing credentials or clicking links,” he added. “Attackers may also be able to coordinate [multi-factor authentication] logins using this method since they can interact with customers in real-time.” 

“We don’t see any sign that sophisticated phishing attacks like these will slow down. [It] remains very profitable, and advanced attack techniques make it all the more lucrative by increasing the rate of successful attacks.” 

“The best way to stop social media impersonations is to monitor social platforms for signs of impersonation.” 

Assessing the awareness and proactiveness of Filipinos in cybersecurity is complex, yet many are still duped, Ronald B. Gustilo, national campaigner for Digital Pinoys, told BusinessWorld in a Viber message.

“[This] highlights the need for the government to increase its efforts in digital literacy programs and awareness campaigns,” he said. 

“Businesses and institutions should intensify its monitoring of social media impersonators and see that these fake pages are reported,” he added, suggesting their premium subscription to social media services for verification. 

“They should prioritize employee training on cybersecurity, implement multi-factor authentication, and regularly update security measures to mitigate the risk of social media impersonations and info stealers.” 

Additionally, Mr. Gustilo said the government must enforce and strengthen cybersecurity regulations and foster collaboration between industry experts and authorities to curb the growing issue.

Sam Jacoba, founding president of the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines, urged the government to secure the country’s critical infrastructure by the first quarter of next year, and sign the National Cybersecurity Plan 2023-2028 as an executive order. 

“Give a deadline to all government agencies to comply within 12 months of the EO being signed,” he said. 

“Assign a person to be accountable per government unit, and allocate budget and resources to ensure that they succeed; form a team that will monitor this through quarterly reviews,” he added.

THE ADOPTION of artificial intelligence (AI) among Philippine organizations is expected to grow next year, prompting the need for focused and agile regulation amid privacy concerns, industry officials said.

“We’ve let the genie out of the bottle already, so it’s going to be a matter of course,” Peachy Pacquing, managing director at creative business school Hyper Island, told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of an event.

“Some industries are more prepared than others, but by and large, we’re not prepared yet,” she added. “We need to talk about it, and more than that, act on it.”

Ronald B. Gustilo, national campaigner for Digital Pinoys, said AI adoption in the country is expected to increase next year amid continued infrastructure improvement, especially in the governance, healthcare, finance, and education sectors.

“This integration is poised to play a crucial role in advancing the nation’s technological landscape,” he added.

The Trade department earlier said that AI could contribute as much as $90 billion to the Philippine economy by 2030.

International Data Corp. said the Philippines ranked 12th out of 14 economies in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of AI adoption for business and consumer transactions.

Meanwhile, a report released by technology firm Cisco this month said only 17% of Philippine organizations are ready to utilize and deploy AI, with the majority of them raising concerns about the impact of not adopting these advances.

It added that about 44% of Philippine organizations consider themselves chasers or are only moderately prepared, while 35% are followers with limited levels of preparedness and about 4% are laggards, or those not prepared to leverage AI at all.

A thoughtful and strategic approach is needed when adopting AI, Mr. Gustilo said.

“Leveraging insights from nations that have successfully implemented AI, nurturing public-private partnerships, and allocating resources to AI education are pivotal steps that can elevate the Philippines’ standing in the region,” he said.

“A focused strategy is imperative to navigate the diverse landscape of progress and ensure a seamless assimilation of AI advancements across different sectors,” Mr. Gustilo added.

AI is still “very conceptual, unless it is being offered to the B2B (business-to-business) and corporate sector for execution,” Donald Lim, chief innovation officer at holding company Udenna Corp., said in an interview.

“Once AI is [more] consumerized like ChatGPT, you’ll see more and more discussions on the consumer segment,” he said.

There are already some applications of AI in the Philippine setting, he said, like in call centers.

“If they call, track, or text you, you are already more known and targeted, which is why privacy becomes more important,” he said.

Speed and scale should be taken into account by organizations and regulators when discussing AI, Mr. Lim said.

“Just make it open. Don’t clock down when it shouldn’t be. We really need AI to push us forward and move us onto the next level,” he said.

Still, ethical considerations must precede all other considerations as the technology intersects with data privacy issues, Mr. Gustilo noted.

“Collaborating with industry experts, adhering to international standards, and maintaining policy adaptability to accommodate evolving AI technologies are indispensable elements for ensuring responsible AI use,” he said.

“Striking a delicate balance between fostering innovation and implementing safeguards is paramount as the Philippines charts its course through the intricate terrain of artificial intelligence in 2024,” he added.

Mr. Lim said the Philippines is far from being a leading producer of AI solutions in the region.

“We’re not creators of technology or software solutions, but that’s okay. We’re not the creator of TikTok or Facebook, but we became the primary users of it globally,” he added.

As for regulating the use of AI, there is a need to push against the narrative that policy will always trail behind technology, Ms. Pacquing noted.

“If you’re a regulator or policy writer, you have every opportunity to be just as agile as a technologist… I only hear excuses. There must be speed, but very calculated intentional speed, in creating these policies,” she said, citing Singapore, where she is based, as an example, noting that policies there related to technology evolve in real time.

“My fearless forecast is all bets are off… It really depends on us as individuals to say this is important and therefore, we will invest in and develop our ability to work alongside AI,” Ms. Pacquing added.

At least 12.8% of e-commerce transactions in the country were suspected to be fraudulent during the Black Friday or Thanksgiving holiday period in the United States from Nov. 23 to 27, a study by TransUnion Philippines found.

This was higher than the 10.7% suspected fraudulent transactions seen during the rest of the year.

It was also higher than the 12.2% recorded in the same holiday period last year but lower than the 17.2% seen in 2021.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the US. It has become a big retail event globally and is seen as the start of the holiday shopping season.

“Just as the holiday season drives consumers online to begin shopping for gifts for their loved ones, so does it become a destination for fraudsters seeking to take advantage of this time for their financial gain,” TransUnion Philippines Chief Commercial Officer Yogesh Daware said.

“Online retailers must ensure that consumers shopping their sites for the best deals are at the same time protected from fraud in the most seamless and friction-right way possible,” he added.

The report showed that highest digital fraud rate in the Philippines during this holiday period was recorded on Nov. 24 or Black Friday itself at 14.7% of transactions, followed by Nov. 23 or Thanksgiving Day at 13%. Meanwhile, Nov. 27 or Cyber Monday saw the third highest digital fraud rate at 12.5% of transactions, followed by Nov. 25 at 11.7% and Nov. 26 at 11.3%.

The strongest indicator of a fraudulent transaction was a high volume of activity coming from a single Internet Protocol address to a customer’s site during a short period, TransUnion said.

An “unusual” volume of activity from a single device to a customer’s site in a short period was also a top indicator of a possible fraud attempt.

“The days leading up to the Christmas holidays mark the biggest shopping season of the year for retailers in the Philippines, but equipping themselves with the proper tools to detect fraud at the first warning sign is a year-round priority,” Mr. Daware said.

“ A critical way to minimize fraudulent transactions while at the same time protecting legitimate ones involves implementing holistic fraud solutions that can verify customer identity and authenticity at the very beginning of a transaction, including both account creation and login,” he added.

TransUnion Philippines’ Consumer Pulse Survey for the fourth quarter also found that 93% of Filipinos are extremely, very or moderately concerned about being victimized by online fraud during the holidays.

The Philippines recorded the highest percentage of consumers worried about fraud among the countries studied. It was followed by India at 88% and South Africa at 84%.

The survey was conducted from Sept. 25 to Oct. 18 among 13,706 adults living in the Philippines, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the US. — AMC

1. Investments in WebAssembly will continue to grow.

While getting less attention next to the popular and trending large language models (LLMs), WebAssembly (WASM) is one to look out for. WASM is still evolving and has experienced recent advancements with companies continuing to invest in the future of this technology alongside the Bytecode Alliance.

WASM is making its way into databases, cloud platforms, edge devices, various SaaS technologies and more. Today, there are new technologies being developed to increase WASM interoperability, to create even more value around it. That said, as WASM continues to mature and more companies invest in this technology, we will see a usage increase both in and out of the browser, especially as new runtimes and compilers are developed.

2. Developers will brush up on their Python skills to keep up with LLMs.

While it was fairly easy to skip the Kubernetes hype and other infrastructure-related trends, AI and the focus on LLMs will be nearly impossible for developers to ignore.

For example, improving developer productivity is critical to the success of any technology organization. Each developer has different tasks, different stacks to work with and requires different things from various LLMs. As a result, developers will need to start fine-tuning LLMs to their specific needs, and Python is the default programming language to achieve that.

3. Generating code with artificial intelligence (AI) will be easily accessible through low-code/no-code.

Everybody’s talking about generative AI and LLMs and for good reason. However, there are still many unanswered questions about regulation, privacy, security, intellectual property and more.

Developers’ natural response to these challenges often mirror a curious and entrepreneurship-like approach, with many developers taking the “I’m going to build my own thing to solve this problem” route. But as developers’ interests grow around a particular area, the general level of knowledge rises, tooling improves, and abstractions move up so that it becomes easier to tackle a particular problem.

If we look at the most optimal way to fine-tune models, it’s often well-suited to a chain of tasks, and this can be easily represented graphically with low-/no-code tooling. As such, we can expect low-/no-code and generative AI to work hand-in-hand in facilitating everyone’s productivity.

4. Federated learning will be a key player in the future of AI, especially in a privacy-challenged world.

While it’s true that we might be done with the traditional learning set when it comes to AI, there are still many untapped sources of data. Anything we do on our devices syncs to a server to either train LLMs or fine-tune LLMs to a specific usage.

That’s where federated learning comes in. With the recent popularity of generative AI, there has been more buzz around adopting a decentralized approach to training AI models, also known as federated learning.

By having the ability to secure training models and support privacy-sensitive applications, federated learning will be a critical player in unlocking the future of AI, while addressing crucial concerns around data privacy and security.

Laurent Doguin is the director of developer relations and strategy at Couchbase, the cloud database platform company. Previously, he was a developer advocate at Couchbase where he focused on helping Java developers. Prior to Couchbase, Laurent held developer roles at Clever Cloud and Nuxeo.

THE CREATION of tools and regulations to address the proliferation of deepfakes is expected to become a priority in the Philippines next year, according to experts.

Deepfakes refer to media that have been digitally manipulated through artificial intelligence to create misrepresentations of people and events.

“Untrained eyes and ears cannot discern what is fake,” Jonathan Dixon, vice-president and managing director at Cloudflare Asia Pacific, Japan, and China, said in an e-mailed statement to reporters on Monday.

“With today’s versions more realistic than ever, trained eyes and ears also fail to identify deepfakes,” he added,

Mr. Dixon said he expects that there will be an increased demand for “the next cutting-edge security technology” targeting the issue of deepfakes in 2024.

Ronald B. Gustilo, national campaigner for Digital Pinoys, likewise said more tools and regulations are needed to address the increase in crimes involving deepfakes.

The Philippines must foster a resilient defense against deepfake threats through technological innovation, legal frameworks, and community education, he said in a Viber message to BusinessWorld.

“Enhancing detection algorithms will empower platforms to identify and mitigate the spread of deceptive content,” Mr. Gustilo noted.

“Simultaneously, enacting and enforcing robust regulations will serve as a deterrent, discouraging malicious actors from engaging in deepfake activities,” he added.

Public education is also equally important “as raising awareness about the existence and potential harm of deepfakes equips individuals to discern authentic content from manipulated media,” Mr. Gustilo said.

Deepfakes have already captured the attention of Congress, with proposed laws and potential investigations under discussion among lawmakers, he said.

“Although specific instances within the Philippines might not have garnered widespread attention, the need for a comprehensive strategy is evident,” Mr. Gustilo said.

“Combating the deepfake dilemma requires a multifaceted approach, incorporating advancements in detection algorithms, the implementation of stringent legislative measures, and proactive public awareness initiatives,” he added.

A memorandum from the Justice department in October said deepfakes may be categorized as violations of computer-related fraud, computer-related identity theft, or misuse of devices, which are punishable under the Cybercrime Prevention Act.

Meanwhile, House Bill No. 9425 filed last month seeks to define deepfakes and what kinds of deepfakes are deemed harmful and subject to legal consequences.

The bill defines deepfake as “any audio, visual or audio-visual recording created or altered through technical means, such as video recording, motion-picture film, sound recording, electronic image, or photograph, which are so convincing that a reasonable person would mistake it for an authentic representation of an individual’s speech or conduct.”

Meanwhile, it defines “harmful deepfakes” as those created without consent, for no artistic purpose and used for defamation, sexual harassment, the exploitation of children, fraud, deceptive transactions, copyright infringement, election offenses, and terrorism.

“The penalty to be imposed for offenses committed through the use of deepfake technology shall be one degree higher than those prescribed in the Revised Penal Code, as amended, and relevant special laws,” the bill said.

“Most of the Southeast Asian countries are in the developing phase, so our idea is to promote our products to be able to go to tier two and tier three cities where we can let more and more people use [the flat panel detector] in the x-ray,” Raunak Joshi, business development manager for the InnoCare’s Asia-Pacific region, told BusinessWorld in the sidelines of the Healthcare+ Expo in Taipei City, Taiwan last week.

InnoCare is currently in talks with a potential distributor in the Philippines, he said.

“We’ve yet to find a partner in Philippines. So, hopefully after this [event], we can find a partner in Philippines,” Mr. Joshi added.

The new flat panel detectors would lessen the time to get an x-ray image to 10 seconds from the usual five minutes, he said.

The portable panel detectors can save multiple x-ray images that can be viewed through another gadget like a tablet, Mr. Joshi said. It is also powered by chargeable batteries.

“You [can] take this to a village, take a lot of scans, and then bring it back. At the end of the day, doctors can see a lot of images,” he said. “This has storage [compared to] the previous one.”

The flat panel detectors, through artificial intelligence, can also generate full images of respiratory illnesses like COVID-19, tuberculosis, and pneumonia with 90% accuracy.

InnoCare has distributed its handheld flat panel detectors in India, Vietnam, Nepal, Bangladesh, America, and Europe.

It also seeks to develop flat panel detectors to get longer x-ray images that would cover a person’s full spine or lower limbs, Mr. Joshi said. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz

“Although the need to implement a digital-first experience has been constant, the ways by which it can be realized vary periodically. In 2024, we believe that your organization would benefit from a unified approach of deploying new tech, focusing on demanding aspects of business, such as privacy, LLMs (large language models), and orchestration,” said Rajesh Ganesan, President at ManageEngine.

Here are ManageEngine’s top five predictions for trends in 2024 that will help organizations root themselves in the bedrock of this new age of work:

1. Privacy and AI governance will become top business priorities.

Although 2023 has witnessed numerous artificial intelligence (AI) guidelines across geographies, including the Philippines’ National AI Strategy Roadmap, these are indicators that a further inflow of similar policies is imminent. According to an IDC report, the region leveraged its favorable regulatory environment to tap into the potential of Gen-AI, with two-thirds of Asia-Pacific organizations exploring potential novel applications or already investing in the technology. With AI being integrated into every aspect of business, disruptive technologies (such as deepfakes and augmented reality) threaten privacy and pose significant risks. These technologies should be placed under a keen watch for both public and private use. As an effort to ensure ethical, transparent, and fair use of technology, AI governance will become of paramount importance to businesses. We also believe that privacy will be the core of every business going forward and protecting it will become the responsibility of every individual in the organization.

2. Enterprises will be keen to adapt to purpose-built LLMs rather than general-purpose LLMs.

Ever since the advent of AI, businesses have leveraged their capabilities to fulfill predictive analysis and automate low-skill tasks. However, AI’s narrow applications and its immense engineering difficulties call for AI training models that can cater to all aspects of a business. Enterprise-focused LLMs help both employees and customers alike achieve deep-nested conversations with the enterprise’s offerings and align better with evolving software tools. By adapting such models, enterprises will be better able to deploy their vast amount of knowledge to address both their creative and redundant workloads. It will also empower organizations to protect their data, reduce biases in their data, and provide detailed audit reports to understand AI decisions.

3. The power of orchestration will span the entire enterprise.

In recent times, many businesses have turned to digital transformation to carry out their core functions online. This transition has presented the challenge of fragmentation or splitting data into organizational silos and hampering the flow of information. Enterprises are likely to overcome the issue of fragmentation by harnessing the power of orchestration, which allows for the construction of interconnected digital pipelines that lead to workflow automation and streamlined operations. By adopting this user-friendly and accessible technology, organizations will be prepared to make complex tasks achievable and survive in the digital realm.

4. The digital-first experience will evolve to the secure digital-first experience.

Having moved on from traditional work methodologies, we will observe organizations integrate contemporary information technology (IT) management tools to provide a holistic and safe digital journey. In 2024, we believe enterprises will also adopt an identity-centric approach, ensuring that only authorized individuals are granted access and permissions, therefore safeguarding their identities and data. Going a step further, cloud infrastructure and entitlement management will be implemented to increase granular visibility and minimize threats by providing a comprehensive view of identities and entitlements across diverse cloud environments. Together, such solutions will bolster security and enable a worry-free digital experience for the end users.

5. Cyber resilience will become a strong business differentiator.

Today’s technological landscape presents a series of challenges for modern companies that stunt progress. These challenges include the geopolitical climate, technological disruption, cyberthreats, competitive pressure, and many other factors, all of which could be more easily faced when strategic plans are in place. Analyst firm IDC indicated that spending on security hardware, services and software in Asia-Pacific is expected to reach $36 billion in 2023, an increase of 16.7% over the previous year. In 2024, we will see companies actively invest in such plans that bring the tools, solutions, and culture necessary to enhance their overall cyber resiliency. Consequentially, cyber resilience will emerge as a key business differentiator, enabling organizations to succeed in the complex global market.

At ManageEngine, we envision that these IT forecasts will help organizations seamlessly pace themselves with an imminent transformation in their work cultures. By staying attuned to emerging trends and technologies, organizations will be able to capitalize on opportunities and remain competitive in this ever-evolving digital ecosystem.

Rajesh Ganesan is the president at ManageEngine.

The guidelines apply to autonomous vehicles for passengers including taxis as well as for freight transportation, the Ministry of Transport said in a statement.

The guidelines cover vehicles of various degrees of automation and mandate they carry at least one driver or security inspector.

They also require companies using autonomous vehicles for public transport to be qualified and licensed and state that companies can work together with automakers on such operations.

The world’s largest auto market has been mapping out standards and regulations for autonomous driving. It aims to formulate a system that will support assisted and autonomous driving functions by 2025 and introduce standards that will support the development of autonomous driving applications and establish a safety assurance system by 2030.

China said last month it would allow road trials of intelligent connected vehicles. In October, it issued guidelines for highway engineering facilities to support autonomous driving technology. And in July, it issued guidelines on the standardization of intelligent connected vehicles. – Reuters

Philippine organizations should prioritize a people-centric approach when adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies for growth, according to experts.

“The biggest challenge in [harnessing] new technology is understanding human beings and how humans make choices,” Vivienne L’Ecuyer Ming, neuroscientist and founder of policy think tank Socos Labs, said during a discussion hosted by creative business school Hyper Island on Friday.

She noted that AI is only a tool that can enable everyone to take part in the economy. “It is in our own interest to pull as many of us in the transformed world.”

“It will soon be very hard to cross the growing chasm between routine and the ‘creative’ economy,” she added on the capacity of AI to generate adaptive problem explorers.

The International Data Corp. said the Philippines ranked 12th out of 14 economies across the Asia-Pacific region in terms of AI adoption for business and consumer transactions.

The Trade department projected that AI could contribute as much as $90 billion to the country’s economy by 2030.

A report released by technology firm Cisco this month said only 17% of Philippine organizations are ready to utilize and deploy AI, with the majority of them raising concerns about the impact of not adopting these advances.

It added that about 44% of Philippine organizations consider themselves chasers or are only moderately prepared; 35% are followers with limited levels of preparedness; and about 4% are laggards, not prepared to leverage AI at all.

However, AI adoption must not be unbounded to avoid unintended consequences, Ms. Ming said, urging leaders to start by observing the problems they aim to solve with AI personally, and not through a dataset or algorithm.

Leah Camilla R. Besa-Jimenez, chief data privacy officer at PLDT, Inc., noted AI having increased the company’s customer service productivity by 33% over the last six months.

“It is a tool that requires us to govern it properly and be critical about the amount of data it accesses,” she said. “It requires a lot of scrutiny. For us, we even went down to the call path to ensure that we are not creating biases with how we respond.”

Jack Madrid, IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines president, said AI can be a disruptive and powerful tool, yet “it does not have the judgment-sensitive and creative prowess of a human.”

“There is no one size fits all,” he added on advocating lifelong learning in the industry through short vocational domain knowledge courses to leverage AI.

Angie Tijam-Tohid, executive creative director at communications solutions agency Havas Ortega Group, noted how her company is trying to build an open-to-learning approach to AI use.

“The best scenario [for the industry] is a hybrid where humans work with AI and policies that will support its ethics,” she added.

PLDT’s Ms. Jimenez said policy creation is urgent as AI allows potential intrusion and surveillance into people’s lives, adding that it is also incumbent on users to govern themselves properly.

“If it was me being assessed [by AI], how would I want to be treated?” she said on promoting self-governance while policy is catching up.

“A company needs to make sure every solution it makes has traceability to immediately see potential missteps and make the proper corrections if ever,” she added.

Donald Lim, chief innovation officer at holding company Udenna Corp., noted speed and scale as integral to the country’s overall AI adoption strategy.

“Get the fundamentals correct first. Start with basic excellence,” he said to organizations which find it hard to figure out emerging technologies.

“AI is an amplifier, but it will not solve your problem,” he added. “If you focus on what AI will do, then you will lose focus on what you should be doing.”

“Garbage in, garbage out,” Ms. Jimenez said as a general principle to AI’s mechanism and adoption. “You cannot expect a tool to solve your problems.”

“[AI] could democratize and be the leveler of the playing field, but we need to move fast,” IBPAP’s Mr. Madrid said.

Mr. Lim said AI can catapult the Philippines into the global stage if each sector cultivates the capacities of the country’s great minds.

“We just have to start doing it now,” he added.

The truck, made of shiny stainless steel and shaped into flat planes, is partly inspired by a car-turned-submarine in the 1977 James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me,” Musk has said.

Its new body material and unconventional, futuristic styling has added complexity and costs to production, and threatens to alienate traditional pickup truck buyers who focus on utility, experts say.

But Mr. Musk, who has priced the vehicle’s three variants between $60,990 and $99,990, said on Thursday the Cybertruck has “more utility than a truck” and is “faster than a sports car.”

He drove a Cybertruck onto a stage to cheers from the crowd and later handed over vehicles to about a dozen customers at an event in Austin, Texas.

“Finally, the future will look like the future,” he said about the truck’s design, showing a video of the Cybertruck towing a Porsche 911 and beating another gasoline-powered 911 in a short race.

Tesla shares fell 2% in extended trading after closing off 1.6% at $240.08.

Mr. Musk did not announce the vehicle’s prices at the event, but Tesla’s website listed the prices. Its highest performance variant, the ‘Cyberbeast’ will be available next year, as will the all-wheel drive trim that starts at an estimated $80,000.

The cheapest rear-wheel drive version with an estimated starting price of about $61,000 will be available in 2025.

“This is going to appeal to … definitely a wealthier clientele that can afford the price point and they want something that is unique and quirky,” said Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at auto research firm Edmunds.

“That just isn’t a large segment of the population that can afford that especially where interest rates are.”

After Mr. Musk estimated in 2019 that the Cybertruck would sell for $40,000, the vehicle drew more than a million reservation holders who put down $100 deposits. He had not offered an updated price before Monday, despite rising raw material costs for EVs.

New deposits are $250, Musk said on Thursday.

The price is not a surprise to many, said Paul Waatti, an analyst at consultancy AutoPacific. Waatti told Reuters before the event that the Cybertruck would do well with a smaller audience.

GRANDSTANDING SHOWPIECE

Cybertruck, two years behind schedule, enters a hot pickup truck market to compete with the likes of Ford’s F150 Lightning, Rivian Automotive’s R1T and General Motors’ Hummer EV.

Rivian’s R1T has a starting price of $73,000, while the F-150 Lightning starts at about $50,000. The larger and more powerful Hummer EV pickup costs more than $96,000.

The Cybertruck, Tesla’s first new model in nearly four years, is critical to its reputation as a maker of innovative vehicles. At a time when the company is battling softening electric vehicle (EV) demand and rising competition, Cybertruck is also key for generating sales, though not to the extent of the company’s high-volume Models 3 and Y.

Mr. Musk tempered investor expectations about the product last month citing problems in ramping production and warning that it would take a year to 18 months to make it a significant cash flow contributor.

Ahead of the launch, Musk captured media attention on a different subject, giving a profanity-laced interview to the New York Times on Wednesday. He cursed advertisers who left his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, because of antisemitic comments.

On Thursday, he said about the truck: “It’s basically an incredibly useful truck. It’s not just some grandstanding showpiece like me.”

UNIMPRESSIVE RANGE

The Cybertruck‘s longest-range version can drive an estimated 340 miles (547 km), and comes with a “range extender” or extra battery pack that extends its range to 470 miles.

In 2019, Mr. Musk had said the truck would be able to travel 500 miles or more on a single charge.

“As a truck, the Ford and Chevy are more useful and certainly easier to see out of,” said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights.

“Given that Teslas almost always fall short of (range) estimates in real world driving by anywhere from 10%-20%, I wouldn’t expect the longest range version of the Cybertruck to achieve more than 300 miles on the road,” he said, noting that the Chevrolet Silverado EV is capable of exceeding its 450-mile rated range.

Mr. Musk has said Tesla was likely to reach a production rate of roughly 250,000 Cybertrucks a year in 2025. He did not update that on Thursday.

During its 2019 reveal, Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen took a metal ball to demonstrate the truck’s unbreakable “armor glass” window, only to shatter it.

Mr. Holzhausen on Thursday lobbed a baseball at the Cybertruck window that bounced off. – Reuters

US District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to block the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban “violates the Constitution in more ways than one” and “oversteps state power.”

TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, sued Montana in May, seeking to block the US state ban on several grounds, arguing that it violates the First Amendment free speech rights of the company and users.

TikTok users in Montana also filed suit to block the ban approved by the state legislature which cited concerns about the personal data of Montana users and potential Chinese spying.

TikTok said it was pleased the judge “rejected this unconstitutional law and hundreds of thousands of Montanans can continue to express themselves, earn a living, and find community on TikTok.”

A spokesperson for Montana state attorney general Austin Knudsen’s office, which defended the ban, noted the ruling was preliminary and said “the analysis could change as the case proceeds.”

Mr. Knudsen’s office added it was considering its next steps and looks “forward to presenting the complete legal argument to defend the law that protects Montanans from the Chinese Communist Party obtaining and using their data.”

TikTok said in earlier court filings it “has not shared, and would not share, US user data with the Chinese government, and has taken substantial measures to protect the privacy and security of TikTok users.“

Mr. Molloy, who was appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton, found merit in numerous arguments raised by TikTok and referenced what he termed “the pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment that permeates” the state‘s legal case and legislation.

Montana could have imposed fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok in the state but the now blocked state law did not impose penalties on individual TikTok users.

Mr. Molloy said Montana sought to exercise foreign policy authority held by the federal government and the state‘s action was too sweeping.

TikTok has faced efforts by some in Congress to ban the app or give the Biden administration powers to impose restrictions or bar foreign-owned apps, but those efforts have stalled.

Many states and the US government have barred TikTok on government-owned devices, but only Montana has sought to completely bar the app’s use.

Former President Donald Trump in 2020 sought to bar new downloads of TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat, but a series of court decisions blocked the effective ban from taking effect. – Reuters

“We want to remove that bottleneck for them to start selling just because they can’t write something like a product description, etc.,” Macy Castillo, co-founder, and chief executive officer of Enstack, told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of the company’s EmpowHER Christmas bazaar.

“That’s what we’re working on for next year, and we’re just going to keep building on that,” she added, referring to the company continuously refining its in-house large language model based on how the platform’s users and merchants interact on the app.

“We hope to continue concentrating on building the app with R&D [research and development] and tech.”

Ms. Castillo noted the capacity of generative AI tools to kickstart entrepreneurship, facilitate an easier store setup experience, and help the company grow as an omnichannel store builder.

She said the tools being developed for release next year will automatically create assets such as logos, product images, and captions, for which businesses “will not need a graphic designer.”

Ad spending in the Philippine digital advertising market is projected to reach $1.608 billion this year, according to Statista.

As Enstack reached the onboarding of 100,000 merchants since its official launch in October last year, Ms. Castillo noted it also aims to grow the quality of the company’s merchant base next year through its customer experience team.

“If you try to sign up on Enstack now, somebody should be calling you tomorrow to ask if you have any questions,” she said. “You automatically have an account manager who can help you upload products, set up your store, or get you verified to get specific payment channels.”

Enstack has raised $3 million from a funding round led by Mangrove Capital Partners in March, with participation from payments startup Xendit and Shinsegae International chief executive officer William Kim.

Additionally, it will close its Build-A-Biz nationwide competition yearend, which will prize P1 million, mentorship, and brand exposure in February next year to the business with the highest sales in a two-month period.

Enstack is eyeing expansion to Thailand and other Southeast Asian markets with increasing digital adoption among businesses, as reported by BusinessWorld in January. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola

His profanity-laced remarks followed a moment of contrition in a New York Times DealBook Summit interview. Mr. Musk said repeatedly he was sorry for publishing a tweet on Nov. 15 that agreed with an anti-Jewish post.

Mr. Musk has faced a torrent of criticism ever since he agreed with a user who falsely claimed Jewish people were stoking hatred against white people. Mr. Musk in his post said the user, who referenced the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, was speaking “the actual truth.”

On Wednesday Mr. Musk said he had “handed a loaded gun” to both detractors and antisemitic people, describing his post as possibly the worst he had made during a history of messages that included many “foolish” ones.

The Tesla CEO bristled at the idea that he was antisemitic and said that advertisers who left X, formerly known as Twitter, should not think they could blackmail him.

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money? Go fuck yourself,” he said.

“Go. Fuck. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, if you’re in the audience,” he added, in an apparent reference to Robert Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney, which pulled ads on X. Mr. Iger spoke earlier at the event and said that Disney felt the association with X following Mr. Musk‘s move “was not a positive one for us”. A spokesperson from Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“What I care about is the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. And what I see all over the place is people who care about looking good while doing evil. Fuck them,” Mr. Musk said.

Musk‘s expletives against advertisers is the “closing chapter” for brands doing business with X, said Lou Paskalis, founder of marketing consultancy AJL Advisory and the former head of global media at Bank of America. “They’re not going to forget that,” he said.

Customers who did not like him should consider the products his company make based on their quality, Mr. Musk said, pointing to electric cars from Tesla and SpaceX rockets. “I will certainly not pander,” he said.

Mr. Musk added that he himself arguably had done more for the environment, at Tesla, than anyone in the world, based on Tesla’s massive sales of electric vehicles.

“It would be fair to say, therefore, as a leader of the company, I’ve done more for the environment than everyone — any single human on Earth.”

Mr. Musk‘s comments came on the same day that US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned that the rise in antisemitism since the start of the Israel-Hamas war has reached a crisis point, saying it threatens the safety of Jews worldwide and the future of Israel. “To us, the Jewish people, the rise in antisemitism is a crisis. A five-alarm fire that must be extinguished,” Mr. Schumer said in an emotional, 40-minute Senate speech.

Mr. Musk‘s post drew condemnation from the White House for what it called an “abhorrent promotion of antisemitic and racist hate.”

The “Great Replacement” theory falsely claims that Jewish people and leftists are engineering the ethnic and cultural replacement of white populations with non-white immigrants that will lead to a “white genocide.”

Following the post, major US companies including Walt Disney DIS.N, Warner Bros Discovery and NBCUniversal parent Comcast suspended their ads on X. A report from liberal watchdog group Media Matters precipitated the advertiser exit, which said it found ads next to posts that supported Nazism. The platform filed a lawsuit last week against Media Matters for defamation.

Mr. Musk‘s comments have put pressure on X overall, including Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino. An executive told Reuters that she would remain at the company.

Mr. Musk himself appeared resolved that X could fail financially and blamed advertisers.

“If the company fails because of advertiser boycott, it will fail because of an advertiser boycott. And that will be what bankrupt the company and that’s what everybody on earth will know,” he said. “Let the chips fall where they may.”

In the wake of the condemnation around his post, Mr. Musk traveled to Israel and toured the site of Hamas’ assault in the country on Oct. 7. On Monday, he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a live-streamed conversation on X.

Mr. Musk on Wednesday said the trip had been planned before his message and was “independent” of the issue.

Mr. Musk in Israel said he is against antisemitism and anything that “promotes hate and conflict” and stated that X would not promote hate speech. While there, he received a symbolic dog-tag from the father of an Israeli hostage taken captive by Hamas, which he promised to wear until all the hostages were free. He wore the dog-tag on stage on Wednesday.

“The fact that you came here speaks volumes of your commitment to try to secure a better future,” Netanyahu told Mr. Musk during the conversation in Israel.

Mr. Musk‘s wide-ranging interview on Wednesday included discussions from freedom of speech to the environment to U.S. presidential politics. Musk said he thought he would not vote to re-elect President Joe Biden but did not say he would vote for his likely challenger, Donald Trump. – Reuters

SUFFICIENT evidence is needed for the Philippines to join other countries looking to ban the use of short-form video platform TikTok due to alleged surveillance concerns, experts said.

The proposal to ban the use of the platform among public officials is indicative of “broader geopolitical tensions and our own state agencies wanting to show they’re falling in line with allies,” Jonathan C. Ong, disinformation researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said in a message to BusinessWorld.

“There is little evidence that Chinese state intelligence has actually relied on TikTok data rather than through their more traditional intelligence gathering strategies,” he added.

Solid proof is needed that data collected from TikTok are being used to monitor the public, Ronald B. Gustilo, national campaigner for Digital Pinoys, likewise said in a Viber message.

“[Then], the government is duty bound and has every right to protect the people and the government from foreign espionage,” Mr. Gustilo said.

“While these allegations may be due to the ongoing tension between Philippines and China, claims against any platform should be substantiated before making any drastic decision,” he added.

The government has formed a dedicated task force to assess whether public officials should be prohibited from using TikTok, a National Security Council (NSC) official said on Tuesday.

“The proposal to ban TikTok is simply for the security sector because many, many countries in the world have already banned TikTok in government devices,” Jonathan E. Malaya, NSC assistant director general, told reporters at the sidelines of a security forum.

“We are just waiting for the results of the threat assessment, which we will then submit to the National Security Adviser.”

The possibility of a ban was first raised in September, with officials citing data security issues.

Earlier this month, Nepal said it would ban Chinese-owned TikTok, adding that social harmony and goodwill were being disturbed by “misuse” of the popular video app and there was rising demand to control it, Reuters reported.

TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance Ltd., has already been either partially or completely banned by other countries, with many citing security concerns.

Nepal’s neighbor India banned TikTok along with dozens of other apps by Chinese developers in June 2020, saying that they could compromise national security and integrity.

Another South Asian country, Pakistan, has banned the app at least four times over what the country’s government terms its “immoral and indecent” content.

TikTok last week said user data from the Philippines are stored in Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States.

“TikTok does not store user data in China, has not shared Philippine user data with the Chinese government, and would not even if asked,” it said in a statement last week.

“If an employee were required to access user data to perform a function specifically tied to their role (such as debugging, troubleshooting, and performance monitoring to provide an optimal user experience), logged and limited access to that data would only be granted subject to strict controls and safeguards, and adherence to the highest of approval protocols.”

The app is not headquartered and available in mainland China, even as ByteDance was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs, TikTok added, noting that the company’s ownership is split among global institutional investors (about 60%), employees (20%), and Zhang Yiming, the company’s founder (20%).

FOCUS SHOULD BE ON PROVEN LAPSES INSTEAD

For his part, Mr. Ong said there should instead be increased attention towards proven cases of cybersecurity lapses versus speculations over a platform.

“I think citizens should question the unevenness in which our political leaders are fearmongering about data privacy rather than addressing the major social media platforms like Facebook, or even Viber, or study vulnerabilities within our own Filipino corporations’ mobile apps where there are documented leaks of our data,” he said.

“We’re a country with great many experiences of government website hacking and leaking of our citizens’ personal information… so we should always be proactive about data privacy and identifying vulnerabilities,” Mr. Ong added.

Last month, the Department of Information and Communications Technology signed a commitment with ByteDance, Meta, and Google to share knowledge, insights, and technology to improve national cybersecurity.

Sam Jacoba, founding president of the National Association of Data Protection Officers of the Philippines, noted the need to follow up on the commitment signing “not through motherhood statements, but with concrete actions and plans.”

“Go beyond the paper commitment and let these big data gatherers fully comply with the Data Privacy Act,” Mr. Jacoba said. “Penalize them if they do not comply. Give a deadline (six months), then have regular reviews and checkpoints.” — with Reuters

Filipinos spend more than 21 hours daily (86% of the day) on their phones to connect with others, but also acquire new skills for career development, the Digital Lives Decoded study of telco company Telenor Asia Pte. Ltd. found.

The survey covered 8,000 mobile internet users across South and Southeast Asia, with 1,010 participants from the Philippines.

“In 2023, we see a shift where mobile use has the greatest impact on people’s lives, with work becoming the primary driver for increasing usage, and a majority using their devices to pick up new skills,” Petter-Børre Furberg, executive vice-president and head of Telenor Asia, said in a statement on Wednesday.

“A stand-out finding this year from the Philippines was that amidst a challenging economy and high inflationary environment, mobiles are being widely used as a tool to manage rising costs of living,” he added, noting that 75% of Filipino respondents used their phones to find the best deals (75%) and compare prices (74%).

Filipinos also see their mobile phones as tools to help them create new income streams (71%), with most claiming to have used their device to learn a new skill in the past year (91%).

“Selling on e-commerce platforms (56%), leveraging [generative artificial intelligence] (52%), and social media management (47%) emerged as the most desirable skills to learn via mobile device,” it noted.

Freelance or consultancy services came on top among income streams created via mobile, Telenor added.

In terms of work, 77% said mobile use has grown their productivity over the last five years, with 90% seeing significant improvement in their work quality and performance and 45% believing it would help them get ahead at work due to connectivity.

Meanwhile, 82% said their workplace supports the use of generative artificial intelligence, with 52% expecting it to increase in the next six months.

However, 97% of Filipino respondents have also raised concerns on privacy and security, with 55% seeing these vulnerabilities “hindering the full utility of mobile devices in the course of their work,” the report said.

Fake news (76%), identity theft (76%), and data theft (74%) emerged as top concerns among Filipinos, with 89% expressing worry about the online safety of elderly family members and 95% about children’s safety.

“As mobile technology becomes increasingly central to our lives, so does the need for all stakeholders to continue to understand the people and parts of the ecosystem most at risk,” Mr. Furberg said.

“We must keep working with stakeholders to create a safer online environment which allows all generations to take advantage of the immense potential offered by mobile access,” he added. — Miguel Hanz L. Antivola