Symantec Names Brazil as Eighth-largest Global Source of Malicious Botnet Activity

Symantec's new study highlights the fact that cybercriminals are becoming increasingly more organized and trying hard to stay one-step ahead of security agencies.

By Narayan Ammachchi, nearshore americas

Security software provider Symantec has found that Brazil is the eighth-largest global source of malicious botnet activity, according to the firm’s Internet Security Threat Report 2015.

The country is home to 2% of the world’s bots, which are defined as private computers infected with malicious software and controlled as a group without the owners’ knowledge.

Globally, China was the origin of much more bot activity in 2015, seeing a sharp rise of 84% in bot-related activity over the previous year. In contrast, bot activity in the US has dropped 67% since 2014.

Although cybercrime is also a problem in Mexico, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Panama, the report shows that the threat rate is declining in several countries. Successful law enforcement activity against cybercriminals and heightened cybersecurity awareness are both contributing factors to the decline of bots.

However, a similar study by BitSight Technologies stated that Brazil and the US are finding it difficult to prevent and mitigate machine compromises stemming from botnet infections. BitSight also said it found Brazilian companies underperforming on metrics such as machine compromise rates, email security and file-sharing practices.

Nearly 430 million new malware variants were discovered in 2015, up 36% from the previous year, suggesting that cybercriminals around the world are becoming increasingly more organized and trying hard to stay one step ahead of security agencies.

“Advanced criminal attack groups now echo the skill sets of nation-state attackers. They have extensive resources and a highly-skilled technical staff that operate with such efficiency that they maintain normal business hours and even take the weekends and holidays off,” said Kevin Haley, Director, Symantec Security Response.

Paid Too Much For An Airline Ticket? FairFly Can Find A Better Deal, Get Refund

Traveling is fun; planning a trip is not, especially during the summer peak season. Every detail of a trip can take hours to be decided upon and can leave you with a headache. And this frustration starts with the first step of any trip: Buying an airline ticket.

By Meital Goldberg, NoCamels 

The cost of any plane ticket will fluctuate from the moment the flight becomes available until the flight takes off, but most people don’t bother to find out if the fare has changed. According to FairFly, an Israeli mobile and Web app dedicated to helping you find the best possible fare after you’ve booked, 88 percent of people don’t check the cost of flights once the ticket has been bought.

Many people have heard the trick that buying a ticket on a Tuesday afternoon for a trip in six weeks’ time will get them the best fare; another rumor says booking exactly five months in advance will do the trick. But, unfortunately, there is no magic bullet.

$100 billion in overpayment 

Overall, people overpay roughly $100 billion a year because they don’t check the prices after they booked an airline ticket, according to a 2015 report by Business Insider. Fortunately, the founders of FairFly were aware of the situation and decided to find a way to help people save money.

Using FairFly is a simple process. Once you’ve booked your flight, you need to send a copy of your itinerary to the FairFly team at trips@fairfly.com. They will immediately put your flight into the system and start scanning for lower fares. You can add as many flights as you want.

Brazilian IT market grows 9.2 percent in 2015

Enterprise investment in technology in the country is above world average despite the recession, says IDC

By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech

Despite the political and economic challenges Brazil has faced over the last 12 months organizations continued to invest in technology as the local industry saw growth above global average in 2015, according to a report from analyst IDC in partnership with the Brazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES).

The Brazilian IT industry grew by 9.2 percent last year - this compares to global average growth of 5.6 percent. This positions Brazil as the largest IT market in Latin America and sixth globally, with total investments of $59,9bn last year, according to the report.

According to the report, the most expressive growth was seen in the software segment, up 30.2 percent generating $12,4bn, while services firms saw 8.2 percent growth in relation to 2014 with total investments of $14,3bn and the local hardware market saw 6.3 percent growth, generating $33,4bn.

"The share of hardware investments is still close to 56 percent of the total, but the share of software and services is growing year by year and should exceed the 50 percent in total, as Brazil increases its level of maturity in those segments," said ABES president Jorge Sukarie.

Investment increases outside Rio-São Paulo area

IT investment has also become less focused in the regions near to the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo and started to increase in the north and northeast areas of the country, according to ABES.

Both regions accounted for 15 percent of all purchases of hardware, software and services in the country in 2015, according to the report. Despite the fact that this represents growth of only one percent in relation to 2014, the trend is positive, considering the slowdown caused by the recession and the continuous increases in IT spend in the regions in the last few years.

Between 2013 and 2014, for example, spending in IT hardware, software and services went from 10.5 percent to 14 percent of the total spend in Brazil, the report adds.

Individually, the advance seen in the individual regions within that period was also noteworthy: the North of Brazil, which includes large states such as Amazonas and Pará, saw IT almost doubling from 2.2 percent to 4.24 percent, while the Northeast, where states such as Bahia are located, jumped from 8,3 percent to 10.72 percent.

Car tech fast lane? Why automobile makers are rushing to Israel

Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and others are seeking out technology and expertise from the Israeli automotive startup scene.
By David Shamah for Tel Aviv Tech

Israel probably isn't the first place you'd think of for car technology. But it's a big player in the Internet of Things, and as cars become more automated and connected to the cloud, Israel is also emerging as a hub for automobile technology.

Nearly all the large Japanese manufacturers, and many American and European car makers, are opening R&D centers in and around Tel Aviv.

And as part of that process, manufacturers are discovering that Israel is good at other things, too. Honda Silicon Valley Lab ‎senior program director Nick Sugimoto says on a recent visit he's been looking at "a lot of interesting tech in a wide variety of areas: battery technology, materials technology, IT, connected vehicles, and more. Israel is very good at all of these, and more".

Honda is just the latest car company to take an interest in what Israeli startups can do to give them an edge in the evolving connected car technology ecosystem.

With more cars sporting internet connections, either onboard or via Bluetooth or USB connections to a connected device, there's been a growing demand for apps to keep drivers connected, but in a safe manner.

At a hackathon in Tel Aviv, for example, top Ford executive Scott Lyons said while the company wanted good apps, safety is a priority, both in terms of driving and from a cybersecurity point of view.

Ford's AppLink is probably the richest mobile app platform currently available. The company decided to run a hackathon in Israel because of developers' expertise both in connected IoT tech, and cybersecurity, another area where Israel excels, according to Lyons.

Other companies that have held hackathons or development events in Israel over the past year include Toyota and Hyundai, and like Sugimoto, they were first attracted to Israel by two locally-developed technologies that have now become more or less standard for drivers and vehicles: Waze and Mobileye.

Latin Americans commerce report - They Love Shopping Online

Online shopping is growing by Latin America, with a new Business Insider report projecting annual growth of 17% in the the region through 2019.The region's top markets, biggest growth opportunities, and foreign retailers making inroads
By Cooper Smith, business insider 

Despite the economic downturn, Latin America is a market retailers have to pay attention to. It's one of the top regions in the world for e-commerce growth, and those retailers that build out their e-commerce operations now will be in the best position to grab market share when the economy rebounds.

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we size Latin America's biggest e-commerce markets — Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina — and project how online retail sales will rise in these countries. We look at the growth drivers in each market and identify opportunities and challenges for foreign retailers operating there.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Latin America is one of the fastest-growing regions for e-commerce, behind Asia-Pacific. We expect online retail sales to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17% between 2014 and 2019 to reach $85 billion in sales at the end of the forecast period.
• Brazil is the largest online retail market in Latin America, accounting for 42% of the region's $47.4 billion in e-commerce sales. But e-commerce growth is decelerating due to an economic downturn. Between 2014 and 2019, we expect e-commerce sales to rise at a CAGR of 12.5%.
• Mexico is the second-largest market for e-commerce in Latin America. Mexico currently accounts for 12.3% of the region's e-commerce, but we expect Mexico's share to increase to 15.6% by 2019. By 2018, Mexico is forecast to reach $11 billion in e-commerce sales — or just under 2.5% of total retail sales in the country. 
• Argentina ranks third in terms of online retail sales in Latin America, but it will be the fastest-growing e-commerce market of the three countries. The country currently accounts for 8.9% of sales in the region, but by 2019, we expect its market share to increase to 14.6%. 
• US retailers are investing heavily in building out their e-commerce businesses in the region, despite the slowing economy. Walmart recently redesigned its country-specific site in Brazil and is finalizing construction of three new e-commerce fulfillment centers in the country — doubling its current fulfillment network. Amazon has been investing heavily in Mexico, launching a Spanish-speaking version of its shopping site under the Mexican domain 

Crops Can ‘Communicate’ Their Needs Through Revolutionary IoT Technology Phytech

Smart tech agriculture technology firm Phytech, based near the border with Gaza, developed an Internet of Things technology for crops
By David Shamah, The Times of Israel

Sygenta, one of the world’s biggest agriculture technology businesses, along with Japan-based Mitsui, one of the world’s biggest corporate groups, are banding together to invest in an Israeli agriculture tech start-up.

Phytech, which has developed an Internet of Things technology for crops, is to receive an undisclosed investment from the two firms for its PlantBeat service, which equips crops with sensors that record information about the growing environment.

According to Dr. Michael Lee, managing director at Syngenta Ventures, the VC arm of Swiss

agribusiness giant Sygenta – the world’s largest maker of chemical pesticides – “Syngenta’s ambition is to bring greater food security in an environmentally sustainable way to an increasingly populous world by creating a worldwide step-change in farm productivity. In working towards our ambition, we put the grower at the center of everything we do. Phytech’s grower centric solutions join our breadth of technologies in crop protection, seeds, traits and seed treatment, providing the grower with integrated offers and broad-based innovation for the future.”

Already in use on some of the biggest farms in the US, Brazil, Australia, and other countries – including Israel, where some 60% of tomato farmers and 40% of cotton growers already use the system – Phytech’s PlantBeat keeps track of how much water crops get, how moist the soil is, soil temperature, and other data. The sensors upload the information to a cloud server, where it is analyzed and downloaded to a mobile app PhyTech users download, with the app indicating how healthy a plant is and what to do to improve its performance.
The low-cost sensors can be attached to sample plants to take readings within an immediate area of several square meters, with multiple sensors set up as an array to get a full picture of conditions in a growing area. The sensors include simple lithium batteries which can last for up to a year, and the sensors upload the data in an encrypted manner using cellphone networks, with the data secured from prying eyes.

“Investing in Phytech meets our consistent strategy for innovative technology and new business development,” says Mr. Masato Hisamune, SVP & DOO of Innovation and Corporate Development Division at Mitsui & Co. Europe. “We would like to provide Phytech with services and solutions that meet their diverse needs, optimizing Mitsui’s global marketing networks and extensive business experience.”
According to Phytech CEO Sarig Duek, “the support of leading global strategic investors such as Syngenta and Mitsui would allow Phytech to significantly enhance its decision support, cutting edge technology and innovation as well as its commercial development.”

Brazil seeks projects for its best supercomputer

Projects are now being selected for execution in Brazil's most powerful computing resource.
By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech

Brazil's National Laboratory of Scientific Computing is currently selecting research projects for application within the Santos Dumont supercomputing resource - the 148th best in the world and the most powerful in South America - in the field of processing demand.

Since there are three separate resources within the complex within different application purposes, interested parties with a representation in Brazil can submit proposals for research use of the computational capacity in a large scale, as well as smaller research projects.Santos Dumont is a cluster composed of three systems, Santos Dumont CPU, Santos Dumont GPU and Santos Dumont Hybrid. Out of its total processing capacity of 1,1 petaflops, Santos Dumont GPU alone can execute 456 teraflops/calculations per second.

Currently, Santos Dumont is accessed via the SINAPAD platform, which allows selected organizations to use the supercomputer for research matters that demand a large scale computing resource.

With six supercomputers in total, Brazil is the tenth country with most resources of that kind globally according to the twice-yearly Top500 list of the world's most powerful super machines.

Joint Israeli-Palestinian entrepreneurship youth initiative MEET is crowdfunding for peace

MEET, the Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow program, brings together young Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, using tech and innovation to form relationships
By Gabriel Avner, GeekTime

In the search for the ever elusive peace in the Middle East, one determined team is trying a slightly different approach, stepping away from the historical avenues aimed at resolving the conflict.

MEET, the Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow program, looks to bring together young Palestinians and Jewish Israelis, using technology and innovation as a way to form relationships and open up lines of communication between the two sides.

A week ago, the non-profit organization launched a crowdfunding campaign on the popular Indiegogo platform, hoping to raise at least $10,000. As of the writing of this article, the group has succeeded in raising almost $21,000, with nearly a month left to go until the drive closes. According to their page, a pair of donors have each pledged to match up to $10,000 for the campaign, further adding to the final amount.

Founded in 2004 by a collection of Israelis, Palestinians, and others from around the world, the program is partnered with the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Incorporating volunteers from MIT, MEET works with participants to develop skills in computer science, entrepreneurship, and what they call deeper understanding and leadership.

Brazil ranks tenth on world's supercomputer list

Country ranks high in terms of quantity of supercomputers but fails to make it to the list of the ten 100 best machines, report says
By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech

Brazil is the tenth country with most supercomputers in the world, according to a reputable list of the world's most powerful machines published earlier this week.

Six supercomputers are located in Brazil, which places the country at number ten in the twice-yearly Top500 list of the world's most powerful super machines.

Out of all the Brazilian supercomputers, three are run by the National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC) in the Rio de Janeiro town of Petrópolis and one is managed by the Brazilian Institute of Space Research (Inpe). In addition, one supercomputer is run by oil giant Petrobrás and another by the Center for Integrated Manufacturing and Technology, in the northeastern capital of Salvador, in the state of Bahia.

The power of supercomputers is directly related to a country's technology-related progress. The machines are designed to perform complex simulations and applications to help scientific research in a vast range of industries, from weather forecasting to financial modeling and DNA sequencing.

The best Brazilian supercomputer, currently ranked 476th and run by LNCC, is Santos Dumont GPU. The supercomputer is part of a cluster composed of three systems, Santos Dumont CPU, Santos Dumont GPU and Santos Dumont Hybrid. With a total processing capacity of 1,1 petaflops (Santos Dumont GPU alone can execute 456 teraflops/calculations per second), the cluster is currently the most powerful supercomputer resource in Latin America.Despite making it to the top 10 list in terms of quantity of such equipment, none of the Brazilian machines has made it to the top 100 best supercomputers.

Locust-Shaped, 3D-Printed Robot Can Traverse Rocky Terrain, Assist In Search And Rescue

In recent years, advanced robotic platforms have provided assistance to crisis intervention teams in the wake of man-made and natural disasters. The objective of such robots, in various sizes and shapes, has been to intervene where humans cannot and send life-saving data to rescue teams in the field
By NoCamels Team

Now, a miniature robot is poised to make a major contribution to the field of advanced robotics. The new locust-inspired robot, developed in Israel by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Ort Braude College, is five inches long and weighs less than one ounce. It can jump 11 feet high — more than twice the height of similar-sized robots, according to the researchers — and cover a horizontal

distance of 4.5 feet in one leap. The researchers believe the robot will perform well in search-and-rescue missions and in reconnaissance operations in rough terrain.

Inspired by nature
“Our locust-inspired, miniature jumping robot is a beautiful example of bio-inspired technological innovation,” TAU’s Prof. Amir Ayali, who led the research, said in a statement. “Miniature robots are of special interest in the robotics field, attracting a lot of attention and research. The manufacture of tiny robots is cheap and efficient; their small size allows them to traverse difficult and unknown terrain; and many can be used in any given situation.”

SecurePush: Plataforma digital de validação de identidade

Confirmação e validação de identidade dos clientes é uma preocupação, e às vezes um problema, de segurança que empresas, como aquelas do setor bancário, passam diariamente. Atualmente, as organizações têm que recorrer a confirmações manuais de dados do cliente, um método já ultrapassado que não somente toma tempo como corre risco de fraude. Portanto, com o objetivo de modernizar e melhorar esse processo, foi criada a SecurePush, uma plataforma digital que utiliza smartphones, tablets ou smartwatches para uma identificação e autenticação robusta de maneira confiável.

Usando a tecnologia SPAuth, suportada por iOS, Android e Windows Phone, a SecurePush é uma solução de segurança para contato entre empresa e cliente, bem como para compras e outros pagamentos. Através de um app, a SecurePush confirma a identidade de um cliente em poucos segundos. Dessa maneira, não somente empresa e cliente economizam tempo a partir de uma técnica segura, como a experiência do consumidor melhora consideravelmente.

Conheça mais sobre essa inovadora plataforma lendo as sessões a seguir. 

Como a plataforma funciona?
O cliente, ou mesmo um fornecedor, deve ter instalado em seu aparelho o app da SecurePush. Quando for feito o primeiro contato com a empresa, é criado um link único que garantirá a comunicação entre companhia e consumidor. Em novos contatos, a plataforma é acionada e o cliente valida sua identidade com um simples toque em seu aparelho, ou mesmo poridentificação biométrica ou reconhecimento facial, caso seja necessário. 

Como ocorre a solicitação de validação?
Contato empresa-cliente: A organização pode fazer a solicitação de validação, enviando uma notificação ao aparelho do cliente, que rapidamente confirmará sua identidade.

Contato cliente-empresa: Quando for, por exemplo, ligar para uma companhia, o cliente pode poupar tempo validando sua identidade pela SecurePush antes mesmo de falar com um atendente, fazendo com que o atendimento seja mais direto ao ponto. 

Quem pode se beneficiar da plataforma?
Call Center: Um dos objetivos da SecurePush é justamente melhorar a experiência do cliente e reduzir os tempos médios de atendimento. Portanto, a plataforma proporciona às empresas que trabalham com call center uma redução imediata das despesas operacionais (OPEX). Por exemplo, um call center de tamanho médio lida com cerca de 60.000 chamadas recebidas diariamente; se a SecurePush economiza apenas 1 minuto por chamada (tempo médio de identificação), ele economiza cerca de 1.000 horas por dia!

Setor de Educação: A plataforma de envio seguro fornece às instituições de ensino segurança na identificação de alunos, corpo docente e administrativo, fornecedores e outros usuários.

Setor Financeiro: Bancos e outras empresas do setor prestam vários serviços que requerem identificação, e a SecurePush garante a segurança que os usuários precisam.

Setor da Saúde: Servindo milhares e milhões de clientes com múltiplos canais de atendimento, empresas do setor podem usar a plataforma de envio seguro para autenticar pacientes, pessoal, fornecedores e outros usuários.

Setor de Seguros: Seguradoras e, também, agentes de seguro terão a possibilidade de fazer uso da plataforma digital em operações com clientes e prestadores de serviço.

Para mais informações, agende uma visita com a FLAR Consulting

An introduction to dynamic pricing for E-commerce

Introduction

Dynamic pricing is a price-setting approach relying on data analysis and flexibility. It allows to shape and control price changes on the fly, depending on customer’s previous interactions with the website and his general profile. Items like past searches and purchases, location, time and date of previous searches and purchases are taken into account to generate a personalized offer.

Dynamic pricing has been around for nearly 15 years when retailers like Amazon started testing this. So, this isn’t a new practice but each year that technology advances, so does the way we use dynamic pricing. As a business owner, the opportunities for delivering more relevant propositions have improved.

From search history to previous purchases, customer location to general tastes, it allows a business owner to personalize its offer on a user per user basis.

This is not only useful for the company (as personalized offers are more likely to lead to sales); but also for the customer as many potential cross sells based on his/her interests are uncovered. However, the amount of information used for personalization can seem daunting at first – where to start? What can be collected? How can it be used to make sure it doesn’t invade user privacy?

It generally starts with a cookie, those tiny text files a website drops on your machine each time you visit a website. There are ways to limit cookie usage/tracking (and the European Commission has recently brought the matter to a vote), but everyday users are generally unaware of how far this goes.

Advertising like Dynamic Pricing and re-purpose advertising are targeting customers with impressive accuracy these days and the customers themselves are likely unaware of what is happening.

With the advent of big data, the total number of information any business possesses and is able to analyze has dramatically increased. Simply put, the more users and interaction with your website that occurs; the more data that is available for collection and analysis.

Business Intelligence tools are nowadays more and more sophisticated; predictive analysis is becoming the norm rather than the exception. So the question becomes: 

How can you use information on your customers and prospects to personalize your offer – and make it stand out? Is dynamic pricing the way to go? 

· Dynamic pricing is an old practice

As early as 2000, Amazon was experimenting with dynamic pricing: users were seeing a different price for the same item after having deleted their browser cookies. This was mostly used for loyalty purposes; existing customers were recognized and offered a better deal. The result, a feeling of being ‘special’ and an increased loyalty to the business.

· Dynamic pricing can lead to stronger and quicker sales.

In the early 2000s, it became the norm, notably on airline websites. Customers with a very specific intent (a plane ticket between 2 cities on a specific date) were identified during their price hopping and this led to increased fare on their next visit.

The user, while this was not specifically the case, sensed an urge to book as an increased fee could mean there were fewer available seats. The sales process is complete and the margin is better.

· Dynamic pricing is based on segmentation

The most important aspect of dynamic pricing is segmentation; you must understand your user’s base and know what they are interested in and which price they are ready to pay.   The more segmented the better, as it allows you for further control and further personalization.

· Dynamic pricing can lead to a better margin

If and when your customer base has been properly segmented and analyzed, specific demographics can be applied, notably in term of median household income.   Asking prospects to enter their postcode (either when creating an account or during the sales process) can lead to identifying which suburbs are financially healthier and this can lead to a slightly different price, increasing your margin.

· Dynamic pricing offers ways to beat competition

A business might compete nationally with other national businesses and at the same time with local retailers who can be more aggressive on prices. Again, when asking customers to enter their postcode, it allows you to align your prices on the competition, should this be your business model of course.

· Dynamic pricing can be applied on patches

As a company, you do not have to apply dynamic pricing on your entire catalog. You can however decide to run experiments and see what difference it can make.   in the 2012 London Olympic Committee applied this strategy to maximize profits from the ticket sales. The same tactic was also applied by numerous Major League Baseball clubs on a few thousands of their stadium seats, with increased revenue of half a million dollars. It might or might not work for you; start by running a test and see the final numbers.

· Dynamic pricing heavily relies on data analysis

Even at a smaller level, a free tool like Google Analytics can in its latest developments offer a professional level of data analysis to help you make sound pricing decisions.   Use the Channel Contribution mode to figure out which marketing funnel initiated or brought the most sales; align customer behavior data with your own CRM to identify visitors; run multivariate tests; track cross-platform visits under the new Universal Analytics model… The sky is the limit.

· Dynamic pricing is widely accepted

Users have become familiar with ever evolving prices online, even on the same website and even during the same browsing session. They have accepted the fact that they will not pay the same price than the person sitting on the next seat in their flight. Customers have been shopping around; using price comparison websites and sometimes different browsers/platforms to get a feel of what would be the lowest price for an item they are willing to buy.

· Dynamic pricing is legal

As long as dynamic pricing is not discriminating users based on their sex, age, race, religion and other usual discriminative factors, it is perfectly legal.

Dynamic pricing has a bright future

Long will be the days when dynamic pricing was solely limited to online purchases. Trends for dynamic pricing lie in retail. Products will see their price tag vary based on multiple factors and likely to be nearly individually

set.

However, dynamic pricing is not ready for brick and mortar businesses; you simply cannot change a price tag in front of a customer or update it before he goes to the register. The key here resides in tailoring promotions and discounts, rather than the item price itself.

The long and the short of it is that dynamic pricing has been around for a long time now and it’s only getting more and more advanced. From profile to taste, needs and aspirations, it allows a better price shaping for an increased margin. It is however becoming a topic for retail shopping as well. And this is where the present and future of dynamic pricing resides:

Being able to identify and target specific customers on an individual basis and offer them a product they want, they can afford, and that they need at that exact moment, will possibly change retail forever.

However, the whole dynamic pricing model does imply two major changes:

1. The business will need to be ready to adapt prices on the fly, sometimes multiple times a day, no more fixed prices for everyone. This flexibility will be the key to success.
2. Customers will have to adapt to ever changing prices. Some customers will win, some will lose; and as a business you need to be ready for managing this important behavioral change within your customer base.

Even if price plays an important role in the final purchase decision, this is just one of the factors customers take into account when deciding on a purchase. Things like shipping, customer service, and convenience all play a part in the equation. At the end of the day, don’t put all of your eggs in the same basket and make sure you never veer from your businesses core values or initial goals.

Summary - Dynamic pricing for retailers/e-commerce

Dynamic pricing is expanding into new areas, such as retail and E-commerce. This has been driven by advancements in technology and new sophistication - and expectations - of consumers. 

Amazon may have been the first to try dynamic pricing in the early 2000s, and was met with widespread criticism. Today, it continues to adjust prices dramatically in an effort to discover the best price to maximize its revenue and inventory utilization. Walmart, Target, and most other major retailers do the same. 

Dynamic pricing in retail is less obvious than hotels, but the effect is similar:

• Increased demand results in higher prices
• If sales drop, indicating reduced demand, lower prices are tested 
• Weather and other external factors influence price - in different ways for every business
• Inventory levels, particularly clearing out old inventory (also known as markdowns)
• Channels have different willingness to pay, and smart retailers take advantage. Higher prices are ok in a store versus on the web. 
• Website traffic also demonstrates increased demand for a product - and may trigger a dynamically higher price
• Perfect Price analyzes all of these factors, and its Price API delivers the right price to test (and can be specific to a group of users, their region, or a specific brick and mortar store). 

BioBee To Ship 600 Million Spiders To Colombia

There is a way to get rid of pests without using toxic pesticides, and the solution is simpler than one might think: Employing predatory bugs that will attack and kill damaging insects.
By Alice Menichelli, NoCamels

Israeli company BioBee has been developing this chemical-free technique for years, and is now deploying it in farms all over the world, using living insects instead of chemical pesticides, which could be harmful.

Selling its products to 50 countries worldwide, including Russia, India, Chile and South Africa, BioBee recently started to collaborate with Colombia, which will receive 600 million spider mites over the next year. The company was not available to comment on the price of the spiders, but some reports in the media have claimed that one gram of these spiders costs about $180 – more than five times the price of gold ($34 per gram)!

BioBee breeds a special kind of predatory spider called Bio Persimilis, which can keep pests under control in several crops, such as peppers, tomatoes, beans, maize, cucumber, melon, strawberries and eggplants. It is specifically effective against other kinds of spider mites, but contrary to these other mites, Bio Persimilis doesn’t cause any harm to the plants.

The Bio Persimilis spiders used by BioBee are as big as the spider mites they chase, about one or two millimeters long. They move quickly, hunt their prey and pierce it, sucking out its fluids.

Israeli startup’s suitcase follows you around

NUA Robotics seeks to eliminate travel woes with hands-free luggage
By The Times of Israel

Israeli startup NUA Robotics has unveiled a prototype for luggage that uses Bluetooth technology to sync with a smartphone app, locate its owner, and follow along.
The case also features an anti-theft alarm, a USB port for charging electronic devices on the go, and can send real-time data, including its weight and location, to the app.

“Any object can be smart and robotic,” the co-founder and CEO of NUA Robotics Alex Libman told Mashable on Thursday. “We want to bring robots into everyday life.”

NUA unveiled its design at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Nevada last week. Of the thousands of companies represented at the annual show, NUA ranked an impressive 323, placing it within the top 92% of all the companies in attendance.

While the suitcase is still in its preliminary development phase, the Jerusalem-based company hopes to have the product available to customers within a year.

Libman said NUA has wider hopes for its robotics technology, and envisions the design incorporated into other consumer products such as shopping carts.

Israeli start-up keeps bad bugs at bay, no poison needed

EdenShield’s GateKeeper kept almost 100% of crop-destroying pests out of greenhouses — without pesticides
By David Shamah, The Times of Israel

Farmers face a major crisis today — a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” crisis. Farmers need to keep their fields free of insects that eat crops and destroy their livelihood.
However, the pesticides that are effective against those insects are causing major environmental damage, killing off not only pests, but helpful insects such as bees.

Studies have linked the disappearance of bees around the world, known as Colony Collapse Disorder, to the overuse of pesticides. Because bees are the effective pollinators of fruit trees — scientists believe that as much as one-third of human nutrition is due to bee pollination — fewer bees means less food. But without pesticides, bug infestations would rise significantly, causing just as many crop losses.

Fortunately, an Israeli start-up has developed a middle way — a system that enables farmers to protect their crops, while avoiding the use of environment-destroying pesticides. And a new study

conducted by that start-up, EdenShield, showed just how effective are the company’s natural pesticides, which have been developed from plants and herbs.

In the study, greenhouses in Italy where tomatoes are grown using EdenShield’s GateKeeper prevented close to 100% penetration of pests and led to a reduction of over 80% in the use of pesticides. Control greenhouses demonstrated pest penetration of over 500%.

EdenShield, a portfolio company of Trendlines Agtech, develops insect-control solutions derived from natural plant extracts. The products are nontoxic, so they pose no danger to growers or consumers. And they can be used throughout the growing period, especially during the critical pre-harvest period.

According to D. Todd Dollinger of the Trendlines Agtech accelerator, EdenShield’s products “have the capacity to make a major impact on our food chain, making production more efficient and consumption healthier.”

The Israeli-invented device that’s saving American lives in Afghanistan

The Israeli-invented device that’s saving American lives in Afghanistan
By David Shamah, The Times of Israel

Then American troops are injured in the field, the first piece of life-saving medical equipment they may come into contact with nowadays is an Israeli-invented mini-sized manual ventilator. And not just American soldiers on the battlefield; the Pocket BVM has been used to treat thousands of people at the scene of numerous natural disasters, like in the huge earthquake that devastated Nepal earlier this year.
“The US Army decided that our Pocket BVM (bag valve mask device) would fit into combat scenarios much better than traditional BVMs,” said Dov Maisel, an American immigrant to Israel

who invented the unique manual ventilator with his friend and fellow United Hatzalah volunteer Akiva Pollack. “It’s really taken off since the Americans adopted it last year, and now we are working with several NATO armies, first-aid groups in Europe and Asia, businesses, hospitals, and airlines among others.”

To that latter category add El Al, said Maisel; the Israeli airline several months ago signed a contract with MicroBVM, the commercial supplier of the device, and now all El Al planes have miniature BVMs scattered throughout their cabins, so that life-giving oxygen can be provided to a patient quickly and efficiently

The story of the Pocket BVM is one of ingenuity, a drive for start-up success – and a “Jewish heart,” as Maisel puts it.

Two Israeli inventions voted CES favorites

There were two winners in the Last Gadget Standing contest – and both were made in Israel

By David Shamah, The Times of Israel

Thousands of companies showed off tens of thousands of products to over 100,000 visitors at this year’s just-concluded Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas – with the action followed by millions on line. And when the smoke cleared, there were just two gadgets left standing – both of them Israeli.

Both the Last Gadget Standing Live Audience winner, and the Last Gadget Standing Online winner – the VUZE Camera from HumanEyes Technologies, and the Steam CC Ripple Maker, respectively – were feted by no less a tech personality than David Pogue, founder of Yahoo! Tech and a frequent contributor to top news sites like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many others. “It’s awesome to see companies bare their corporate souls in such fun and imaginative ways,” Pogue said of the Last Gadget Standing contest, praising the participants – and especially the winners – for their innovative tech.

Last Gadget Standing, considered the highlight of CES, is a knockdown dragout contest where the top tech winners take all. Twenty five new (created in the latest calendar year) products or technologies at CES, as decided by a panel of 11 judges and on-line voters, are then narrowed down to ten finalists, who show off their tech to thousands in a live show, and millions following on-line. The audience picks its favorite, as does the online crowd.

Israeli-developed ‘nano-nose’ can sniff out bombs, drugs

Tracense’s homeland security odor-detection technology is set to come on the market soon.

Tracense Israeli company, developed “nano-nose” could help homeland security officers sniff out explosives — as well as drugs, large amounts of cash, and even small metal items that are banned from planes. “And we do it with far less false positives than dogs or other technologies that are being

used now to analyze the odor of explosives and other items,” said Matan Barami, chief chemist at Israeli nanotech start-up Tracense.

Barami was speaking Monday at this year’s edition of NanoIsrael, a biennial event on the burgeoning Israeli nanotechnology industry. Over the past nine years, Israeli nanotechnology researchers have filed 1,590 patents (769 granted so far), published 12,392 scholarly articles on the subject, and had 129 nano-success stories, which include establishing start-ups, selling ideas or technology to multinationals, licensing a patent, etc., according to Rafi Koriat, chairman of the event at Tel Aviv University.

The conference, Koriat said, is a place for top researchers and leaders from Israel and abroad to meet and discuss the latest developments in nanotechnology, “and provides visitors with a first look at cutting-edge technologies, leading scientific achievements and unique business and investment opportunities.”

Why Indian IT Companies Have Set Their Sights on Brazil

Indian IT companies have their eyes on Brazil -- and it is not just exports to North America that have attracted interest. The domestic market, in both software and IT services, has also caught their attention. Here's why Indian companies are looking to Brazil for growth.

By Silvia Rosa for Near shore Americas  

Among the largest exporters of software and IT services, Indian companies have increased their investments in Brazil, aiming to benefit from the growth potential of the domestic market and expansion of their operations in Latin America. The largest Indian IT companies, such as Tech Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Wipro, and HCL have recently started operations in Brazil to both serve the local market and provide services for global clients.

This is the case for Infosys, the second largest Indian IT company, which opened a development center in Brazil in Nova Lima, in the state of Minas Gerais, in 2009. “Initially the aim was to provide services for some multinational customers based in Brazil,” said Claudio Elsas, Infosys’ CEO in Brazil.

In 2012, Infosys acquired Lodestone, which specialized in the SAP system. Currently the company offers several lines of IT services in Brazil, including management consulting focused on SAP and Oracle’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, development of IT solutions and business process outsourcing (BPO).

The company has about 1,000 employees in Brazil in addition to maintaining local operations in Mexico, Argentina, and Costa Rica. “The advantage of being a global company is that we can bring the latest IT solutions to the local market faster,” said Elsas.

TCS is the largest IT Indian company, and Brazil accounted for 20% of its turnover in Latin America in 2013. The company’s goal is to raise its revenues in the region to US$1 billion by 2016, reaching 4% of global turnover.

In Brazil, TCS has a development center in Tambore in the state of São Paulo, and it has focused on services related to mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and high-performance computing. The local presence is essential for growing in Brazil. “Besides the language barrier, there is the high cost of importing services in Brazil,” said Elsas.

The main factor that has attracted these multinationals to Brazil is the size of the nation’s IT market. As the seventh largest in the world, it reached US$60 billion in 2014, an increase of 6.7% over the prior year, and with an investment growth of 4.04% last year, it was above the global average. “The main factor that has attracted multinationals to Brazil is the growth potential of the domestic IT market,” said Jorge Sukarie, CEO of theBrazilian Association of Software Companies (ABES). “The country is among the 10 fastest-growing IT markets and may overtake France over the next five years.”

France placed fifth in the investment ranking in 2014, and the Brazilian domestic market is already larger than that of India (eighth), whose investments in the IT sector totaled US$40 billion in 2014. Brazil also dominates its region, representing 46% of the IT market in Latin America. Considering just software and services, growth was 9.7% in 2014, totaling US$25.2 billion — double the Indian market and its $12 billion.

Another advantage of the Brazilian market is that it is located in the same time zone as North America, which makes working on projects involving a global team easier.

However, since most parts of the Indian IT market are focused on export, the international market in Brazil accounts for only 1.93% of the IT sector.

Foreign companies have a large market share in the software segment in Brazil. In 2014, the programs developed abroad accounted for 75.5% of this sector. On the other hand, domestic developments represent 85.9% of the service market.

In order to grow in the Brazilian IT service market, Tech Mahindra has chosen to make some strategic acquisitions. The company, which is part of the one of largest global IT services providers, the Mahindra Group, acquired a 51% stake in the Brazilian SAP consulting company, IT Complex, in 2013 and it is considering new acquisitions or joint ventures with local partners in order to increase its service portfolio in Brazil, especially in cloud computing and BPO.

In February, the company signed an agreement with IBM to develop a cloud application platform. Tech Mahindra also signed a partnership with Equinix at the beginning of the year to use its data center platforms, aiming to expand its business in Brazil and in the Latin American region in the outsourcing and cloud computer segments, providing services such as network operational center (NOC), host operational center (HOC), and security operational center (SOC), as well as support to critical applications and infrastructure services.

Having maintained local operations in Brazil for around five years, Tech Mahindra offers IT services in consulting, enterprise business solutions, BPO and IT infrastructure. Besides this, the group has two companies, Comviva and Canvas, that offer mobile solutions.

In an interview with Nearshore Americas in February, Alberto Tosatti, CEO of Tech Mahindra at that time, said that the company showed a 30% increase in turnover in 2014, and the forecast for this year is to grow 25% in dollar terms in Brazil.

The Brazilian subsidiary accounts for 2% of total revenue and the goal for Latin America is to achieve 10% of revenues by 2018, with Brazil representing half of that.

Some Indian companies also use the infrastructure in Brazil to export IT services to other countries or work on global projects. Currently about 20% of Tech Mahindra revenues in Brazil come from services to countries such as the United States, Canada, and Europe.

The Indian giant of IT services and outsourcing, Wipro, also has a global delivery center in Curitiba, in the state of Parana, which is integrated with the company’s mega centers in India and provides a wide range of IT services for both local and global customers, such as development and maintenance applications (Oracle and SAP), IT infrastructure management, big data and analytics, cloud computing, and outsourcing.

The company began its operations in Brazil in 2007 with the acquisition of the retail consulting firm, Enable, from the Portuguese group, Sonae.

Despite the devaluation of the Brazilian real, the high cost of doing business in Brazil makes the Brazilian exports less competitive in comparison with other emerging markets like India.

Sukarie explained that the bureaucracy, the tax burden, and the high labor costs are among the main obstacles to operate in the domestic market. In addition, companies have difficulty in finding qualified workforce and staff fluent in other languages, especially English.

Some companies, like Infosys, have sent Brazilian employees to be trained in India or have brought Indian technicians to train the local staff.

3D Printing Ready For Its Next Big Sprint – Metal

What Israeli 3D pioneer Objet – now integrated with Minnesota-based 3D printing company Stratasys – did for plastic, Israeli start-up Xjet plans to do for metal.

By David Shamah, The Times of Israel

“The layered inkjet printing technology that is used to make medical devices, dental implants, single-run samples for manufacturing, and much more is all based on plastic,” said Xjet CEO Dror Danai. “In the same way that Objet helped create an industry for 3D printing using plastic materials, we intend to create an industry that will allow the same kind of custom printing for metal.”

The reference to the Israeli 3D printing company that was one of the creators of the 3D printing industry, is not coincidental; Danai and many of the 62 people working at the Rehovot- based

company are veterans of Objet. Danai left before the company merged with Stratasys to create the world’s biggest 3D printing firm.

“Objet’s big innovation was inkjet 3D printing, using plastic materials like PLC,” said Danai. “At Xjet, we are developing an inkjet printing tech for liquid metal, the first time this is being done anywhere.”

The technology, said Danai, could revolutionize manufacturing.

 “Right now, the only way to manufacture a piece of metal is by using a mold to fit liquid metal, which then solidifies,” said Danai. It’s the way everything metallic – from a pipe to a coin to a gold ring – is made. “To make an odd-sized piece, you first have to make up a new mold and measure it to ensure it has the right specifications for the machines that are going to produce it commercially. Manufacturing a single, one-time item is a very drawn out and expensive proposition that makes many metal parts very expensive.”

Such parts are used in rockets, spaceships, military jets, and other unique items, but for everyday use, such customized manufacturing is far too expensive and involved.

Enter Xjet, which, said Denai, uses nanotechnology to create special metal liquids that, using its 3D metal printing technology, can create unique, one of a kind items on the fly.

“We allow manufacturers to skip the mold stage, saving them huge amounts of time and money,” said Denai. “All the specifications are made in the software, and when it’s time to print, our nano-based metals are created according to those specifications.”

Server market shrinks in Brazil

Revenues drop by 17 percent in the second quarter of 2015.

By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech  

The server market in Brazil has seen a 17 percent drop in revenue in the second quarter of 2015, according to a report by analyst house IDC.

According to the report, the months between April and June saw very few purchasing deals, a consequence of the current instability in the local economy.

"The market performance was impacted by economic and political issues that the country has been facing since the end of last year," says IDC analyst Luis Altamirano.

"These factors, combined with the dollar hike, caused investments to decrease given all the uncertainty in the Brazilian business scenario," he added.

Despite the drop in revenues, the local market saw growth of 2 percent in server sales during the second quarter. By comparison, the first quarter saw a drop of 12 percent in revenue and 5 percent in sales volumes.

The predictions for the rest of the year are more upbeat - and the main reason for it is the various government tenders for acquisition of datacenter equipment that have been launched recently.

Based on those upcoming purchases, IDC forecasts an overall 22 percent drop in server revenues and a 7 percent decrease in sales volumes for 2015.

How Israeli CyberArk became a billion dollar cybersecurity company

Launched in 1999, CyberArk is one of the very first cybersecurity companies. This is the story of how they grew slowly for 15 years then rose steeply on NASDAQ

By Laura Rosbrow-Telem, GeekTime

Two Israelis meet in high school, go to the army, and eventually launch a startup. While many sentences on our site have begun this way, few stories end with that pair of teenagers eventually leading a public cybersecurity company worth $1.42 billion.

But that is what has happened to CyberArk, which went public last year, raised $80 million for its IPO, and has since skyrocketed from opening at $13 a share to a height of $76.35.

Their road to success is atypical of most Israeli startups. Launched in 1999, Co-Founders Udi

Mokady and Alon Cohen aimed to build a large company and resisted getting acquired along the way, pursuing slower, steadier growth instead. They cite Check Point, one of Israel’s most famous and largest security companies, as an early role model.

CyberArk, based in Boston and Israel, is one of the first cybersecurity companies ever. Originally created to protect access to sensitive information against users already within the network (also known as privileged account management), with early customers such as banks and insurance companies, CyberArk eventually expanded its offerings to shield a wider range of companies from outside attacks. Today, they provide automated detection of threats in real-time and ensure that once a hacker has entered a system, their damage won’t spread nor will they be able to gain control.

We had the privilege to speak with CyberArk’s Co-Founder and CEO Udi Mokady about what it’s been like to launch and run a public company, if there were ever moments that he considered selling CyberArk, how CyberArk plans to keep innovating its cybersecurity technology — including its recent acquisitions of CYBERTINEL and Viewfinity — and how he reads CyberArk’s dip in the stock market since their Q3 earnings report on Thursday, which was partially influenced by competitor FireEye’s poor Q3 results.

Brazilian government to invest $4bn in broadband expansion

Projects focused on the development of high-speed Internet access across the country must be completed by December 2016.

By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech  

The Brazilian government has committed to invest R$15bn ($3.97bn) in the creation and improvement of broadband projects.

The resources will be distributed as tax relief across the 1167 projects submitted by companies as part of a tendering process coordinated by the Ministry of Communications as part of the Special Taxation Regime of the National Broadband Program, a scheme created to stimulate the deployment and expansion of the Brazilian broadband network.

Some 3.699 Brazilian cities will benefit from the projects, but the state of São Paulo attracted R$4.6bn ($1.2bn) of the investment total, followed by the two other states located in the wealthy southeast region of Brazil: Minas Gerais, with R$1.8bn ($477,000) of investments and Rio de Janeiro, with R$965.000 ($256.025).

In terms of specific project areas, about 80 percent of investments will go towards access networks, which connect users to their immediate service provider. The remainder will mostly fund projects related to the equipment and fibers handling the physical transport of signals, commonly referred to as transport networks.

The broadband infrastructure projects approved by the Ministry of Communications have a completion deadline of December 2016.

Ongoing efforts

Earlier this year, the Brazilian government had promised a revamped national broadband plan, with more government investment and the creation of "synergies" between the public and private sectorto deliver improved Internet access services across the country.

Despite the recession Brazil is currently experiencing, large communications projects such as the development of the country's broadband infrastructure and the construction of the country's own satellite have been spared from the budget cuts that have been announced over recent months.

Research suggests that not even half of all Brazilian households have access to broadband, the main obstacle being the cost of high-speed Internet access services.

But providing cheaper and faster broadband services is a priority for Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who set that goal as part of her campaign pledges, adding that broadening the fiber optic infrastructure of the country was a cornerstone of that plan.

Earlier this year, the Communications minister Maximiliano Martinhão disclosed government plans to roll out fiber optic technology across at least 90 percent of the country. Meanwhile,Google is backing the construction of a massive submarine fiber optic cable linking Brazil to the United States, while another cable will link Brazil to Africa and a third undersea link will connect the country with Europe.