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‘IoT can be a cash cow amidst economic slump provided telcos step up their game’

As revenues dry up from traditional streams of mobility services amidst slowdown, intense competition and price wars, telcos are now focusing on emerging technologies and core emerging services, especially in the areas of IoT




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Achieving essential IoT requirements

As navigating IoT implementation challenges requires careful planning and domain knowledge, there are a few things businesses can do to maximise the benefits of their IoT implementations.




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Global IoT enterprise drone shipments to grow 50% in 2020: Report

Egham (UK)In 2020, worldwide shipments of Internet of Things (IoT) enterprise drones (defined as flying drones) will total 526,000 units, an increase of 50% from 2019, Gartner Inc. said on Thursday.




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Post lockdown prep: A manufacturing CIO’s message to vendors on IoT solutions

Maitrey Modha of CNH Industrial says IoT companies would need to come up with customized solutions based on each type of manufacturing process.




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How Eureka Forbes' CIO uses IT to ensure pure, healthy water to customers

Through AI and ML, Eureka Forbes automatically knows when a filter is approaching end of life. "So, even before the customer approaches us for service, we will initiate communication with him, asking him to get the service done," says Khushru Mistry, CIO, Eureka Forbes.




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Technologies that can enable a smooth remote working environment during Covid19

Thanks to the intervention of Cloud-based tech tools, professionals no longer need to visit their offices to engage in business transactions.




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Indian SMEs to benefit from Alibaba Cloud's $30mn programme

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in India are set to benefit from a $30 million global "anti-COVID" programme that Alibaba Cloud, the data intelligence backbone of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, launched on Thursday.




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For cloud giants, usage soars but tech investment delays hobble revenue growth

The cloud giants have seen a drop-off in new contracts from big clients for server storage and to overhaul tech.




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Chinese hacking group targeting governments across Asia: Report

The group has been very active during the last five years, especially in 2019-20.




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Hackers disrupt virtual S.African parliament meeting with porn

Hackers on Thursday disrupted a virtual session of South Africa's parliament, posting pornographic images in the second such incident since the coronavirus outbreak.




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Google, Facebook to let most employees work from home till year-end

Tech giants Google and Facebook allowing most of their workforces to WFH through the end of this year.




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Nutanix sets up second customer support centre in India

The new center takes the total number of Customer Support Centres of Excellence to ten, five of which are based in Asia.




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GoDaddy plans India data centre to tap local customers

The company’s data centers are currently located in Singapore. “We don’t have a stated plan yet but we may look at opening an Indian data centre to be closer to customers in India. Some customers prefer local presence,” said Nikhil Arora, managing director, GoDaddy India.




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Work & entertainment at home lift demand for data centres

Demand has increased by nearly eight times. Requests for virtualisation and cloud infra have also resulted in a surge




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Hyper-personalization to emerge a true winner in AI in 2020

As more businesses yield the benefits of NLP-powered analytics and conversational interfaces, demand for single-vendor solutions will increase.




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Enabling business outcomes at the speed of innovation

To help IT leaders find the right balance between IT infrastructure and right workload, ETCIO.com, in association with Dell Technologies and AMD, organised two-city panel discussions for top CIOs.




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For Titan multi-vendor strategy is the name of the game

In a free-wheeling conversation with ETCIO, Krishnan Venkateswaran, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Titan, reveals how working closely with multiple best-of-breed technology providers has helped the company in serving customers better.




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How IFFCO plays Flipkart, Amazon to farmers

“We are serving 97% of the pin code across the country, without any delivery charge. We are helping farmers at their doorsteps, just the way urban people benefit from e-commerce shopping”, asserts AK Gupta, Head-IT at IFFCO.




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How Indigo improved turnaround times for its flights

A simple fix has helped the airline’s cabin crew save 20 minutes of their work, helping the airline improve turnaround times for better on-time performance.




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Covid-19 Heroes: How Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance transformed business to meet changing needs

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance’s Chief Information & Digital Officer, Goutam Datta leveraged technology for enabling all business functions and meeting the digital demands of its employees, partners and customers amid lockdown and enabled new services to prevent any impact on business.




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Irrigation threatening steppe birds in Mediterranean wetlands

Intensive irrigation of agricultural land in a Mediterranean water basin is altering the habitats of associated wetlands and changing the balance of the bird population living there, according to a recent study.




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Natural capital underestimated by regional development plans

Recent research has established how forest, wetland and agricultural ecosystems could affect economic growth in Sweden. The findings suggest that regions conventionally considered to be of low economic benefit, are in fact rich in valuable ecosystem resources.




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New method assesses vulnerability of amphibians to climate change

New research has identified the areas in the Western hemisphere where climate change may have the greatest impacts on amphibians. Alongside traditional methods to predict shifts in geographical ranges, it mapped species with particularly restricted ranges and identified areas most likely to receive less precipitation in the future.




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Using 'best professional judgement' to rate the benthic zone

Assessing the environmental condition of sediments and bottom waters of coastal and marine ecosystems over wide geographic areas can be a problem when indicators used to evaluate specific ecological conditions cannot be easily compared. A recent study suggests that a common scale of assessment can be established by experts from different regions using "best professional judgement".




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Payment for environmental services needs government engagement

In theory, payment for environmental services (PES) is a market mechanism but, in practice, it depends on intervention from the state or community. This is the conclusion of a new review of case studies that indicates that PES relies on public bodies and communities to act as intermediaries in the trading of services.




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Best agri-environmental measures for four endangered bird species

New research has found a consensus amongst experts on which environmentally friendly agricultural practices are most effective at protecting four endangered birds in Spain. Experts agreed that maintaining fallow land, preventing the use of agrochemicals and stopping agricultural practices that disrupted nesting were the most valuable measures.




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Tailor agricultural policies to meet local conservation concerns

Grassland bird species of European conservation concern are potentially threatened by changes in land use in the Iberian cereal-steppes. However, a recent study suggests not all bird species respond in the same way to similar management guidelines and agri-environmental schemes need to be adjusted to local conditions.




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Green space management benefits from public participation

The success of policy to maintain urban green areas depends on an adequate level of public participation, according to new research. The study compared two twinned European cities with different styles of green space management and found that public involvement may help maintain urban biodiversity.




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Using game theory to predict conservation conflicts

'Game theory' is a mathematical framework that aims to predict the performance of individuals or groups by considering the interaction between them. New research has applied game theory to three different cases of biodiversity conservation to predict conflict and offer broad suggestions for overcoming disagreements.




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The study of mosses could help understand environmental impacts

Mosses are an important but sometimes overlooked group of plants, which play a significant role in cycling in carbon and nitrogen between the land and the air. A new study proposes that scientists could use mosses as a model to investigate the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and nature.




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Environmental diagnosis for Natura 2000 forest areas

A recent study has developed a method of diagnosing the environmental condition of wildlife habitats in forest areas. This allows biodiversity conservation to be integrated into the planning and management of the European-wide Natura 2000 nature protection areas.




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A Census of Marine Life: measuring and understanding biodiversity

A global team of marine biologists have recently completed a Census of Marine Life, which contributes to our basic understanding of marine ecosystems. Among its findings - marine biodiversity in the Baltic and Mediterranean are among the most threatened globally.




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Moth and butterfly vulnerability to habitat fragmentation

The fragmentation of habitats is a growing concern for nature conservation. Butterflies and moths are particularly sensitive and new research has shed light on what makes some species more vulnerable than others. Those that are less mobile with more specialist diets and less reproductive potential appear to be more affected by habitat fragmentation.




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New method estimates time lag in spread of invasive species

Researchers have developed a new scientific method to estimate the time lag between the introduction of an alien species and its extensive spread. For New Zealand weed species, the study estimated that the average lag was around 20-30 years. Although this may seem to be a long time, seemingly rare but fast-spreading species could become tomorrow's harmful weeds.




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Implementing Natura 2000: Dutch and Italian experiences

A study of how the Natura 2000 network was implemented in the Netherlands and in Italy has been conducted. From this analysis, recommendations have been made to help other EU Member States implement and manage the network, which include providing local authorities with better information on and understanding of Natura 2000 and how to balance ecological, social and economic needs.




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Call for Natural Capital to be mainstreamed into finance ministries

Although the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services has been recognised, it is still not fully integrated into policy-making. A new report has developed an action plan that recommends that governments create a 'Natural Capital' minister in the Finance Ministry, develop a set of Natural Capital Accounts and form an inter-departmental committee to oversee programmes in this area.




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Partnering biodiversity and income on French farmlands




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Fragmented pine woodland boosts Mediterranean biodiversity

Scientists have proposed new recommendations to increase the species diversity and sustainability of Mediterranean forests, since programmes to enhance reforestation by planting vast areas of pine trees have not been as successful as planned.




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The future is bright for environmental citizen science

A review of a decade of environmental citizen science ??? where the general public are involved in science as researchers ??? concludes that its benefits to science and society far outweigh concerns over data quality. Challenges can be overcome through volunteer training and should not be used to devalue citizen science programmes, say the researchers.




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New recommendations for reducing seabird bycatch

Over 160,000 seabirds are accidentally killed by global longline fisheries each year, according to a recent study. Better monitoring and standards are needed to reduce bycatch of seabirds in fisheries, including increased on-board monitoring of bycatches and mandatory best-practice measures, say the researchers.




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New holistic method for assessing Natura 2000 landscapes

High quality landscape assessments of areas protected under the Natura 2000 network are critical for effective long-term management plans. In a recent study, scientists have presented a integrated assessment of a Natura 2000 site in Sicily, Italy, which not only considers preservation of environmental features, as required by Natura 2000, but also human features, such as places of historical interest or industrial activity.




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Intensive farming methods affect birds and plants in Europe

Intensive farming methods have simplified landscapes across Europe, leading to a loss of biodiversity. A recent study has investigated the effects of intensive farming on plants, beetles and birds in Western European regions and found that plants and birds are particularly affected.




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'Effective mesh density': a useful measure of landscape fragmentation

Transport infrastructure and urban sprawl are increasingly dividing up landscapes in Europe, threatening wildlife. A new report has quantified landscape fragmentation across 28 European countries. To prevent further negative environmental impacts, it recommends protecting unfragmented areas, monitoring fragmentation and applying fragmentation analysis in planning.




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Fragmented forests and grasslands: plant sensitivity to habitat loss

A new study exploring the sensitivity of grassland and forest plants to decreasing habitat size and isolation in north-central Europe concludes that an irreversible shift in the most dominant plant species may already be underway in forests and grassland, where forests are more vulnerable than grasslands.




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The importance of conserving biodiversity for biomedical research

Preserving species and the ecosystems in which they live is highly important to the progress of biomedical research. This is the conclusion made by researchers in an analysis of biodiversity's significance, which highlights the role of animals and microbes in improving our understanding of genetics, the regeneration of tissues and organs, and immunity.




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How to attract PES investment from businesses?

A new study has looked at why and how much private sector companies are prepared to invest in Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes for tropical forests. Understanding companies' motivations and expectations can help develop new sources of funding for PES schemes from the private sector, increasing the area of tropical forest conserved worldwide.




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'Bundled' PES schemes to boost cost-effectiveness

A recent project has developed a method to spatially target payments to areas where multiple ecosystem services, combining biodiversity conservation with carbon and water services, are jointly provided, so as to enhance the cost-effectiveness of the PES scheme. The study focuses on Madagascar, but the method could be applied at the national or regional level in any country.




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Alternative conceptual framework for PES schemes on offer

An international group of researchers has proposed a new way of describing payments for environmental services (PES). The new definition supplies a framework, incorporating the social aspects of PES, which can be used by practitioners, such as governments, to design and implement a variety of PES schemes.




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Extreme winter warming harms Arctic plant growth

A new study has explored the effects of climate change on Arctic plants by simulating extreme winter warming events and measuring plant responses. The researchers found that considerable damage occurred to dwarf shrub species, in terms of shoot mortality, leaf and root growth.




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Cost-effective monitoring of Payments for Environmental Services (PES)

To encourage protection of the environment, payments for environmental services (PES) schemes offer direct incentives to individuals and communities to maintain or improve the provision of environmental services. A recent study suggests indicators to monitor PES must be chosen very carefully to help ensure that monitoring does not cost more than the payments themselves.