data security

Next Generation of Optical Media is coming with the Archival Disc

Next generation of the optical disc is announced to be launched in the nearest future. The maximum data storage capacity on a single optical disc that is available on the market now is up to 500 GB, and the new format is going to be able to store twice of that.

The discs are called ‘Archival disc’ and it is claimed that the storage unit can retain its data for more than a 100 years.

Higher capacities in optical storage are made possible due to smaller sized pits and marks and shorter wavelength lasers and improved drawing rates. In the case of the ‘Archival Discs’ alternative approach is used: extra data is recorded on the land areas between grooves that are traditionally unused.

Optical discs have great potential to further enhance their recording density and storage capacity with technological advancements in, for example, signal processing technology. If we compare the growth in the recording density of HDDs, optical discs, and magnetic tapes, in 10 years, from 2016 to 2026, the recording density will improve by 7~15% for HDDs and 30~46% for optical discs. For the magnetic tapes, the increase is estimated to be less than 30%. To estimate the longevity of the media, industry standard acceleration tests were conducted. Error occurrence rates were measured in temperatures 30℃ and above and in less than 70% humidity. These tests estimate that the prototypes of the Archive Discs can reliably store data for more than 100 years. On the other hand, hard disks have a lifespan of a few years, and magnetic tapes a dozen or so years.

Because optical discs have a long life, unlike hard disks and magnetic tapes, there is no need to regularly migrate data from degraded media to new media. Moreover, optical discs do not require operations or cooling of facilities that are associated with hard disks, therefore, long-term storing of data on optical discs can reduce power consumed as well as costs incurred. If 1PB (petabyte) of data is stored for 20 years on HDDs, magnetic tapes, and optical discs, with widely available HDDs and magnetic tapes, the costs come out to be around the same, whereas with optical discs, it is estimated that the data could be stored at half the cost.

Another technology used on the Archival Discs is,”Crosstalk-cancelling technology”. This technology cancels crosstalk noise generated by adjacent tracks. This should ensure playback quality without read errors, even with narrow track pitches.

Falcon Technologies International is constantly monitoring the overall trends of the optical media market and tends to allocate its resources towards innovation and improvement of its professional product lines, in particular, the Century Archival, which is a cutting-edge technology, built with Gold or Platinum layer to ensure maximum security, longevity and protection for stored data proven by a number of internal and independent third-party tests.

Source: guru3d

When buying Professional Optical Media, pay attention to these points

Choosing the right product is always challenging. With all this competition on international markets, we may find a wide variety of options on the shelves out there: it is always about choices we make. But what defines our choice: is it price, quality, logo, recommendations of friends? Normally it is a combination of many factors that define our choice.

Choices that consumers make are driven by different types of triggers, but when you are purchasing something very specific and technical, it is necessary to be rational, as your choice can actually influence many things in future. It is very true for the market we operate in – data storage and informational security.

Choosing the right optical media may also be challenging, as there are so many manufacturers and everyone claims superior quality and longevity, however not all of them are transparent and honest in what they actually communicate in their promotional messages.

Here are some points worth paying attention to, when choosing the right optical media:

Raw material: Quality comes from Quality!

Reliable sourcing of high-quality raw materials is the fundamental element to manufacture quality products.

FTI uses the best Polycarbonate, internally develops our high-grade dye and utilizes the best material for its Optical Media recording layers such as Silver, Gold and Platinum in order to minimize batch-to-batch variation and reliable definition and selection of archival grade discs.

Lifetime Claims: Check the source!

Some manufacturers claim product durability that lasts for years, even hundreds of years, but do not explain how they came up with their figures or back up their claims.

FTI Archival grade Optical discs have estimated archival lifetimes exceeding 100 years or even 300 years. These lifetime estimations are obtained using recognize and verifiable Industry storage tests so called accelerated lifetime tests. Mathematical models such as the Arrhenius model 1.1 or the Eyring model 1.2 extrapolates the lifetimes observed at high storage temperatures into expected lifetimes at room temperature and enable predictions of how many years the recorded data can safely be recovered when the discs are stored at normal room or office temperatures.

Dye and Recording Layer Resistance: The Best for Less!

The metal layer(s) used must be corrosion resistant to offer robustness against minor included defects over the lifetime of the disc. Gold reflecting layers offer this robustness at an increase in cost over silver.

FalconMedia Archival grade Platinum-alloy solution is the latest development in archival grade optical discs to offer robustness while maintaining the cost advantages of optical disc storage by producing media with all the benefits of Gold media but at a more competitive price.

Quality Control Production Process: History doesn’t lie!

Finally, select a manufacturing Company that has consistently proven to supply reliable quality products. This is the best guarantee that quality control, product grading, process control and product stability are handled in a professional quality-conscious way that ensures every shipment and every disc meets the archival grade requirements.

We pride ourselves on our dedicated technical support and high-quality Control provided to our customers. FalconMedia is such a product from such a Company. FalconMedia is the perfect solution if you want to be assured your data will be retrievable and usable in the years, decades and centuries to come.

Printable Options: Consistency!

All FTI printable layers, regardless of product, adhere to FTI’s internal quality standards to ensure a consistently high-quality product regardless of product line. Our internal testing has demonstrated the following features compared to competitors:

Superior sustainability of printable layers before and after testing
Improved water resistance of the disc
Greater durability due to excellent bonding with substrate
Better results for ink drying

Guarantees: Be Covered!

The Company warrants that the Goods will be free from material defects under normal conditions of use and when used in conjunction with the appropriate equipment.

Customers can return to FTI, within 6 months of receipt of a shipment, products which are alleged to be defective or which do not comply with the order.

Security: No Forgeries Allowed!

In the security Law enforcement and legal world, security is key.

Make sure that your Optical Media is traceable and has a unique number to avoid forgeries and unauthorized copies.

FTI discs have a unique serial number and are 100% traceable!

Falcon Technologies International LLC is continuously performing benchmark and quality control tests under extreme conditions to ensure consistent batch to batch quality and product longevity.

Tests versus competitors have shown that FTI products:

Show up to 25% better results in accelerated aging test in comparison to any other analog products
Perform extremely well compared to notable competitors in standard industry measurements such as Tracking Errors (41% less errors) and Focus Errors (37% errors)
Show an error rate 50% lower compared to notable competitors after 250 hours of extreme environment conditions tests (PISum8)
Have excellent cross-compatibility with the major disc drive manufacturers including Pioneer, TEAC, Asus, Samsung and LG.
The sustainability of FTI discs and printable layers is superior to competitors before and after testing, with a lower possibility of disc failure based on internal comparison tests.
Show minimal disc-to-disc variation on key mechanical deviation measurements (vertical / radial / tangential deviations).

From floppy disks to deep freeze: what’s the best way to store data?

A New York-based team of volunteer archivists and preservationists are working to transfer old VHS videotapes into digital formats. Volunteers meet weekly in a Tribeca loft filled with “racks of tape decks, oscilloscopes, vectorscopes and waveform monitors” to painstakingly digitize cassettes from the 1980s and 1990s. As they note, transferring video isn’t plug-and-go; much tweaking and troubleshooting can be required to get it right. That’s why they’ve only managed to transfer 155 tapes so far – a very small percentage of the total analog format archive.

The group partners with artists, activists, and individuals to lower the barriers to preserving at-risk audiovisual media – especially unseen, unheard, or archived works.

Whatever the content, once it’s digitized, it becomes publicly available via the Internet Archive.

And what about your own tapes? There are plenty of paid services that will help you to digitize old videotapes – or you can do it yourself using directions from open sources. And if you still have a big dusty box of your home video tapes stored somewhere deep in the closet, it may be a good idea to transfer their contents on the new storage mediums. In fact, we have already discussed that in one of our previous articles.

Tape manufacturers predicted 20 to 30 years of life expectancy, but media lifespan depends greatly on environmental conditions. Format obsolescence contributes to the crisis: Umatic and VHS tapes are no longer manufactured and BetaSP will soon be discontinued. Machines to play these formats are becoming more scarce as are the skills to maintain and repair them.

Of course, it’s not only the videotape that’s at risk. Entropy is relentless, and anything recorded on the old storage mediums will eventually have to be transferred and digitalized. Even if the medium remains intact, formats and interfaces become obsolete and disappear. Preserving data for the long term is a discipline worth more attention than we can give it here, but a few tips might be helpful.

Lifespan comparison of different backup storage media

Keep track of how long media is likely to last – but remember that the statistics are controversial projections, and many won’t be so precise. The general consensus is that consumer segment CD-Rs should last 30 to 50 years, DVD-Rs less than that, and CD-RWs and DVD-RWs even less. Similarly, tapes and hard disks can be expected to be readable for 10 to 30 years, while portable disks, USB thumb drives, and other solid-state storage devices may survive for half that time, maybe.

Back in 2005, The New York Times reported that 3.5” floppies have “an estimated life span of 10 years if stored in a cool, dry place with average care and use”. If you’ve still got any, we’ll bet they’re older than that!

With this in mind, regularly copy data to new media, especially if it’s approaching its expiration date. And make sure anything you haven’t saved is “in a cool, dry place,” not your attic or garage. It is strongly recommended to use a specialized archival optical media, like FalconMedia Century Archival, which are able to secure your data for up to 500 years.

Move away from physical formats that are becoming obsolete. For example, many people who used to back up their data on Zip drives, Syquest cartridges, and 1.44MB floppy drives no longer have access to these. Even interfaces can be an issue: external devices often used serial or parallel ports that no longer ship standard on computers (though desktop PC and ExpressCard laptop adapters can still be found). Make sure you’ve migrated your data before you dispose of an old device or format.

A common related issue: data trapped on a working hard disk in a dead PC or laptop. The Guardian serves up some useful guidance on installing the drive in an external USB enclosure and restoring from there.

Migrate data from obsolete programs, or at least make sure you have the tools to do so when necessary. Millions of people still have content trapped in ancient word processing. Tools for viewing such data or move it into “living” software include Quick View Plus and FastLook; for some formats, the free LibreOffice productivity suite or XNView image viewer might be all you need.

TechRepublic offers some useful high-level advice on planning a long-term strategy for protecting your data here.

All this is great as far as it goes, but as the amount of data we’re generating continues to soar, we’re likely to need some radically new. Here are some technologies that may potentially improve data storage in near future:

Analog micro-etching: The Long Now Foundation – which specializes in trying to envision the long-term future and solve the problems it might present – ran a full conference on super-long-term data storage. The solution it found promising enough to test: analog micro-etching onto nickel disks. Eight years later, they had a prototype: a disk containing information in about 1,500 human languages, plus translations of the Book of Genesis in each. Since the information is analog, it’s readable directly by humans (though they will need a microscope).

The Arctic World Archive: Officially opened on March 27 in Norway’s Svalbard Arctic region, the for-profit Arctic World Archive is already housing key documents from Brazil, Mexico, and Norway — safe, theoretically, from natural disaster and warfare. According to a report in The Verge, data is actually imprinted on special film, in huge high-density greyscale QR codes – and the archive is completely disconnected from the Internet to protect against hackers and ransomware.

DNA: According to Science Magazine, researchers have been making breathtaking progress since the first attempts to store data in DNA molecules back in 2012. DNA is ultracompact, and it can last hundreds of thousands of years if kept in a cool, dry place. And as long as human societies are reading and writing DNA, they will be able to decode it – not something you can say with confidence about videocassettes or QR codes.

Source: Naked Security

Falcon Technologies International hosts International Customer Seminar on April 4th and 5th

Falcon Technologies International recently hosted its international customer seminar in the stunning Ritz Carlton Al Wadi Hotel, which is located in a unique desert environment within our home Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. We were delighted to welcome approximately 50 delegates who travelled from diverse locations such as France, Germany, Japan, USA and the UK, to discuss the latest developments, opportunities and innovations that make optical media the exciting and progressive industry that it is today.

The entire FTI extended a very warm welcome to all the guests, who enjoyed the superb hospitality of the Al Wadi Hotel, complete activities including a traditional Arabian Falcon show, archery, sailing, go-karting and golf. The presentation session included an overview of the economic growth Ras Al Khaimah has been experiencing in recent years from Mr. Shahram Hashemi, Group Director of Strategy and Investments at RAK Free Trade Zone, along with presentations from the FTI management team with demonstrations of new product development initiatives.

Speaking about the event our CEO Mr. Michael Gutowski said, “We are delighted to host the global optical media community here in our home of Ras Al Khaimah. Having the opportunity to assemble so many of our partners in Ras Al Khaimah was a very positive experience for us at FTI, the optical media industry in general, and for Ras Al Khaimah as a global business hub. We very much hope that all the attendees enjoyed their stay in Ras Al Khaimah, and hope to welcome them back in 2018”.

Here are some photo and video highlights from the event:

Bitcoin: Financial Rebellion or Future of Capital Markets?

Without a doubt, the financial markets drive the world economies to emerge, grow and sometimes collapse. One of the best examples of their negative influence on the world economy is 2008’s World Financial Crisis that was caused by the regional US subprime mortgage market crisis. One may ask: how could one small financial segment failure cause the entire world economy recession?

Everything is interconnected in our heavily globalized world nowadays: a small local market failure or inability to pay against liabilities may trigger a domino effect that will be able to overthrow entire financial systems. Maybe that vulnerability was the main emergence cause of a revolutionary, yet quite questionable financial tool of recent years: the crypto currency called Bitcoin.

World's first cryptocurrency that made it to the international markets — World’s first cryptocurrency that made it to the international markets

Bitcoin became a true phenomenon, despite being something that is underscrutinised and underestimated by many even today. A currency that started off as a scientific project and was worth nothing but the cost of electricity consumed to “mine the crypto-blocks” to get it out of the complex algorithm, now it is traded for more than a $1000 for one unit. How did that happen and why? Let’s look into the history of Bitcoin.

In November 2008, at the time when the world economy was shocked by a massive stagnation provoked by the US banking crisis, a paper was posted on the internet under the name Satoshi Nakamoto titled bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. This paper detailed methods of using a peer-to-peer network to generate what was described as “a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust”.

In January 2009, the bitcoin network came into existence with the release of the first open source bitcoin client and the issuance of the first bitcoins, with Satoshi Nakamoto mining the first block of bitcoins ever (known as the “genesis block”), which had a reward of 50 bitcoins. The value of the first bitcoin transactions were negotiated by individuals on the bitcointalk forums and the user “laszlo” made the first real-world transaction by buying two pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida for 10,000 BTC.

Bitcoin currency is generated through a complex cryptographic algorithm known as "mining" — Bitcoin currency is generated through a complex cryptographic algorithm known as “mining”

Very soon the advantages of crypto currency were noticed by a number of Internet freedom and anti-establishment associations, and that gave the first impact to the popularization of the new currency. In June 2011 Wikileaks and other organizations began to accept bitcoins for donations. The Electronic Frontier Foundation began, and then temporarily suspended, bitcoin acceptance, citing concerns about a lack of legal precedent about new currency systems. The EFF’s decision was reversed on 17 May 2013 when they resumed accepting bitcoin.

In January 2012, bitcoin was featured as the main subject within a fictionalized trial on the CBS legal drama The Good Wife in the third season episode “Bitcoin for Dummies”. The host of CNBC’s Mad Money, Jim Cramer, played himself in a courtroom scene where he testifies that he doesn’t consider bitcoin a true currency, saying “There’s no central bank to regulate it; it’s digital and functions completely peer to peer”.

In October 2012, BitPay (the World’s first online Bitcoin payment operator) reported having over 1,000 merchants accepting bitcoin under its payment processing service.

In February 2013 another bitcoin-based payment processor Coinbase reported selling US$1 million worth of bitcoins in a single month at over $22 per bitcoin. The Internet Archive announced that it was ready to accept donations as bitcoins and that it intends to give employees the option to receive portions of their salaries in bitcoin currency.

Today the price of Bitcoin has breached the $1,000 mark, hitting a more than three-year high. It was trading at $1,021 at the time of publication, at level not seen since November 2013, with its market capitalization exceeding $16 billion.

During last 3 years Bitcoin price have grown exponentially

Bitcoin has been on a steady march higher for the past few months, driven by a number of factors such as the devaluation of the yuan, geopolitical uncertainty and an increase in professional investors taking an interest in the asset class.

Among other factors which may have contributed to this rise were the European sovereign-debt crisis—particularly the 2012–2013 Cypriot financial crisis—statements by FinCEN improving the currency’s legal standing and rising media and Internet interest. The current all-time high was set on 17 November 2013 at US$1216.73

The success story of the world’s first crypto currency proves that the innovation penetrates all the spheres of human activity and even such a conservative and unchanged thing as a currency may be radically transformed and re-engineered in order to meet the requirements of the present day reality. Bitcoin appeared due to the instability of the financial markets and willingness to save the capital in the currency that will not be controlled by any central authority, but by the mathematical algorithm of extraction.

Once again that proves that the innovation is the driving force of technical progress. And this is something that we believe in in Falcon Technologies International. For more than a decade we never stopped to improve the technology of professional optical media production in order to be always on the top of the industry paramount.

Critical Role of Data Archiving for the Financial Institutions

Finance is an excessively regulated industry, with many moving parts and data that must be monitored and reported in order to stay protected and compliant with all regulations. One of the most important aspects of regulatory compliance for banks and financial organisations is record keeping and archiving electronic communication data. With the right tools and plans in place, archiving compliance does not have to be a daunting task.

Financial institutions generate a lot of data, which has to be archived by law.

Brokers, dealers, investment advisors, lending agents, futures and transfer agents, and businesses like mortgage companies, credit unions, banks, hedge funds, private equity firms, exchanges, commercial and retail banks, lenders and insurers, payday lenders, foreclosure relief services and debt collectors are all required to capture, monitor and archive business related communication data for review, audits, eDiscovery, litigation, and compliance.

But how do you become compliant? Let’s just jump right into the What, Why, and How of archiving compliance for banking and financial organisations.

Compliance with data archiving regulations is vital prevention of cyber crimes.

In short, a financial institution of any kind should be archiving all business related electronic communication data.

Email has been around long enough that just about everyone realizes the need to have a complete and easily accessible email archive. But you should really be archiving every bit of electronic communication data created by your organization. This includes social media, instant messaging, and content created on mobile devices.

The most obvious reason to archive emails and other business communication data is that your business is regulated and thus, mandated to do so.

Another thing that has to be archived - corporate e-mails — Another thing that has to be archived – corporate e-mails

Another reason why you should archive, that isn’t obvious at first, is data leakage. If you have proprietary data, customer account, transactional or confidential information, you are obligated to make sure that it isn’t shared, either purposefully or accidentally. The use of email, social media, instant messaging, and mobile devices increases the ease at which your employees could share this type of data. Couple that with the fact that the line between personal and business communication is blurred on corporate mobile devices. In addition to data leakage, you need to guard against insider trading, inappropriate financial advice, and stating personal beliefs about a financial investment or trade as fact. Having an archiving solution provides you with protection against these threats by giving you oversight. This oversight on employee communication data, coupled with an effective communication policy, will not only discourage bad behavior, but will encourage proper behavior according to established policy. Your employees will know that, according to your policy, everything they communicate is being stored and can be accessed for review.

As you can see, almost every commercial entity produces and accumulates large amounts of various data on a daily basis, so the “archival question” is becoming more actual nowadays and will become even more critical in the future. Data storage and archival solutions in the age of “informational revolution” we live in are required to provide not only the big data storage and rendering capacities, but also ensure the integrity and accessibility of data for years, decades and centuries.

art4 Falcon Technologies International LLC’s Research and Development team have created a solution that complies with the archival needs and requirements of the financial institutions and government entities. Our FalconMEDIA Century Archival CDs and DVDs with golden and platinum reflective layers showed outstanding results during the internal and third-party benchmarking tests: data stored on these professional archival discs stays accessible and integer for more than 500 years – timeframe that is enough to archive data for almost 7 future generations of the humanity.
Source: GWAVA

Russia passes ‘Big Brother’ anti-terror laws, telecom providers now have to store huge volumes of data for minimum 6 months.

We live in the age of informational technology. Digital telecommunication systems have changed our world drastically over the last 50 years. Everything now is on a distance of arm’s length: e-commerce, online banking, food delivery through web – all these things are now known as essential parts of our daily routines. Technology gives us more freedom to quickly do things, that previously took more time to get them done. And as we know, freedom is a great value, but it is also a well known fact that bigger freedom carries bigger risks of various kinds.

Where does the online freedom ends and national security preventive measures start?

Ever since Internet became widely used across the world, the evil elements like terrorist organizations, criminals and corrupt politicians started using its advantages to perform all sorts of malicious activities. Soon the “Internet freedom” became a source of high danger for the worldwide society. At some point the laws, that were usually enforced “offline” became absolutely inapplicable “online”, and this “jurisdiction hole” was used by many to perform certain criminal activities without facing any kind of responsibility. World faced a challenge and jurisdiction had to be widened towards the digital world of the Internet.

The debate about “Internet freedom of speech” and “Online freedom” in general are still going on. Just like the general concept of “freedom of speech”, it makes extreme points of views collapse in the eternal “fight for truth”.

Even though freedom of speech is an essential part of Pantheon of Universal Democratic Values, one can not deny the fact that any system has to be held under control. If not controlled – system eventually collapses and evolves into chaos.

Earlier this year Russia’s parliament has passed harsh anti-terrorism measures law, which is mostly related to the online sphere. The regulations package is known as “Yarovaya law”, named after Irina Yarovaya, Russian MP who is known for previous legislative crackdowns on protesters and non-governmental organizations.

Russian MP - Irina Yarovaya — Russian MP – Irina Yarovaya

New legislative norm makes it a crime to not warn the authorities of “reliable” information about planned terrorist attacks, armed uprisings, hijacking and several other crimes. Expressing approval of terrorism on the internet will now be punishable with up to seven years in prison.

The legislation obliges telephone and internet providers to store records of all communications for six months and all metadata for three years, as well as help intelligence agencies decode encrypted messaging services. Telecoms firms have complained that users rather than providers typically possess the encryption keys, and that storing this huge amount of information would require expensive new infrastructure.

The overall volume of data grows exponentially.

The new law clearly states the following obligations that Russian Telecom companies have to accept:

To store physical copies of the information confirming the fact of receipt, transmission, delivery and/or processing of voice data, text messages, pictures, sounds, video or other communications (i.e., metadata reflecting these communications) for a period of 3 years (with respect to telecom providers) or 1 year (with respect to Internet arrangers).
To store physical copies of the the contents of communications, including voice data, text messages, pictures, sounds, video or other communications (this requirement will come into force starting from July 1, 2018 for a period of 6 months.
All physical copies of the data have to be stored on the territory of the Russian Federation.

Now these regulations put a serious challenge in front of the telecom companies. The cost of IT infrastructure that will be able to store such giant volumes of information for the period of minimum 6 months must be very high. Therefore, these companies are now looking for the cost-efficient solutions, that will be reliable and compliant to the regulations listed in the new law.

Optical disc storage - a relatively cheap way of data archiving. — Optical disc storage – a relatively cheap way of data archiving.

Optical media based solutions might be a good answer: they are normally lower-cost, reliable and long-lasting. Big volumes of information, stored on the so-called “cold backup” storage showed decent level of cost-efficiency and reliability in cases like Facebook’s cpld storage (LINK).

In FTI we believe that optical media is still a highly-potential technology that may serve as a solution to a wide range of challenges faced by the informational society today. We stay committed to the “Quality and Beyond” statement and carry on producing and supplying the cutting-edge optical media for a wide range of industries.

Our “Century Archival” line is the product specifically tailored to store data for long periods of time. “Century Archival” DVDs demonstrated capability of storing data for up to 200 years, whereas the “Century Archival” CDs – a longevity in excess of 400 years, making this product line the most durable and secure archival digital media product available in the market today.

Falcon Technologies International LLC Celebrates 11th Anniversary

Falcon Technologies International LLC have celebrated its 11th anniversary on November 13th, 2016. Since the company launch in 2005, we have managed to build a great team of specialists to develop and manufacture the highest quality of optical media products available in the market today. Marking the beginning of second decade on the global market, FTI is looking forward to further development and growth of its worldwide presence and remaining at the cutting edge of product development and quality assurance in the field of optical media.

On behalf of the FTI Management Team we would like to thank all of our clients and partners worldwide for being with us all these years!

What Every Consumer Should Know About Big Data

While “Big Data” may sound like nothing more than a buzzword, many companies are using it for a wide variety of online applications; for instance, to target marketing efforts to customers more effectively. But what is big data, really?

Big data is the collection of information that can be gathered online, which businesses can analyze and use to find patterns, trends or associations that will help them make better decisions. But while big data can be used to enhance user experience and provide targeted ads, there are still some privacy concerns. Eight members of Forbes Technology Council offer their insights into things everyone should know about big data:

1. Big Data Isn’t Moral

Data is just that — data. Just as the news interprets data, so does every application to determine how to use it. The same data that allows stores to intelligently sell you what you really want may also allow a government to infringe upon your rights. The data is just data, but how it is used determines morality. “1984″ was written before the means were known, but human nature has remained the same. – Nicholas Thompson, Grit

2. Aggregation Masks Private Data

Consumers often fear big data due to privacy concerns. However, if big data is regulated and used properly through aggregation, individuals’ privacy will not be breached, and at the same time, consumers’ experience will be enhanced. I personally love it when Amazon or iTunes recommend products based on aggregated behavioral data. – Arash Asli, Yocale

3. Most Big Data Is There To Help You

It might sound cliché, but 99% of the organizations using big data are doing so to align you with relevant content or experiences (and spare you from those that have nothing to do with you). The better the data and analysis, the better the experience you’re going to have with the brands and content you engage with. And it’s more likely you’ll discover new things that are also relevant to you. – Or Shani, Adgorithms

4. If It’s Online, It’s Discoverable

In this day and age, it’s important to treat any data you give online as discoverable. Anything you put out there will be found no matter how many times you delete it. If it goes online, someone is archiving it. Take this into consideration before posting anything on the web and you’ll be just fine! – Danny Boice, Trustify

5. Privacy Is A Real Issue

As with all data collection, privacy will be top of mind for consumers. Social networks and governments are taking consumers’ concerns around privacy seriously, rolling out new legislation and regulations. When dealing with big data, the industry needs to respect and protect privacy by design. This means designing in principles of data governance, collection, anonymization, usage and retention. – Tim Barker, DataSift

6. Big Data Enhances User Experience

Consumers should realize big data has been going on for years and has contributed to enhanced online shopping experiences, such as suggested items in your Amazon account. There are many laws in place to protect privacy and they continue to get more stringent. We do not want companies restricted too much, as their user experience could suffer. – Chris Ciabarra, Revel Systems INC

7. Big Data Supports Our Digital Experiences

Too many consumers believe big data is ethereal and unapproachable, but they should know that it is the enabling the phenomenon that supports every digital experience they have, whether it’s using their preferred map app or sharing their family experiences over social media. Big data underpins it all and is going to enable even more incredible experiences in the future.– Adam Wray, Basho Technologies

8. Machines Don’t Gossip

The concerns consumers have over data privacy and giving companies access to their personal data may be assuaged with new artificially intelligent systems. These systems can analyze big data (without sharing it) and, at last, break the deadlock between consumers’ fears about data privacy and business’ need for more data/better personalization. – Paulo Marques, Feedzai

Data may be called “immortal” in some sense nowadays. Everything one has ever written or has been recorded saying is saved forever, in some obscure server somewhere on the planet. Going in and deleting data doesn’t work either. It can simply be recovered, even by a hacker with limited skills. Try pulling out of Facebook, for example. While your account will be shut down, Facebook will tell you that you are better off deactivating it so you can come back to it at some future time. It brings to mind Don Henley and Glenn Frey’s immortal line from the song Hotel California, the Eagles’ greatest hit, which says “you can check out, but you can never leave”.

Data is now referred to in zetabytes (where one zetabyte is equivalent to one trillion gigabytes). Studies show that in 2006, the Internet produced about 0.16 zetabytes of data, which then grew at a compound annual rate of 25% for the next decade, going to 8.5 zetabytes at the end of last year.

It is important to understand that in this age of Big Data we live in it is crucial to prioritize the secure storage of private information. The less it is connected to the Internet, the safer it is – an axiom known almost by any school kid nowadays. Anything that is anyhow connected to the web is automatically unsafe and non-secure.

Falcon Technologies International LLC understands the need of safe data storage solutions and develops the supreme quality optical media to ensure that the data is stored safely and for extended periods of time. FTI’s Century Archival discs are able to securely store the sensitive information for hundreds of years, ensuring that it stays integer, accessible and readable by the future generations.

GITEX Technology Week in Dubai

In search for future technologies that can enable companies to achieve efficiency and cost effectiveness for business? Well, the 36th Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (Gitex) provided just that.

This 5 day event opened its doors from Sunday 16th October, 2016. It was the largest ICT exhibition in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, that took place at Dubai world trade centre. The event was inaugurated by Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.

So, what was the Gitex technology exhibition all about? This event showed live demonstrations of future generation technology solutions from various government and international companies that can transform Middle East businesses. Key industry verticals of marketing, healthcare, finance, intelligent cities, retail, education and energy were discussed by industry leaders.

Over 200 investors and influential tech investment companies from Silicon Valley, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, including SoftBank Group International, 500 Startups, and many other venture partners arrived in Dubai to explore, evaluate and potentially fund start up businesses with talent. These ventures also included globally giant investors like Facebook, Dropbox and Spotify.

Key highlights included a large indoor VR activation powered by Samsung logo, Game-changing tech from 4,000 solution providers including AR, VR, AI, Wearables, Drones and more. GITEX Startup Movement examined the global startup movement featuring 350+ breakthrough startups from 52 countries. Customized networking programmes were also on offer for startups to discover how global contemporaries have been there, done that and created an impact.

In today’s era of technology, there is an ever increasing need for entrepreneurs to harness technologies that can enable companies to achieve efficiency and cost effectiveness. FTI has always believed that a strong culture of innovation, in all areas of the company, is an essential contributor to business success. FTI prioritize R&D and technology over cost, as we firmly believe that these functions are critical to ensure our products represent the best quality within the optical media industry.

In line with new innovation for business and services Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) showcased a smart streetlight system at GITEX 2016. According to Eng Maitha bin Adai, CEO of RTA’s traffic and roads agency, there are three systems showcased at Gitex this year and this combination of systems will help sustain green economy requirements by reducing carbon emissions. These systems include the Central Wireless Road Lighting Control System that sets multiple synchronized timetables for dimming streetlights. “A new feature in the smart lighting system is a tentative WiFi service installed in Dubai Water Canal at Sheikh Zayed Road.

RTA also displayed high-definition pedestrian detection camera systems with a twist. These new generation cameras produce pedestrian statistics in terms of number, sex, and age group.

Dubai Customs‘ Smart Virtual Agent initiative was also showcased at GITEX 2016. This venture represents a smart channel for communication with customers, which allows their queries about customs services, procedures and regulations to be answered more efficiently. Without the need for any physical employee the Smart Virtual Agent is an intelligent tool which operates 24/7. This cost effective measure helps efficiently redirect resources to other duties by reducing support cost. The self-improving platform utilizes Dubai Customs’ database and memory of similar cases to answer customer inquiries.

Many GITEX visitors had the opportunity to try out the Smart Inspection Glasses on display at the Dubai Customs stand. These tech heavy glasses facilitate containers’ field inspection, as customs inspectors can browse the customs declaration and x-ray images of the shipment simultaneously as well as its risk level. Inspectors can submit inspection reports using either the virtual keyboard or voice input feature.

Furthermore Dubai Customs showcased 8 happiness-led initiatives and innovations under the umbrella of Ports, Customs and Free Zone Corporation pavilion. Other innovations included the Authorized Economic Operator, Smart Inspection Lab, Smart Customs Route, Bags Smart Customs Inspection System and the Endangered Species Exhibition.

Five seminal trends have caught the eye at this Gitex event namely; Robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), Biometrics, 3-D Printing, Mixed reality and drones. With artificial intelligence on the rise and the need for huge amounts of data to be stored, the progression and development of cloud storage is on the horizon. Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored remotely on servers accessed from the World Wide Web, or “cloud.” Storage servers are built on virtualization techniques all maintained, managed, and backed-up online.

The technology world is increasingly realizing that Optical Digital Media is a safer way to store data compared to cloud technology solutions – this is evidenced by multiple data breaches where personal photographs and other information has been hacked and distributed to the public, and by the fact that Facebook has publicly stated that they have chosen to store their data with Optical Digital Media rather than cloud.

Falcon Technologies International (FTI) leads the way with regard to Optical Digital Media security and memory technology, and is conducting potentially ground-breaking research in this field with academic partners.