Top five trends that will shape the technology sector in UAE in 2020

With 2019 been a challenging and a transition year, how is 2020 going to be for the information and communications technology in the UAE and what the top trends are that will shape the industry.

Jyoti Lalchandani, vice-president and regional managing director for research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), told in an exclusive to TechRadar Middle East that ICT spending in the UAE is expected to increase by 3.80% to $16.84b compared to $16.22b a year ago.

The research firm has revised its forecast for this year from $16.7b due to a slowdown in the telecommunications sector.

He said that telecom services are feeling the impact of weak consumer confidence and a slowdown in mobile data services.

Even in 2020, the telecom sector is expected to grow the slowest at 1.01% while devices and infrastructure sectors are expected to grow close to 6% and software and IT services (hardware and support services, consulting services, training, education, system integration services, managed services, outsourcing) are expected to grow close to 8%.

 “Commercial segment is looking more positive than the consumer space. The consumer side is going to face pressure due to weak consumer confidence, uptake of trade between the countries, retail, real estate, hospitality,” he said.

On the commercial segment, he said that the services market is growing, driven by strong uptake in cloud-based services, interesting movements on the systems and storage side.

The shifting trends across the globe, he said is that enterprise customers are taking a more cautious approach when investing and in expanding. There is a number of variables such as assumption around global trade, will oil prices be flat or is it going to fluctuate, regional political uncertainty, cost of living index and economic growth.

However, he said that organisations are investing in technology to drive certain things.

“They are investing in technology to get operational efficiency, to cut cost and are investing in Opex-based models such as cloud, and create new revenue streams using AI and cognitive technologies,” he said.

Moreover, he said that people are looking at Expo 2020 and investments regarding it are almost done. 

With 5G gaining adoption, the industry is going to see a significant intake of AI and the internet of things.

Top five trends in 2020

1. Cloud

Public cloud services are seeing a big uptake. The public cloud market is expected to grow by 35% to $406m compared to $299m this year.

Two-thirds of the organisations will approach the cloud through a hybrid model. Organisations in public and government sectors, retail, utilities, transportation, wholesale distribution, hospitality are on the public cloud.

Due to some of the regulatory challenges, banking and financial services and some of the mission-critical applications rely on building their private cloud infrastructure.

The overall business environment is a strong driver for the uptake in cloud services. CFOs love it as it is opex-based and organisation line of business loves it because they get agility and speed. IT organisations love it because of the scale it provides while channels love it because of the “lift and shift” approach as companies move from on-premises to the cloud.  

The on-premise [non-cloud] spending is declining quite rapidly and a lot of spending is moving to the cloud as a subscription-based model. Speed and agility are the key drivers for the cloud.

There is going to be a consolidation in the public cloud space to key four or five players. Cost is going to be a key factor when moving to the cloud for organisations. 

2. Digital transformation

Organisations are getting a bit more aggressive on digital transformation. A lot of pilot projects will enter the mainstream.

A lot of projects and initiatives are around transforming the customer experience. Organisations are leveraging some of the technologies to enrich the customer experience.

Some of the traditional IT areas such as devices and infrastructure are slowing down and companies are using the investment to drive adoption of more disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, internet of things, big data analytics, blockchain and cloud to cut cost and drive more efficiency.

About 25% to 30% of large enterprises are currently in the process of digital transformation, investing in the third platform such as social, mobile, cloud and big data to do one of four things – to be operationally efficient, more agile, create new experiences for customers and create new revenue streams. It is a five to eight-year journey.

Initially, blockchain started off to facilitate a lot of trade financing deals between banks. It hasn’t got a lot of widespread adoption. A lot of the use cases happened in between banks to banks, Smart Dubai and Real Estate Regulatory Agency. The next phase is called the mature of a technology.

The blockchain technology will be matured when you have high volume and low-value transactions. Currently, a lot of the blockchain investments happen in low volume and high-value transactions.

In the next three to four years, blockchain will be embedded into the compute and that will open a significant amount of opportunities.

3. Cybersecurity

Security investments continue to be a major driver for growth. One of the reasons for that is companies are one of the most challenging areas for CIOs and IT.

Now, even CEOs have security as one of their top priority areas. 

Given the region in which we operate due to geopolitical issues and some of the malware that is taking place, security is becoming an important part of the agenda for banks and public sectors.

4. AI and cognitive technologies

Organisations are quite strongly investing in AI and cognitive technologies such as chatbots, analytics and robotic process automation to cut cost, boost operational efficiencies by taking out some of the repetitive tasks humans do and automating it.

The cognitive AI spend is expected to grow by 25.63% to $73.66m compared to $58.63m this year.

Banks, utilities, RTA, Dewa and public sectors have deployed AI and cognitive in a big way.

The AI and cognitive market in the UAE is set to grow between 25% and 30% year over year in the next two to three years. The impact of AI, along with 5G and IoT, will be extremely powerful.

IoT is already embedded into a lot of the technologies in manufacturing and production, fleet management, etc. IoT has become a part of the ecosystem now.

AI is going to automate several tasks and roles while creating new roles that are not yet defined today. It will create more jobs than eliminating.

To run AI and cognitive technologies, the industry needs a lot of data scientists and new skills that do not exist today. It will also force organisations to reskill some of their existing staff and resources. A lot of big organisations are already doing that and investing in training. In the autonomy phase, the machine decides, analyses and executes based on guiding principles that are set.

The overall economic situation is a key driver for that and due to lack of skills. So, these kinds of technologies play nicely into the story. It works 24/7 operation and lesser mistakes or risks compared to humans, so productivity and efficiency are a lot more at a lesser cost.

A lot of private and public sectors have leveraged some of these technologies to automate and cut costs. So, we are seeing an explosion in the digital workforce.

5. Restructuring

Organisations are making fundamental changes in their organisational focus areas and priorities. Several companies are resetting their plans, given the overall economic environment across the region, in rightsizing in several areas, especially in banking, retail, hospitality, banking and financial services.

Organisations need to rightsize in the next two to three years as it is going to be challenging. Organisations are holding back on investments and cutting staff to adapt to the business environment.

Consolidation is taking place in the banking sector and retail margins are under pressure, re-export from Dubai to other regions is down and there is an impact on financial [insurance] services and education sectors.

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Telecommunications regulator to unveil UAE's 5G strategy for next five years

Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE will unveil the “UAE 5G Strategy” for the next five years soon.

Speaking to TechRadar Middle East on the sidelines of the “UAE 5G Conference” on Sunday, Tariq Al Awadi, Executive Director of Spectrum Affairs at TRA UAE, said the strategy will chalk out the roadmap to accommodate and implement 5G for the next five years.

“We will announce what kind of frequency bands will be assigned to operators every year based on use cases and verticals. By 2025, we will have 100% coverage of the UAE with 5G millimetre wave (24.25GHz to the 86GHz),” he said.

Telecom operators in the UAE, etisalat and du, are offering 5G services in the C-band (3.3GHz-3.8GHz).

When the technology is ready from the vendors, he said that telecom operators will provide the network and TRA will provide a good spectrum.

Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, Director General of Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, said that some verticals will get more priority if they have a 5G application and telco operators need to provide the network infrastructure.

“Dubai Silicon Oasis is testing autonomous cars right now. As it is a remote location and there is no real business use case, we are providing the 5G network,” he said.

Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) has set a dedicated route for carrying the test-runs required in collaboration with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).

DSOA and RTA have conducted a Leaders Category of the Dubai World Challenge for Self-Driving Transport which included a series of placement tests that relate to endurance and authenticity and the ability to drive under traffic conditions simulative to reality such as water sprinklers, different sizes of road humps, sandblasting machines, etc.

According to the Dubai Future Foundation’s ‘Dubai Autonomous Transportation Strategy’, 25% of the total transportation in Dubai to be in autonomous mode by 2030, involving 5m daily trips, and save AED 22b in annual economic costs.

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400MHz of C-band to be allocated to telcos in 2020

Al Awadi said that there are some use cases for 5G but “we are still in the early stages. Organisations are still working on developing 5G standards and one of the big challenges for 5G is to develop standards,” he said.

Beginning of 2020, he said that TRA will allocate 400MHz of the C-band to the telecom operators and the 5G committee at TRA will be restructured to focus only on verticals.

Al Awadi said that the UAE had issues with satellite operators such as Thuraya and Yahsat in the C-band but has made some technical arrangements on how to protect their air stations.

“Satellite operators are using the 3.4GHz to 4.2GHz spectrum and we are taking from them 400MHz and giving them 400MHz spectrum. In the 400MHz, satellite operators have Vsat (very small aperture terminal or air stations (Thuraya and Yahsat).

Moreover, he said that the area surrounding the satellite operators’ space will be protected and that space will not have 5G coverage.

“We have told Vsat to move from 3.8GHz to 4.2GHz,” he said.

However, he said that the 5G business model is different from 3G and 4G and the UAE is ready for the fourth industrial revolution and the spectrum is ready.

“The devices for verticals such as manufacturing, utilities, healthcare, retail, agriculture and

Automotive, etc. are not yet ready but the network will be ready. The new use cases are the ones which will make 5G a success,” he said.

Telcos urged to partner with public and private sectors

To make 5G a success, he urged telecom operators to make government entities and private sectors as partners and not as customers.

“If you treat them as ordinary customers, you [telcos] will not succeed. You need to work with them and see their needs and treat them as partners,” he said.

When asked whether UAE will provide a dedicated 5G private network for universities and industries as in Germany, he said that only Germany does it and that is because they have big industries.

“Right now, we are offering only the spectrum to telecom operators and not to private networks. If we do that, then we will not have a very good 5G network in the UAE,” he said.

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Adoption of AI in Middle East may slow down due to some key challenges

Although the widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business is still in its infancy and questions remain open about the pace of progress, the lack of adequate skills to support AI projects, immature market ecosystem, lack of clean data and regulatory implications are the key challenges which might slow down the adoption in the Middle East, an industry expert said.

Speaking to TechRadar Middle East, Manish Ranjan, Program Manager for software and cloud at research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), said that there are a lot of AI-centric initiatives and mega projects in various stages in the Gulf countries.

In the UAE, there is UAE AI Strategy and various AI research labs by public and private sectors (ADDA, Dewa, Huawei and Smart Dubai), and AI university.

Saudi Arabia recently unveiled a new National Centre for AI, a national AI regulator, a National Data Management Office and is already delivering its first AI college.

“Organisations, especially from government, banking and finance, retail and resource industries are increasingly leveraging AI and ML to automate and optimise their businesses and operations,” Ranjan said.

The use cases around AI is still evolving where organisations are using various sub-sets of the AI technologies such as natural language processing (NLP), image/video analytics, machine learning (ML), and other technologies to answer questions, discover insights, and provide recommendations.

Many believe there may not be a single technology that will shape our world more in the next 50 years than AI, Sam Blatteis, CEO of The MENA Catalysts, a public policy consulting firm for government innovation arms and high tech multinationals, said and added that it has rapidly evolved into the hottest area in legislation in the Gulf.

This is the first time governments around the world are simultaneously releasing national plans to develop the same field, he said.

Being a subset of AI techniques, Ranjan said that ML enables computer systems to learn from past experiences by analysing a huge amount of data and improve their behaviour for a given task.

Many global vendors have started embedding AI, ML, and cognitive applications to provide ultimate business benefits to their users.

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Lack of adequate data

In general, globally or regionally, Ranjan said that organisations are leveraging data and information (both structured and unstructured data/information) to educate their AI platforms to bring automation and improve operational efficiency—this has put data as a focal point.

“Data is instrumental for AI platforms and solutions to help the system become more intelligent by learning fast. If there is a lack of adequate and variety of data, AI would reflect a slow learning curve and the accuracy might also be impacted. The AI systems which can be able to process a vast amount of data in real-time would show greater results,” he said.

According to a survey conducted on CIOs by IDC, over 50% of organisations across the Middle East highlighted their plans to leverage cognitive and AI solutions by 2020.

“Definitely, the year 2020 would highlight some of the AI projects which were in proof of concept or sandboxing phase last year. We will see more commercial AI use cases emerging as the market matures,” Ranjan said.

According to IDC, spending on artificial intelligence systems for the UAE and Saudi Arabia combined is forecast to reach $132.3 million in 2020, witnessing an increase of 23.8% compared to 2019.

The spending in the UAE for next year is forecast to be $73.6m and $58.6m for Saudi Arabia.

  “The AI software applications and AI platforms markets continue to show steady growth in the Middle East and Africa region, and we expect this momentum to continue over the forecast period,” Ranjan said.

The top use cases of AI solutions in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are automated threat intelligence and prevention systems, automated customer service agents, IT automation, fraud analysis and investigation, defence, terrorism, investigation and government intelligence systems, and digital assistants for enterprise knowledge workers.

However, Ranjan said that even if AI matures in future, “we can still not think of complete seclusion from human intelligence. We will have bots and machines taking the workloads which would be extremely efficient and at one point almost error-free; however, we would still require human intelligence.”

“How we legislate AI will become one of the defining themes of the next five years,” the CEO of the MENA Catalysts said. “We need to set strategic ‘rules of the road’ from the start — not to over-regulate, but to provide regulatory predictability to attract expertise, ideas, and capital.”

Moreover, if the Gulf is to develop knowledge industries of the future, he said that education here must be reimagined.

“We have to think about how we can ‘hack education’ to reprogram our education system, change course and plot a new education strategy. We should be teaching physics to kindergartners, robotics and computer programming in every school,” Blatteis said.

Machine learning, deep learning and big data are some of the most highly sought-after skills in the industry.

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What is Baby Yoda?

Star Wars fans were thrilled about The Mandalorian the second it was announced as the flagship show of Disney Plus, but few could've predicted that Baby Yoda would steal the show. The first live-action TV series to come out of the Star Wars universe features a guy who dresses a lot like Boba Fett with his own interesting background story, but The Child, as he's known, is arguably the real star. 

Since making his debut in The Mandalorian in November, Baby Yoda has been a sensation. A cuter, younger version of the ancient Jedi master, he’s one of the most endearing creatures ever seen in the Star Wars universe, and has since become the talk of the internet – a walking merchandising opportunity, and the source of wholesome memes.

But what is Baby Yoda? How does he fit into the Star Wars universe? And what will we learn about him in The Mandalorian season 2? We unleash the Bothan spies to find out.

• Watch The Mandalorian with a free 7-day Disney Plus trial

What do we know about Baby Yoda?

The creature who’s become known as Baby Yoda is the surprise break-out star of The Mandalorian. Wisely kept hidden from all the pre-release marketing for the most anticipated show on the newly launched Disney Plus, he made his debut at the end of the show’s first episode. This was where we discovered that the lucrative target the eponymous Mandalorian bounty hunter was pursuing was actually a green alien infant with large ears – who looked a lot like a certain diminutive Jedi Master… 

He’s clearly of massive importance to the mythology of The Mandalorian – and Star Wars as a whole. The mysterious Client (played by legendary movie director/actor Werner Herzog) hired numerous bounty hunters (including assassin droid IG-11) to bring back “The Child” – as he’s officially designated in the show – with the successful hunter being handsomely rewarded. 

The Client – who, going on his choice of Stormtrooper bodyguards and Imperial insignia around his neck – is working for the remnants of the Empire (eventually, it turns out, on behalf of Moff Gideon, introduced in The Mandalorian episode 7), and clearly wanted something from The Child. “I order you to extract the necessary material and be done with it,” he tells underling scientist Dr Pershing, but we have no idea what that material might be. 

We’d be very surprised, however, if it didn’t have something to do with the Force – and rebuilding the Empire into what will become the First Order in Episodes 7, 8 and 9. Maybe they’re planning on removing the Midi-chlorians (Force-carrying particles) from his blood – that would explain why they were so keen on capturing Baby Yoda alive. 

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What are Baby Yoda's Force powers?

We've seen that Baby Yoda can use Force choke like Darth Vader, he can heal beings with the Force, he can lift objects, and he uses his power to control the course of fire in Chapter 8 of The Mandalorian. No doubt we'll see more Force powers in action as the show goes on.

 Is Baby Yoda a clone? 

The Baby Yoda clone theory suggests that Dr Pershing is actually a cloning scientist, based on the symbols on his uniform. That hints that the little alien was created on Kamino at the same facility where the Clone troopers were made, and that there's a strong connection between Baby Yoda's origins and that part of the Star Wars universe. 

Cloning is a big part of the Star Wars universe – indeed, clones fought an entire war – so the theory went that Baby Yoda could be a young copy of the original model. However, in Chapter 7 of the show, Kuiil (Nick Nolte) comments that the character doesn't look like he's been engineered, based on his experience on gene farms. So many mysteries still remain around Baby Yoda. Kuiil even dares to call him too ugly! Outrageous. 

This being Star Wars, however, there are plenty of other theories flying around the internet. One suggests he’s the child of Yoda and Yaddle, and in terms of timelines, that’s not preposterous. If Baby Yoda is 50 years old, he’d have been born about 10 years before the events of The Phantom Menace, and presumably both Yoda and Yaddle would have been on the Jedi Council at that point. It’s also unlikely, however, because Jedi have strict rules preventing romantic relationships – and Yoda’s never given us any indication he’d be the kind of guy to break them. 

Some say he could be a reincarnation of the Jedi master. That would be new territory for Star Wars, but the post-Disney buyout Star Wars universe has frequently played around with the rules of the Force, so it’s not impossible. That said, the fact that Yoda died only five years earlier makes it too late for him to have been reborn as a kid who’s now 50, so this is probably one to file in the “pinch of salt” column.

Intriguingly, the date of Baby Yoda’s birth is very close to Anakin Skywalker’s – within a year, in fact. The Phantom Menace hints very strongly that the future Darth Vader had no father and was conceived by the Midi-chlorians. Perhaps the similarly Force-sensitive Baby Yoda came into existence at the same time in the same way, as part of the Midi-chlorians’ efforts to bring balance to the force.

Finally comes the option that he’s simply some random member of Yoda’s species, with no connection to him beyond that. But hey, this is Star Wars where everyone’s destiny is interlinked, so does anyone really believe that?

What will we learn about Baby Yoda in The Mandalorian season 2?

The end of The Mandalorian season 2 suggests that its titular protagonist will be searching for Baby Yoda's homeworld. This is an enduring mystery in the Star Wars universe, and it's an exciting prospect for expanding the character's story in the second season. 

Is Baby Yoda in The Rise of Skywalker?

Sorry, but Baby Yoda does not appear in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. He remains The Mandalorian's special little guy. It's probably for the best. 

What is the name of Yoda's species?

Nobody knows – which is odd in itself. 

The Star Wars franchise has a long history of creating names for almost every character, species or planet that’s ever appeared in a movie, TV show or book – even if they’ve had mere seconds of screentime. For example, the Death Star trash compactor monster in Star Wars: A New Hope was subsequently designated a dianoga, while the space slug that tries to eat the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back is an exogorth. 

Yoda is a special case, however. Before George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney, the Star Wars creator had a strict rule that specific information about Yoda and his past was out of bounds for writers. That means we have no idea where he originated or what species he belongs to. The closest Lucas came to giving anything away was describing Yoda as “the illegitimate child of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy”, though we suspect that’s not official Star Wars canon… 

It’ll be interesting to see if, now Disney is in charge, they continue to follow Lucas’s directive to keep all things Yoda classified, or use Baby Yoda as an excuse tell us more about Yoda Sr’s mysterious past.

We do know, however, that Yoda’s species is naturally strong with the Force – and not just because Yoda himself had an incredibly successful career as a Jedi master. Even as an infant, Baby Yoda has the power to levitate a giant (and angry) Mudhorn, while the only other member of the species to feature on screen, as mentioned earlier, was Yaddle, a female member of the Jedi Council. She briefly appears in The Phantom Menace. 

Why is Baby Yoda such a big deal? 

Begun, the merchandising has. 

Basically, the internet loves him – forget Porgs, this kid is arguably the cutest thing ever to come out of that galaxy far, far away. As soon as he made his debut in The Mandalorian’s first chapter, Baby Yoda became a meme generator of awe-inspiring power, and the most talked about thing in the show. Everything he does is guaranteed to make you go “Aww”, whether he’s sleeping, drinking soup, or even eating a frog creature alive – Baby Yoda can get away with pretty much anything.

Baby Yoda toys are real, and coming in 2020

It’s unlikely the merchandising bosses at Disney were complaining when the production team introduced Baby Yoda to the The Mandalorian’s story. Indeed, characters as cute as him are a dream come true for anyone who wants to sell lots of toys and clothing – unsurprisingly, there’s already some merch available (including the inevitable Funko Pop! Vinyl figure), with more to follow in 2020. 

Here's a short list of the highlights, if you need any of them in your life:

• Baby Yoda Funko! Vinyl figure
• Baby Yoda Talking Plush
• Baby Yoda Black Series figure

Still, while you might find Baby Yoda a bit cynical, the fact that showrunner Jon Favreau and Chapter One director Dave Filoni were able to hold the character reveal until the show aired – keeping Baby Yoda’s existence a secret until The Mandalorian made its debut – suggests that in this case, keeping the storytelling sacred was the priority. After all, keeping Baby Yoda a secret arguably denied The Mandalorian and Disney Plus the biggest pre-launch marketing opportunity their hot new show was ever going to get.

Baby Yoda memes: there are so many

Cementing his status as 2019's icon, Baby Yoda memes are all over the internet right now. Instead of listing them all here, we've embedded one of the highlights above, and clicking on this link will unleash more than one person can ever reasonably happen. Good luck. 

• When is the next episode of The Mandalorian?

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Tech trends that need to die in 2020

Over the last decade we’ve seen things people wouldn’t believe. Samsungs on fire over our shoulder. We watched Windows Phones glitter in the dark near Bill Gates. 

Many of those moments are already lost in time, like tears in the rain. But some other awful things endure, and it’s time they got in the sea.

When it comes to naming the tech trends we’d like to see the back of, we’re spoilt for choice: hardware you can’t upgrade, surveillance tech you can’t evade, streaming service exclusives and Windows Flipping Updates. But despite their obvious irritations, they aren’t the worst. Far from it. These are the ones we love to hate, the tech trends we’d like to see the back of in the 2020s. 

Style over substance

You know who we’re going to pick on here. The 2010s were the decade when Apple’s designers ruled the school at the expense of practicality, when 'it just works' became 'it doesn’t work, but it looks brilliant'.

Remember the MacBook Pro keyboard that couldn’t handle people typing on it? The Mac Pro that didn’t so much put form over function as throw function in the bin, set the bin on fire and push the bin off a cliff? The MacBook with a single USB port that meant you couldn’t charge it and use an external device at the same time?

And don’t get us started on the iPhone headphone jack, the location of the charging point on the second-generation Magic Mouse or the clown car of remotes that ships with the Apple TV.

The good news is that Apple appears to have belatedly realised this, so for example the new 16-inch MacBook Pro has a proper keyboard again.

Here’s to more slightly duller but more user-friendly design decisions this decade.

Subscriptions for everything

You’re in a cafe. You ask for a coffee, but the barista won’t take your money. They want your bank details, because you can’t just buy coffee any more. You need to sign up to the Vibrate My Eyeballs Mega Super Deal Member Plan. You get seven days free and you can cancel at any time but if you forget it’s $79.99 a month.

That’s pretty much where tech is now.

The slow march of subscriptions didn’t stop with TV and movies. Today you don’t just need six different streaming subs to cover the programmes you want to watch and the songs you want to stream. You need your photo storage sub and your online gaming sub and your Creative Cloud sub and the Patreons you support and the sub that unlocks the filters in your photo app and your wireless security camera sub and the eighty-six different subs you’ve had to take out because nobody lets you just buy an app any more and you look at the graph in your online banking app and you ask yourself, hey! How did I get here?

And the short answer is: cheapskates, mainly. Cheapskates who wouldn’t pay for stuff even when it was reasonably priced, so the people who make stuff started to see too many ribs poking through their T-shirts and decided the only way they’d actually get to eat was to make the entrance fee zero and then hit everybody with a sub to actually make things work.

And that’s fine, and it’s fair, and it’s OK until the day when that check doesn’t clear or the client doesn’t pay and your bank account is full of cobwebs and your email app has 17 messages telling you there appears to be a problem with your payment method and nothing works anymore.

Launches for tech that doesn’t work

Ever since everyone discovered that the original iPhone demo featured a phone held together with duct tape and sheer force of will we’ve had to sit through tech launches where execs will quite happily burble on about products that don’t work.

Take Samsung, for example: in their rush to market a folding phone, they forgot to make sure that the folding bit of the Samsung Galaxy Fold could handle being folded and unfolded. This is rather like a parachute company forgetting to put the parachutes into its backpacks, or a shark repellent manufacturer not checking that its product actually repels sharks. And before the Apple fans get too smug here, one word: AirPower. A charger so advanced, so beyond what anybody else is capable of doing that, er, Apple wasn’t capable of doing it either.

So here’s our request to the tech industry. If you’re going to make shit up, if you’re going to announce products you know you can’t make and that you might never be able to make properly, go crazy! Show us holographic heli-trousers! AR glasses that reveal our enemies’ most shameful thoughts! An affordable, rock-solid triple-A streaming games platform with minimal hardware, 4K resolution and zero lag!

OK, maybe not that last one. Too far-fetched.

Dockless electric scooters

It’s not much of a stretch for dockless electric scooters to get in the sea when so many of them get in the rivers, in the canals, in the storm drains and anywhere else where drunk and/or lazy people can throw them. They’re still illegal in the UK but in many parts of the US they’ve become a curse: blocking sidewalks, being dumped all over the place and causing all kinds of problems for pedestrians and local authorities.

The problem with dockless scooters isn’t the tech, or even the fact that some – critics would say many – riders are awful. It’s that the companies behind them are 'disruptive', which is tech-speak for 'irresponsible and of dubious legality'. The same story repeats: operator appears from nowhere, doesn’t apply for a licence, floods the streets and expects the council to pay for clearing up their mess. It’s Facebook’s 'move fast and break things' strategy taken far too literally.

It’d be a shame if bad business practices spoiled the scooter party, though: if they’re not being thrown into bits of the environment, they can be better for the environment than cars.

Facebook Portal

What could go wrong with a Facebook-connected camera in your home, apart from absolutely everything?

All personal digital assistants are potentially sinister, of course. But Facebook’s rivals haven’t spent most of the last decade demonstrating their complete disregard for people’s privacy. How many times have we heard senior FB execs apologise, say they haven’t lived up to their usual high standards and promise to do better after yet another privacy scandal?

You know how Portal will pan out: Facebook will promise not to listen to or look at anyone without permission, and then an accident or a leak will make it clear that Facebook has been listening to and looking at a whole bunch of people without permission – just like it’s continuing to record and monetise your location data even when you’ve said no to location sharing with the Facebook app. Facebook will then apologise, say that it hasn’t lived up to its usual high standards and promise to do better.

Expecting Facebook not to try and analyse and monetise Portal video and audio is like expecting your dog to ignore a plate of sausages you’ve left on the worktop. Oh sure, they’ll give you those big sad eyes when you come home, but they’ve still eaten your dinner.

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Bitdefender has the best antivirus for 2020 and you can get a discount now

With increasingly more hacks, malware and viruses occurring online - an antivirus software is more crucial than ever. And if you've got a shiny new piece of tech or you're just looking to secure your current device, our in-depth testing show that Bitdefender has the most impressive virus protection of them all.

What's more, Bitdefender currently has a discount on its awesome Antivirus Plus plan, which will let you guard your gadgets and vulnerable information from cybercriminals with a very tasty 60% off discount. 

After plenty of testing, analysing and scrutinising all of the biggest and best antivirus software services out there - we have come to the conclusion that Bitdefender Antivirus Plus is our all-round top choice.

Not only does it have a wide range of features, it is extremely reliable and efficient and has accurate malware blocking. Plus with this discount you'd be paying less than the equivalent of $2/£2 per month to ensure all your data is protected. 

See this antivirus deal from our number 1 provider:

• Check out our best antivirus guide to see Bitdefender's biggest competition

Why is Bitdefender the best antivirus?

The reason we have ranked and continue to rank Bitdefender so highly is due to a multitude of reasons, all of equal importance to the customer. Not only does it cover all your antivirus needs and deflects all possible threats coming your way - it also is extremely user-friendly and straightforward. Below are our top five reasons for why we consider this antivirus software to be simple the best.

1. Protects all systems: If you’re worrying that it won’t be able to defend your device, Bitdefender’s Total Security 2020 covers Android, Mac and iOS systems.
2. Security: In our rigorous tests, we found that Bitdefender was one of the most impressive services out there for pure blocking of malicious software. So it will give you peace of mind once installed.
3. Anonymity: All of its antivirus software seeks to ensure you remain anonymous online, also offering file encryption, firewall and anti-spam perks. 
4. Affordable: Despite its lofty position in our best antivirus countdown, Bitdefender still has extremely competitive prices in comparison to other antivirus software.
5. No compromise necessary: Bitdefender says that all of its antivirus software preserves your battery and the speed of your devices, so they keep running smoothly. We found that it doesn’t significantly interfere with your system’s speed or battery life, unlike other antivirus software.

Still unconvinced? Check out our examination into Bitdefender's 2020 antivirus packages to see why we rank it as the best all round antivirus software. 

from TechRadar: Technology reviews https://ift.tt/2FiP1Nr

Top 10 most influential gaming moments of the last decade

It’s easy to forget that videogames aren’t really that old. If we take Pong as first contact, that would make the medium 61 years old (as of this year). Compared to other industries, it’s still a spring chicken, but the pace by which gaming has developed both in technology and artistic scope has been astronomical in recent years. 

Since 2010, we’ve had a number of immense developments, with new genres and portable technologies arriving, as well as some very important stories that have changed the way we think about our favorite hobby. 

So join us as we remember ten of the best gaming moments that we think have defined the last decade.

No Man’s Sky’s renaissance

At launch, No Man’s Sky was a disaster. A victim of its own hype machine, when it dropped out of the procedurally-generated sky in 2016, it gave gamers the Molyneux blues. A lot of the promises weren’t delivered and it felt half-baked. 

Alas, ever since, players who made their initial purchase have went from aggravated to loyal as developer Hello Games delivered countless updates and restored faith in the game, turning it into a genuine comeback kid. 

With a VR version in tow and an excellent core loop reflective of the original vision, No Man’s Sky proved - more than any other game - that no title is ‘dead on arrival’, a trend we’ve seen in games like Destiny 1 and 2, Rainbow Six: Siege, PUBG and many more that have become some of the most important games of the last decade - despite a rocky start.

Konami v Kojima

In one of the most long-winded controversial bust-ups in gaming, videogame auteur Hideo Kojima became ‘Punished Hideo’ when his relationship with Konami fell apart during the end of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain’s development. 

Butting heads over the game’s ambitious scope, the final entry in Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series was left woefully unfinished, an entire final chapter left on the cutting room floor. In the meantime, Kojima’s Silent Hill reboot with Junji Ito and Guillermo Del Toro was scrapped and wiped from the PS Store. 

Despite all of this, The Phantom Pain was a critical success and Kojima bounced back hard, creating his own production company with backing from big Sony, which led to one of the most unique AAA games of the decade in Death Stranding.  

Nintendo's comeback

At the start of the decade, Nintendo was riding high on the success of the Nintendo Wii and the DS. Soon after they would go onto launch the 3DS in 2011 and the Wii U in 2012, a generation of consoles that didn’t fare as well as their predecessors. In particular, the Wii U was considered a flop, despite some locked-off exclusives only available to those who bought into the ecosystem. 

At their lowest point, Nintendo then made the most vicious return to form with the Nintendo Switch, a more cohesive iteration on the technology of the Wii U and one of the most successful videogame consoles ever made, a portable powerhouse with a bubbling library of critically acclaimed and commercially successful juggernauts like Super Mario Odyssey and Breath of the Wild, which is now considered to be one of the greatest games of all time. Don’t call it a comeback, they’ve been here for years!

The Battle Royale boom

Brendan Greene cast the first sin by birthing the Battle Royale genre into the mainstream via PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, a delightfully fun spin on the shooter that had teams of four attempting to survive a 100-player gauntlet on a giant landmass. 

Little did he know that he would by proxy create the behemoth that is Fortnite, a word that now transcends the bounds of the medium. 

As well as creating an exciting and deeply fun new genre, videogame culture has entered the real world via Fortnite dances, cultural crossovers with sports entities and plenty of global events from the nexus of one core idea: be the last one standing.

Dark Souls

A cult action game turned global phenomenon, the souls series launched to little fanfare in 2011, before dominating the design in most games that came after it. 

The decade has been very kind to Miyazaki and his team, as FromSoftware has delivered a series of instant classics. Most importantly, they’ve never settled to deliver the same experience, from Bloodborne’s frenetic action to Sekiro’s inspired shinobi world.

As of 2019, we’ve had a Star Wars soulslike and the Assassin’s Creed series has all but become one too. Its influence is undeniable and, unlike other genres, it’s yet to wane in popularity. Going into the next decade, we’re still begging for more and, with two massive console launches and Elden Ring around the corner, the legacy of Dark Souls is set to linger long past its original release.

The indie revolution

How could we talk about the last decade without dwelling on the impact of its indie games? An industry has been born for lofty games of small stature with teams of passionate developers making games on their own terms and influencing the massive AAA studios they look up to. 

Shovel Knight and Undertale characters made it in to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Toby Fox composed for a Pokemon game… There is a shopping list of influential indie games too long to put here, but videogames in general wouldn’t be where they are now without the influx of creativity and bold stories told by indie developers this decade, which have pushed the medium hard to include women and POC, address its own issues and talk about mental health, race, gender and sexuality rather than just milling the depths of play with macho shooters led by dull protagonists. 

The advent of streaming

The concept of streaming has affected the industry in dual capacity this decade, both on a technological level and in the way that we consume videogames. 

Technologically, we’ve seen services like Onlive, PlayStation Now and Google Stadia come to the fore, with Remote Play and Project xCloud removing the necessity of consoles in our living rooms, enabling a style of play that is accessible as long as you have a steady internet connection. 

Yet we’ve also seen Twitch and Mixer turn players into celebrities thanks to the advent of game streaming, where juggernauts like Ninja, Shroud and Pokimane have been delighting audiences for the past few years and becoming responsible for millions of hours of consumption across the globe. 

A natural evolution of recorded videos and YouTube, streaming has become integrated into most modern games and has become the main way we discover new ones, be that via live-streamed events or watching someone else play. 

Minecraft

When the team at Mojang first added mobs and survival into Minecraft, we remember digging into the side of a mountain and surviving the first night. Never could we have imagined the influence that humble game would have on the industry nearly ten years later. 

Since then it’s been acquired by Microsoft and distributed across every platform known to man. Entire communities and individuals have had their careers made by Minecraft, and it’s open-source style has allowed for countless creatives to get their start in modding and development.

It’s becoming increasingly hard to name a game without crafting now because of it, but given that Minecraft has become the best-selling game of all time, you can see why.

VR approaches the mainstream

Virtual reality headset ownership is still hovering around the 1% mark on Steam, but that’s not to say that the industry hasn’t made bold strides towards making VR mainstream with the introduction of the Oculus Rift, Vive and Windows Mixed Reality setups, backed up by ever-popular games like VR Chat and Beat Saber, which has since become this generation’s Guitar Hero. 

With the Oculus Quest delivering wireless VR and Valve wading back into the software market, to deliver their first AAA VR experience in Half-Life: Alyx, virtual reality is in a very strong place as we shift into the next decade. 

The introduction of microtransactions

Be it FIFA Ultimate Team or Shark Cards, the introduction of microtransactions into mobile, and later AAA games, has been a difficult adaptation for the videogame industry in the past decade. 

It is such a controversial topic that it has become the talk of politicians, who are seeking to regulate predatory loot boxes and oust gambling from videogames. As we enter 2020, the conversation has become so virile that it is now a selling point if a game does not have microtransactions. With the discourse now flipped on its head, intense scrutiny will now be given to how service games approach monetization in the near future.

• PS5: release date, specs, news and rumors
• Xbox Series X: release date, specs, design and launch titles

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Best domain registrars in 2020

Every great website needs a snappy, memorable domain name. Coming up with something new is a serious challenge, but once inspiration strikes, you'll need to register that name with a domain name registrar before you can use it online.

Registration isn't difficult, but first you must choose from the hundreds of companies competing for your business, and there are several things for you to consider before signing the virtual dotted line.

• We’ve also rounded up the best web hosting services

How to choose the perfect domain registrar

• Pricing structures can be complicated. A low headline figure could become expensive on renewal, for instance. Prices vary between domain extensions, too, so a registrar that offers great value for a .com domain might give you a poor deal on when it comes to .org.
• There may be extra costs for tasks like transferring your domain to another registrar, too. Read the small print before you sign up.
• Look for any bundled or optional extras. A Whois privacy service prevents your address, phone number and email address appearing as public contact details for the domain, something which could otherwise get you a significant amount of spam email and phone calls. We've seen this cost as much as $11.20 a year, but several registrars provide it for free.
• Many domain registrars offer hosting as an extra, but keep in mind that web hosting companies can also register domains. If you have an idea of which web host you'd like to use, check the details of its plans: you may be able to register a domain for free when you buy hosting, and that's often the cheapest option.
• Finally, take a look at the support a registrar offers. You may never need any help at all, but if anything critical crops up – maybe an issue which might cause a problem with renewal – it's important that your provider is on hand to ably assist. 
• Balancing all these priorities can be tricky, so that's why we've created this list of top domain registrars to help point you in the right direction. 

With a name like Domain.com, the EIG-owned brand, means business, focusing primarily on small and medium businesses. It offers most popular top level domains and over 25 country code top level domains and also sells premium domains as a broker.

With nearly two decades of online presence, the company - which is one of the world’s biggest domain name registrars - expanded in web hosting and now ranges a number of products including a website builder, a full design service and web hosting.

Domain.com prices tend to be average but we have managed to blag a 25% discount off almost everything in your cart*. Non-premium TLD (.Club, .Men, .Win etc) start from $2.99 for the first year ($2.24 with our code). In line with the rest of the industry, they rise significantly after the second year).

You need to pay for privacy protection, a reasonable $6.99, plus you can add email, web hosting, SSL certificates and malware protection, none of which is compulsory. You can stick with its basic website builder which is free with every domain: you get a drag and drop website builder, tons of mobile-friendly templates, up to six pages, SEO tools, Paypal integration and even access to stock image library.

Support is more than adequate with 24/7 chat, email and phone support. Domain.com may not have the cheapest prices but it provides with a very balanced offering.

*All renewals after the initial discounted period will be charged at the then current standard list price for the selected period. Coupon is not valid with sunrise registrations, landrush registrations, EAP registrations, pre-registrations, premium registrations, renewals, transfers, custom website design, other coupons, or special pricing.

Web giant GoDaddy is the world's biggest domain registrar, currently managing more than 75 million domains for 17 million customers around the globe.

The company is well-known for its low headline prices, and it's the same story here, for instance,  .co. domain is available for $0.99 in year one. On the other hand .com and .org are less impressive (though still apparently cheap) starting at $11.99 and $10.99 respectively. Beware, though: these aren't the bargains they initially seem.

The first catch is that GoDaddy's starting prices only apply if you pay for two years upfront, and the second year is significantly more expensive (.com rises to $17.99, .uk and .co.uk domains are $12, .co, .org and .mobi are ridiculously high, $34.99 for .co, $20.99 for .org and $25.99 for .mobi - at the moment, first year for .mobi is $6.99, due to an offer). 

The second problem is that there are no bundled extras, so adding something like Whois privacy – a valuable service often included for free with other providers – costs $8 a month for year one, and $10 on renewal.

There's clearly much better value to be had elsewhere, but GoDaddy may still appeal to web beginners looking for a bundled hosting and domain registration deal. The company has an array of products covering every possible requirement, with telephone support if you need it, and buying your domain and hosting from the same provider will make life a little easier.

Just keep in mind that other providers can also combine hosting and domain registration, and GoDaddy may not provide the best package for you. Check out our various hosting guides for possible alternatives.

• You can sign up for GoDaddy domain registration here

Hover is a popular domain name registrar owned by Tucows, which also operates eNom and the domain reselling platform OpenSRS.

Hover's website is clear and straightforward. A domain pricing page allows for checking registration costs before you start, or you can use the search box to immediately locate your preferred TLD (top-level domain).

By default the results page displays every domain you can register and their prices, giving you a lot to scroll through and read. But a handy sidebar allows filtering domains by categories including Personal, Businesses, Audio and Video, Food and Drink, and more. It's a neat touch which could help you spot an appealing domain that you otherwise might have missed.

Prices are very reasonable, with .com domains costing $12.99 for year one, .co.uk priced at $10.99, .org costing $11.99 and .mobi reaching $15.99. Shop around and you'll find slightly lower prices elsewhere, but Hover generally provides good value.

There's a welcome bonus in Whois Privacy, which comes free for as long as the domain is managed by Hover.

The company keeps upselling to a minimum, even in the final shopping cart stage. You're simply offered three email-related extras: email forwarding at $5 a year, a 10GB email account for $20, or you can opt for a 1TB inbox, file sharing, a calendar and more, for an annual $29.

If you have any questions, support is available via email and chat, although it's not 24/7. Working hours are 8am to 8pm (Eastern Time) Monday to Friday, and 12pm to 5pm at the weekend.

• You can sign up for Hover domain registration here

Most domain name registrars offer a simple identikit service with little to separate them from the competition, but Dynadot is an interesting exception which has some unusual advantages.

This starts right at the beginning, with your initial search. You can use the website much like any other – type your preferred domain, press Enter, read the results – but you also get Bulk and IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) search tools, and advanced options allow defining which domain extensions to include in your searches, as well as setting those as defaults for all future searches.

These searches can optionally return results from domain auctions, Dynadot's Marketplace (where other customers sell domains they no longer need) and other sources. There's also a Backorder option to try and grab a domain that isn't currently available, if it's not renewed.

Prices are on the low side, with Dynadot offering both special deals on some extensions and good value at renewal. .com sites are $8.99 initially, the same price on renewal. If you’re after a .co.uk domain, that’ll set you back $6.95, .org is $8.99 initially, $10.99 on renewal, and .mobi domains are $3.99 initially, $13.99 on renewal.

That's just the start: Dynadot also piles on the free extras. A Website Builder allows you to build and host a simple one-page responsive website. There's free domain forwarding if you'd like to redirect visitors somewhere else. DNS support allows creating 50 subdomain records, 10 email addresses, and 5 each of MX and TXT records. There's even a Grace Deletion list which allows returning a domain if you change your mind.

This requires a small fee and won't always be allowed (the details on how it works are here), but it's still a welcome extra you'll rarely find with other registrars.

Dynadot's support wasn't always as impressive, with live chat being offline when we checked. But the website does have a publicly available forum, allowing anyone to browse common questions and see how happy (or otherwise) Dynadot's customers might be.

• You can sign up for Dynadot domain registration here

Founded in 2000, Namecheap is a popular domain name registrar and web host which now manages more than five million domains.

Namecheap's excellent website allows searching for individual domains, or in batches of up to 50.

If the domain is taken, you can view the Whois record or offer to buy the domain (via DomainAgents) from the current user.

If the domain is available, results are displayed across four tabs: Popular, New, Discounted and International. This is a neat approach which makes it easier to browse the list and find what you need.

Prices are generally very good at $8.88 (£6.8) for .com domains - $12.98 on renewal, $7.58(£5.8) for .co.uk - $9.58 on renewal, $11.98 (£9.3) for .org - $14.98 on renewal, and $16.88 (£13) for .mobi (at the moment, you can get .mobi for $2.88 for the first year). There are some special deals available, and Namecheap has an Agent 88 set of domains which are almost always available at $0.48 (£0.35) for the first year (these usually include the following: .site .website .space .pw .press .host .tech .online and .fun – but there may be others as well).

That would be good value all on its own, but Namecheap doesn’t stop there: you get WhoisGuard domain privacy thrown in for free.

Namecheap's billing is straightforward and honest, with current and renewal prices clearly described in your Namecheap shopping cart, and Auto-Renew turned off. But if there's something you don't understand, helpful FAQ pages and live chat are just a click or two away.

• You can sign up for Namecheap domain registration here

Shopping around for a domain registrar can involve a lot of hassle as you research companies you've never heard of, try to separate genuine bargains from marketing tricks, and browse the small print looking for hidden catches. With potential savings only amounting to a few pounds or dollars a year, at best, you might prefer to simply sign up with a big-name provider that you know will give you a reasonable service, even if it does cost a fraction more.

Enter Google Domains, Google's lightweight domain registration arm, a straightforward provider that puts speed and simplicity at the top of its priority list.

Google Domains doesn't confuse you with endless sales, or 'special' deals that turn out to be not so special after all. Upselling is kept to a minimum. Instead, it's all about making the purchase process as easy as any other online shopping site: search, click, and check out.

The difference is obvious from the moment you reach the site. There are no animated ads at the top of the page, no 'Sale!' banners, no low headline prices: just a search box where you enter a single domain.

The results page is equally straightforward, with prices listed for nine common top-level domains, and an All Endings tab listing every option in alphabetical order (domain.academy, domain.bargains, domain.camera).

One potential problem is that Google Domains doesn't support all the domain extensions you'll get elsewhere, and this includes some quite common examples (.mobi, .tv). If you think you might ever want to buy something beyond the most popular extensions, it’s a good idea to check that your likely choices are available before you buy.

Prices are standardized to whole numbers, so for example .com, .co.uk and .org domains are all priced at $12. That's a little above average overall, but better than some, especially as Google Domains throws in free Whois privacy for as long as you're registered. That's a valuable extra which could cost $2.80 to $11.20 a year elsewhere.

If you do have any questions, a Help link displays articles on common problems. If that's not enough, the Contact Us page enables talking to a support agent by email, live chat or telephone (Google calls you), the highest level of domain registrar support we've seen anywhere.

• You can sign up for Google Domains domain registration here

• Check out the best website hosting services

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