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RAM and SSD Prices Will Soon Plummet Due to Oversupply and Weak Demand
According to a new report, RAM and SSD prices will fall by about 10 percent throughout 2020 and will continue to decline during Q1 2021 primarily due to an oversupply of NAND- and DRAM-based products.
Juniper, Samsung, Alibaba Jump on Fungible DPU
Fungible just announced a new class of microprocessor it calls the Fungible data processing unit (DPU), which won endorsements from Alibaba Cloud, Juniper Networks, and Samsung. The technology complements the CPU and GPU in scale-out data centers by offloading what Fungible calls “data-centric computations” — these include storage, security, and virtualization — onto the DPU. The firm claims that the DPU performs these computations 10-times faster than CPUs.
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How to Reinstall Windows 10 from the Cloud
You can now refresh Windows 10 from the cloud if your local OS image isn't available or working right. With the Windows 10 May 2020 Update (aka Windows 10 version 2004), you can reinstall Windows from the cloud as an alternative to a local reinstallation. As this option downloads a fresh copy of Windows from the cloud, in theory you don't have to worry about reliability issues.
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Sanitizing and Disinfecting Hard Surfaces
A variety of sanitation solutions have been introduced in response to COVID-19, challenging self-service equipment providers looking to prevent the spread of the virus. However, ATMs have areas that are sensitive to liquid cleaning solutions. This article looks at some alternatives.
Emerging ATM Markets Continue to Show Huge Potential
While many mature ATM markets are seeing a slowdown, developing markets are set to witness rapid expansion over the next five years, with ATMs supporting cash-reliant newly banked populations. RBR notes that with branch numbers under pressure, for many countries increasingly multi-functional ATMs remain a valuable tool for providing financial services, allowing FIs to cost-effectively expand their presence in more remote areas.
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Visa: Contactless Payment and Online Stores Key to Small Business Survival
Due to consumer demand, thousands of small businesses are turning to contactless payment solutions and other digital tools in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey commissioned by Visa. The Visa Back to Business study found that more than 60% of consumers would switch to a business that installed contactless payment options and nearly half said they would stop shopping at a store that only offered payment methods that relied on contact with a cashier or shared machine.
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Accertify, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Express, announced the launch of a new solution designed to help organizations address the significant rise in fraudulent online account openings and account takeovers. Accertify Digital Identity is an API-based solution that empowers organizations to trust and verify who is on the other side of a digital interaction. They say that their solution analyzes billions of data points using machine learning, advanced behavioral analytics and device intelligence technology to calculate a trust score and associated reason codes for account activity in near real-time to help prevent fraud loss.
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How COVID-19 Will Impact Branch Design and Function
Helping visitors navigate through a branch is taking on new importance in the age of social distancing. In addition to well-planned interior design, wayfinding is top of mind - wayfinding can include design factors as well as signage to guide visitors to where they need to go within a branch. Also some branches are switching out HVAC systems for technology that has more air changes and will allow for more airflow and better filtration. The author goes on to cover more branch changes coming post-pandemic.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Square’s Cash App Tests New Feature Allowing Users to Borrow up to $200
Cash App, the peer-to-peer payments service from Square, is giving select users a way to get short-term loans. Cash App is starting out by offering loans for any amount between $20 and $200. You’ll be expected to pay the loan back in four weeks, along with a flat fee of 5%. (Multiplied over a year, that turns into a 60% APR — which sounds high, but at least it’s significantly lower than the average payday loan.)
The Distinctions Between Faster Payments and Real-Time Payments
Put simply, real-time payments are not the same as faster payments, but they are similar. In other words, a faster payment is a payment method that posts and settles payments faster than traditional payment rails. Examples of faster payment solutions include Nacha’s Same Day ACH, Zelle, and debit push payments. However, they don’t necessarily settle in real time. Whereas real-time payment solutions do settle in real time; payments are initiated and settled almost instantaneously. A prominent example of a real-time rail is The Clearing House’s RTP Network. The Federal Reserve’s FedNow will also be a real-time solution.
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How to Calculate the Cost of Google Cloud Platform Services
Under many circumstances, the cost of cloud-based services is substantially less than cost of buying the hardware, software, and know-how to reproduce the service yourself. Businesses considering Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for their required cloud services can estimate the monthly cost of those services using the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator. By entering the details of required virtual machine instances, storage needs, applications, and special services, organizations can calculate the approximate overall period cost for GCP.
Remote Workers Aren’t Always Served Best by the Cloud
The cloud offers numerous benefits; however, it is not a silver bullet. Here are 4 critical limitations that make the cloud a poor solution for every type of remote-work need: 1. Bandwidth limitations; 2. Tool bloat and complexity; 3. Defeating the purpose of hybrid architectures; and 4. Not everything can run in the cloud.
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Are Consumers Ready for Conversational Digital Banking Experiences?
The rise of conversational AI in banking has been fueled by a rise in conversational interfaces and natural language processing (NLP) technology that enables us to interact, transact, and collaborate using natural chat. The author contends that as conversational AI or chatbot technology continues to advance, consumers will see a shift away from mobile banking to conversational user interfaces (CUI). He also predicts that FIs will have to invest less in contact center agents which can improve the attentivity of service among those remaining.
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