The new sharing platform

13

October

2016

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‘Sharing is the new leadership’. You have probably heard it or red it a lot. And now there is a new startup which is bringing sharing to a new level. Urbee will try to solve traffic jam, parking problems and reduce CO2 emissions with a healthy and fun solution; sharing bikes.

In November Urbee will provide 300 e-bikes in Amsterdam. Their ambition is to provide finally 1500 e-bikes in Amsterdam and expand later on to other cities. Their first target market is the business market, since a lot of traffic within Amsterdam come by businesses. Nowadays many people only use the car, since they don’t like to come to sweaty to their work. Urbee thinks by introducing the shared e-bikes many of them will now choose the bike instead of the car. Urbees CEO Fleur Schaven explained: an e-bike is two times as fast as public transport and often also faster than the car especially when you have to look for a parking space, which are quite rare in Amsterdam.

You can reserve the e-bike by the created Urbee application, which is available at IOS and Android. When you reserve a bike, you will get a code to unlock the assigned bike. The system will guarantee a full charged battery and a well maintained bike. The system also includes software to prevent the bikes from stealing. The bikes will cost you €4 per hour and in the night only €1 per hour. You can pick up the bike in one of the several Urbee points within the city.

For me it sounds as a good initiative. The platform will solve many traffic problems and is also good for the environment. They differentiate themselves from their direct concurrent, the ‘Ov fiets’, by provide an electronic bike instead of the regular bike. This will make the solution a lot more attractive for business people.

 

http://www.parool.nl/amsterdam/e-bikes-als-deelfiets-twee-keer-zo-snel-door-de-stad-als-openbaar-vervoer~a4369649/

https://urbee.nl/http:/

/www.dutchcowboys.nl/technology/urbee-elektrische-deelfiets-in-amsterdam-voor-minder-co2-uitstoot

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Google’s plan to stop stop ISIS recruiters

26

September

2016

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While Facebook and Youtube have entered the war of constantly checking their content on extremism and remove it, Google have chosen to avoid this war. During the last year Google has developed an intelligence system to target the ISIS recruiters

In collaboration with the startup Moonshot CVE, Google has used their Jigsaw technology to find potential ISIS terrorists and tries to convince them to not join the group. They  found 1,700 keywords which are used by ISIS recruiters and use them with algorithms to create targeted advertising. With the advertising they hope to inform the individuals of the current location in stead of the unrealistic view ISIS recruiters create. In the trial period they already target 320,000 individuals which together looked at more than half a million minutes of advertising video’s.

By research Google found individuals which joined ISIS because they got a positive view of the world of ISIS. Yasmin Green, head of development and research of Jigsaw, spoke with a 13-year old girl which had decided to join ISIS and had already planned a flight to the Middle East. The girl was targeted online by ISIS recruiters and was told she has the possibility to live in an Islamic Disneyworld.

Google tries to target this people and shows them the real ISIS world by showing real videos of the area they are fighting. It’s hard to measure the effectiveness of this strategy but the click-trough rate of this advertisements is 70% in comparison with the other advertisements on the same keywords and the people who click spent more than twice as long viewing the video as the estimates of how long people view Youtube as a whole.

Although this numbers may seem quite positive, they haven’t been able to really decrease the individuals who joined ISIS yet. I am not sure Google will ever decrease this number effectively , but I do think it is a good way to create a more reliable outline of the current situation and therefore convince people who are not that sure about ISIS to not join the group.

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/jigsaw-redirect-method-to-stop-isis-recruits-2016-9

https://theintercept.com/2016/09/07/google-program-to-deradicalize-jihadis-will-be-used-for-right-wing-american-extremists-next/

 

 

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