Category Archives: Technology

Government, Politics, Scotland, Society, Technology

Digital interfacing must be embraced by public sector

PUBLIC SECTOR

Digital Interfacing

Digital interfacing within the public sector would allow public bodies to greatly cut costs while providing efficient services. With budgets constrained like never before, politicians must now embrace and incorporate digital platforming into the public sector.

Intro: Digital platforming would help public bodies to provide efficient services by cutting costs.

Over the last 10 to 15 years digital platforms like Google, Amazon and Twitter have been utilised by almost everyone to such an extent that they have disrupted our daily lives.

Part of that disruption has been negative. How many people have you seen looking at their mobile phones when they should have been paying more attention to the world around them? Predominately, however, the disruption caused by the digital era has been positive. Digital technologies clearly deliver a benefit – if they didn’t we wouldn’t use them to the extent that we do.

Consider Airbnb, the digital platform that allows users to make a fast and cheap way of booking accommodation. This interface has three million listings across 65,000 destinations. It’s fast and cheap because it provides a digital link between hosts and guests and removes the need for an intermediary.

These platforms offer ways to receive a service: users identify with the platform rather than the organisation. They are also orientated and focused on customer need as witnessed through the design and delivery of the service.

They also establish trust by offering value that increases with the breadth of services offered and the number of users registered. Most importantly, they remove unnecessary waste and duplication, eliminating tasks, activities, intermediaries and sometimes even whole organisations out of the service.

These radically changing business models have had far reaching implications for the workforce and they will continue to do so. That’s been illustrated through Uber’s impact on local taxi firms and the complexity of protecting workers’ rights and tax revenues in the ‘gig economy’.

In the public sector, digital developments have provided a route to delivering better quality for less cost. Addressing ever-increasing demand of services with reduced budgets is here to stay. NHS Scotland recently created the TURAS platform, one which is geared to support education and training of healthcare workers. It automates processes and allows clinicians to self-serve on training and education material. The net effect has been a cut in administrative overheads.

Government to citizen services need to follow this lead. Public bodies and the services they provide must move to become technology related businesses. Whilst Registers of Scotland have made good progress in this direction, the vast bulk of the Scottish public sector requires wholesale transformation. Substantial changes are needed that will require careful thinking about the right purpose, strategy, culture and structure.

The public sector in Scotland will also need a specific focus on balancing the face-to-face contact needed for some services and by making provision for those people not digitally connected. This will need new investment in connectivity and infrastructure.

Such challenges should not be used as an excuse to avoid embracing digital. Public Sector bodies should be specifically focused on removing unnecessary tasks and activities that might well lead to the closure of entire business units. This must happen where they no longer have a role in delivering services to citizens.

Politicians in Scotland should be bold in realising the changes that are now needed. They could remove some of the barriers around legislation and by promoting partnership with the private sector.

 

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Science, Technology, United States

Scientists set sights on the Sun in understanding life and mankind

NASA: PARKER SOLAR PROBE

An artist’s impression of the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft approaching the sun.

The space race, once notorious for its drama and political intrigue in recent decades, still has the adroitness to shock. Scientists at NASA, the US space agency, retain the capacity to astonish with their ambition and innovation.

In spite of all that science has discovered about our universe, NASA and its counterparts around the world have long been frustrated by how the Sun has closely guarded its secrets. But the Parker Solar Probe mission, scheduled to launch in 2018, promises to change all that.

In what will become humanity’s first voyage mission to visit a star, the pioneering undertaking will seek to unlock the mysteries at the centre of our solar system. These include the origins of solar winds and why the Sun’s outermost layer is hotter than its surface.

The findings, NASA believes, could have far-reaching implications for how to forecast weather events in space which impact on life on Earth.

The project is to be commissioned over a period of some seven years, at a cost of £1.1bn. Whilst eye-wateringly expensive, if the mission is successful those costs will be far outweighed by crucial scientific insights into the star that gives us heat and light.

The probe will begin its nebulous journey next summer. The world will likely watch on in wonder and hope as scientists search for answers in understanding some of the great enigmas of life and mankind.

. It has hitherto been impossible to enter the sun’s atmosphere, where temperatures start at almost 1,400C.

. The launch date has been given as being between July 31 and August 19, 2018, from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. A super-powered probe travelling at 118 miles per second will overcome the supersonic solar winds, flares and radiation to allow it to get as close to the sun as possible.

. Scientists predict that the Parker Solar Probe will fly to within 3.7million miles of the surface. A previous attempt to gain insight into the star, by Helios 2 in 1976, came within 27 million miles.

. The Sun is Earth’s closest star and is some 93million miles from Earth.

. By predicting major weather events in space would greatly help to combat the threat of communication networks being destroyed on Earth.

. To combat the intense heat, scientists have created a 4.5in carbon composite shield which will maintain the instruments used to record solar flares and shocks at room temperature.

. The probe itself is named in honour of astrophysicist Eugene Parker, now 89, who in 1958 did groundbreaking and pioneering work on understanding solar storms and the solar wind – a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun that causes the Northern Lights.

. Its seven-year mission will use the gravitational field of Venus to orbit the sun 24 times. Scientists predict the probe getting closest in December 2024.

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Britain, Government, Society, Technology

DVLA confirms development of electronic driving licence

DIGITAL DRIVING LICENCE

phone-driving-licence

                                                 Digital driving licences will soon become a feature on smart phones.

Mobile phones and driving make an awkward combination – it is illegal to use a phone while driving – but, the Driver and Vehicle Licencing Agency (DVLA) is planning to bring the two closer together with the introduction of digital driving licences.

It’s thought digital licences would be stored in phones’ virtual ‘wallets’, just as credit and debit cards can already be saved. When asked to present their driving licence by a police officer or official, a quick finger or thumbprint would release the licence to the phone’s display.

Oliver Morley, the DVLA’s CEO, said the organisation was making “good progress” with the prototype digital licence back in December 2016, while in March 2017 he confirmed the idea was “included in the government digital strategy.” When asked on social media whether there was a timeframe for the introduction of digital licences, Mr Morley said there was, but he wouldn’t be drawn on precisely when this would be.

Security will be a key priority for the digital licence, but given the development and success Apple and Android Pay have enjoyed, it’s thought some of the DVLA’s work has already been done for it. A service analyst and mobile device expert for Auto Express, said: “Security has taken a significant step forward to support digital payments on phones, so the framework is in place for other secure applications, such as a digital driving licence.”

Even with established and rigorous security paradigms in place, however, there will still be people who don’t like the idea of storing their driving licence on their phone, as well as those who don’t even own a smartphone capable of doing so. For those individuals, reassurance will be found in the fact that when it arrives, the digital driving licence will act as an “add-on.”

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