Sep 29, 2020
We have just launched this year’s Atos IT Challenge, our worldwide competition for computer science and technical engineering students. We are seeking digital solutions that will support decarbonization initiatives and help companies and society as a whole to tackle climate change.
Sep 26, 2019
The Atos IT Challenge is our Computer Science and technical engineering competition. Now in its ninth year, over 640 teams and around 2,000 students worldwide have participated in it. We have had up to 100 different universities entering teams in any one year – it’s a big event!
Mar 9, 2018
Conversational chatbots are becoming a familiar part of our everyday lives. More and more industries are deploying them – including the retail and banking sectors. We explore what chatbots are, why brands are deploying them, and what the future holds.
Feb 8, 2018
Getting a chatbot to interact with end-users is harder than it looks.
Today’s customers are comfortable using text messaging apps and voicebots to talk to brands. In China, chatbots on WeChat already let users pay invoices, order taxis or even reserve karaoke stations. Every day, millions of people now say hello, goodbye and even thank you to what are essentially machines.
For chatbots to be visible for this new class of user, it is important to combine a range of new technologies so that brands can maintain a high-quality conversation with their users, with the right answers for the right questions and the right context.
Jan 31, 2018
It is now more than 10 years since at Worldline we first began working on solutions that would later become known as chatbots. Back then, we were approached by a number of brands to help them provide faster responses to their customers’ queries on the Internet or by email. They knew that 48 hours was not good enough for a response time, so we worked on a new technological solution to serve their customers better. At that stage it was not even called a chatbot.
Nov 27, 2017
We can safely say that we are in or at least entering the era of the chatbot. The big players, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others, are all busy developing and improving this innovative user experience technology. Messaging applications are now more widely used than social networks, which is good news for the chatbot as they are such messaging applications!
Chatbots are coming!
Nov 16, 2017
AI (Artificial Intelligence) has been in the general subconscious for eons; Animal Intelligence with Animal God or Geological Intelligence, with rocks or places that have super powers, etc.
More recently, with the creation of Science-Fiction and anticipation, AI has been at the core of humanity’s most vivid dreams/fantasies and fears as a matter of fact.
Technologically speaking, it has been in the works for quite a while too. Neural networks and AI have started to become real sciences (not fictions) with the dawn of IT, but were quickly limited by processing power. It went into “sleep mode” until computers recently became fast enough to make a big step-up in AI. Moore’s law was the fuel of AI.
And also thanks to the amount of available data that came with it.
So it was the rebirth of AI.
May 4, 2017
Do you feel that you’re running the gamut of human emotions as you seek to understand, appreciate and do more with the abundance of technology now at your fingertips? The plethora of emotional responses such as concern, fear, anger or even joy now seems to be intrinsically linked to how we feel, or are willing to embrace the opportunities that technology brings.
As humans we generally associate change with fear. We have a long history of this in relation to technology. This sense of fear has strongly materialised in how we have depicted the vision of the future through the prism of science fiction. Since the inception of SCI-FI on the silver screen we’ve nursed an in-built dread of robots becoming smarter than us and / or taking over the world. This fear has manifested itself in the shape of ‘Skynet’ (The Terminator), HAL (2001: A Space Odyssey), The Borg Collective (Star Trek), The Fighting Machine (War of the Worlds) and even the iconic Agent Smith Program in The Matrix trilogy when the role of human beings gets diminished to mere batteries and the programs are in total control!
Oct 26, 2016
Despite its shadowy origins, Blockchain has quickly emerged as one of the great hopes of financial services technology and looks set to solve a number of problems that have continued to plague the industry in the digital-first age.
Perhaps most importantly, Blockchain offers a viable solution to the ‘double spend problem’. A common challenge to many digital currencies, it occurs due to the ease at which digitalized data can be duplicated, allowing a single token to be spent more than once. The problem has implications far beyond currency: any digital asset – from ownership deeds to patents or distribution rights – are left at risk. In answer to this, Blockchain uses a scheme called ‘proof-of work’ – essentially adding, to all blocks of transactions, a processing signature generated by a decentralized group of participants. And as Blockchain is a decentralised system, it doesn’t rely on any trusted third parties to monitor or process the transaction – meaning it can be fully independent. Remaining independent is an important factor, ensuring that transactions can be made easily (24 hours a day, any day of the year, to any location), that there are no hidden fees, and that all data records can be accessed and checked by anyone and everyone, even if the identity of the transactees and the transaction details are cyphered.
Blockchain also brings a number of other important advantages in verifying digital asset transactions. All transactions are time stamped to make clear who owns a digital asset at any time. Using a multi-signature process – in which more than the sender and the receiver sign-off or permission is required for a transaction to go through – more complex transactions are possible. Additionally, as an open source technology, it is accessible to anyone and any business.
Oct 24, 2016
In the post-Snowden era of truth, transparency and openness, you could be forgiven for believing that the age of internet mysteries is over. What you may not know is that Blockchain, one of the most exciting digital technologies to emerge in the last decade, has its origins shrouded in a mystery that would rival a Dan Brown thriller.
Back in October 2008 Satoshi Nakamoto first appeared on an encryption news group announcing to the world that he had developed a new electronic cash system that was “fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party”. Known as bitcoin, the open source software quickly rose to prominence and is now used worldwide – today there are over 16 million bitcoins circulating, each with a value that fluctuates somewhere between $450 and $750.
And while bitcoins may be globally known, the identity of Satosho Nakamoto appears to be one of the world’s best kept secrets. Despite much detective work and finger pointing, no one has ever managed to work out the real identity – or identities, as one theory suggests – of the elusive Nakamoto.
Aug 25, 2016
The Tech trends will help you understand the possibilities that lie ahead. Learn more about the new and emerging technologies that form the basis for tomorrow’s leading edge solutions. Doing so will help you come up with novel ideas that match the opportunities and threats currently surfacing.
Check out Look Out Industry Trends + Tech trends radar: atos.net/content/mini-sites/look-out-2020/
Aug 25, 2016
The banking sector is evolving at unprecedented speed. There are a number of different factors at play. Firstly, the rapid development of new technologies such as Cloud Computing, the Internet of Things, and Big Data, all factors which are pushing us into a hyper-connected world, moving at real-time speed.
Secondly, customer behaviours are also changing. We now expect a 24/7 service, being able to engage and interact with our financial service providers whenever and from wherever we want.
Finally, as the frontiers of traditional financial services blur with the latest digital services, new competitors are emerging. Every player that has access to the customer globally has the potential power to take on the established banks. Apple, Google, as well as many FinTech start-ups and even some telecom organizations, have the ambition to disrupt the existing banking landscape. Indeed, in the US alone, around 18 per cent of the population now use mobile payments regularly – suggesting that telecom organisations could soon become a force to be reckoned with in the FS industry.
Apple and Google are leading the list of the biggest companies by market capitalization. As recently as the 29th February Apple’s market cap stood at $536bn while Google’s had hit $494bn. The first financial institute does not appear until on that list until 10th, where Wells Fargo leads the industry with a $239bn cap. Next is JP Morgan Chase at 15th, a market cap of $207bn. Both are less half the size of the leading companies.
Let’s be clear: this is just the beginning. Early stage technologies, such as crypto-currencies, Blockchainand new business models like peer-to-peer lending are also threatening to disrupt existing practices. Ably demonstrating the shift in priority – we see the announcement that Anshu Jain, the former Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank, has now joined SoFi, a Silicon Valley FinTech founded in 2011 and specializing in online lending.
New regulations further increase the pressure on the sector, threatening local players that may not have the means to handle complex international regulations.
All this promises to profoundly change the finance landscape in the years to come.
Aug 24, 2016
I took a trip to one of London’s major retail outlets, there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about my trip but an unplanned excursion to the men’s accessory section sparked a glaring realization.
I had intended the purpose of my trip to Oxford Street to be the purchase of a new shirt; a poorly fastened coffee cup lid had led to the unexpected retirement of a previous favorite. However, I soon found myself wandering away from the bountiful shirt section and towards the glittering lure of the nearby collection of tie-clips, cufflinks, watches and the like. It was here where I came across a relic from a by-gone era – a money-clip.
It was this discovery that led to the realization that inspired this blog post – not only is cash becoming somewhat redundant, it is harming our economy. Of course, finding this unashamedly audacious accessory didn’t immediately spark this realisation, but it did spark a train of thought, one that I will retrace in this post.
My first reaction was to attempt to remember the last time I used cash, or at least enough to warrant a sterling silver money clip. I come from quite a small town in the West Midlands where the necessity for cash has been, until recently, absolute. That experience is in direct contrast to my current life in London, a bustling hub of early adopters, where thanks to; the work of a few disruptive Start-Ups, Apple, Google and the payment Networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex), I can comfortably go about my day to day life with just an untouched, emergency ‘tenner’ in my wallet. Debit/Credit cards, Oyster Cards, Contactless Payments, Peer to Peer payments, Crypto Currencies and Digital wallets have all contributed to the ‘cash-free’ life I live in London. I did however sometimes find myself waiting, very British-ly, in a queue for a cash machine when I knew a taxi journey would be unavoidable, an activity that , thanks to the services of ‘Uber’ and ‘Hailo’, is becoming far less frequent.
Aug 16, 2016
Promising to change the way European businesses secure their data, the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) will represent an important step in placing the power back in the hands of consumers. Providing a harmonized Data Protection framework across Europe, it will make it easier for organisations to understand and meet their obligations in respect of storing, managing and using personal information. GDPR aims to reflect a consumers’ right to privacy, to better mirror globalisation and the latest technology trends and impose sanctions where necessary to achieve compliance.
And with organisations now facing a seemingly never-ending threat of cyber-attacks – the Carphone Warehouse being the most recent victim, losing some 2.4m customer records – putting in place measures to ensure the safety of customer data has never been more crucial.
But will it work?
Aug 10, 2016
In Varietate Concordia: translated as Unity in Diversity, the official motto of the European Union, encapsulates the hopes that Europeans can be united in working together for peace and prosperity. This sentiment is at the heart of all developments – from the abolishment of passport controls within the Schengen Area through to its recent plans for a Digital Single Market.
And it is once again present in the European Commission’s attempts to unify data protection within the EU through the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – a single law, applicable to all 28 member states, which aims to build trust within the region and bring data protection up to date in light of new technological developments such as cloud, social and mobile.
In the past, European countries have adopted different approaches and interpretations to data protection making it difficult for non-EU organisations to demonstrate compliance easily – often leading to confusion among citizens. A new single harmonized Data Protection Regulation will go a long way to resolve these issues, making it easier for non-EU companies to operate in a single European market and providing increased confidence for its citizens.
There is a constant tension between the ability to do increasing amounts of business online and the right to privacy, with consumer data being properly safeguarded. GDPR attempts to define where that balance should be, identifying a number of rights for citizens and a number of responsibilities that organisations must adhere to.
Jun 15, 2016
One of the biggest challenge of the digital world is to establish trust. With the massive collection and processing of personal data comes a responsibility: to enforce privacy and data protection.