TruBlo Open Call #1: Evaluation timeline for proposals
Timeline of TruBlo evaluation process for Open Call #1
Evaluation process
19.03.2021: Deadline for proposals for the open call
30.03 – 19.4.2021: Each proposal is reviewed by two independent evaluators. The project took extra care in the selection process, e.g. by randomizing the assignments of the evaluators. Further the project ensured that evaluators will review a project from their own country, as an additional measure
20.04.2021: Consensus meeting. This means that the evaluation results for each proposal from two evaluators are compared. A final score is applied to each proposal.
21.04.2021 – 27.04.2021: The creators of the top graded proposals are contacted, in order to create a final ranking.
28.04.2021 – 30.04.2021: Final results of open call #1 are announced
The selected projects – 10 for open call #1 – will be contacted directly.
Today at 17:00 (on March 19, 2021) is the deadline for the TruBlo open call #1.
The consortium wants to express gratitude for:
Strong support by the other European NGI (Next generation internet) projects
The F6S platform for helping to manage the open call
Great participation by many smart people from all over Europe.
What will happen now? A group of independent reviewers will start to evaluate. A total of ten projects will receive funding. We will keep you updated with this newsletter and on our website.
Updates this week:
TRUSTABLE CONTENT
Tech Trends 2021
The Future Today Institute published its annual “Tech Trends Report”. For the 2021 edition the team analyzed over 500 technology and science trends. There is hardly a better, bias-free source to understand where technology is heading. The report is entirely free. To make it easier to digest this year’s edition it is published in 12 separate, smaller reports.
Direct links:
2021 Tech Trends Summary: A quick overview. Good pointers to decide whether to go deeper into any of the topical reports.
Opinion: Why linking to news articles is not the problem
Written by Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, co-editor of “Boing Boing” and an influential voice on the internet.
He thinks publishers fighting search engines over snippets and trying to get paid for this are missing the larger point. The big pot of gold is elsewhere.
As summarized by TechMeme:
Publishers should focus on how Google and Facebook steal via ad fraud and price-rigging rather than on the nonsense idea that snippets and referrals are crimes”.
What is the future of digital services, specifically for banking, money transfers, savings?
Firstly: “TechCrunch” about Kuda.
Kuda is a start-up, a “neo-bank” currently operating in Nigeria, with strongly growing number of users. In the future, the company aims to bring reliable mobile banking to people across the whole African continent.
Why it matters: The article is interesting, as it describes how Kuda operates and what it offers specifically. In short: Kuda is focused on making things easier for people when handling money. It is a reminder that in large parts of the access to banking is not a given. Note that the word “blockchain” is not even mentioned. LINK
In contrast, follow the link to another banking article, this time about the strategy of Goldman Sachs and how they try to connect to the world of crypto. There is a striking contrast here.LINK
If you find the time, read both texts and compare.
Contents, a marketing technology company from Milan, raises €5 million
As an indicator how automatic, AI-driven analysis advances.
Contents uses AI tech to analyse data, with a particular focus on trend discovery and creates multilingual content aimed at end-users as well as search engines. A SaaS platform (Software as a Service, sic), Contents provides content creation and distribution tools including the aforementioned trend analysis, along with automatic content generation without human intervention via natural language generation (NLG). To date, Contents counts 100,000 users around the globe, and processes over 3 billion data points per month, with 3 million e-commerce outlets monitored per hour. LINK
Opinion: Why and how artificial intelligence (AI) could be a strong weapon to protect privacy
Surprising, but interesting: Using AI to create a “silhouette” of a person to secure privacy.
“Instead of using someone’s personal data, companies can train AI models to anonymize the information and create what’s called differential privacy datasets,” said Francesco DiCerbo, research lead for AI privacy at SAP Security Research. “We can add random noise to the details about single individuals while preserving the overall statistical properties of the population. Think of it as seeing the silhouette of a person you can’t identify.”
This links to a great book to learn why about tokens are important.
“Tokens are for the Web3 what websites were for the WWW in the 1990s. While it has become easy to create a token with just a few lines of code, the understanding of how to apply these tokens is still vague.”
This work by Shermin Voshmgir has evolved over several years. She provides not simply a write-up of recent trends, but a much deeper view of what tokens are and how we can use them in the future.
“Token Economy: How the Web3 reinvents the internet” is available in print or as a free to use wiki on GitHub. LINK
Five skills that you need to become a blockchain developer
The initiative was started in 2019 by Adobe, The New York Times Company and Twitter.
By now, several additional companies have joined the group. The goal is to create an accepted standard of how to enable trustable content. The initiative identified detection, education and better ways for attribution as key goals towards better handling of content.
Quote from the website: “The Content Authenticity Initiative is building a system to provide provenance and history for digital media, giving creators a tool to claim authorship and empowering consumers to evaluate whether what they are seeing is trustworthy.” Link
Correction note: An earlier version of the article described Roy Azoulay as “founder and CEO”. This has been corrected, he is the “founder and executive director” of the company.
Our brain can process visual images in as little as 13 milliseconds. A glance is all it takes. Based on the intake, our brain starts to process the information. This outstanding ability is part of the problem: Our way of processing images means that manipulated visuals have a big impact. We see something, we notice it. It is easy to do damage, but difficult to correct the impression we got.
A need for better verifiable visual content
And this, particularly, is why there is such a strong need to have better tools to verify visual content. The rise of manipulated content has many reasons. Two are most important: Firstly, there are tools enabling almost undetectable visual manipulation. Many of these tools have been developed for photo and video artists, from advertising to film making in Hollywood. But these advanced technologies can be used to create misinformation, too.
Secondly, the standards for uploading visual content are still low. Everyone with a mobile phone can take a screenshot, upload it to a social media platform and claim whatever they like. False rumours combined with emotion can have similar effects as propaganda. Many content management platforms allow the uploading of photos or videos without demanding data as to the copyright of the material or other information. This missing info makes it even harder for fact-checkers to determine the correctness of the material.
A smart approach towards verifiable visuals
This is where Serelay, a startup from the UK, comes in: The company offers a way to enable the creation of verifiable photos that is effective and can be used right away. The approach does not affect the user’s privacy. All you have to do is to download the Serelay app. Located in Oxford, the company has created a full circle solution to enable verifiable information. The process works with both photos and videos.
Data points added to a photo at the moment of capture
But how does this work? Serelay has pioneered a process described as “trusted media capture”. The software records between 300 and 500 data points to an image at the moment when it is captured. These data points are then linked to the media item. This added information is compressed, to be less than 15kb per capture. This is important, given the number of pictures taken. With 15kb there is minimal mobile bandwidth needed. The battery of a mobile device is not considerably drained.
While the technology is complex, using it is very simple. As a user download and install the Serelay apps and then start taking photos with highly extended verification options.
And another, important aspect: While the additional data can be used to verify the photo, there is no information stored about the user. Serelay provides higher transparency for the media item, but without exposing the photo creator in unwanted ways.
Enabling verification in under 30 seconds
Taking photos is one side of the coin, being able to verify such material is the other: Serelay says that any photo or video captured can be queried for authenticity in under 30 seconds, by running it through software. The analysis can spot whether even one pixel or video frame has changed.
The Serelay software enables to add and later check multiple data points of a photo for verification. This includes 3D detection (to ensure the photo is not just a screenshot), the location and the time the image was taken. Source: Serelay.
Example: Where was the photo taken?
The Serelay software can determine, too, whether the photo was taken outside (“in a valid 3D event”). This can help to determine that the image is not just a screenshot taken on a laptop. The software further validates time and location, using real-time third-party datasets. An algorithm developed by Serelay will further check for anomalies. The verification software can be accessed through a user interface. For media organisations and others having to verify many such visuals, there is an option to automate the process through APIs. The Serelay documentation can be found here.
Interview with the Founder
We talked to Roy Azoulay, founder and executive director of Serelay
Roy Azoulay, Serelay
Q: What is your background?
Roy Azoulay: “I come from a physics and computer science background, I spent the start of my career as a software engineer and team leader. I then completed an MBA at the University of Oxford and following this ended up setting up and running a successful startup incubator for the university.”
Q: Can you describe what Serelay offers?
“Serelay believes that photos and videos should be captured in a way that is inherently verifiable. Serelay captured photos and videos can be queried for the authenticity of content, time and location, quickly conclusively and at scale.”
Q: How did you get to this point in development with Serelay? How did it evolve?
“We developed our initial concept with funding from Google through it’s Digital News Initiative Fund and with support from the European Space Agency. Then, after almost a year of testing and tightening so that the technology could comply with the toughest data protection regulations and the highest journalistic standards in the world, we deployed our solution with one of the world’s most reputable news media organisations, the newspaper The Guardian in the UK. This was a landmark collaboration. In our original design, Serelay compliant photos needed to be captured either by a Serelay camera app, or our SDK embedded in a third-party app with camera functionality. We have recently launched a new architecture called ‘React’ which enables the creation of Serelay-compliant photos, using a mobile device’s stock camera app.”
Q: How important is the use of blockchain?
“We do not use blockchain at the moment as we are happy to collaborate with partners in the space. While we can certainly see the value of recording origin metadata on an immutable ledger, a blockchain implementation also introduces complexity – for example, we currently give users the option to delete all of their photos’ metadata from our database in just a few clicks, in a different scenario – we may retroactively revoke the veracity credentials of a certain phone model or operating system version where a security vulnerability is uncovered. These matters require a carefully designed blockchain implementation, possibly with different implementation architectures for different use cases. We see ourselves as a technology partner for such implementations, it is unlikely we will do one in-house.”
Q: What are the next steps to establish this technology for wider use? Are you already working with media or other organisations?
“I mentioned our work with The Guardian. We will also unveil a collaboration with a global software giant in March 2021.”
Q: What is your take on the future of trustable content?
“I believe it is in the metadata. A common language to communicate content authenticity and the capability to immutably embed it in a media file can have far-reaching effects. The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) led by Adobe is doing just that.” (Editors note: See info about the CAI below.)
Q: What is the next step for Serelay?
“Our next step will be to add immutable origin metadata, compliant with the emerging CAI standard, to our existing product line.”
What are the options to use Serelay?
“Serelay offers two free apps which add verification data to photos taken with mobile phones, for Android and Apple phones. They differ in terms of integration.”
Thank You for the interview.
Download options:
Serelay Idem enables capturing verifiable photos and videos, through Serelay’s own camera app. To install the app there is no registration needed, to ensure that the privacy of the user is kept. For verification, the app will rely on nearby Wifi signals and other data points. Download: https://www.serelay.com/our-products/idem/
Serelay React does the same, but can directly use the stock camera of the device. Users install the app once and every photo/video they snap on their stock camera is ‘synched’ by React for content, time and location verifiability. How it works is described on the Download page.
Available SDKs enable a further extension of the functionalities to third party apps. Using the Idem SDK companies can add in-app Trusted Media Capture™. The React SDK enables even deeper integration to any photo or video taken with the camera on the device, so there is no need for the user to firstly open the Serelay photo app.
Info: What is the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI)?
The initiative was started in 2019 by Adobe, The New York Times Company and Twitter.
By now, several additional companies have joined the group. The goal is to create an accepted standard of how to enable trustable content. The initiative identified detection, education and better ways for attribution as key goals towards better handling of content.
Quote from the website: “The Content Authenticity Initiative is building a system to provide provenance and history for digital media, giving creators a tool to claim authorship and empowering consumers to evaluate whether what they are seeing is trustworthy.” Link
Correction note: An earlier version of the article described Roy Azoulay as “founder and CEO”. This has been corrected, he is the “founder and executive director” of the company.
The TruBlo webinar on 26 February at 10:00 CET provides information about the TruBlo Open Call No. 1 with presentations from TruBlo partners.
Questions we cover:
What is the scope, who can apply?
How to apply?
How will partner Alastria provide technical support with blockchain infrastructure?
How will partner ATC provide business support?
There is an opportunity for interested applicants to put their questions to the TruBlo team in a Q&A session following the presentations.
What is your idea or concept for the next-generation technology for distributed trust? If this is your area of work, why not consider an application? The TruBlo project is calling for researchers, innovators and developers from academia, startups, high tech companies or natural person(s).
Further details about TruBlo and Open Call #1 are provided here:
Up to €175.000 for ideas applicable to trustable content on future blockchains. Apply here
Updates this week:
Trust and Content
Bitcoin Bubble
There is a speculation bubble forming, based on the rise of the Bitcoin price. Stories of lucky people who got in early now pull in others. Everyone wants a piece of the cake. This is how bubbles evolve and why they result in damage when they burst.
Why so negative? Because what is going on is too much, too fast. Digital money and trustable finance platforms have yet to pass a real stress test. There is much refinement needed and ultimately some form of regulation. But a boom-and-bust cycle will likely just ignore such warnings and concerns.
Misleading signals are part of the problem. Tesla made headlines because the company invested $1,5 billion in Bitcoin.
Many see this as the moment cryptocurrencies are validated as the new normal. This is not the case, instead it is just a perception caused by an overrepresentation of such events in the news. Everyone in the current market is a speculator.
Different from small investors who might even borrow money to get into crypto, Tesla uses funds which it does not immediately need. In a recent annual report Tesla said the Bitcoin transaction would help to “diversify and maximize returns on our cash that is not required to maintain adequate operating liquidity”. LINK
The European Central Bank (ECB) has issued stern warnings that investors can “lose all their money” when investing in cryptocurrencies. See, for example, this ECB publication: “The future of money – innovating while retaining trust”. LINK
New industry alliance: Digital Trust and Safety Partnership
Leading technology companies established a new industry framework to handle harmful content and conduct online. It is called the “Digital Trust and Safety Partnership”.
The companies who have joined are Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter, Discord, Pinterest, Shopify and Vimeo. But so far the goal is simply to develop guidelines, not a rigid set of rules to fight the problem. Needs work. LINK
Wordproof: Timestamping content to verify digital articles
Wordproof from Amsterdam offers a way to “timestamp” an online article. This information is stored in a blockchain. This enables to determine who published something and when. Potentially search engines will consider such information, so that original and unique content can be displayed with preference. Interesting. LINK
Why changes to the “Identifier for Advertisers” are a big deal
Apple is in dispute with the mobile advertising industry, caused by intended changes to the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Apple wants to ensure that iPhone users can keep their data private, this is why the company has announced more restrictive handling. For platforms which depend on advertising this likely causes a disruption. Facebook is strongly opposed to the changes. This is another evolving debate about the future internet. Because of multiple complaints the introduction of the changes was postponed to early 2021. LINK
BLOCKCHAIN
Promising European blockchain start-ups
A good article here, via EU startups. The list includes companies like Settlemint (Belgium), Odem (Switzerland) and DappRadar (Lithuania). The challenge is that many of these companies started during the hype over blockchain in 2018. There is a need for updated information on these efforts. In the coming weeks, TruBlo aims to reach out for updates. LINK
eWallet loyalty
We recommend, for inspiration towards new ideas: “The Future 100”, a well-researched trend report from WundermanThompson, an advertising agency. The study of hundred trends is interesting as it covers so many areas, from trends in interior design to innovative tech platforms.
One of the hundred predictions is the rise of eWallets. It makes sense to be able to pay with a device we all have in our pockets, the mobile phone. One early finding related to eWallets is that users are quite loyal to the application they initially selected – similar to sticking with a bank for a long time.LINK
What are NFTs (Non-fungible tokens)?
NFT is the acronym for “non-fungible tokens”. If you heard about this, but could not really fathom what “fungible” means, you are not alone.
So what are NFTs? Let’s start with the big difference: If you get one Bitcoin it does not matter which one it is, all coins are the same. This is what the economic term “fungible” describes. Gold is fungible, too: If you get one gold coin it is irrelevant which one you get.
NFTs are non-fungible. They are unique tokens and can be used for just one, specific digital item. This can range from collectables to digital art to a piece of land in a digital world.
For example: Imagine you are playing a digital game where items can be collected and traded. You might have a helmet, a sword and a pet dragon. Each of these three items would then have their unique NFT. They would establish ownership (you can proof, you are the owner). They are indivisible, one can not sell half of the sword you have, only the full item.
NFTs can not be destroyed, the coded connection is always valid. They are in possession of the owner. In other words, NFTs enable the market to trade digital goods. While the token is unique, the price is not. Based on supply and demand the price of an item represented through NFTs may rise or fall. When pet dragons are in short supply next time, be ready. LINK
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