The question, “How good or bad consequences the unlimited rise of artificial intelligence will create for humanity” is the trend as ChatGPT is hitting everywhere like a storm. After the recent predictions presented by Goldman Sachs, now a consultancy group directed the same question to ChatGPT.
North America-based outplacement firm (could be described as career consultancy) Challenger, Gray & Christmas asked ChatGPT, created by private AI research laboratory OpenAI, “How many people could it leave unemployed?” The answer to the chatbot for the North American region appeared as 4.8 million. The amount provided by the chatbot is not so problematic about how much employment could chatbot and LLM (large language models) cause (maybe it lied?). However, the amount stands balanced when compared to the global unemployment prediction of Goldman Sachs.
The LLM models created by OpenAI, DALL-E and DALL-E 2 can generate images from natural language descriptions. First released in January 2021, DALL-E uses a version of the language prediction model GPT-3 to generate images through deep learning, following the language input. The tech could be integrated into other systems via API (application programming interface) and open to the public, like ChatGPT.
The recent report of Goldman Sachs indicated that the global employment market could shrink by 18%. Before looking at the industries expected to have the biggest impact, let’s check some of the answers ChatGPT provided. According to the chatbot, it can flip over the below jobs quicker than any other:
Customer service representatives,
Technical writers,
Translators and interpreters,
Copywriters,
Data entry clerks.
The areas ChatGPT believes it could be most successful are:
Data science,
Machine learning,
Computer science,
Mathematics and statistics,
Robotics and automation,
Business.
Which industries “have to go through change?”
In terms of how AI-based automation technologies will disrupt the global employment market, the Goldman Sachs report provided the below data:
25% of the global employment market could be automated,
46% of administrative jobs,
44% of the legal jobs,
6% of construction,
4% of repairs and 1% of maintenance industries.
The report says that 18% of the global workforce could be eliminated by automation tech. Additionally, in areas and countries heavily industrialised like the US, Japan, Britain and Hong Kong, the loss of workforce may go up o %28.
On the other hand, the emergence of innovative occupations like “prompt engineering” is a positive sign, including good pay. Yet, names including Steve Wozniak, Rachel Bronson and Elon Musk did not hesitate to write a letter about the necessity of ending AI experiments, which may be a vital warning sign.
The most trending example of “generative AI”, the ChatGPT, may become a nightmare for the global employment market, says the US-based multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs.
There’s no need to mention the significant difference the artificial intelligence (AI) based software and hardware offer, especially in heavy industry, compared to human workers. Eventually, while the rise of AI would offer great benefits for businesses in terms of productivity and revenue, it is causing great worry for the employment market and pushing the creation of new occupations.
As the ChatGPT storm is going all around us these days, many recent publications and research are discussing whether the rise of AI is an opportunity or a threat. According to World Economic Forum (WEF), ChatGPT is only the beginning of life-shaping technologies that we will see in future. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs warns against an employment crisis because of the disruptor technology, which can turn a description into an image or write a thesis with unique sentences.
Generative AI can write texts or draw images according to the information input of a user. ChatGPT, the trending topic of the day, was released by a US-based private AI research lab in November 2022. The highly successful chatbot managed to draw all the attention recently while inspiring many tech companies to build their own AI systems:
Microsoft Bing search engine can answer complicated questions through the ChatGPT upgrade,
Privacy-based search engine DuckDuckGo now uses ChatGPT-assisted ‘DuckAssist’ to answer complicated questions in complete sentences.
Slack, used for businesses for internal communication and organisation purposes, is planning to add ChatGPT to its office chat programme soon.
Millions to lose their jobs?
By assessing the potential capabilities ChatGPT promises for the future, Goldman Sachs analysed the global employment market, mainly the US and Europe, to get an estimate. The result says that the disruptive chatbot may eliminate 300 million full-time jobs.
The report, written by Joseph Briggs and Devesh Kodnani, underlines that two-thirds of all occupations are partially exposed to AI automation and that AI could handle a quarter of the total workload.
Recent research by Goldman Sachs and other institutions indicates that innovative AI tools threaten white-collar employees. According to another article published by Princeton, Pennsylvania, and New York universities, the jobs most affected by generative AI are legal services, while deploying this tech would boost business performance.
But why? One of the writers of this study, Manav Raj from Pennsylvania State University, told Business Insider that the legal services sector includes many small groups of occupations which are directly exposed to generative AI. On the other hand, does an intelligent chatbot have the potential to topple the global employment market? More than this question, we must emphasise the opportunities that would come with it. The cost of businesses would shrink significantly by deploying generative AI while leading to the creation of many new jobs, says Goldman Sachs. One of the newly emerged occupations is “prompt engineering”, representing people who test the capabilities of chatbots.
Lastly, researchers say the adaption of ChatGPT and similar innovative tech could increase the global GDP by around 7%.
After being released almost a year ago, I finally put my hands on a GoPro Black HERO 10 and did some little experiments in Amsterdam on an August evening. This article is not meant to be a product review, but I would like to share my experiences and some advice on owning this camera.
First, I want to share a little accident I had as an online shopper. I shopped from CoolBlue before, and I ordered the products online from my NL account. For the GoPro, I used the CoolBlue mobile application and didn’t realize it was only for Belgium. So, even though I use one account to access CoolBlue NL and BE, making the order from the BE system automatically changed the address to Belgium instead of the Netherlands. I realized this when I checked the whereabouts of the cargo a day later, appalled when I saw the target destination as “Germany.” The cargo was loaded to BPost, instead of PostNL. Eventually, I contacted customer service through email and received great feedback on the cargo status and how it will be returned, and I got a refund. Just three days later (on Friday), I had a refund.
Later, I decided to get the camera and a few accessories from the CoolBlue store in Amsterdam. In two days, I had all the equipment I desired. One important detail I need to mention here is while the camera is great, there’s a battery charging problem. For the first two days, I tried to charge the camera with its original charging, but I couldn’t exceed 62%. A quick Google search showed that this is a common problem, and the best solution is the dual battery charger for GoPro HERO 10 & 9. This hardware was only left in The Hauge, so I didn’t mind taking the train and grabbing the battery charger before it was out of stock. In general, I was satisfied that I made a good investment, only to find out that the price got 100 euros lower for the camera on CoolBlue a week later!
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Anyways, comparing the GoPro HERO 10 Black with HERO 4, which is the last version I used several years ago, it is needless to say that there’s a fundamental difference between the two cameras (of course, you wouldn’t feel it so much if you had newer versions of GoPro). The interface is user-friendly; going through the settings and back-forth between the saved visuals, main screen, and camera modes is super practical. You experience no lagging or freeze on the screen while going back and forth and making camera settings; additionally, the screen instantly adjusts itself as the camera rotates (be careful before starting recording, a little manoeuvre could change the position to linear or horizontal).
The videos below are taken in a 2.7K, 60 fps, Super View (16 mm) setting. For videos, there are five modes, including Super View, and three for photos. None of the videos or pictures that appear in this article is edited.
An August evening in Amsterdam
One of the favourite things for me about Amsterdam is the city is almost entirely flat, making it probably the best city on earth for joggers and cyclists. The few slopes you encounter are at a maximum of 30 degrees, providing a constant smooth ride or walk throughout the city. Eventually, grabbing your camera to do a few small experiments is easy and fun.
I didn’t walk to the city centre but looked around where I was close. And here are visuals taken from seven spots:
Video settings: 2.7k, 60 fps, Super view (16mm) Photo setting: Wide (16-34mm).
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The brightness and image quality are apparent between the video and photos. You don’t feel like taking too many photos when you have this camera in your hands.
I want to add to the last comments regarding video shooting and a related accessory. If you want the battery to last a few hours, ensure you do the video resolution settings. If you directly start recording at 4K (you can go up to 5K), you may have around an hour. It would help if you had an extra battery or set your resolution at 2.7K or 1080p (Full HD) before recording. Additionally, if you want good sound quality and plan to use your GoPro for interviews, getting the Media Mod would improve your video quality.
GoPro HERO 10 Black is a highly satisfactory camera with good image quality and a user-friendly interface. I’m quite sure you will especially like the time-lapse mode.
Hobby gardens, an increasingly growing trend in the Netherlands, provide ample produce to the owners who diligently take care of their gardens.
Şerif Alan, who came to the Netherlands 29 years ago, got interested in the hobby gardens. Alan started his hobby garden 20 years ago in Houten, Utrecht. His garden received two prizes consecutively in 2015 and 2016 as the best garden in the Netherlands.
Alan grows several vegetables and fruits in his garden, from potato to cabbage and from banana to strawberry. Alan says he grows most of the produce in four months and harvests around 50 kg of vegetables.
I visited the garden at the centre of the greenhouse heaven in Houten and listened to Alan’s story.
The new aircraft carrier, dubbed Fujian (the region of China facing Taiwan across the ocean), is the first ever China designed and built itself, countering the most advanced of its counterparts in technology and size. Displacing around 100,000 tons and over 300 hundred metres in length, Fujian is set to change the balance on the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Is there any sleepwalker left who still believes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine aims to bring back the Soviet Union and fight with the Neo-Nazis in Europe? While everything seems to be going according to Vladimir Putin’s plan on the Ukrainian front, the developments in the APAC region appear to be scratching the surface of a slowly growing regional energy and rare mineral conflicts.
Most of us may dream about a future where the world will be 100% green energy powered; food, water and health problems are mostly resolved, and space exploration is advanced enough to carry people into other worlds. While it sounds quite good, the increasing demand for energy and rising political tensions over critical sources are changing the trajectory of a livable future.
The unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine by Russia is not only building a solid wall between Moscow and the Western Powers but also clearly shows that the international laws intended to keep a global order are not working. In addition, it is becoming clear that Putin calculated the invasion much better than anyone thought, gradually expanding the occupied territory in Ukraine, unbalancing the food supplies in the region, capturing vital energy lines and increasing its dominance in the Black Sea.
According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, Russia’s revenue from oil, gas and coal in the first 100 days of the invasion reached a record high of €93 billion, as the New York Times reported. Additionally, Russia’s revenue from fossil fuel exports also exceeds its war spending in Ukraine, according to the International Energy Association (IEA).
Clearly, the embargos against Moscow are not working and are far from crippling its war efforts in Ukraine. But the picture gets worse.
The South China Sea is heating up
On the other side of the world, in conjunction with several countries, the South China Sea is causing tensions over the huge amounts of resources it embodies. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the South China Sea has 11 billion barrels of untapped oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, claimed by not only China but Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Besides oil and gas, the South China Sea houses several rare earth minerals, including titaniferous magnetite, zircon, monazite, tin, gold, and chromite[1]. The disputes since the 1970s haven’t found a diplomatic resolution, while the global police role of the US is dwindling as China is powering up its naval and air force.
The crack in the international system caused by Russia is not the only reason China hastened its militarization. On the contrary, China has made considerable leaps in military sophistication in the last decade, and ironically, much of it came from information obtained through cyber attacks. This grave problem for the US first surfaced in 2013, when Chinese hackers were accused of stealing more than two dozen US weapon systems. In 2019, then-defence Secretary Mark Esper said that China is committing the “greatest intellectual property theft in human history,” while retired Navy Admiral William McRaven warned that China’s increasing military capacity should be quite worrisome for the US, according to the Business Insider.
One important reason for China’s ambitions over the South China Sea is the rivalry with Japan, which will surely be one of the few future superpowers thanks to its technological might and immense rare mineral sources. The latter came as a nasty shock to China in 2018, when Japan discovered 16 billion tonnes of rare minerals off the coast of Minamitori Island, including yttrium, dysprosium, europium and terbium, all of which would be enough for the entire planet, at least 400 years. The discovery infinitely solved Japan’s need for rare earth needs, adding to the vast amounts of rare minerals found on Minami-Torishima island in 2011. Yasuhiro Kato of the University of Tokyo said, “Just one square kilometre of the deposits would provide one-fifth of the current global consumption” after the discovery.
The crucial detail is that Japan is expected to reach the deep sea excavation technology in 30 to 50 years to access the rare earth minerals, but China is far behind in this area and first have to become dominant in the disputed waters. The tension between the two countries rose over a group of islands in 2014, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan.
This means China’s throne in the global rare earth mineral market with 60.6% by 2021 is threatened by countries around the South China Sea and Japan. The US has second place in the worldwide output of rare earth minerals with 15.5%, according to Statista.
China’s new military wonder
Fujian is a Type 003 carrier with the most advanced aircraft launch technology, the electromagnetic catapult system. Fujian was far ahead of its predecessors, the first being a repurposed Soviet ship and the second built on a Soviet design. With the rapid development in naval military technology, China’s People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is now in the process of developing a fourth aircraft carrier, according to TRT World, “capable of nuclear propulsion and fielding advanced fighters and stealth jets, surveillance and control craft, anti-submarine helicopters and drones.”
NPR reports that the US Defence Ministry expressed its concern over China’s aircraft carrier development to the Congress in 2021, which in time “will enable China to operate beyond East Asia, reaching sustained ability to operate at increasingly longer ranges.”
To take note, PLAN has the largest naval force in numbers, with a total of 335 ships, while the US expects this number to go up to 460 by 2030. These numbers are not the only problem for Washington. Forbes says the US is moving too slow in the aircraft carrier technology market as the leader, losing its competency, and the strategy of providing wider access to advanced carrier technology is wrong.
The US is not so intimidating for China anymore to calm the waters in the South China Sea by sending its navy there. The increasing number of invasions of Taiwan’s air space by the Chinese air force is underlining that. On the other hand, the alliance of the US with the UK and Australia also caused some problems. Australia cancelled the $65 billion bid to buy 12 French submarines in 2021, enraging Paris, while the new government is trying to patch the damage with minor deals.
In his speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Chinese Liberation Army general Wei Fenghe pointed to the Biden Administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy and said it leads to “conflict and confrontation.” Demanding that the US stops interfering with China’s internal affairs, Fenghe added, “If you want confrontation, we will fight to the end.”
Fenghe also mentioned Taiwan and said China would fight any attempts by Taiwan to declare independence.
Fenghe may be right in his criticism of the Biden Administration’s strategy, as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) includes 13 countries while excluding China, according to CNBC.
Furthermore, in his statement to Greta Van Susteren of Newsmax TV, analyst Gordon Chang also said Taiwan would fight China in case of war, as around 85% of the island country’s population see themselves as Taiwanese. Further remarks of him are a good summary of the whole picture:
China wouldn’t invade Taiwan in normal times, but we are not living in normal times, he says. Two dangerous phenomena are occurring. First, Russia is defying the international system and second and more importantly, China is not deterred by the Biden administration. The Biden administration made no clear decision in defending Taiwan, and failure in the policy-making gave China courage.
What makes it worse for President Joe Biden is that the defence treaty between the US and Manila could also push the US into a conflict between China-Philippines over the riches of the South China Sea, says CFR.
When is China expected to strike?
The US intelligence has provided different predictions so far, but the Defence Minister of Taiwan, Chiu Kuo-cheng, said China will be ready for a full-scale invasion by 2025. Talking to China Times, Chiu believes China will wait for the right time to bring the cost and attrition to the lowest level, going over several considerations first.
It wouldn’t be hard to say that those considerations are already taking place as a real invasion is happening in Ukraine as Russia has changed several tactics and tried several new weapon systems so far.
On the other hand, the US Strategic Command thinks China will have the military capability to annex Taiwan in 2027. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines predicts a total invasion in 2030.
Looking at all these developments, we need to ask if we are moving towards a greener and more livable future or an unpleasant one?
[1] Allen Clark & Chang Li (1993) Marine mineral resources of the South China sea, Marine Georesources & Geotechnology, 11:1, 101-126, DOI: 10.1080/10641199309379907
My relationship with YouTube changed remarkably 9 months ago when I bought a phablet phone to enjoy videos independent of the PC. Wasting no time, I dived into the videos about two time periods I was interested in the most: The Napoleonic era and the American Civil War.
Each historic video I watched, the more battle animation videos I came up to (almost all from medieval times). I showed particularly high interest in those videos, as I believe they’re the utmost level of war history animation videos. Almost in every land battle video, we see squares, rectangles or mostly circles scattered along a very well drawn battlefield, decorated with various icons representing their unit. When they charge each other, it is no more than cracks appearing on the units, rising dust all around the shapes or mostly, the smoke of gunpowder.
No matter how perfectly these videos are produced, the viewers always wonder in one, crucial detail: The actual battle scenes. Naturally, the action at the core of the battle decided the fate of nations. From the shield wall engagement in the Battle of Hasting to the heavy fighting on the walls of Constantinople, every history lover depicts the actual scene in their minds when they listen to the narrators, trying to give the best detail they can, mostly on still 3D images.
Now, things are changing fast. I realized this when I came up with one of the latest videos of Epic History, the Battle of Salamis. The video was definitely the best ever seen on similar channels so far. Besides the storyline, I took notice of the long, detailed animations of the video, which are hard to come by. In the end, I heard a name I discovered months ago and was stunned. The animations in the video were prepared by Nedim Can İncebay.
I’m not going to write about Nedim Can too long, but quickly dive into the many questions I asked him. All I can say at this point, he is a rare talent who came out of Turkey and with similar producers is about to open a new page in battle history documentaries.
Can you tell us about the process which has driven you to start making video animations and opening a channel on YouTube?
When Rome Total War 2 was released in 2014, the graphics and the gameplay really impressed me but I could only watch due to the lack of my system. When finally I was able to buy myself a system in 2017, I continued sharing screenshots on a Turkish Total War Facebook group. I had a slight knowledge of game modding from the times I created my own maps and changed game files in several games including The Battle for Middle Earth and Mount&Blade, and continued doing this on Total War. Eventually, I came to own a large archive of screenshots and said “Why I’m not sharing these as video clips?” Thus, I opened up my channel and started uploading cinematic videos. If they asked me then, of course, I wouldn’t say those were cinematic clips, many have changed since then. Actually, I didn’t have a concern about gathering views. I had knowledge of cinema and cinematography so I only wanted to add the simplified scenes on YouTube in the way I stylized, as to say “beautiful.” I check my channel rarely so I didn’t realize that my two videos grabbed around 15.000 views in 3-4 months. I was studying English Teaching at university so I was uploading my videos in English. This increased the comments I received and I started to see more comments on new video demands. Seeing these requests, I started thinking about producing more videos. This is simply how I got into this. I froze my education for a year and focused on my videos, which made things much better. ☺
How did you reach the skill level you have today in using video game engines?
I’m someone who loves digging into things but I don’t like watching tutorial videos for hours. That has driven me to learn how to change game files and editing on video editing software all by myself and took some time eventually. Also, my English level helped to get assistance from foreign sources. I worked on game files for weeks, even months to learn how to stabilize the camera and get the AI under control. Due to my lack of professional education, I am making an eyeball estimation on scene details and colours. The first screenshots and video clip I made doesn’t appear tempting to me but I realize progress in each of my work. This improvement sometimes shows itself in the factuality of the game animations and the camera angles. I want to study this field in future if I get the opportunity.
Can you tell us the process you choose the topics, preparing the storyline and even making the subtitles?
Actually, my videos didn’t even have a clear topic in the beginning. Thanks to my great interest in history, I was thinking, “Here are Seljıks and here are the Crusaders, I shall make a video of their battle.” The storylines were very simple and there were no subtitles. I don’t remember exactly when, but after some time I realized I wanted to make historical videos. This decision brings lots of challenges: The accuracy of the story, the special characters involved in that battle like the commander and the general, the date and location of the battle and the cinematic opportunities the battle would offer me while producing it. To give an example of my early works, due to not being able to construct it myself, I was choosing the most suitable battlefield in the game for the Battle of Manzikert. I was only adding the personality variants of historical characters like Alparslan and Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. In time, I learned to draw my own maps. I also started to add not only the main characters but also second, third-grade personalities’ models in the animation. These improvements were followed by subtitles and English dubs. In each video I made, I added something new and reached the point I’m now.
What resources do you use to verify the accuracy of battles from the Roman era to the Ottomans?
After determining the topic of my new video, I look into the period of the battle including the nations that fought it directly from the books about that period. In my early historical videos, I was not adding any information except the one I gathered from history websites and some articles, it was simply synthesizing the information I found online and using them collectively. Sometime later I wanted to go one step further and considering the addition of subtitles and dubs, I started buying many Turkish/English books. The books I’m reading are not limited to history books but also include fantastic universes series like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings. Even though the accuracy of the battle map and even the armour of the soldiers are details I consider, I never came up with the idea of offering fully detailed videos. I’m interested in the visual side of history, so it is logical to provide a briefing at the beginning and at the end of the videos and get into action as soon as possible. Eventually, when you are searching for the Battle of Chaldiran there are many written sources but too limited videos and images. I would be sad if my videos turned into full “documentaries” instead of “short movies” depicting a battle or an event. ☺
Your animations differ from the ones we see in other channels in terms of storyline. What has given you the idea of changing the action during the videos?
As I mentioned, I don’t want my videos turning into documentaries. That is the reason the storyline is different from many other animations you see. I wasn’t even considering adding subtitles and dubs in the beginning but my followers insisted on these features. If you think of how many soldiers took part in the battle, where the battle was fought, which military belonged to which army etc, the list just goes on. In my opinion, using 3D animations attracts more viewers than using 2D animated/unanimated images. This is not only for historical videos but YouTube channels with different concepts trying to provide information about something. While game engines create serious challenges in certain details (like creating dramatic scenes which require too many details), I use 3D scenes from video games and edit them in a dynamic order to give them a cinematic impression.
How do you prepare the details like sound effects and the voices of the warriors?
Most of the sound effects I’m using can be found as default in the game. So, in a cinematic video, I create using Total War, most of the sounds belong to that game. But as I prepare almost all the scenes without sound, I edit that part later. For this, I’m using a separate sound file I have. In it, there are sounds of marching armies, battle cries and swords. Sometimes I use sound effects from movies independent from the background music. Lacking a comprehensive sound database, I produced videos like this for a long time. I hope I’ll have access to larger and better quality sound sources.
What are the hardest parts of creating battle animation? For instance, what was the hardest while preparing for the Battle of Cannae?
These are certainly the preliminary of the weather, the battlefield and battle units and the “key scenes” that have to be shown. These are the same for the other battles. From “key scenes” represent the unique part of the battles. For example, in the Battle of Cannae, there is a scene where Hannibal’s army encircles the Romans. The Roman army gets surrounded from all sides but the game units may not move as flexible as they are required. As you know, the units in Total War spread across a square area. They are not scattered or independent from each other. To edit this I change the game files containing unit gaps, numbers and values as much as I can. Nevertheless, there are times I don’t get the desired result. Eventually, most of the criticism about the Cannes videos concerns the lack of details in the encirclement scene.
What are the advantages or disadvantages of preparing animations about TV series?
It is much simpler if there’s a source that depicts the battle of the event I want to create. Unfortunately to get more audience and other reasons the accuracy of the content may be misleading. Nevertheless, if I find supportive visuals, I can get an idea of the atmosphere the battle of the event takes part in. Additionally, as concept artists take reference from model designers, TV series or movies help me in designing the characters and the scenes. We can consider the Pelennor Field Battle (aka Minas Tirith Siege). There’s a significant difference between the book and the movie, that is why I already had prepared a map to use in the trailer for the team develoğing the Lords of the Rings mode. If I decide to create a full cinematic video I will use the book for the storyline but in terms of visuals, I’ll be inspired by the castle and the battlefield seen in the movie for the siege of Minas Tirith. If I design something other than the example of Minas Tirith that director Peter Jackson came up with, many viewers may get confused about the place. Because many people memorize a structure bound to the movie when they think of Minas Tirith.
Can you tell us about the period that led to the collaboration with Epic Games? How many studios or directors have discovered your work?
Epic History contacted me via email. They told me that they’ve been following historical battles animations I created with Total War. I believe they meant the last 5-6 videos I added subtitles and dubs. They asked for help for their new video about the Battle of Salamis and I accepted with pleasure. I’m already trying to support history channels by sending video clips whenever I find the time. Other than Epic History, director Alper Çağlar had contacted me after a video of Game of Thrones I created and we worked on the “Pre-production” video belonging to the Göktürk trilogy. Due to my lack of technical skills, I have the desire to get an education in cinema. I’m already in contact with the creative studio of Total War, the Creative Assembly. Who knows what will happen in the future? ☺
Can you tell us a little about the preparation period of the Battle of Salamis video?
Other than what I usually do (and as expected from Epic History), I had a large file explaining how every scene will be created from which angles. They had requests including not using the motion camera too much and zooming into the scenes showing specific units. In total, they requested about 50-55 scenes. I normally create more scenes in case clients need more. Some scenes don’t meet my expectations or don’t satisfy the client. In this case, I try to recreate the scene by improving the missing details. It is vital to depict the scenes as a whole.
There are not many YouTube channels depicting history too accurately. How would you describe the clash of right and wrong on YouTube?
The history appearing on YouTube, even including the most reliable channels, may be biased. I’m not saying this only in terms of knowledge but also the language used in the production. In the Battle of Varna video, there’s a scene of the charge of the commander Wladyslaw to the janissary line protecting the Sultan. Even though he barely manages to break the line, he gets killed by a janissary. While a Turkish YouTube channel describes this as “he was taken down by janissaries”, a foreign channel mentions it like “he was surrounded by janissaries with his soldiers and died one by one while fighting bravely.” When I’m producing a video I try to assess both sides as neutral as possible. Also, channels may decide to use only one source as there are several sources for a battle or an event. This negligence shows itself most in the size of the armies in the beginning and the casualties suffered in the end. While most of the sources claim the number of the Ottoman army in the Chaldiran battle between 60-80.000, some channels who try to excuse the defeat to numbers increase the Ottoman strength to 200.000. We can also see this in the battles between the Ottomans and European forces.
You generally use Total War soundtracks in your games. How do you deal with the copyright for the music and the sound effects?
The copyright for the music could be really depressing. In most of the early videos I uploaded I used music that could be found on YouTube as unlicensed. Nevertheless, the producers were demanding the copyright fee later. One copyright violation claim was sent for a video with 2,7 million views after it reached 2,5 million. But after I started to use 4K videos, which has been a while, I’m mostly using unlicensed music belonging to Total War. So, I may use a Napoleon Total War scene music in a Roman video if I find it suitable.
Is the revenue from YouTube good enough to improve your projects?
As you know there’s a ban on sharing income information on YouTube but I can say that I’ve reached a level to produce videos continuously. While I’m having some low FPS problems, I can create scenes without a problem with the current graphics card I’m using. To produce better quality videos I think I’ll need a better GPU and processor. In Total War-like games, every moving unit (walking, running or engaging in battle) is considered independently and this may overload the processor more than the GPU.
What are your thoughts about Turkish YouTubers? Are we spreading good information?
Actually, I don’t follow many Turkish YouTubers. “Let’s Play” style gameplay or editing videos don’t get my attention so I can’t say much. As the channel numbers increase, similar contents are also on the rise. One of the channels I like to follow is “DFT Tarih”, which I collaborated with in the past. I find their content high quality.
Do you have any plans of establishing a studio and creating more comprehensive, different style videos?
I may have limitations when making a video animation with Total War or Bannerlord. That is why I am keen to learn programmes like Blender to prepare videos in a wider perspective. My area is the visualization of war history and I have no doubt my work will evolve in time. I could not expect my channel to reach such a level in the beginning. This is a period evolving step by step.
Your followers mainly demand videos from the Viking era. Do you have any plans for a series?
I’m currently working on three projects, so I can skip to another when I don’t want to continue with the other one. Preparing the storyline and the dubs all myself sometimes requires me to spend 2-3 months on a video. Viking themed battles are really in high demand so currently, I’m considering the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Besides that Siege of Belgrade (1456), I’m preparing trailers for the Rise of Mordor team who developed the Lords of Rings mod for Total War Attila and creating Robert’s Rebellion series in Game of Thrones and Battle of Watling Street. There are too many projects that I want to create and I hope I can overcome them all.
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All images and the photo are courtesy of Nedim Can İncebay.
By Christoph Mutz, Senior Automotive Product Marketing Manager, Western Digital
The automotive industry is going through profound changes as connected vehicles become the norm. With every technological development, innovation and smart addition to the vehicle, each car becomes in itself, a server on wheels. From increasingly centralised architecture, to in-depth infotainment consoles, the sheer amount of data cars now create presents challenges when it comes to the car’s storage requirements.
While urban infrastructure and the development of edge data centres will be key to the eventual success of connected and autonomous transport, the need for on-board data storage has never been more prevalent. There are current on-board flash storage solutions such as the embedded Multi-Media Chips interface (eMMC), but the need for higher performance to transfer data to and from the systems in the car requires a faster interface. To help manage the sharp rise in fast data, the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) interface offers a suitable solution for the next generation of vehicles. But what are the benefits of flash storage, and how is the technology solving the industry’s challenges?
Changing automotive architectures and the impact on data
Automotive architectures are changing dramatically, from dispersed control units to one centralized system in a car. Previously, an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) had a specific function according to its use case. These ECUs eventually became connected to each other, but the networks still acted independently of one another. With gateways, it is now possible to achieve coordinated cross-network communication, enabling the handling of increasingly complex, data rich-tasks. Furthermore, in merging the individual ECUs into domain controllers (DCU), providing the ability to handle many demanding tasks at once, the architecture now can evolve even further. For the software, it means that in addition to the computing algorithms such as those used in artificial intelligence (AI), it also affects the operating system with its virtualisation techniques like the use of hypervisors.
Therefore, the evolution of the architecture is now having an impact on important components in processors and flash storage. Regarding flash, the required ever-higher storage capacities can be supported by NAND flash technology. The unique requirements of the industry must also be considered, with the advanced algorithms increasing the need for NAND flash with its ability to provide very high capacity at very low cost in automotive applications.
How UFS is solving on-board storage challenges
UFS has emerged as the first choice for high data throughput, with shorter write and read sequences, in conjunction with high capacity storage. Originally developed for mobile devices, UFS offers next-generation vehicles the benefits derived from its development and optimization in mobile radio technology, a field that is subject to high technical demands, and the processing of large amounts of data. Alongside the benefits of high-level data throughput and storage capacity, UFS provides the opportunity for an industry standard platform. The standardisation consortium JEDEC, continues to drive the development of UFS Technology, with UFS 4.0 expected in 2022 and further versions set to follow.
With flash providing clear benefits in an automotive setting, the question now resides in how much storage the connected car needs, and which applications require the most space?With its large amount of map data, navigation has been the main application creating a large demand for flash memory in recent years. Currently, navigation and all the elements that inform the driver and make up ‘infotainment’ are the main beneficiaries of large storage capacities using up to 256 GB of flash in certain vehicles. With higher resolutions needed for automated driving and 3D mapping data, as well as other information at the driver’s fingertips on the dashboard, this is only set to continue to grow with up to one terabyte (1TB) per car expected by 2025. UFS, with its faster interface, offers a much snappier transport of such large amounts of data, significantly improving the user experience.
Christoph Mutz, Senior Automotive Product Marketing Manager, Western Digital
The technology behind flash storage and its benefits
The most critical features of NAND flash memory in cars are reliability, write endurance and data retention. A wide variety of factors can strongly influence the latter, for example the way in which data is written from the application to the flash, which has a strong impact on its lifetime. This is because small data packages stored at arbitrary addresses place a greater load on the flash than large amounts of information that is saved all at once.
Innovations within UFS storage are allowing flash to be protected from intensive operations. Flash technology can now enable read-intensive and write-intensive applications to run on separate partitions, made possible by ‘smart partitioning’. Partitions configured as a Single Level Cell (SLC) structure are particularly suitable for write-intensive programs. Here, the flash is reduced to a third of the capacity of the Triple Level Cell (TLC) structure, but the number of write cycles is many times higher. Read-intensive programs can then use the partition with the TLC structure, providing the full storage capacity and extending the service life within UFS memory significantly.
With data now imperative to the functioning of connected vehicles, the reliability of data storage is essential to the car’s overall safety. UFS innovations now allow for a detailed recording of the write or read events, making it possible to analyse the read-write behavior of the application and determine if it is at risk of distressing the flash due to unbalanced workloads. It can do this by recording ‘events’, or the individual data throughputs, based on the “UFS Protocol Information Units” (UPIU). After careful analysis of this data, insights into the write/read behavior of the system can be gained and interpreted, protecting the performance of the flash, and significantly extending the reliability and security of the data.
Driving collaboration between OEMs and storage manufacturers
3D NAND technology has primarily established itself in automotive electronics with the ability to create higher flash capacities. With this, the technology can scale and meet the future demand from automotive applications for increasingly large memories. With larger capacities, fewer flash modules are needed. This means they can then be installed in central locations reducing the hardware costs that would have been incurred if they were installed in a distributed manner.
The changes in the electrical-electronic (E/E) architecture of cars in recent years will only accelerate. As mentioned, the formerly numerous Electronic Control Units (ECUs) are networked with many of the vehicle’s parts; and the concentration into ever larger Domain Control Units (DCUs) is in full swing. Future architectures will undoubtedly bring further innovations and with the stronger role of software, this means that large automotive companies will be increasingly looking for suitable processors and flash components. Therefore, closer communication between OEMs and the flash manufacturers is soon to be of paramount importance to the future of the connected car, providing the opportunity to find the optimal use of processors and memories, minimising the failure probabilities and increasing the service life.
In five years, cars will not only provide extreme comfort and entertainment but will also turn into an office and even a classroom, according to DE-CIX International CEO Ivo Ivanov. He calls this development the “fifth screen” entering our lives.
Consider yourself a fleet driver of a big company. You need to complete a delivery on time and get stuck in the traffic jam. In today’s world this may prove to be a difficult situation to resolve. But in a few years’ time, all around the world, cars using the digital infrastructure provided by Internet Exchanges (IXs) will be able to deal with any situation. Your state of the art navigation system will guide you to the shortest route or you will simply deliver all the necessary updates to other fleet cars in your radius so they will be able to help you.
The example above represents only one development out of thousands which smart cars will offer to us in the near future. With an environment fed with thousands of sensors, a “Closed User Group” (CUG) for controlling the data journey, and mini data centers at every other intersection the digital experience cars will offer to us will significantly increase.
DE-CIX International CEO Ivo Ivanov simply defines future smart cars as “a smart digital device on wheels.” With the ongoing developments in technology, including 5G, Ivanov believes that smart cars will turn into the fifth screen in our lives, providing any kind of information and entertainment, thus totally changing our experience on the road.
I had the chance to ask Mr Ivanov about the current and future developments in IX technology and what challenges and opportunities will emerge through it. Ivanov thinks the biggest challenges will be faced in developing the necessary technologies and also plugging every hole against cyber attacks. On the other hand, with super fast real-time connection with minimum latency, the quality of our lives will improve dramatically.
Mr. Ivanov explained how will this happen, by answering the following questions:
What will be the impact of ICT technology in the automotive sector?
IXs will play a role in the automobile industry firstly when it comes to the cloud connectivity of different applications into the car, but even more in serving the in and outbound data of the car in a Closed User Group approach. If, as they all desire nowadays, an automotive company wants to create excellent digital services in the car – aside from autonomous driving, so, for instance excellent entertainment systems – this requires the highest performance possible. Reliable delivery of the applications, high quality audio and video without any outages, is what the companies want to achieve. Therefore, the car has to be very well interconnected with application providers.
This can be Microsoft, for instance. By using an IX, interruptions occurring between the car manufacturer’s network and applications like Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams can be minimized almost completely. IXs play a crucial role at this point by providing a direct interconnection to the access network and the application networks to which the car is connected. So, a CEO sitting in the backseat of a car which is fully digitalized and connected can enjoy the best quality of video conferencing. Also, the driver can use the best navigation technology available and other passengers can use information and entertainment systems they wish to use. That’s all about performance and latency. So, IXs deliver reliable, highly secure and efficient technology to automotive companies to access these applications delivered into the car.
From maintenance data to navigation and infotainment: The data journey of the digital car involves many different kinds of data that need to be sent to or received from a range of service providers and suppliers.
Can we say that smart cars are turning into offices?
I believe that today’s smart cars have already partly turned into offices, and this will be even more the case in the future. I am looking at this from a different perspective, and define cars as a smart digital device on wheels. It’s a digital engine on wheels and the so-called fifth screen as some have referred to it. The reason why I call it the “fifth screen” is because it replaces the living room and the office and it is also a huge engine producing data. The information gathered by thousands of sensors are not only displayed in the car, but this data creates a multi-billion-dollar industry including outside of the car. You can think about data relevant to traffic management, commercial industries, healthcare, insurance, finance and so on. A very simple example for the limitless list of stakeholders is municipalities, which are extremely interested in the administration of their cities. They want to know the quality of the streets, what causes damage, and how this damage can be fixed and the quality improved. This is something that the cars today can deliver as a real-time information.
What kind of data interaction will occur between cars in the future?
The car will become a very powerful engine and a marketplace for data – data that is very important for the future of the automotive industry and represents a future of growth. Because alongside to the engine, the nice design, and also the physical parameters of the cars, an automotive company today is at the same time a digital mobility company today. The ambition is to create the best possible experience for the driver and the other passengers in the car. And today, the experience of digital services can’t be great if those services don’t work properly. Except the specialized racing cars and the like, we can’t imagine a normal car today not providing the comfort of digitalization that we already enjoy in the rest of our lives. I’m talking about systems which allow us to focus better on the road and traffic conditions to find the best route out of a traffic jam. Also providing the best entertainment and infotainment systems to passengers. There are already prototypes for the next steps in automotive services and systems which are very impressive. For instance, the windows of the car can be used to provide details of the environment the car is in. Even architecture or history lessons can for example be provided while driving through historical and important areas, and so on. All of this will influence the way a car is used and digitalization will become one of the most important factors for consumers when it comes to purchasing a car. This is something the automotive companies know and they want to gather digital assets to be put inside the car. And they can’t do this if they can’t control the data journey.
The data journey is the data entering and exiting the car, and what is done with it. Think about thousands of sensors producing data. As of today, 70% of the data produced by a car is real-time in-car data, involving the core car systems. Added to this, the remaining 30% is made up of 20% car-to-cloud data, which is related to a lot of real-time applications, 5% car-to-car data in live traffic situations, and 5% car-to-environment, which represents the interaction between the sensors and the traffic systems and so on.
When we look at this 30% of the data, we see that it is, firstly, extremely quality sensitive and also extremely security sensitive. As we all can imagine, this data has to be exchanged in a 100% reliable and secure manner, so the real-time performance of different applications and tools can work as desired.
Would it be possible to provide total privacy for consumers?
This is a job of all of us, all the stakeholders included in this business. It starts with a car manufacturer and also entails application providers, but infrastructure providers also have a part to play in this industry. The concept of the Closed User Group (CUG), as I mentioned in the beginning, perfectly fits into this type of requirement. Why? Because it is a controlled virtual environment, where the owner of the CUG – in this case, the automotive company – can make sure that all the policies needed are implemented to ensure compliance. These can be security, privacy and further other requirements stipulated by the company itself or by regulators and other stakeholders. These policies can be controlled and monitored in this environment and every single participant who is invited to this Closed User Group and exchanges data with the cars – for example, streaming services, data analytics companies and cloud services – are obliged to comply with these policies. So, on the one hand, it becomes extremely manageable in terms of compliance. On the other hand, it is highly secure. Because, in this CUG, the interconnection between the network of the car company and the networks which deliver data to or receive data from the car is direct. There’s no intermediary in between. And the more the exchange of direct data is, the better the control over it is. Also, the risk of manipulation by an anonymous party will be dramatically reduced. Of course, there is no such thing as absolute security, but automotive manufacturers need to get as close as possibel. And this concept is extremely secure, as it is massively reduces the risk of DDoS attacks because of the direct exchange of data. It also allows the tracking of the data flow and mitigation of any possible lags in a very reliable manner.
Multiple layers of security: The secure ecosystem of a DE-CIX Closed User Group is further enhanced by additional security services, ensuring the best protection for the digital car and its users.
Are smart cars ready to prevent any kind of cyber attack?
This is an extremely important question and also an extremely important area of discussion, because we can all imagine what kind of risks can be related to a situation where a criminal can hijack the car, steal the identity of the driver, and even take control over the car. The car can be literally used as a weapon in the hands of terrorists or criminals. To avoid this, secure infrastructure becomes extremely relevant and the infrastructure I’m talking about, the Closed User Group in the automotive industry, is a very important tool to gain control of security-related systems. Because of the direct interconnection and the private and isolated environment, attacks like IP hijacking or DDoS can be isolated and mediated. In fact, criminal intent on performing such an attack generally want to remain anonymous. In a CUG, there’s no anonymous party. So, this will allow the owner of the CUG, in this case the car company, to perfectly control the data buyers and data suppliers. Having said this, because of the closed environment, it is extremely hard for criminals to hijack the car and steal the driver’s identity or take over the control of the car. And of course, next to this, the manufacturers in the automotive industry are extremely sensitive about security and there are more and more measures to be put in place to make sure that even in the very theoretical case where these systems did not perform, they must make sure that they have a Plan B solution in order to stop the car and avoid any accident and damage.
How does the Blackholing technology work?
Blackholing is a very effective tool to prevent any damage caused by the DDoS attacks. The Blackholing logic has been installed in every DE-CIX platform and location. It identifies anomalies in the traffic volume which are not related to the normal parametrics and in this case digitally trashes it into a “blackhole”, while the pipes and the networks stay open for the normal and real traffic and the congestion can be avoided. The DDoS traffic which aims to disrupt the data flow or significantly damage the system is not effective against Blackholing and disappears in a blackhole.
What are the challenges and opportunities of IX technology?
The main challenge first of all, is the entire process of digitalization – which we take as one of the major paths of innovation now and in the years ahead of us. To make sure that the experience of digital services will be available, interconnection is one of the biggest challenges. As we all know, a car is to be driven. In this case, digital services need to be performed even in the rural areas, outside the cities, where the infrastructure is not yet sufficiently rolled-out to enable these services. This is one of the main challenges for different stakeholders involved in this industry. As DE-CIX, we have already created a platform which will allow us to build exchanges close to highways junctions and 5G cell towers, to make sure that localized interconnection between the application networks and the car access networks can take place as locally as possible in a radius of around 80 to maximum 100 kilometres. This infrastructure is one of the biggest challenges in our eyes, and also in the eyes of the car manufacturers, when it comes to digital services.
When we look at the opportunities, they are unlimited. This can create a wave of innovation and a wave of creation of very helpful services to improve the efficiency of the way we drive safely. I think this is one of the main opportunities the entire value chain of the stakeholders have in our hands. Through the digitalization of infrastructure we can offer the safest and the best experience ever.
How do you see the development process in technology and adaptation of 5G?
Let me start with the last element in your question. The reaction is not as fast as probably the desire for innovation and progress. We have to increase the speed of 5G deployment because enabling this technology almost everywhere will allow us to enjoy the Internet of Things (IoT) in a way it should be enjoyed. Because that’s what 5G is all about. The mediation of different data streams from the IoT devices. When you look at the parts and sensors of the cars they are actually IoT devices. And having this technology everywhere will dramatically increase the efficiency of data management in a very intelligent way. 5G is extremely important for our use of digital technology everywhere and not only in our living rooms. EIXDE-CIX has realized the importance of 5G in its edge interconnection triangle. The DE-CIX edge internonnection triangle consists of 5G technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and the last element is localization of the infrastructure on site. This gives us the ability to use devices and applications regardless of where we are.
What is the development process you want to accomplish until 2025?
As DE-CIX, by 2025 ECIXwe desire to be involved with and partner more telecommunications players worldwide. Also, to get involved in the creation of new hubs. We already achieved this for instance in Southern Europe, creating interconnection hubs in Madrid, Marseille, Lisbon and Palermo. Of course, together with our data center partners, cablehave succeeded in supporting the trends in traffic distribution, which are definitely trends about creating new hubs. One focus is regions which have not been served locally in the past years – continents like Africa, South America, remote areas in India, Southeast Asia and rural areas in the US, for example. Our vision is to provide reliable, flexible, affordable solutions not only to big hubs, as we do today in New York, Madrid and İstanbul, but also in rural areas where the so-called edge interconnection needs to be built out and small relevant hubs will start to appear. There is a good reason for this: The closer the applications are to the users, the better the experience. So data centers are needed at the local level where applications and different services, like cloud computing, are hosted for local users, and we would be involved in interconnecting these applications and resources to the Internet access network as locally as possible. This is our ambition for the next 5 years. So in 2025, we want to be present on all continents with our platforms to make sure that different economies will benefit from better infrastructure. And as I love to say, better infrastructure creates a better digital service experience. And this better experience is our key to a better life today. Because if people don’t have access to these services they’re simply disadvantaged – and we want to close this gap.
What will be the main development in smart cars in the coming five years?
I believe digitalization in every part in the car will be the main driver. In 2025, we will experience extremely smart cars which will be supporting our daily lives with comfort and entertainment.
How will a consumer best benefit from the technologies of DE-CIX?
Using applications in the office or from home – applications such as CRM, ERP or simply email and video conferencing, with team members requiring 100% mobility – with the best performance possible as a result of the lowest latency. As we see in our industry, every millisecond counts: We say latency is the new currency! At DE-CIX we have had great success in improving latency to Microsoft 356, for example, which our solution can reduce from 70 milliseconds to under 10 milliseconds. And this leads to an incredible increase in the performance of those systems for the people in offices, regardless of where they are. And the company can save resources that would otherwise have been used for troubleshooting and maintenance. Another example is from the gaming industry. We all know that gaming companies are sensitive about latency, especially when it comes to online real-time gaming. For gaming companies, on the one hand, and on the other hand for the Internet access networks, connecting to DE-CIX means that we can make sure the gaming application is delivered along the fastest and the most efficient path possible. So the player using a smart device at home or underway, even in the car, can experience great gaming. The traffic exchange between the gaming company no matter whether it’s on the gaming console or in cloud, and the Internet service operator – which brings the data the last mile to the users – enables this experience.
Do you have a message for the tech world?
We are entering a new era in digitalization everywhere and our ambition is to support this with our services, and we have a wish that goes out to all the different stakeholders involved in digital infrastructure. We invite all of our partners around the globe, data centers and network operators to collaborate, in order to bring the best Internet infrastructure to everyone, everywhere.
Industries worldwide are entering into a new era of digitalization, everywhere, for everything, making performance, resilience, and security in network connections business-critical. An increasing number of enterprises from segments like healthcare, finance, retail, logistics, and automotive have been discovering the benefits of connecting with their digital value chain via an Internet Exchange, reports Ivo Ivanov, CEO of DE-CIX International.
In the digital world, performance, resilience, and security in network connections are business-critical. Enterprises need the fastest reaction times and the highest resilience, which together improve the performance and the reliability of applications and services. Furthermore, in the increasingly complex world of digital business – where companies exchange data with one another for the provision of digital services and applications across national borders and regulatory regions, in a platform economy – it is crucial to reduce the complexity of the relationships and ensure that partners comply with policy and legal requirements. Finally, the highest level of security on the data transmission and the network is indispensable. To guarantee great performance and the highest level of security possible, enterprises from all verticals require that their network is directly and redundantly connected to the required application and content networks. Doing this via a highly secure, high-performance Internet Exchange (IX) means that the demand for resilience, security, and fast reaction times can be fulfilled in a simplified manner and – backed by Service Level Agreements (SLAs) – guaranteed.
While Internet Exchanges have traditionally been seen as locations where telecommunications companies (carriers), Internet service providers, content networks, and content delivery networks interconnect to exchange data, we are now seeing an increasing number of participants joining from other industry segments, like healthcare, finance, retail, logistics, and of course, automotive. As an early adopter, the automotive industry has already started reaping the benefits of interconnection over IXs. This is because the digital car is a prime example of a digital product – one where the manufacturers simply cannot afford to cut corners on the performance, resilience, or security of their networks. The efficacy and the privacy of their connections to other networks to exchange data are paramount to the provisioning of the many services and features that make the digital car what it is, and any lapses will impact strongly and immediately on the reputation of the car brand.
Joining the platform economy
At the same time, industries worldwide are entering into a new era of digitalization; everywhere, for everything, and for everyone. This requires rethinking and restructuring business models. Digital business models based on the platform economy are now offering distinct competitive advantages for globally acting enterprises, which take them beyond the capabilities of traditional industrial setups. New players are now presenting a clear competitive challenge – for example, in the area of autonomous driving and car applications – to the traditional automotive sector. Therefore, car manufacturers are needing to shore up their space in the platform economy and interconnect with their suppliers, service providers, and customers in new and optimized ways in order to control the data journey of their cars.
By choosing an IX platform that already has an established and vibrant ecosystem of diverse kinds of networks, a car manufacturer can position itself right on the spot, where the digital economy is already playing out and where the future is being molded. The chances are high that the networks the car maker needs to interconnect with are already participating in these ecosystems. An IX enables direct interconnection between these parties, using the very efficient principle of one-to-many or many-to-many, and aggregating the traffic instead of using multiple bilaterals. Beyond this, if the automotive manufacturer creates its own closed and secure private ecosystem within the existing IX environment, the geographical distance to the other networks – and thus the reaction time (latency) – is minimized, resilience is ensured, and the car maker is rewarded with a substantial boost in the security of its networks, and, therefore, of its data. This can be further enhanced by additional security solutions provided by the Internet Exchange operator. The result is that the automotive manufacturer can have the best of all worlds when it comes to connectivity – high- performance, reliable, and secure interconnection to enhance and protect their digital products and to satisfy and protect their customers. Creating interconnection ecosystems for industries – the digital car as a model The digital car is a digital ecosystem entailing a huge variety of types of data. This includes data relating to physical safety and the physical conditions on the road, data for improving traffic management, data on the status and maintenance of the car, data on the provisioning of infotainment and entertainment and other services according to personalized preferences, and the list goes on.
We see three overriding challenges that car makers are confronted with in dealing with the exchange of these many different types of data with many different partners and service providers.
Firstly, there is the provision of services and features smoothly and with fast reaction times (this is dependent on the performance and reliability of the connectivity to other networks). Secondly, there is the fulfillment of compliance requirements for multiple regions around the globe where the car may be sold or driven (leading to high levels of legal and regulatory complexity, increasing exponentially with the number of networks and service providers involved). Finally, there is the security of the network in order to ensure that neither the identity of the driver nor that of the car itself can be abused and that the car is protected from hijacking or any form of unauthorized manipulation.
Previously, the approach for automotive manufacturers was a best-effort solution involving Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and IP transit (upstream), with no end-to-end control of the traffic flows between the car and the networks wanting to deliver data to or receive data from the car. This solution creates a range of challenges for the networks: The more intermediates between two networks, the higher the latency, the greater the risk of performance and security issues, and the more complex compliance becomes – because if you do not control the data value chain, you cannot control any of this.
But at the same time, there’s also no need to go throwing the baby out with the bath water or reinventing the wheel: Existing MPLS and IP transit solutions can be enriched and complemented with interconnection services via an Internet Exchange, offering additional redundancy along with capitalizing on the ecosystem around the IX to ensure the optimization of performance and resilience, as well as increasing security.
With the central challenges – performance/reliability, complexity/compliance, and security – in mind, it is clear that choosing the best interconnection solution is crucial to the long-term market positioning of the car manufacturer.
Ivo A. Ivanov – DE-CIX International CEO’su
How connectivity issues can impact brand reputation
Let’s look firstly at performance and reliability. Whether a chauffeured businessperson is attending video conferences on the road, a salesperson needs to be well connected to business applications when underway on business; whether a harried car owner is further delayed by the slow reaction of their car door to their mobile phone key, or the children in the back seat want to stream games or videos on a long drive, even – in the not-too-distant future – that the car itself becomes the complete fifth screen; all of these scenarios (and the many more digital services that automotive manufacturers are dreaming up for the comfort and delight of their customers and passengers) require a very strong, reliable, and high-performance connectivity infrastructure behind them. If the connectivity performance is poor and digital services cannot be consumed as expected, the responsibility for such failings will land squarely on the shoulders of the car maker, with the accusation that their digital products are not properly connected.
Interconnecting with partners via an Internet Exchange enables aggregation in an improved latency to the location of the car, and therefore with improved stability and reaction times. Because at an IX, automotive networks are enabled to meet in the most direct and shortest way with all the data suppliers and buyers that are currently important to them – as well as those that in the future are likely to become important. With a direct interconnect, coupled with a closed user group (CUG) specifically designed for enterprise interconnection, the connection on the network side can be ideally optimized, reducing latency to the other provider networks and data centers involved and significantly improving the performance of digital services and applications within the digital car.
The automotive manufacturer as custodian of personal privacy
Secondly, the topic of compliance, in particular with – but not limited to – data protection, has become a serious headache for many a car maker. There is just so much sensitive data in a digital car. The sensor system in the closed environment of the digital car has the capacity to ascertain information about the driver’s state of health, emotional state, concentration capacity, behavior behind the wheel, even the driver’s state of inebriation – in a nutshell, the fundamental character and physical condition of this person. But beyond this, with the aid of artificial intelligence, the car’s sensors can pick up other insights into the behavior of not only the driver but also passengers: the location of the vehicle, destinations of travel and any stopovers, the identity of passengers, the identity of communication partners, and so on. This is highly sensitive information, which concerns the core of our fundamental rights. Thus, the digital car – and, as a result, the car maker – becomes the custodian of personal privacy.
Alongside this is the need to protect the intellectual property of the car manufacturer in the sharing of data with partners along the data value chain. As a result, clear contractual relationships and agreements between business partners are a necessary, but increasingly complex, undertaking. Controlling compliance through connecting individually to each partner network and forging individual bilateral relationships – as has been done in the past in the automotive industry – is not a future-oriented approach for the digital car. Such a solution does not scale well to larger ecosystems involving a greater number of players wishing to interconnect intelligently. Bearing in mind the hundreds – potentially thousands – of organizations around the world delivering data to and/or receiving data generated by the digital car, the result of this approach is literally thousands of bilateral interconnections and relationships – something that nobody can efficiently manage.
Overcoming the complexity of global compliance needs
There’s another way to deal with this challenge: If an Internet Exchange operator provides the automotive manufacturer with a closed, secure, and private interconnection environment in the form of a closed user group (CUG) in which policies for compliance requirements are enabled, then fulfillment of these policies can function as a prerequisite for all the participants of the group, and this can be efficiently controlled. This can even be undertaken per market, per regulatory region, even at a federal or state level.
Multiple adjacent CUGs can be owned and operated by the car maker to take care of conflicting regulations while always maintaining its own company policies. For example, a manufacturer could set up three separate CUGs in the digital hub Frankfurt (capitalizing on the proximity of the dense ecosystem of networks there), with one corresponding to EU law, one to UK law, and a third according to the compliance requirements in the USA. Equally, a set of adjacent CUGs could be set up on an IX platform in any of the world’s strong digital hubs – like New York to serve the North American regulatory environment, Madrid to serve Southern Europe, and Mumbai to serve the Indian subcontinent. By locating the CUG within the region it serves, getting closer to the ground where the car is on the road, performance and reliability can clearly also be optimized. While the topic of sensitive data paints a particularly vivid picture of the compliance issue, compliance is not only about data protection. There are countries with different regulatory requirements for cloud concentration risk mediation plans, others with different security requirements as to data transmission, data reception, and data sharing. There are industry-specific regulations for individual sectors, such as the automotive and finance industries. All this could then be implemented according to the needs of the enterprise that owns the CUG.
Mitigating the risk of malicious third parties lurking under the cover of anonymity The issue of security is even more critical. One of the most highly charged threat scenarios for the digital car is the potential theft of the identity of the driver (that a crime could be committed in the guise of an innocent car owner) or of the car itself as an IoT device (that the car could be hijacked, manipulated technically, or in the worst case even weaponized). What can be done to mitigate this risk? The approach of the closed environment offered by a CUG, being very direct and close to the action, means that security can be substantially improved. This is possible, firstly, because of the direct interconnection of the networks. The fewer intermediary transporters there are between the automotive network and the network of the legitimate data supplier/recipient, the fewer possibilities there are for anonymous third parties to lurk in the shadows. The reason for this is anchored in the logic of direct interconnection, also known as “peering”. By peering at an IX – and especially within a closed and private environment on the IX platform – it is possible to know exactly which network is sending traffic and which is receiving it, therefore disallowing anonymity among the networks or any lack of transparency as to the traffic source and destination.
In contrast, this is not possible with IP transit, the traditional approach to automotive connectivity. With IP transit, the car manufacturer’s only option is to place its traffic into the hands of a transit provider, who, in turn, announces the packet requests back to the global Internet – to a variety of recipients and senders that the car maker does not and cannot know. The risk entailed in this anonymity is that criminals can hide behind it.
Connecting partners – the digital car of the future is a network on wheels If, instead, data is sent to an automotive manufacturer network via a secure closed user group on an IX platform, then the manufacturer knows exactly which network has sent it. This network is known, the connection having been checked using BGP and Layer 2 validation instruments, meaning that the risk of hijack or a DDoS attack originating from this network is much lower – because this network cannot hide or mask its identity.
On top of this, if the Internet Exchange operator is able to provide additional security mechanisms to reduce the danger of route hijacks, to prevent IP hijacking, and to protect networks from DDoS attacks, then the digital car and its ecosystem are well protected against the most significant risks of the Wild West of the open Internet. In this way, the already secure filtering logic of a closed peering user group is further enhanced through additional security tools specifically developed to protect networks.
As we have seen, many of the challenges faced by car manufacturers in implementing connectivity for the digital car can be solved using the logic of secure interconnection within a vibrant digital ecosystem, via an Internet Exchange like DE-CIX – home to the largest neutral ecosystems in the world. Directly interconnecting with partners, using the very efficient principle of one-to-many or many-to-many and controlling for compliance, we see one clean environment – a secure, private, and simplified platform – where the automotive network can interconnect with all the participants in the data value chain. Locating this exclusive, closed environment within a secure, resilient, neutral, and high-performance Internet Exchange means that the participants can interact in a single protected and highly efficient environment. In this way, automotive manufacturers can prepare for the bright future of the digital car, the network on wheels. This same logic – of interconnection with partners for a smooth and safe data journey – applies just as well to other transport sectors, like airlines and logistics suppliers. But it also applies to all industries entering the platform economy – banks, e-health system operators, the hospitality sector, e-manufacturing with its global supply chains, and many more in future. Closed, secure, and private interconnection environments offer everyone the chance to grow and develop their digital business models with security and resilience baked in.
Haliç, in Europe, is known as the golden horn . This name comes from the Greek myths.
Zeus one of the many gods in Olympus falls in love with the king of Agros’es daughter İo . Hera the wife of Zeus becomes furious and turns İo into a cow and she puts a fly into her head . And that’s how the legend starts. Plus, this is the same legend that created Bosporus. When İo tries to run from the fly she breaks the ground and then the ground fills with water . And like that Halic takes the name Bosporus (meaning the cow passage). İo finally comes to Halic and stays there. A baby girl is born on a hill. She is called Keros short for Keroessa which means ” horn”. This name is given to the place we now know as Halic. Because the land is seen as sacred people also started calling it ”the golden horn”.
Halic was always known as the Golden Horn in the middle ages. Some historians think that the reason for Halic being really rich is because there was a lot of trade so that’s why its called the Golden Horn. Like how the Nil gives life to Mesopotamia Halic gives life to Istanbul. To be in control of a place like Halic is like to be in control of the world’s whole trade system.
Here you can see our team interviewing the leader of Galata Rowing Club at the Golden Horn coast.
What did we do?
In the year of 1911 when industries started to develop in Turkey some machines started to appear in the shores of Halic mostly using electric and cole to work these constructs harmed the air . After that more and more factories and workplaces started to appear thus making Halic dirty.
İn the other hand there are a lot of domestic waste centers that connect to Halic. People who live in Halic get disturbed by the smell of all the waste.
Every year 263.000 m3 of dirt fills Halic. Basically, Halic got full of dirt. The place that was clean suddenly turned into a cesspool.
Ecological Lessons for a Fair City
The first known intervention to this situation was in 1940. We used cleaning boats to clean the Halic mud. The collected mud gets transported to the Marmara Sea. By 1994, the Golden Horn had become a political problem awaiting a critical solution.
Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 1994 the environmental management company (ISTAC) with more than 40 researchers started a project called the golden horn. We found the sources that has been polluting the golden horn by tacking 20 samples of the water and from the mud. We then proceeded to find ways to get rid of the pollution. We found ways to get rid of the mud or evaluate it. For the first time in turkey they made a mud dam. The solids in the mud stays in the dam while the mud goes in and returns as clean water to the golden horn. The mud that is stored in the dam area today has become one of Turkey’s largest entertainment centers (Istanbul Vialand theme park). Everyday 11million cubic meters of clean and fresh water from Bosphorus enters the golden horn. As a result of the prevention of waste water, it was observed that algae formed at the place where the streams connect to the golden horn. When a contaminated water environment is cleaned the formation of algae is a sign that life has started. Now there are 48 kinds of fish that live in the gulf of golden horn. It has become one of the wetlands where migratory birds lodge and you can even do watersports. This project in the golden horn was deemed worthy of first prize in the metropolis awards given by the world metropolitan municipality union in 2002, considering their efforts to revitalize the historical environment on the shores of the golden horn.
Being a metropolitan city after the 21. Century
For the past 15 years Golden Horn has been expanding. In order to preserve the beauties of our Istanbul has two seas, which passes through the Bosphorus and has the Golden Horn, it cleans the sea, undersea and beaches. Where 16million people live and where about 50milllion tourists come and go. Knows how important the water is. They scan 515 meters of ground by 83 different points. ISTAC finds the waste and sends it to recycling companies. And ISTAC ensures that this method is sustainable. 5 million square meters of sea surface is cleaned with sea surface cleaning boats (DYT), which are completely developed with domestic production. Water pollution problems are effective first at the local level, then at the regional level and then at the global level. Basically, water is our past and our future. TAKE CARE OF WATER.
Heritage of Humanity
The heritage of humanity actually lays in the trash. The reason for that is that plastic can stay in nature for hundreds of years, İt’s one of the biggest reasons for environmental pollution. Every year the human population leaves about 300 million tons of plastic in nature. It is very important that these plastics get recycled. This is a picture I took in the deep forest. Instead of a tree do you think it better for a car to leave its mark in the forest?
The Danger Facing Us
The rising heat, the contagious diseases, trees getting cut, ice melting and the destruction that comes with. Here is a quick summary of what’s going to happen to us and this is going to happen faster than we think. In the history of the earth if we think about more than half of the carbon that was released in the last 30 years this would happen to us in one generation. And to prevent this we have one generation.
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