Posts tagged Bank
World Bank Assumes Control of Google Map Data
Jan 16th
Google announced a partnership with the World Bank today to make Google Map Maker data more accessible to government organizations in disaster scenarios. Google Map Maker is the tool for crowd-sourcing the editing and maintenance of Google’s world map. Its user-generated data include locations of hospitals, schools, settlements, water sources and minor roads.
Access to these data will help governments, NGOs, researchers and individuals plan without waiting for the changes to be approved and added to the official maps. World Bank partner organizations, such as government and U.N. agencies, can contact World Bank offices to request access to the data. Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Moldova, Mozambique, Nepal and Haiti will pilot the project.
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Google’s New Gatekeeper
This partnership could improve response time and effectiveness in crises in underserved areas of the world. It’s just a shame that Google has decided to compete with Ushahidi and other open-source efforts to solve this problem. Access to Google Map Maker data is privileged, and Google has chosen the mother of all elite gatekeepers, the World Bank, to facilitate this program.
The World Bank has supported much-needed online mapping efforts, such as the April 2011 project in South Sudan that enabled Google to put the new country on the map. It has also financially backed apps supporting economic development in a worldwide contest for software developers. In partnership with academic institutions, the World Bank has also backed a Web-based knowledge platform for urban development.
These are all great efforts, but they establish a familiar pattern for the World Bank. In Web technology, just as in global economic development, the World Bank has positioned itself as an unavoidable, privileged gatekeeper, and this time Google helped.
No More Open Source
We’ve reached out to Ushahidi for comment on the news, and we’ll update with the response. While Ushahidi‘s non-profit, open-source efforts carry on, Google is closing off access to its mapping platform upon which great works of software were once built. Having realized the enormous value of Google Maps as a resource, Google decided to start charging for API access last year.
That’s Google’s commercial prerogative, but its proprietary efforts are now in competition with the open-source community. Today’s partnership with the World Bank is a clearer example than the murky history of access to the Google Maps API. Google Map Maker is a moderated Google program, and Google has selected the World Bank as an arbiter of its data.
Last December, Google overhauled Map Maker’s editing tools to make it easier for any Google Maps user to add new data.
What do you think? Is the World Bank a good choice for Google as a partner? Share your thoughts in the comments.
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Ohana Pacific Bank names Dianne Y. Seo VP and CFO – Bizjournals.com
Jan 11th
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Ohana Pacific Bank names Dianne Y. Seo VP and CFO
Bizjournals.com Dianne Y. Seo has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer of Ohana Pacific Bank. Dianne Y. Seo has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer of Ohana Pacific Bank , bank officials said Wednesday. … |
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Online Giant Expected to Give One Bank Financial Facelift in 2012
Jan 4th
As if the brand needed more exposure (aside from its 800-million-plus users), this coming season, we’ll hear a lot of on and offline chirping regarding Facebook, the leading social media site (actually, an online destination sought more often than Google). This winter, a number of leading banks will vie to get friendly with Facebook, “besties” [...]
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Did A Twitter-Fueled Latvian Bank Run Start With One Account? [UPDATED]
Dec 13th
Analysis by the social network analytics company Orgnet.com shows how rumors fueled a run on Swedish-owned banks in Latvia over the weekend.
Banking officials are calling it the world’s first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.
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The doomsday messages, which were quickly re-tweeted and shared on social networks, targeted Swedish banks operating in Latvia. None of them, which ranged from closed branches to the arrest of a bank executive, were true, according to bank officials and regulators. Latvian officials said they are still trying to piece together what happened over the weekend.
Typically, news stories originate from several different information sources when they spread among social network users, but Orgnet.com’s graphic of the Swedbank run shows all the information going back to one main source. Update: Orgnet.com has identified the main source in the graphic as Swedbank and its efforts to quell rumors on Twitter.
From the graphic: “The nodes are Twitter users, mostly in Latvia. Links are drawn between two nodes who RT’ed or @ messaged each other. The time period is December 6-12, 2011.”
Twitter’s rumor mill spinning out of control isn’t a new story. But this appears to be the first time it disrupted a financial institution, which could result in serious consequences. According to a Swedebank representative quoted by Marketwatch, “authorities may bring legal charges against the persons spreading the rumors, as such activity is illegal in the country.”
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Did A Twitter-Fueled Latvian Bank Run Start With One Account? [GRAPHIC]
Dec 13th
Analysis by the social network analytics company Orgnet.com shows how rumors that fueled a run on Swedish-owned banks in Latvia over the weekend may have originated from a single source.
Banking officials are calling it the world’s first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.
Sponsor
The doomsday messages, which were quickly re-tweeted and shared on social networks, targeted Swedish banks operating in Latvia. None of them, which ranged from closed branches to the arrest of a bank executive, were true, according to bank officials and regulators. Latvian officials said they are still trying to piece together what happened over the weekend.
Typically, news stories originate from several different information sources when they spread among social network users, but Orgnet.com’s “>graphic of the Swedbank run shows all the information going back to one main source.
Twitter’s rumor mill spinning out of control isn’t a new story. But this appears to be the first time it disrupted a financial institution, which could result in serious consequences. According to a Swedebank representative quoted by Marketwatch, “authorities may bring legal charges against the persons spreading the rumors, as such activity is illegal in the country.”
View full post on ReadWriteWeb
Seo In Young’s Colorful Comeback Performance on “Music Bank” – Soompi
Nov 19th
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Seo In Young's Colorful Comeback Performance on "Music Bank"
Soompi Fully acknowledged as a powerful singer and gorgeous diva, Seo In Young reappeared into the K-Pop scene after six months with a colorful comeback. On November 18, KBS2's “Music Bank” aired its weekly episode where Seo In Young performed her title song … |
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Coming Soon to a Bank Near You: Cloud Computing
Nov 3rd
The financial services industry is warming up to the idea of using the cloud for some of its critical computing needs. More than half of bank transactions will be supported by cloud-based infrastructure and software by 2015, according to a recent report from Gartner.
That is the expectation of about 39% of financial services CIOs worldwide, according to the survey. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 44% of CIOs for banking firms expect that more than half of their institutions’ transactions will take place via infrastructure that lives in the cloud, and 33% expect most of them will be processed using some type of SaaS application.
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For banks, the cloud can offer far greater computing power and scalability. Migrating critical operations there won’t be without its risks, however. Security and stability are always a concern when moving to the cloud, and that’s especially true when highly sensitive data like financial transactions are involved. It simply requires that systems are architected in a secure and fail-proof way.
Let the Machines Do What They Do Best, So People Can Focus Elsewhere
Another key value the cloud offers to financial firms is increased efficiency. As Gartner points out, banks are increasingly going to be replacing people with machines to perform certain tasks, leaving humans to do things the human mind is good at.
“As banks progressively replace people in the value chain with algorithmic operations (AOs) to run processes and make decisions, their intellectual property increasingly resides in these algorithms,” reads a post on Gartner’s blog. “The value of people is not in running operations but in improving the AOs.”
It’s this type of efficiency and operational enhancement that can drive what Gartner calls “creative destruction” within the banking industry.
As Gartner Managing Vice President Peter Redshaw summed it up, “Successful new cloud services can displace the existing and dominant process for design, distribution or transacting in a disruptive way, rather than just incrementally improving them.”
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Why Would Google Become A Bank?
Sep 13th
What might motivate Google to become a bank down the road? As bank robber Willie Sutton is famously misquoted as saying, “Because that’s where the money is.”
While officially Google has been a bank since 2007 (holding a De Nederlands…
View full post on Search Engine Watch – Latest
Seo In Guk makes his “Shake It Up” comeback on ‘Music Bank’ – allkpop
Aug 12th
 allkpop |
Seo In Guk makes his "Shake It Up" comeback on 'Music Bank'
allkpop by VITALSIGN on August 12, 2011 at 5:53 am Singer Seo In Guk is back with a new single and he wants to “Shake It Up” with you on today's episode of KBS's 'Music Bank'. “Shake It Up” is the work of American composer Drew Ryan Scott, who's already worked … |
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Low Cost SEO – Attracting Internet Traffic Without Breaking the Bank – Online News Website
Aug 7th
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Low Cost SEO – Attracting Internet Traffic Without Breaking the Bank
Online News Website … blogs for creating and distributing useful information and as a way to compete for additional internet traffic. For any questions or more information, please click the “contact us” tab above or visit the rest of the Denver SEO Consultants, LLC website. |
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