Editor’s note: Technology is playing an increasing role in the day-to-day business of sales reps. In this department, Repertoire will profile the latest developments in software and gadgets that reps can use for work and play.
Compact cameras still have a place
The best camera, they say, is the one you have with you, write the editors of Wired. That’s usually your smartphone. But there’s only so much it can do. A good compact camera gives you features like optical zoom, better image stabilization, and a bigger sensor for sharper photos, along with nicer dials and controls. These cameras, also called point-and-shoot cams, give you the tools to explore photography in ways that portrait mode simply can’t. In March, Wired gave kudos to Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark II (best overall); Sony Cyber-shot RX100 (best on a budget), Panasonic Lumix ZS100 and Olympus Tough TG-6 (best for zooming); Ricoh-GR-II (“a cult classic”); and Moment telephoto lens (for phone loyalists).
Killing passwords
Time to lose the password. After all, passwords are hard to remember; hackers exploit their weaknesses; and fixes often bring their own problems, notes CNET. Password managers generate strong and unique passwords for every account you have, but the software is complex. Services from Google, Facebook and Apple allow you to use your passwords for their services at other sites, but you have to give them even more power over your life online. And two-factor authentication, which requires a second passcode sent by text message or retrieved from a special app each time you log in, boosts security dramatically but can still be defeated. A big change, however, could eliminate passwords altogether. The technology, called FIDO (Fast Identity Online) overhauls the log-in process, combining your phone, face and fingerprint recognition, and new gadgets called hardware security keys. If it delivers on its promise, FIDO will make cringeworthy passwords like “123456” relics of a bygone age. Still, “from a consumer level, we’re probably five to seven years out from killing passwords being a reality,” said Forrester security analyst Chase Cunningham.
Do you love me?
In 2018, IBM debuted technology called IBM Debater, which used artificial intelligence technology to read lots of documents and take on a human in a competitive debate about issues, like whether we should subsidize preschools, reports CNET. In 2019, Big Blue pitted IBM Debater against a champion debater in a live-streamed competition. And now you can use IBM Debater technology to find out if people like you on Twitter. That’s because IBM has begun commercializing aspects of the IBM Debater technology. You can use it in three ways: 1) for sentiment analysis, in which IBM’s software judges how positively or negatively people feel about a subject, based on natural speech and writing; 2) summarizing information (IBM used it to digest information in 18 million blog posts, articles and biographies to generate information about celebrities on the Grammy competition red carpet) or 3) “clustering,” a process of analyzing raw data to figure out when topics are related to each other (a skill that should be useful for insurance, healthcare and manufacturing).
An affordable iPhone
Apple at press time was reportedly planning to launch a new 5.5-inch entry level iPhone, reports 9to5Mac. (It has been rumored for some time that Apple would soon release a 4.7-inch LCD phone for $400, which reuses the iPhone 8 design with updated internals.) The new phones will also apparently have a solid state home button like the original iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, rely on Touch ID instead of Face ID, and come with Apple Pay’s Express Transit feature, which lets you just hold your phone near a transit terminal to pay for transit. The new phones will also apparently be able to scan NFC tags without requiring a user to open up an app, a feature that’s currently available only on the iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and iPhone 11.