Everything you need to know of the tech
tools for remote working

Remote work has become a standard part of many Americans’ work schedule. A Gallup poll indicated that almost 4 out of 10 employees in the country log some out-of-office work time, and 3 out of 10 of that group spend as much as four or five days per week out of their offices.

Why has this happened? First of all, almost half of the millennials are freelancers. Second, we are in the middle of a global pandemic, which means that remote working is starting to become a good idea for many individuals and companies. However, this unexpected situation may have caught you off guard, whether you are an employer or an employee.

But rest easy. Here we bring you all the technological tools you need to become a productive remote worker.

Remote desktop

If the pandemic caught you off guard during a trip and you can’t return to your home or if you have all of your files and assets in an office computer, don’t worry. All you need is a proper desktop app. TeamViewer is the free favorite. It allows file and clipboard transfer, wake-on-LAN, and offers a pretty simple setup. That’s the best choice for basic desktop access. Splashtop has a personal free version that supports screen share and pretty much everything TeamViewer offers; however, it has a small charge for iOS.

Real-Time Communication

Slack is great for real-time team chatting. It avoids bothersome email inboxes and allows you to create team chats on departments, projects, and whatever you can think about. You can send messages to the team chats or via DM to smaller groups or individual members. Mattermost is another fantastic option, as it’s an open-source, private cloud app.

For video chat, the best option is Zoom, especially for big team meetings. The pro version costs $15 but will allow you to have meetings with as much as 500 participants and the free version caps your sessions at 40 minutes. An alternative free choice is Google Hangouts, although it has a 25-people cap.

Project management

Basecamp is a stalwart in the project management field. It’s a web-based platform that includes task management, messaging and collaboration, task scheduling, reporting, and file sharing in a simple and straightforward interface. It costs $99 per year, allowing unlimited users. Asana is an excellent alternative as it has an amazing workflow and task management and has a timeline feature. It also gives managers plenty of flexibility to use it as a project map, a task assignment tool, or a workflow management tool.

Time management

If you’re a freelancer, Upwork has its own time-tracking tool that sends screen captures to your client and allows you to update what you’re working on. It helps you to know the time you’re dedicating to the project and charge accordingly, and it also lets your client see you’re not wasting his time. Timely is another time-tracking app that’s worth the check as it allows you to schedule tasks and track the time individually in real-time and immediately tracks earnings if you’re an hourly employee. Toggl is the best free choice if you want to measure your work productivity.

How is the private sector dealing with coronavirus?

A Forbes review found that almost 200 hundred conference transcripts from the last couple of weeks mention the word coronavirus or outbreak. That means corporate leaders are worried about the virus that originated in China at the end of 2019 and the effect it may have on the private sector and financial markets around the world.

Here we’ll tell what has been the impact of coronavirus over financial markets and businesses, especially small businesses.

The reactions

One of the first companies to react to the Coronavirus outbreak was Starbucks, which temporarily closed many of its Chinese stores. But that’s far from being the only reaction from the private sector.

As the largest percentage of cases are located in China, corporations are putting staff safety in the country, as their top priority. For example, Signify NV (formerly known as Phillips) said they were reaching all of their people daily, and all of them are receiving protecting equipment such as masks and soap and gel for their hands and their families. Mastercard even took an extra step and had been extending 2-week periods for their employees to work from home.

Others, such as General Electric, have made direct donations to authorities. The company donated patient monitors and ultrasound equipment to Wuhan hospitals. Becton Dickinson, a medical supplies company, is providing the Chinese government with BD MAX, an instrument that’s helping medical professionals to make swifter.

How is it affecting the markets?

There’s been some panic in financial markets because of coronavirus. The London FTSE fell 3 % this week, and Dow Jones, Nasdaq, and S&P saw similar declines. The virus has reached almost all European countries, especially Italy, and has spread through Latin America. The fall is due to panic, and the reduction of industrial and commercial activity because of the virus. Consider that the most-affected country has the biggest economy in the world, where many of the biggest companies produce their products, and you’ll understand the markets’ reaction.

For example, 3M already said they are pessimistic about their first-quarter stats because their build rates are down mid-single digits. Tesla didn’t mention any forecasts for the first quarter but also warned that coronavirus might have a mild impact on their profitability because the Model 3 is built in Shanghai and the government shut down the factory temporarily.

What about small businesses?

The impact in the US is still small. However, if the coronavirus leads workers to take days off, customers to avoid leaving home, and authorities to order quarantines or cancel public events, it can be catastrophic for small businesses running on tight budgets.

In fact, it’s already happening in the few areas that have reported coronavirus cases. Businesses in Lake Oswego, OR, where an elementary school employee tested positive a few days ago, have slowed sales down, which has owners and employees quite worried.

If the situation persists, it means businesses may eventually close and that people will lose their jobs. Italy, which is, by far, the western country with the most cases, has already approved tax cuts and credits for affected companies. A similar package will be voted in the US Congress this week to expand a small business loan program for those affected by coronavirus.

Thankfully, the infection rate is slowing down in China, and the virus is way less mortal than initially thought. That means that the most likely scenario is that things will go back to normal after a shaky first quarter of the year.

¿What did the open letter signed by more than 700 experts about coronavirus directed to VP Mike Pence say?

700 public health and human rights experts and organizations wrote an open letter to federal government officials about the proliferation of coronavirus in the US. The letter establishes many recommendations to tackle a potential widespread outbreak of coronavirus in the US.

“As the coronavirus spreads in our communities, governments must mount a fair and effective response that maintains public trust, is grounded in science, and leaves no individual — particularly the vulnerable — behind. This will not only better protect the health and security of each of us, but also the economy,” said Gregg Gonsalves, Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership at Yale Law School.

“Sustained human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus in the United States (US) appears today inevitable. The extent and impact of the outbreak in the US is difficult to predict and will depend crucially on how policymakers and leaders react. It will depend particularly on whether there is adequate funding and support for the response; fair and effective management of surging health care demand; careful and evidence-based mitigation of public fear; and necessary support and resources for fair and effective infection control,” the letter says at the beginning.

The authors state that the government must give specialized authorities adequate funding, that there must be fair and effective management of enormous healthcare demands due to the outbreak, government support for infection control, and a proper PR management for reducing public fear.

Coronavirus affects older populations and other vulnerable groups in a much more direct way than younger, healthy people. Thus, the signees say that vulnerable populations must be able to have access to adequate care, and policymakers and lawmakers must guarantee that insurance is not a barrier for access to testing or care.

One of the key points of the letter is that the government has to guarantee that people cooperate with health officials. That means that it’s necessary to avoid public panic and help people to take voluntary measures. For example, there must be adequate funding to help people stay home if they’re infected and to support measures such as school and business closures, and quarantines in graver cases.

“If people are afraid to go to a hospital or to respond to requests from public health officials, then they — and all of us — are at much greater risk,” said Amy Kapczynski, Co-Director of the Global Health Justice Partnership. “We need to protect our communities by enabling everyone to seek care and to help in the response.”

For this, it’s vital to keep a transparent, direct, and trustworthy public communication of whatever happens with coronavirus in the US, if authorities intend to preserve public trust and want citizens to cooperate with them.

The US doesn’t seem to be poised for a major coronavirus outbreak, and, in any case, the virus has a less than 2 % mortality rate. However, if such an outbreak is to be avoided, authorities must take all of the necessary precautions.

How is AI helping authorities to deal with coronavirus?

BlueDot, a Canadian AI company, has been in the spotlight in the last few weeks because they’ve warned about coronavirus and made projections days before the WHO. They did this by tapping varied information sources beyond the official stats that refer to reported cases. IT and especially AI can play a vital role in predicting, preventing, and diagnosing coronavirus cases. Let’s explain how new technologies are helping authorities and healthcare providers to deal with coronavirus

BlueDot’s algorithm

BlueDot doesn’t rely exclusively on official reported cases. It takes that info, news stories all across the globe, reports from plant and animal illnesses tracking networks, and airline data. The result is an AI that is way better at simulating and predicting the disease spread than those that rely solely on official public data.

Traditional tracking focuses on following where and when people got the disease so it can identify the source of the outbreak and which sectors of the population may be at risk. BlueDot goes a step further, analyzing how a disease spreads in different populations. That helps the algorithm to predict where outbreaks may happen and how fast the infection may spread. Laboratories focus on finding cures, while researchers can predict where it will go next and what impact it may have, which helps to prepare better for the disease.

However, an algorithm’s accuracy relies on the amount and quality of data it’s provided with. For example, social media data, such as posts about being sick, flight maps, forum discussions, is unstructured data, which computers cannot easily read. Structured data, such as numbers of cases per location, can be easily processed by computers.

However, more advanced AI, such as deep learning, can actually understand unstructured data. Deep learning works on artificial neural networks, which means its processors are ordered in layers. The data passes from layer to layer, or it’s discarded at a certain point as it’s been taught to recognize specific components of a set of items. That means that developing more advanced models rely on the amount and quality of the data they can be fed. Social media data is rarely reliable, and that’s why BlueDot prefers not to use it. However, that also means it has lesser data in hand.

Even as algorithm models are increasingly accurate at predicting outbreaks, that doesn’t mean epidemiologists are not needed. AI is a tool, not a master. The thing is leveraging it to forecast and predict new cases and outbreaks, so healthcare providers can be in a better position to respond.

What about Chinese technology?

China is the epicenter of coronavirus, and technology firms have been in the frontline of the fight against coronavirus. For example, Pudu Technology has installed machines to aid the medical staff of 40 hospitals across the country to avoid direct contact with infected individuals. Alibaba, the e-commerce company, created an AI-based tool that, they claim, diagnosis coronavirus with 96 % accuracy.

However, there’s been worries because the government has expanded its surveillance systems to enforce quarantines and keep infected citizens under control. Some facial recognition cameras have been upgraded for identifying individuals without masks and scanning fever in crowds.

c89 % of healthcare managers believe that AI is making healthcare more efficient

According to a KPMG report, almost 9 out of 10 healthcare executives say that AI is making their health systems more efficient. The report is called “Living in an AI World: Achievements and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence Across Five Industries,” and surveyed 751 executives of five different industries, including healthcare, on how they see the future of artificial intelligence in their sectors and what are they doing to make the most of their benefits and reduce its challenges.

AI is impacting healthcare in both positive and negative terms. On the positive side, it is improving operational efficiency and leading to better diagnoses. However, some believe that AI adoption is leading to an increase in healthcare costs.

What do healthcare executives believe about the pace of AI adoption?

37 % of the surveyed executives say that the AI pace of implementation is not fast enough. However, 53 % said the industry was ahead of other industries in AI adoption. Most believe that the application is too slow due to many factors, such as training, cost, and privacy.

However, the fact that so many believed the implementation is not fast enough means they see AI in a profoundly positive way. That perception may mean that sooner than later, AI adoption will transform way more facets of the healthcare business.

“The pace with which hospital systems have adopted AI and automation programs has dramatically increased since 2017,” Melissa Edwards, KPMG’s managing director of digital enablement. “Virtually all major healthcare providers are moving ahead with pilots or programs in these areas. The medical literature is showing support of AI’s power as a tool to help clinicians.”

As the title said, 9 out of 10 executives believed that AI is improving efficiency in their business and also increasing patients’ access to their services.

What’s coming next?

“My general observation is that more of the AI-related services and solutions being advanced in healthcare today are largely in the clinical, patient-facing space,” Edwards said. “Basic forms of automation are proving to be the ‘gateway drug’ to advanced forms of AI – such as scanning documents to determine the urgency of a referral. Applying AI to make earlier diagnoses of critical illnesses is a key area.”

Edwards’s opinion goes in hand with the interviewed executives. 68 % believed that AI would lead to better diagnoses of illnesses and conditions, and almost half of them (47 %) said that AI would have a significant impact on diagnosis within the next two years. Similarly, 40 % believe that X-rays and CT scans will be dealt with robotically in that period. This is not just wishful thinking. Google Health developed and deployed an AI model through DeepMind that was more effective than human physicians at screening patients for breast cancer using recent X-rays.

Likewise, as the industry has invested hard on digital health records, many surveyed executives say that AI will enhance the impact of this process. 41 % believe there’ll be more AI record management, 48 % say that biomedical applications will receive the most substantial impact, and 47 % say that machine learning will be the greatest.

How has Airbnb answered to its security backlash?

The world’s largest home-sharing platform has received plenty of criticism due to some concerns over safety and an apparent unwillingness to deal with it. However, its business model continues to thrive. Airbnb revealed some of its newest safety policies to improve its practices as it plans to go public this year. Let’s review some of that.

In early December, the WSJ provided Airbnb with a series of questions about previous safety issues and concerns. Just a little later, the company announced a $150 million investment on safety initiatives and a direct line with city officials in every town the company is based so they could get in touch with the company whenever there were issues. In this report, the WSJ discussed hundreds of police records where Airbnb hosts and renters faced problems that could’ve been prevented with better collaboration.

Some employees have suggested improved background checks for guests, requiring official IDs or Social Security numbers to improve safety, but the company so far has only accepted to remove individuals with serious criminal conviction records from the platform. As can be seen with this, Airbnb is struggling to find a balance between protecting users’ privacy and protecting their safety, which is a common issue among digital platforms.

However, the company does not think that relying on government IDs is an efficient system. Instead, they’re moving towards a verified ID system.

The company has received plenty of criticism over its safety policies from its clients, local and federal authorities, and housing competitors. Some of this criticism is purely political. Airbnb business model has displaced hotels and other accommodations, and their competition hides behind these criticisms and appeal to authorities to take Airbnb down in their cities and even countries. This is what happened to Uber in Colombia.

However, there have been reports of remote surveillance, theft, destruction of property, and even sexual assault, although serious crimes are incredibly rare. The most common security issue is that many properties do not have smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, fire extinguishers, and first aid kits.

Even as most customers are satisfied with Airbnb, certain shocking events led to public cries for better practices. For example, last year, a shooting at a Halloween Party in California ended with five people killed. The property was an Airbnb.

The company vowed to launch a 24/7 rapid response hotline for neighbors and authorities and improve its study of high-risk reservations.

Airbnb’s security backlash proves that we are in an age of deep accountability. The competition will always try to use safety issues to try to get further regulations on these businesses to hinder their business models. Organizational leadership must always be proactive and attentive to customers’ claims. This decade is the decade of customer-oriented services, whatever your industry is.

The company didn’t answer quickly enough for some, and that may affect its IPO in 2020. Still, the substantial investment it’s making in safety, and further collaboration with local authorities may help the company to regain trust from users.

Microsoft will provide experimental gRPC-Web support to .NET

Microsoft will start a pilot program to provide support for gRPC-Web in .Net Core and ASP.Net Core. The program will allow .Net Core gRPC client’s and ASP.NET Core gRPC apps’ to call directly the gRPC-Web, which is a significant advancement for developers. Let’s see some of the features and pros this may bring for IT teams.

Google originally developed gRPC. It is a remote call system that has been officially endorsed by Microsoft to replace WCF in .NET Core. Even as the new .NET support is merely experimental, gRPC-Web is not new. It was initially released in 2018 as a JavaScript client library to allow web apps to get in touch directly with gRPC services without needing an HTTP server proxy.

In a similar fashion to gRPC, gRPC-Web makes use of predetermined contacts between the web client and the gRPC services. That means gRPC-Web is a JavaScript client library that is compatible with HTTP/1 and HTTP/2. It supports the same API as gRPC-Node to be able to gain access to a gRPC service, where the gRPC serves as an open-source RPC framework. This allows the client and server apps to communicate efficiently and transparently.

The fact that it is merely experimental means that Microsoft is not committing to developing a full product. Instead, the company is testing the market and the features of this beta client library. About this, James Newton-King, one of the head software engineers of  ASP.NET said in a statement that “We want to test that our approach to implementing gRPC-Web works, and get feedback on whether this approach is useful to .NET developers compared to the traditional way of setting up gRPC-Web via a proxy.”

So, what are the advantages of Microsoft’s experimental program of gRPC-Web for .NET? Basically, the company seeks to bring server streaming, compact Protobuf messages, and strong code-generated clients to browser apps.  That means the ASP.Net Core app can support gRPC-Web without needing a proxy and letting the .NET Core gRPC client communicate with gRPC Web Services, which is pretty nice for Blazor WebAssembly apps.

However, this isn’t it. Aside from this feature, the experimental program will also allow calling gRPC from different platforms like Blazon WebAssembly and Xamarin and will enable Azure App Services and IIS to ASP.NET Core gRPC apps. gRPC web will provide a stable client for JavaScript and a proxy for translation between gRPC and gRPC-Web. Microsoft said that gRPC-Web will suffer a minor performance cost and that a couple of gRPC features, in particular, client streaming and bidirectional streaming, will not be supported anymore.

Microsoft published a tutorial for the creation of a gRPC client and server in ASP.NET Core, so people get acquainted with gRPC in .NET (check it right here). gRPC-Web does not require changes to services as it only changes the startup configuration.

That Microsoft turns its gRPC-Web support to .NET experiment into a final product depends on the reception of the testers and the ASP.NET team feedback. If this happens, it could mean a significant overhaul for developers. Let’s see how it goes.

What can impact the cost and quality of your startup application?

When you are first considering to create your app for your startup, you’re probably really excited and trying to figure out how to create the most suitable app for your customers and for stepping up the game for your business, but such a process can be costly and tiresome. Thus, here we bring you some factors you have to consider when you think about the cost and quality of your startup app.

Developers hourly rate and project complexity

This is the first, second, third, and most critical factor that will impact the cost of your app. A Clutch survey says that the median app development costs go from $40,000 to $730,000. As you may see, this is a wide range, because it mostly depends on different factors that we will evaluate right here.

The complexity of the app features, user experience, interface, and some other characteristics such as back-end infrastructure and third-party API integrations, development approach, and the number of developed platforms also impact the estimated cost.

Startups generally don’t have that kind of money in hand, so an alternative way is going for freelance developers located in Latin American countries such as Colombia and Venezuela that can offer a quality product for a fraction of the price.

Thus, you have to evaluate which of them fits better with your project. On one hand, a freelancer responds to your specific requirements. Also, they are affordable and flexible. However, you may not receive strong support and maintenance for your app. On the other hand, you can work with a company. That means you’ll have a professional team of experts with a dedicated crew for specifics tasks and with a strong support and maintenance post app launched. However, this comes at a high cost.

Expectations

As with any other project, app development usually starts with planning. You sit down with your team to search, discover, and scope what you want and design an ideal outcome.

There’s a positive correlation between your idea, the cost, and the quality. If you have a clear idea of what you want, you’ll reduce costs and receive better quality. You must know what are your products and how you want to sell them, what problems or value your products and app will solve for the consumer? Who are your consumers and your ideal clients? What other similar apps or products are on your market? How will you stand and shine above your competitors?

In conclusion

The decisions you make in the first phase of your project influence the rates and costs that will determine the quality of your product. To reduce costs without hindering your product quality, start with setting clear expectations for your product that are based on your target market and customer development. A good business plan for your startup app is the key to deliver a quality product without draining your savings.