Facebook’s two billion users will soon be able to post in more creative ways with the catalog of Warner, whose artist roster includes Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and the late Prince.

“Our partnership with Facebook will help expand the universe of music streaming and create supplementary revenue for artists,” said Ole Obermann, chief digital officer of the Warner Music Group.

“Fan-created video is one of the most personal, social and often viral ways that music is enjoyed, but its commercial potential is largely untapped,” he said in a statement.

Warner said it had been holding out for “the best possible deal” after its two rivals, Universal Music and Sony Music, signed deals with Facebook in recent months.

Facebook has said that it is looking at more personalized ways in which users can post music, including through Messenger and Instagram, the picture-driven social media platform owned by Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has largely taken a back seat on music streaming as other mega-companies such as Apple and Google invest heavily in the growing sector.

While music postings are omnipresent on Facebook, the company has sought to take down embedded content that is copyrighted without licensing.

Fans, when not uploading their own homemade videos, link to other sites such as YouTube and Spotify.

In line with the Ministry of Primary Resources and Tourism’s (MPRT) Strategic Goals and Key Areas of the Main Resources of the ministry such as Productivity Improvement for Modern Technology and Modernisation in broadening activities in all farming, fishing, and animal husbandry activities.

This was highlighted by the Minister of Primary Resources and Tourism YB Dato Seri Setia Awang Haji Ali bin Haji Apong at the 14th Legislative Council session on Thursday, responding to a query by YB Iswandy bin Ahmad on integrating technology physically, digitally and biologically, and on policies to adapt such changes to stir economic growth in the near future.

In adapting these changes, the country encourages the needs for technological applications towards expanding key resource sectors and the tourism sector.

The appropriate technology adaptation approaches include the application of LED, vertical farming, green house, fertigation and hydroponics, and agricultural industries in farming.

The minister said others include closed house system and multi-level houses in broiler industry as well as multi-storey tanks for the maintenance of fish and shrimps. For financial transaction management, the adaptation of the e-payment system is an initiative already implemented under the Brunei Darussalam National Single Window (BDNSW) system and similar to other systems that facilitate the users.

“There’s a whole bunch of interesting and difficult philosophical questions… that we’re going to have to answer about how to control these systems, what values we want in them, how do we want to deploy them, what do we want to use them for,” he said.

Hassabis was speaking at a screening of a documentary about AlphaGo, the AI system developed by DeepMind that stunned the world in 2016 by beating an elite human player in the complex Chinese strategy game “Go”.

In a question and answer session at University College London, he said AI is an “incredible tool to accelerate scientific discovery”, adding: “We believe that it will be one of the most beneficial technologies of mankind ever.”

However, like other powerful technologies, “there are risks”, he said, adding: “It depends on how we as a society decide to deploy it that will resolve in good or bad outcomes.”

He said ethical questions were at the “forefront of our mind” at DeepMind, which he founded in 2010 and is now part of Google.

Users of smart speakers with Alexa assistant software have comically expressed their fears in recent weeks on Twitter, even posting video snippets of speakers infused with the software laughing menacingly for no apparent reason.

“If Alexa is laughing at you to your face, just imagine what it says about you behind your back,” read a quip posted at Twitter by @mattblaze.

Darker posts wondered playfully whether fears about artificial intelligence turning on humans were coming real.

“Every time Alexa laughs, an angel dies,” entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk joked in a Twitter exchange on the development.

Tesla co-founder Musk is among high profile figures who have called for vigilance to ensure artificial intelligence doesn’t turn on humans.

Amazon told AFP it looked into what was going on and found that sometimes Alexa mistakenly registers the phrase “Alexa laugh” and obeys.

“We are changing that phrase to be ‘Alexa, can you laugh?’ which is less likely to have false positives,” an Amazon spokesperson told AFP.

And, Alexa is being modified to say “Sure, I can laugh,” before cackling.

Streaming television titan Netflix took the opportunity to spotlight a Black Mirror dystopian series known for twisted, unanticipated consequences of new technologies.

“Just brainstorming some @blackmirror titles while Alexa laughs maniacally in the distance,” read an @netflix tweet.

The tweet included a picture of a multi-story, modern book shop overlaid with “The Bookstore That Enslaved Humanity.”

Amazon began as an online book seller.

One video of a cackling Alexa posted at Twitter on February 23 had logged more than a million views.

“I unplugged Alexa and she’s still laughing,” one Twitter user quipped.

Launched in 2014 by Amazon, the Alexa digital assistant has spread from the company’s Echo voice-commanded speakers to millions of devices, even cars.

Alexa competes in the digital assistant market with offerings from tech titans including Apple, Google, and Microsoft.

BlackBerry is claiming infringement on patents it holds for message encryption and notifications, and is seeking an injunction as well as damages for lost profits, although no figure was given.

Facebook and its wholly-owned services Instagram and WhatsApp are named as defendants in the lawsuit. The company said it intends to fight the lawsuit.

“We have a lot of respect for Facebook and the value they’ve placed on messaging capabilities, some of which were invented by BlackBerry,” BlackBerry spokeswoman Sarah McKinney said in a statement.

She said BlackBerry would like to partner with Facebook “in our drive toward a securely connected future, and we continue to hold this door open to them.”

“However, we have a strong claim that Facebook has infringed on our intellectual property, and after several years of dialogue, we also have an obligation to our shareholders to pursue appropriate legal remedies,” McKinney added.

Facebook shot back by disparaging BlackBerry, saying the lawsuit “sadly reflects the current state of its messaging business.”

“Having abandoned its efforts to innovate, Blackberry is now looking to tax the innovation of others. We intend to fight,” Facebook deputy general counsel Paul Grewal said.

BlackBerry, after abandoning the manufacture of its once-popular smartphones, which it also pioneered, has refocused its core business on cybersecurity software and services.

The all-in-one app is a daily necessity for most Chinese, bringing together messaging, social media, mobile payment, games, news and other services.

“WeChat’s worldwide monthly active users have surpassed the critical one billion mark,” CEO Pony Ma said Monday on the sidelines of China’s parliamentary session underway in Beijing.

“In the future we hope to use technological innovation to push forward the next developmental step of reform and opening,” Ma said.

He was referring to China’s economic liberalisation policy that has fuelled four decades of breakneck economic growth.

Although Ma said WeChat’s monthly active users had crossed the one billion threshold, a company spokesman told AFP he was referring to its total number of accounts.

Still, the one billion figure indicates the huge user base which Tencent has built up both inside and outside China for its all-in-one app.

It compares with 2.1 billion monthly active users on Facebook and 1.5 billion on its messaging app WhatsApp.

The popularity of WeChat — and profits from its addictive mobile games — have pushed Tencent’s earnings and share price sharply upwards.

The company surpassed Facebook in market value last year and the 47-year-old Ma has rocketed to near the apex of China’s rich list.

He is the wealthiest delegate to the parliamentary session, according to Shanghai-based luxury magazine publisher Hurun Report, which estimated his fortune at $47 billion.

Director general Prasong Poonthanet said on Tuesday the department would this month submit a tax bill covering e-commerce to Finance Minister Apisak Tantivorawong for endorsement before it goes to Cabinet for approval.

If the draft law is approved, it will be forwarded to the National Legislative Assembly for debate.

Prasong said the department wanted to impose a 7-per-cent value-added tax on goods sold to Thai consumers.

The department would seek collaboration from the Digital Economy and Society Ministry in encouraging foreign e-commerce operators to participate in the tax collection system, he said.

His comment signalled that Thailand is prepared to block foreign e-commerce websites if they do not pay taxes.

Asking whether such operators might attempt to shift the tax burden to Thai consumers, Prasong said if they charged higher prices, consumers would instead buy from local businesses.

Currently, he said, foreign e-commerce operators take advantage of a legal loophole by issuing multiple bills for each transaction, none for more than Bt1,500 and thus not subject to taxation.

Analysts predict that Asia Pacific will lead VR market growth at a predicted CAGR of over 80% from 2016 to 2024. The global market could be worth as much as US$60 billion globally by 2025.

Technology giants are making huge investments in VR, augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). Examples include Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus VR headset and Lenovo’s Explorer MR headset.

With technology maturing and price points plummeting, the case for its adoption becomes more compelling by the day.

VR helps businesses do more at less cost and risk

VR is expected to increase productivity, allowing workers to see and interact with information. Wherever visualization can be applied, VR can improve productivity and effectiveness and reduce cost and risk – whether it’s turning blueprints and technical drawings into more human-friendly 3D renderings or training future medical workers with virtual organs and their diseases.

Such medical, industrial and marketing VR applications are already in use, driving what is predicted to be a 10-fold spike in sales of AR and VR headsets by 2021. In the heathcare space, analysts expect that the global market for VR to reach US$3.8 billion by 2020.

VR helps businesses engage its customers

Consumers today place much more value on overall brand and product experiences. Immersive, interactive “as-if-you-were-there” experiences are an effective way to constantly engage and pique the interest of brand loyalists.

VR-enabled applications are particularly useful for businesses that need customers to visualize the end product. Architects can virtually walk their clients through a building whose foundation has yet to be laid. Retailers can show off fashions and create virtual showrooms. Layer on top of this is the social element that users have sharing experiences and it’s clear that VR will be a hit for consumers.

VR technology is here now

Not long ago, VR was an immature technology seen as a dream for lifestyles of the future and mere toys for today. Immersive technology is quickly advancing, however, and by 2020, both consumers and businesses are expected to have easy and affordable access to quality VR devices, systems, tools and services.

A recent survey found that 37% of organizations surveyed are already using VR. The market currently offers more consumer devices than enterprise-ready ones, but the gap in adoption is predicted to close by 2019.

With immersive technology become progressively richer and more immersive, its use is poised to reshape many industries. Now is the time for businesses to embrace VR, not just to keep pace, but to innovate with it and leap ahead of the competition.

According to data from the Department of Agricultural Extension, the agricultural sector’s labour force accounted for 40 per cent of Thai employment at 13 million people. However, about 75 per cent of Thai farmers, or 10 million people, are over 46 years old, while 3 million are between 20 and 45. There are only 1,700 people aged under 20 years.

This startling imbalance in the numbers across ages in Thai farmer demographics is partly due to a massive career shift, fuelled by social norms. Some of the most abject poverty in Thailand is concentrated in farming communities. Therefore, baby-boomer farmers worked very hard to nurture their children with a better education in the hopes they could escape poverty by increasing their off-farm income, particularly in manufacturing and services.

Consequently, this ageing society is highly likely to pose a serious threat to food security, too. And that’s why we need a new generation of farmer, the so-called “smart farmer”.

The deep-rooted cause of poverty among farming communities is mainly due to the high cost of production, the role of middlemen and the monopoly in the Thai agriculture system. This has also resulted in a shortage of human resources in the agricultural industry.

Farmers consider themselves to be only a supplier, which is quite wrong. Based on my experience, I would argue that farmers should adopt the integrated agribusiness model, which involves factoring in management practices, people’s goals and lifestyles, social constraints, economic opportunities, marketing strategies and externalities that include energy supplies and costs.

Five years ago I was a supplier, providing and shipping my hometown-grown vegetables to Talat Thai, the country’s largest wholesale market for agricultural products. Farmers in my community massively struggled with lock-out specifications and the high quality standards for products as set by middlemen – leading to the use of chemical fertilisers sold by the middlemen themselves.

Production of food crops is not dependent on any formally acquired knowledge of farming, but is instead solely based on indigenous agricultural knowledge passed from generation to generation through experience, which is no longer precise and effective amid the worsening situation of climate change. It is likely to supply low-quality products that do not meet the market’s requirement. The local farmers finally fell into the poverty trap caused by high production costs.

To be sustainable, farming should be based on research, technology and invention to avoid “being controlled” from the market. In contrast, farmers should think more entrepreneurially, creating and focusing on “value”.

The more the merrier. I joined with the younger farmers in my communities to jointly form a community-based enterprise called “Muan Jai”. It oversees production from downstream to upstream to output high-value products made from cordyceps mushrooms, which contain medicinal benefits such as increasing immune function, improving athletic performance and decreasing diabetes. Each member shares their own expertise, such as planting, designing, or entrepreneurial and technology skills.

For my part, I am good at scientific research, leading me to develop and produce dietary supplements. This also brought me advantages in telling the story of the mushrooms through a Facebook fan page, the major source of our revenue stream.

The revolution in agricultural technology – Internet, biotechnology and information technology – has unlocked new opportunities for livelihood improvement. And to embrace those technologies, we need those who are young, energetic, creative and have passion to become “Young Smart Farmers”, securing the better Thailand.

Jirawan Kamsow is the winner of the Young Smart Farmer Awards 2017, jointly granted by DTAC, the Department of Agricultural Extension and the Sam NUK Rak Ban Kerd foundation. She’s a doctoral graduate farmer based in Chiang Dao, Chiang Mai.