Categories
Software Engineering

Back To The Future

“Back To The Future” is one of the best movies I ever watched. It’s interesting to see how the actors went back to the past which affects the future. I enjoy watching those future technology in the movies. The first episode screened in 1985  and it’s amazing some of future technology in the movies really came true like touch screen tablets, video conferencing and etc.

Recently I got this message forwarded to my company whatsapp group which I want to share to all. Will these future prediction come true or perhaps some already came true? Please comment to share your thoughts.

 


 

In a recent interview the MD of Daimler Benz (Mercedes Benz) said their competitors are no longer other car companies but Tesla (obvious), Google, Apple, Amazon .

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world

Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected.

In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.

So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 times more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s licence and will never own a car.

It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars for that. We can transform former parking spaces into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 60,000 miles (100,000 km), with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 6 million miles (10 million km). That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies will probably become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels.

Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars will become mainstream about 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run on electricity. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can now see the burgeoning impact.

Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. Energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid to prevent competition from home solar installations, but that can’t last. Technology will take care of that strategy.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination of salt water now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter (@ 0.25 cents). We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There are companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breath into it.

It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medical analysis, nearly for free. Goodbye, medical establishment.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have already started 3D printing shoes.

Some spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home.

In China, they already 3D printed and built a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner?

If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all day on their fields.

Aeroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal, is now available and will be cheaper than cow produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labelled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell in which mood you’re in. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions, if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they’re telling the truth and when they’re not.

Bitcoin may even become the default reserve currency … Of the world!

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.

Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child needs to learn at school in First World countries. There have already been releases of software in Indonesia and soon there will be releases in Arabic, Suaheli and Chinese this summer. I can see enormous potential if we give the English app for free, so that children in Africa and everywhere else can become fluent in English and that could happen within half a year.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Beware of Investment Scam

Recently one of my good friends approached me about this investment company which offer 100% return in a year. I told him this will be too good to be true. As I googled, indeed there are people commented that it was a scam and I told him to be careful. But he still seem unconvinced and send me more stuff about the company.

Well, there are already so many this kind of scam investment cases in Malaysia. As on 29th April 2017, Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department said the number of cases of investment scams in Malaysia have grown to an “alarming” RM379.1 million lost nationwide from 1,883 scams from 2015 until April 2017. Here are some BIG stories:

List Of Unauthorised Websites / Investment Products / Companies / Individuals.

Please leave your comment to let me know more stories so that more people will be aware.

Now, let’s compare to the return from unit trust fund from various popular unit trust fund companies in Malaysia.

Note: What is a unit trust fund? A Unit Trust Fund consists of a pool of funds collected from a group of investors with similar objectives. This collective investment fund is managed full time by professional fund managers. An investment portfolio typically includes equities, bonds and assets.

Top 10 in 10 years return

No.Fund Name10 Yr Annualised %
1Kenanga Growth15.09
2Eastspring Investments Small-cap14.72
3Affin Hwang Select Asia (Ex Japan) Quantum14.39
5RHB Emerging Opportunity Unit Trust11.12
4KAF Vision (formerly known as Alliance Vision)11.61
8AMB Ethical Trust10.72
7Kenanga Syariah Growth10.95
6AMB Dividen Trust11.01
9Eastspring Investments Dana al-Ilham10.58
10RHB Smart Balanced10.42
Source: FSM NAV Date: 28/1/2017

 

Top 10 in 5 years return

TOP 10 IN 5 YEARS RETURN – UNIT TRUST FUNDS – JAN 2017
No.Fund Name5 Yr Annualised %
1Eastspring Investments Small-cap21.67
2CIMB-Principal Asia Pacific Dynamic Income16.61
3CIMB-Principal Global Titan16.40
4TA Global Technology16.39
5Manulife Investment U.S. Equity16.17
6Eastspring Investments MY Focus16.10
7Affin Hwang Select Asia (Ex Japan) Quantum15.78
8KAF Vision15.66
9AmSchroder European Equity Alpha15.36
10RHB Small Cap Opportunity Unit Trust14.76
Source: FSM NAV Date: 28/1/2017

 

Even with so many professional fund managers, the best return in around 20% per year. And that is based on the average of 5 years or 10 years of investment.

So you should be skeptical when you hear an investment company which offer you anything more than 20% return per year. Example 100% return per year or  20% return per month. More warning sign especially they told you that the return is ‘guaranteed’. Think about it for a minute. If they guaranteed you 100% return per year, all the banks would invest in it. Just imagine, bank just invest 100 million become 200 million following year. Banks only give a Guaranteed of 3-4% per year  for fixed deposit interest. But do you think bank will do that? Surely no. Question is why.

Categories
Uncategorized

Popular Malaysia eMarketplaces

Besides selling your product in your own website, you can also consider using local eMarketplaces as well. eMarketplaces is like a big shopping mall where they will invite merchants or brand owners to setup own account. Merchant can then upload products, set product description and product pricing. Popular eMarketplaces have huge amount of traffic (people who visit their site). When more people visit eMarketplaces, the chances for consumer to find your product is high as well especially if your products are “hot” products. In return, this eMarketplaces will usually earn back from certain percentage (%) from each sales transaction from your store. Again this is a win-win situation for both parties.

There are the top 10 most popular eMarketplaces in Malaysia:

  1. 11street.my (by Celcom + SK telecom)
  2. Gemfive.com (by Hong Leong group)
  3. Lazada.com.my (by Rocket Internet, now owned by Alibaba)
  4. Lelong.my (Malaysia home-gown marketplaces)
  5. Lmall.my (by Lelong)
  6. Logon.my (by Sinchew Media Group)
  7. Shopee.com .my (Mobile 1st, by Garena)
  8. Shoppu.my (by AEON, Malaysia Largest Retailer)
  9. Qoo10.my
  10. Zalora.com.my (Fashion Vertical)

With that, you can have your revenue from your own website (your brand) and from these eMarketplaces. Happy selling!

If you want to learn to setup your own website / store to sell products, I do have a short 10-hours hands-on workshop. This workshop teach you step by step from having a domain to setting up a payment option in your website and selling AliExpress product and drop shipping too. Contact me if you are interested to learn.

Categories
eCommerce

Malaysia’s e-commerce industry now a RM24.6bil business – iPrice

News on 17th August 2017. Source: TheStar

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian e-commerce industry has grown steadily after its boom in the mid-2000s and is now a RM24.6bil business, said iPrice Group.

IPrice Group is a meta-search e-commerce website which enables Malaysian shoppers to connect with hundreds of e-commerce merchants and discover products, compare prices and get the best deals.

In a statement, iPrice said Lazada ranked as the top e-commerce company in Malaysia, followed by Zalora and 11 Street, based on their online traffic, staff numbers and followers on social media applications such as SimilarWeb, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

It said Lazada’s website received an average of 29 million visitors on a monthly basis while 11 Street received nine million visitors monthly.

“These three top e-commerce companies were all founded in South-East Asia.

“Although e-commerce websites originating from outside the South-East Asia region such as eBay and Sephora are also accessible to Malaysians, regional or locally based e-commerce sites seemed to be more successful, probably due to their on-the-ground knowledge which gives them a higher advantage,” it said.

Meanwhile, Lelong.com took the top spot in the list of Malaysian-based e-commerce companies, with its website recording an average traffic of 6.33 billion during the second quarter of 2017.

“Established in 1998, Lelong.com is probably the oldest Malaysian based e-commerce company and it remains the most popular commerce-to-commerce platform among Malaysians as they were among the first to spot the e-commerce potential,” it said.

IPrice also said that local fashion e-commerce websites, such as Fashion Valet and Poplook, were also gaining popularity among Malaysians.

“These local brands thrive mainly through social media pages such as Instagram, where they can easily feature their products via images and partnerships with popular local celebrities and brands,” it said.

It added that fashion brands in Malaysia had been seeing the benefit of adopting the e-commerce model in running their operations as it enabled them to scale their business efficiently according to consumers’ needs. – Bernama

 

Categories
Software Engineering

What is Software Engineering and WHY it is important?

What is programming/coding?

  • Writing very specific instructions to a very dumb but obedient machine.
  • Computers are designed to execute a set of instructions.
  • Programming is the act of creating a set of instructions for a computer to execute.

 

 

What is software engineering?

  •  Software engineering is a discipline for solving business problems by designing and developing software-based systems.
  • Software engineering is like building a house. Depending on the size of the house, to build a house generally, it takes a lot of resources like time, effort, money, various skilled professionals.

 

 

Why web programming? Why software engineering is important?

 

  1. Internet Users are growing fast every year.

 

We can do almost anything online now. Pay bills, buy movie ticket, buy air ticket, pay insurance, online banking and more.

 

  1. Good salary

 

  1. You can choose to work from home in future – All you need is just a computer and Internet. You can also work anywhere like McDonald or Starbucks.

 

  1. eCommerce business potential – With web programming, web design and eCommerce skill, you can build an eCommerce website. Your ecommerce website is 24 hours a day 365 days a year. No buildings to rent. No electric bill to pay. No need to pay worker’s salary. You need to find the right product and market it online effectively.

 

  1. And many more reasons which you will soon realize….

 

Courses in Diploma in Software Engineering and what Skills you will gain.

 

Course NameSkills you will gain
Web Design CourseWordPress
HTML
CSS
Bootstrap
Web Programming CourseASP
classic ASP
.NET
ASP.NET
VB.NET
IIS
Visual Studio 2015
Javascript
Database Design CourseSQL
SQL Server 2014
SQL Management Studio
ADO.NET
LINQ
Software EngineeringSDLC
Software Project Management
Software Documentation
Software Development as a Team
Software Quality ManagementExample, Security, Performance, User friendly, easy to maintain.
Software Testing

 

I am Steve Ngai and I am teaching Diploma in Software Engineering for Eduvo Sdn Bhd. For more info, you can contact me or our course consultant, Candy at 012-2727886.