The Intersection of AI and Marketing

Image Credit: Cortex

The Low Down on AI-Powered Programmatic Advertising

When programmatic advertising is powered by artificial intelligence (AI): “it brings more efficiency to publishers and advertisers.” [1]. It can also be said that: “AI is here to facilitate marketers’ lives for better automation and decision-making, while being able to deliver personalized end-user experiences” [1].

Putting the Spotlight on the World of AI Marketing

Right now, the worlds of programmatic advertising and AI, are starting to integrate in a big way. In a nutshell, programmatic advertising refers to: “the automated process of buying and selling ad inventory through an exchange, connecting advertisers to publishers” [1]. This strategy employs real-time bidding and AI tech for inventory spanning a number of fields including: TV, social and video channels, and mobile. AI tech utilises algorithms to study users' behavior, thereby enabling real-time campaign optimisations that are geared to a specific audience that is more inclined to convert. Companies who specialise in programmatic advertising have the means to collect this information from their audience, so that they can target them with far more precision, whether it is from their own data, or data from a third-party provider [2].

Programmatic media buying incorporates data management platforms (DMPs), demand side platforms (DSPs), and side supply platforms (SSPs). DSPs that facilitate buying advertisement inventory on the open market, offer: “the ability to reach [a] target audience due to the integration of DMPs [which] collect and analyze a substantial amount of cookie data to allow the marketer to make more informed decisions of whom their target audience may be” [2]. Search engine marketing advertising on channels such as Twitter, Facebook and Google AdWords, are prime examples of programmatic advertising [2].

The Revolution of the Digital Advertising Market is Just Beginning

Right now, the digital advertising market is being dominated by the protected few, who are controlling the management of advertisers' ROIs, not to mention publishers' revenues. To that end, AI is the preferred route for a distributed programmatic ecosystem, as it can vie: “against the duopoly, as it streamlines the demand targeting with supply monetization, in a sustainable fashion” [1]. This will provide better user classification, and thus lessen waste, which will result in the monetisation of a supply which is far more relevant [1].

Unlike the duopoly that mainly operates in a self-regulated environment such as moving on a train track, the bid stream is like a busy motorway intersection with a massive amount of traffic in perpetual movement. Analogous to autonomous cars, when AI is applied to programmatic advertising, it can navigate on its own within the environment, and is able to give granular insights in order to find an economical path connecting advertisers and publishers [1].

How AI Ramps Up Audience Targeting For Advertisers & Publishers

“Programmatic advertising already involves a good deal of AI, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement from the perspective of the advertiser” [3]

Smart Interest Discovery is the name of the game for audience creation. It offers the means to evaluate different bidding strategies and traffic sources so it is easy to evaluate the audiences' “intent behavior” patterns for both long and short-term interests [1]. This level of refinement is clearly set to become standard in the not too distant future. The artificial intelligence layer enables the operator to leverage this during real-time targeting. Further, in order to make the advertising more pertinent and not as intrusive, the operator must have the ability to respond on the premise of the users' interests, and the demand requirements [1].

When artificial intelligence meets programmatic advertising, just as with a human brain: “advertising behaves like a central nervous system. It consumes information for a large number of sensory organs, i.e., supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms” [1]. Further, for the purpose of taking strong real-time decisions, AI: “takes optimal autonomous actions to adapt to changes in significant factors governing demand and supply. It has the potential to optimize towards a sustainable ecosystem [and] keeps up to speed with dynamically evolving user behavior, constantly updating user valuation” [1]. - So the high tech benefits are truly exciting!

So What Are the Future Trends for AI-Powered Programmatic Advertising?

Let us consider this scenario: “Just as a huge volume of stock market transactions are handled by AI today, the further future of programmatic advertising will likely involve competing AI systems, altering bids and ads in real time” [3]. This will be supervised by a team, yet nevertheless, act in an autonomous way to optimise an end goal [3].

Lior Tasman

Lior Tasman, the CEO of PredictiveBid, Predictive Bidding Platform, is a leader in the industry, and has worked alongside a number of the biggest advertising companies in his 10-plus years with innovative start-ups. While giving an interview for Techemergence, he looked at where artificial intelligence can help to ameliorate some of programmatic advertising's biggest issues [3].

Tasman stated that: “AI is solving the problem of crunching big sets of data and then making a lot of relatively fast, complex calculations… it is also a system that improves itself over time based on its predictions” [3]. It is not difficult to construct a rule-based algorithm, however, if one requires “a machine that really reacts to specific events in the market; that’s better at predicting how likely the market is to behave; and you need to make that decision really fast, you really need a system that is more” [3]. Step forward artificial intelligence – a phenomenon that has the capacity to carry out these calculations, and then assist by automating manual and complex computing issues [3]. Tasman also remarked that his team is becoming more effective through AI. There has to be a unison between human and humanoid, as the latter only serves to make the process of decision making quicker or easier, and help the team work more efficiently [3].

Moti Tal

Another great candidate to answer this question of future trends for Techemergence, was Moti Tal, the Co-Founder of Simplaex. Tal boasts 18 years in high tech, and heads the company's research and development department. He believes that with the ascent of AI, it will be common: “to see more products that streamline the interactions of the different actors across the programmatic advertising value chain” [1]. To that end, with the addition of artificial intelligence, “advertising will be more personalized, and as a consequence more relevant and less intrusive, which is a step forward towards a positive browsing experience, making the freemium content model sustainable” [1].

Tim Sims

Further, tech expert, Ross Benes, recently conducted an interview on behalf of eMarketers, with Tim Sims, the SVP of Inventory Partnerships, The Trade Desk. This involved an interesting discussion on various aspects of automated ad buying.

On the question as to why Sims chose to incorporate artificial intelligence tools within his company's system, Sims noted that it was down to the massive size of programmatic bidding, stating: “we look at 9 million queries per second... [and] you put that in the context of other mature marketplaces like Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, it’s astronomical” [4]. There are opportunities from this colossal size of bidding. Sims said that the company utilise all the data for forecasting, and are able to use the information to generate more artificial intelligence decisions, whereby: “the platform takes control to find the best execution path for a particular campaign” [4].

While acknowledging that one component of this strategy is supply path optimization tech (advanced algorithms which can decide what the the most effective result for a specific advertiser will be at that very second by appraising the maximum number of data points), Sims notes that with AI, there are other components such as performance and price [4].

First-Price Auctions

The move to first-price auctions (where the highest bidder determines how much an impression gets sold for) [5], which were introduced to offer more transparency to auction dynamics [5], means that it is now more essential than even for the purchaser's side to transact in an competent marketplace. To that end, discovering the market rate for such an impression can be instigated via artificial intelligence. When asked whether ad rates have been impacted by moving to first-price auctions, Sims stated that it likely that over the previous six months or so, throughout the entire ecosystem there have been signs of a rise in the CPM (cost per thousand) [4].

What Does OONA Offer?

“OONA - Always Striving to Offer Superior Ad Options to Channel Owners & Content Holders”

OONA – the cool interactive Entertainment & Messaging platform which offers more than TV & OTT, is currently set to provide AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) and premium options to 185 million Indonesians, and is on course with its goal for delivering its revolutionary service to other regions including other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the US and Europe.

OONA is the brainchild of leading digital strategist and CEO, Christophe Hochart, who focuses on user experience for competitive advantage. To that end, the platform is naturally geared towards programmatic advertising. OONA offers a strong flexible business model to channels and content holders via its OTT monetization methods, and this has become very popular with both mega and smaller studios and content holders alike.

OONA's advertising options include: 1. A programmatic advertising video (30 seconds), CMP and CPC revenue. 2. Programmatic display advertising (30 seconds), CMP and CPC revenue. 3. Programmatic advertising short-video (pre-roll 6 seconds). and 4. Pay per view micro-transactions.

The bottom line is that programmatic advertising increases efficiency and saves money - two very valuable advantages. By opting for automation, it puts human beings out of the equation, and buying ads becomes less expensive and more dependable. Also, very importantly, program channels and content holders are able to optimize their KPIs (key performance indicators), and attain a deeper insight into the behavior of consumers [6].

The Rock and Roll Future of Programmatic Advertising

There are a number of exciting predictions: 1. Purchases of programmatic advertising will skyrocket, and ultimately, purchasing will surpass conventional, manual ad purchasing. Furthermore, industry experts predict that leading up to 2020: “programmatic advertising will drive 100% of advertising purchases. Organizations not championing automation will fall behind those that do"[5]. 2. Traction will be gained in the field of DCO (dynamic creative optimization), the cutting-edge display advertising which delivers automatic multi-variate testing, namely, algorithms which interpret results and ascertain how to deliver advertisements for the most optimal performance. 3. There will be more header bidding [6] such as that offered by the OONA platform. This empowers channels and content owners with a high tech method so they are able to offer inventory to multiple advertising exchanges at the same time. 4. Personalisation will become more intelligent. When channels and content owners are able to laser focus their programmatic ads to individual viewers, then they can leverage strategies including explicit demographics and geo-location [6].

Now, along with other like minded leaders in the industry, Hochart believes that although a substantial amount of artificial intelligence is already integrated into programmatic advertising, more high tech AI marketing applications have the potential to produce even better results, and for OONA, this can mean a win-win situation for everyone involved.

In summary, although the intersection of AI and marketing is relatively new, it is clear that AI offers the potential for being the best route to a distributed programmatic ecosystem. It is a truly exciting breakthrough, and the odds are that those who pursue it, will gain rich rewards...

References

[1]. Adotas (2018). “Q&A: What You Need to Know About AI-Powered Programmatic Advertising.” Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.http://www.adotas.com/2018/03/qa-need-know-ai-powered-programmatic-advertising/ Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

[2]. Faggella, Daniel (2018). “Artificial Intelligence in Marketing and Advertising – 5 Examples of Real Traction” Techemergence.https://www.techemergence.com/artificial-intelligence-in-marketing-and-advertising-5-examples-of-real-traction/ Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

[3]. Fagella, Daniel (2017). “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Programmatic Advertising.”

Techemergence. https://www.techemergence.com/ai-future-programmatic-advertising/ Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

[4]. Benes, Ross (2018). “Why DSPs Are Applying AI to Programmatic Bidding.” eMarketer. https://www.emarketer.com/content/why-dsps-are-applying-ai-to-programmatic-bidding Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

[5]. Chen, Yuyu (2018). “Programmatic advertising is preparing for the first-price auction era.” https://digiday.com/marketing/programmatic-advertising-readying-first-price-auction-era/ Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

[6]. Kloefkorn, Sheila (2017). “Trends In Programmatic Advertising To Watch This Year.” Forbes. Retrieved from:https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/05/16/trends-in-programmatic-advertising-to-watch-this-year/#781cb7cf7f11 Accessed 28 Jun. 2018.

OONA Mobile TV & Blockchain Digital Identity

Facebook has been getting the thumbs down of late, and while during the space of the last few years, it was subject to a number of warnings about its unacceptable policies on user data security, it continued on the same trajectory like an uncontrolled steam roller.

Mark Zuckerburg et al., hit an all-time low with the unfolding of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. According to a former contractor, this: “data analytics firm used personal information harvested from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without permission to build a system that could target US voters with personalised political advertisements based on their psychological profile”[1]. Moreover, “A former Facebook manager has warned that hundreds of millions of users are likely to have had their private information used by private companies in the same way”[1].

“There is a very dark side to the way internet titans capture, utilise & sell consumer data”

Users Need to Have Total Confidence in a Platform

Facebook's extreme abuse of its users' trust, together with the constant general online data breaches and hostile hacks on other platforms, as well as the continually increasing demand for vigorous digital identification verification protocols, are driving people to demand greater transparency and government enforced higher security levels. This is in order to ensure their personal information and identity is not abused in “a world where companies [such as Facebook] trade in the currency of personal data”[1].

According to Smithers Pira, the world market for personal identity credentials could hit close to $10 billion within four years. And “Asia represents more than 60% of the global market for personal ID” [2], so it is high on the target list. This is taken very seriously by the Indonesian government, as well as Christopher Hochart, the founder and CEO of the hugely popular interactive, Free Mobile TV Platform, OONA. Hochart, a leading digital strategist, went into partnership with Telkom Indonesia in 2017, in order to provide state-of-the-art and subscription-free ad-based and premium option Mobile TV to more than 185 million Indonesians. Always at the forefront of high tech developments, he is now exploring Blockchain in order to offer OONA users total anonymity.  

Rock Around the Clock

Hochart and his cutting-edge tech team work around the clock to make OONA the best of the best, and a platform that consumers can use for everything from:1.Watching up to 300 top national and international channels which provide the latest films and series, live sports, documentaries, educational programs, celebrity news, Fashion TV, cookery specials, and breaking news. To 2. Interacting with friends and family, sharing the programs and entertainment they love by using all kinds of editing tools and stickers. And 3. Telling the AI Siskabot Genie: what types of programs they like - so she can have them all ready for them. To 4. Receiving personalised ads that they are interested in, and can save money on. And 5. Enjoying tcoin (virtual currency) rewards just for watching content and ads, sharing with frineds and family, and interacting with Siskabot. The tcoins can be redeemed against branded goods and services, discounts, meals, great days out, free phone minutes and telcom products.

OONA has a lot of exciting projects in the pipeline, including new ventures with telcom companies in other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the US and Europe. This is in line with its mission statement: “To make life fun for billions of people by providing the best free Mobile TV.” And Blockchain could be another tier of excellence for the platform.

Enlightenment in the Face of Reality

Here in 2018, consumers are becoming more and more enlightened about the degree in which their personal information is being seized and used to make companies such as Facebook, tens of billions of dollars per annum. Governments around the world are finally looking into bringing out legislation, and the European Union is enforcing strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) guidelines on 25 May, 2018, in order to: “harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy”[3].

The Major Challenges With Personal Identity

These involve trust, control, and security. Unfortunately, at the present time, digital identities are subject to being abused by various operators. - And while it is abundantly clear that companies such as Google and FB have completely transformed the way that we all interact, work and go about our lives, thereby rewarding us with immeasurable benefits - there is also a very unsavory side.

Until recently, many people did not really consider the fact that Google, Facebook, and the other behemoths, only put out their free services in order to access the personal information of billions of users, which they ruthlessly monitize without due care. It is just a numbers game for them, and the numbers are good. - According to Statistica, in 2017, FB generated US 39.94 Billion in revenue from advertising alone [4].

How Can Blockchain Help the Current Personal Data Dilemma?

Firstly, in regard to security, decentralized tech can potentially deliver encrypted, secure digital ID hubs that interact with consumers' information while preserving user control, security and privacy. And secondly, on the issue of control, Distributed Ledger Technology and Blockchain protocols and standards can deliver DIDs (self-sovereign decentralized identifications), which are solely under the users' control, and totally separate from all centralised authorities. So in a nutshell, Blockchains are designed to generate security, transparency, and user control - thereby offering a practical workable solution to the serious dilemmas of digital identity.

Progress is Ongoing

At the present time, the World Wide Web Consortium and the Digital Identity Foundation are collaborating on the standardisation of users' digital identities along with the related ecosystem. This standard will facilitate worldwide use and access, as well as strict user control over verification data. Moreover, this will drive particular designs of services and apps, such as the OONA Mobile TV app, which offers so much more then OTT, as it is engineered with the user in mind, and not the other way around.

While it has to be said that there is still some way to go to make Blockchain the perfect fit for TV platforms such as OONA, the fact that everyday tech innovators are striving for the best possible structures. Further, app entrepreneurs such as Christopher Hochart, who are fully engaged in delivering full transparency and the protection of user's personal data, give the world at large cause for hope after the recent FB volcanic eruptions of greed and betrayal. We have to rest assured that there are always alternatives...

References

[1]. Greenfield, Patrick (2018). The Guardian. “The Cambridge Analytica files: the story so far.”https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/26/the-cambridge-analytica-files-the-story-so-far Accessed 24 Apr. 2018.

[2]. Martin, Zack (2016). “Report: Personal identity market worth $9.7B by 2021.” https://www.secureidnews.com/news-item/report-personal-identity-market-worth-9-7b-by-2021/

Accessed 24 Apr. 2018.

[3]. EUGDPR (2018). https://www.eugdpr.org/ Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.

[4]. Statistica (2018). “Facebook's advertising revenue worldwide from 2009 to 2017 (in million U.S. dollars).”https://www.statista.com/statistics/271258/facebooks-advertising-revenue-worldwide/ Accessed 25 Apr. 2018.

Chatbots Are Stepping Up Their Game & Enjoying Good Approval Ratings

Recent statistics drawn from a May 2018 survey conducted by Helpshift, a customer service platform which strives to ameliorate customer satisfaction, optimize service operations, and maximize ROI, indicated that: “the top three industries for worst customer service went to the telecom, airline and insurance sectors” [1]. Unsurprisingly, almost three quarters of respondents stated that they feel frustrated when they are dealing with customer service.

“The leading reason was long waits and hold times (60.2%). Nearly as many (58.6%), dreaded being transferred and having to re-explain a problem over and over, while 49.9% feared having to navigate a seemingly endless automated menu” [1]. - All very familiar scenarios indeed. Clearly, this unwelcome customer experience (CX) which leaves such a huge number of consumers feeling unhappy and ignored, reflects very badly on the companies or organisations involved. It also begs the questions: “why are they not doing enough to address their customers' concerns? And “do they even care?”

Can High Tech Redeem CX?

The answer to this, is that it may already be doing so. When respondents were questioned on whether they think contemporary and future technology can turn things around to provide a good, workable CX, their replies were clearly very positive: “62.0% stated they liked messenger and email chatbots who collect data and connect them to the correct support agent; and a whopping 75.9% noted: “chat-based messaging would be a preferred means to contact customer service if they knew they would get an immediate response” [1].

Demographics

Preferences regarding customer service channels differ according to age groups. "The eMarketer Ecommerce Insights Report which included research conducted by market research company, Bizrate Insights, in May 2018, indicated that: amongst American internet users, live chat (whether via a chatbot or human), enjoyed pretty much the same preference level as a telephone call (30.1% compared to 29.5%) [1]. This is quite logical, as live chat can be the perfect solution to getting what we want, when we want it. And if the bots can fulfill users' needs, then more power to them!

Further, 45.9% of research responders between 30 and 39 years of age, seriously preferred live chat. Moreover, those below age 50 expressed a preference for chat as opposed to phone conversations. To that end, extended use of customer service chat can be expected in the not too distant future [1].

A Day in the Life of Siska - the OONA Bot

OONA Mobile TV is a cutting-edge Free AVOD Entertainment & Messaging platform with premium options. It offers users tcoin virtual currency rewards for watching content and sharing; and provides them with a world first patented AI Genie in the App, known as Siskabot. The latter appears in human form when the OONA app is downloaded, and just like any higher intelligence bot with a successful company which invests in deep data, she is well prepped to meet users' needs and requests so that a hundred percent satisfaction is pretty much guaranteed. And in rare instances when it is not, then her human colleagues are on hand to step in.

Siskabot's daily duties involve interacting with users so they can get personalised content and ads which can save them time and money, and enjoy all the possibilities that OONA has to offer. And answering any customer service questions. Not needing to sleep, this superbot is there 24/7, ready and able to give users immediate attention via live chat. Whether it is films, popular series, breaking news, educational broadcasts, documentaries, live sports, COMBAT GO, Motorland, Fashion TV, cookery specials, or children's programs, OONA offers up to 300 top national and international channels, and after chatting with viewers, Siskabot has their favourites all ready and waiting for them when they are set to chill out. She also asks them about watching branded product and services ads that they are personally interested in - for example, those which could save them money; and answers questions about the entertainment they love. Users have regular chats with Siskabot, be they daily, weekly, or when ever they feel like it. And for every chat, they pocket more tcoins.

OONA users can also edit their fab entertainment using ultra cool tools and stickers, and then share it with their friends on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites - all of which they get rewards for.

OONA, in partnership with one of the world's largest telcom companies, Telcom Indonesia, is currently on track to fulfill the fun factor for 185 million Indonesians, and part of this is rewarding consumers with tcoins for watching content and ads, engaging with Siskabot, and sharing cool content and ads with other users. The tcoins are stored in a personalised virtual wallet, and add up very quickly. Consumers can redeem them for free phone minutes, telkom products, and a vast selection of branded goods and services, as well as discounts, take away meals, great days out, and other fun things.

Summary

In summary, chatbots are the future. Users no longer have to waste away their time when there are no human customer service agents at work, or on illegal pirate sites where there is no live customer chat. - OONA OTT TV is empowering viewers with all the free exciting live and on demand TV they could ever desire in just one place. - And users get an added bonus of an AI genie who is continually on call, caters to their personal needs, and rewards them for interacting with her. What could be better than that?

Reference

[1]. Garcia, Krista (2018). “Chatbots May Ease Consumers' Customer Service Concerns.” eMarketer Retail

https://retail.emarketer.com/article/chatbots-may-ease-consumers-customer-service-concerns/5b11855eebd40003b84919e7  Accessed 6 Jun. 2018

The Galaxy’s Most Resilient BitTorrent Site, The Pirate Bay, Meets its Darth Vade

Image credit: Giuseppe Camuncoli, David Curiel, and Daniele Orlandini (Marvel Comics)

Will The Pirate Bay of the dark web domains, the number 1 global torrent portal and online digital content index for entertainment, media and software, be lasered into non-existence by authorities around the world? And what about the other well known pirate sites? The odds on, are that they are all likely to meet this fate.

Now, millions more viewers are blocked from the king of torrent portals due to The Pirate Bay (TPB) losing copyright crackdown cases. “Ever since it was set up almost 15 years ago, it has been prominently in the cross-hairs of copyright holders and anti-piracy organisations, and shows no signs of letting up” [1]. It gained its anti-establishment reputation through its torrent files which enables everyone to freely download copyrighted material that the right's holders have not given permission to use.

Photo credit: ExtremeTech

The Low Down on Torrent Files

Torrent files are not per se, illegal in and of themselves. However, the files which are utilised to download free copyrighted content that the copyright holder has not given permission for, certainly are. And while Torrents do not carry the files users want to download, they do nonetheless, enable the users' computers to download the data that they have asked for in small compilations from an online participant network [2].

Singapore Goes Anti-Pirate

As reported by TorrentFreak, the publication dedicated to bringing the latest news on privacy, copyright, and everything that is connected to file sharing: “several major ISPs [internet service providers] in Singapore have blocked dozens of torrent and streaming sites following a high court order. The Pirate Bay was the biggest name on a list of 53 sites across 154 domains that were blocked” [1]. In addition to this, five top internet service providers in Singapore blocked variants of Solarmovie and KickassTorrents due to a complaint from the Motion Picture Association of America, which accused the ISPs of gross copyright infringement. After their success, a spokesperson representing the association noted that within Singapore: “these sites are responsible for a major portion of copyright infringement of films and television shows [and] that this action... [protects] the creative industry, enabling creators to create... jobs, protect their works, and ensure the continued provision of high-quality content to audiences” [1].

Sweden Forced on the Anti-Pirate Track by Pressures from Hollywood Heavyweights

TPB's native Sweden is also changing. A number of leading Hollywood studios including Warner Bros, Universal Studios and Disney, have collaborated with with Swedish film companies in order to beef up the country's The Pirate Bay blockade. The companies demand that Sweden's largest ISP, Telia, block Fmovies, Nyafilmer, Dreamfilm and The Pirate Bay, along with a number of related mirror sites and proxies [3].

Taking a Winning Strategy

Using the same strategy as BREIN - the Dutch anti-piracy group applied in 2017, the Hollywood studios requested a preliminary ruling that would implement the blocks prior to the case being fully processed. To that end, they requested a block against the pirate sites as a whole, as opposed to the just the current operating domains. The film companies put forward the argument that “without this option, the rights holders will have to burden the legal system with repeated blocking requests if and when the operators behind the illegal services change domain names” [3].

Becoming Anti-Pirate by Default

Recently, the TPB was irrevocably blocked by one high profile ISP. The large Swedish telecommunication company, Telenor, has battled against blocking pirate sites in Sweden for a very long time, yet they have now announced that they will be putting a block on TPB. “The block was not sparked by a direct court order against the company. Instead it occurred after Telenor fully consolidated with Bredbandsbolaget, an ISP that was previously ordered to block The Pirate Bay” [1]. Announcing the change, Telenor stated that: “We have not discontinued Bredbandsbolaget, but we have merged Telenor and Bredbandsbolaget and become one. “When we share the same network, The Pirate Bay is blocked by both Telenor and Bredbandsbolaget, and there is nothing we plan to change in the future” [1].

Major Security Issues with Torrents

In the case of torrent files, there is close to zero vetting on the TPB site. As a result, a number of cyber criminals have successfully spread fraudulent files and malware via torrents. Jason Syversen, CEO of the cyber security company, Siege, informed Consumer Reports of the “very real technical concerns” [2] regarding downloading torrent content. He declared: “There are some very real technical concerns. You’re dealing with these shady third-party sites, so it’s a great opportunity for people to insert malware into the BitTorrent client as well as transferring files with malicious content” [2].

It is also important to note that engaging with piracy actually poses a serious risk to consumers. Of note, a study undertaken for the Digital Citizens Alliance by cyber security experts, RiskIQ, indicates that with regard to content theft sites: “one out of every three... exposed users to malware. Internet users who went on content theft sites were 28 times more likely to get malware from a content theft site than from mainstream websites or licensed content providers ” [4].

The Digital Citizens Alliance's Executive Director, Tom Galvin, has stated that: “Internet users that visit content theft websites have up until now seen it as harmless, but the RiskIQ research is a wake-up call that these websites dangle free movies, TV shows and music to lure consumers” [4]. These pirate websites then infect the user's devices, sometimes causing extensive issues and costly repairs and replacements.

Other Shut-Downs

Torrentz.eu, ExtraTorrent and Kickass Torrents – all favourite torrent websites, were all forcibly given the axe in 2017. As of now, TPB faces a ban in Britain by the majority of ISPs. Further, anyone who uses a torrent site to download material which is copyrighted, could well receive a letter of warning from their broadband provider [2].

Australia is Now Putting the Screws in & Google is Under Pressure

“GOOGLE has been called on to remove online piracy sites, such as The Pirate Bay, from search results” [5]

Now, more copyright holders such as the large entertainment companies Foxtel and Village Roadshow, which are responsible for The Lego Movie, Mad Max: Fury Road; The Matrix, and Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg’s most recent film, are putting their collective foot down, and have asked Google to stop showing piracy websites in their search engine results. Further, the copyright holders have stated that Bing, Google, and other search engines need to be given an official mandatory order to take down all pirate sites from their search listings [5].

This action has come about after a review and request for feedback on effectiveness, and the possible need for more changes to the Australian Department of Communication's three year old pirate site laws. A number of entertainment industry reactions were filed, with demands for greater enhancement of anti-piracy powers. Torrent Freak reported that in one submission, Graham Burke, the co-chief of the Village Roadshow, noted his company: “strongly supported the original site blocking legislation and now we strongly support strengthening it” [5]. Yet, he continued: “with all major pirate sites blocked in Australia, [although] the front door of the department store is shut... pirates, facilitated by Google and other search engines, are circumventing Australian laws and courts, and opening a huge back door” [4]. Thereby insisting that the country must have the capacity to make: “Google and other search engines take reasonable steps to stop facilitating searches which lead to pirate sites” [5]. This is a very valid argument indeed.

Lowering the Bar for What is Constituted as a Piracy Site

Foxtel, the pay-for television company, has requested that Bing and Google do the same with searches. Moreover, they have asked that the “threshold” for what is regarded as a pirate site, is lowered. At the present time, a website should: “have a “primary purpose” to “infringe, or to facilitate the infringement” of copyright - which Foxtel sees as too high. This means, if Foxtel have their way, Australia’s anti-piracy laws could affect a whole new set of sites” [5].

Google Chrome Indirectly Stepping Up to the Battle Against Pirates

Earlier this year, Google Chrome's built-in ad blocker went into gear, with adverts including pop-ups (which expand on their own), being immediately blocked. As Torrent sites are heavily reliant on ad revenue, a number of sites may have to shut up shop. One anonymous torrent site owner stated that: “The torrent site economy is in a bad state. Profits are very low. Profits are fxxxxx compared to previous years. “Chrome’s ad-blocker will kill torrent sites” [5].

So What's the Solution for Users Who Cannot or Will Not Go For Pay-TV?

Step forward OONA...

“OONA goes beyond TV and OTT – it is a world 1st Free Entertainment & Messaging platform which gives users virtual currency rewards for interacting, & a cool way of choosing, sharing and editing their fab entertainment and ads”

OONA's founder and CEO, leading digital strategist, Christophe Hochart, has developed a unique way to work with telcoms by collaborating with them and offering his expertise to create a win-win situation for all concerned. Focusing on delivering free entertainment any time any where, along with premium options, OONA in partnership with one of the world's largest telcom companies, Telcom Indonesia, is currently on track to fulfill the fun factor for 185 million Indonesians, and is well on its way to doing the same for billions of viewers in other parts of Asia, Africa, South America, the Middle East, the US and Europe.

Users no longer have to waste away their time on pirate sites that are being systematically closed down, or risk being warned buy their telcom provider or charged by their country's authorities for watching illegal sites. Moreover, users getting frustrated browsing, searching and switching channels, can now become a thing of the past as OONA empowers viewers with all the exciting television they could ever desire in just one place - be it live sports, the latest films, top series, motor shows, celebrity news, fashion TV, cooking specials, documentaries, educational broadcasts, breaking news and more, over up to 300 top national and international channels.

Virtual Currency Rewards

With OONA, viewers are even rewarded with a virtual currency - tcoins, which they can earn for watching TV, sharing interesting video ads, and engaging with other users and the helpful AI Genie in the OONA App, Siskabot. They can then redeem them for telkom products, free phone minutes, and a vast selection of branded goods and services, as well as take away meals and other fun things.

Everyone Should Be Able to Enjoy Free Entertainment

OONA's ethos is that “fun should be part of everyone's daily lives,” and through its regulated platform, the OONA Team are inspired to make people feel good by lifting their emotions and happiness levels via the platform's inclusive ethical free streaming service. In addition to this, saying goodbye for good to pirate channels is a big relief for many users once they have a cool second-to-none data and sub-free regulated entertainment platform.

As the piracy content market comprises the highest level of consumers in the mobile TV market due to the fact that it does not involve any form of payment or subscription (a 99% prepaid market), OONA is set to sweep up and do social good across the board.

OONA is a game changer: it delivers fantastic high level entertainment to viewers free of charge, and at the same time, generates a ready to launch revolutionary business synergy between TELCOM companies and content owners and broadcasters, enabling leading TELCOM companies to leverage their user base and network infrastructure to significantly expand their Mobile TV business. TELCOMS can now generate multi-revenues by offering the best ad supported live video and VOD that goes way beyond OTT and TV, while at the same time, doing social good by providing high quality free entertainment.

In summary, the pirate ships are being systematically sunk, no matter how successful they have been. They are meeting their Waterloo, and there will not be any submerging or going back to the way things have been, as the copyright holders and the film industry and all it entails, need to be protected. Fortunately, for those who are unwilling or in countless millions of cases, unable to pay for a service, then there is an alternative that can empower the copyright and content holders, the film studios, the telcoms, and the viewers – OONA FREE Mobile TV.

References

[1]. Dassanayake, Dion (2018). “Pirate Bay Ban: Piracy crackdown orders new block on world's leading torrent site.” Express. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/965221/Pirate-Bay-torrents-movies-TV-shows-online-piracy-crackdown-block-ban Accessed 31 May, 2018.

[2]. Brown, Aaron (2018). “Google Chrome can now HIDE any fake or DANGEROUS torrents on The Pirate Bay.”

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/946289/Google-Chrome-Extension-Hide-Fake-Torrent-Pirate-Bay-UK Accessed 31 May, 2018.

[3]. Ernesto (2018). “Hollywood Pushes to Expand Swedish Pirate Bay Blockade.” Torrent Freak.https://torrentfreak.com/hollywood-pushes-to-expand-swedish-pirate-bay-blockade-180530/ Accessed 31 May, 2018.

[4]. Digital Citizens Alliance (2015). “Victims No More: Malware Risk Prompts Internet User to Steer Clear of Content Theft Sites, According to New Survey.” Retrieved from:http://www.digitalcitizensalliance.org/news/press-releases-2015/victims-no-more-malware-risk-prompts-internet-user-to-steer-clear-of-content-theft-sites-according-to-new-survey/ Accessed 31 May, 2018.

[5]. Dassanayake, Dion (2018). “Pirate Bay BLOW - Calls for online piracy sites to be REMOVED from Google.” Express. https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/936141/Pirate-Bay-update-torrent-movies-TV-sites-removed-from-Google Accessed 31 May, 2018.

The Arrival of 5G & the Demand for Premium Video

Photo credit: Computerworld

"As most mobile phone users already use 3G and 4G networks, it is expected that 5G is likely to deliver a new user experience in 2020" [1]

Speaking recently at the New York Wells Fargo Telecom Forum, Randall Stephenson, the CEO and chairman of AT&T, stated that: “Premium entertainment and premium content – both live as well as on demand – is going to grow” [1]. Then, looking ahead to the transition to into the 5G space, Stephenson continued: “it’s going to change the customer experience like nothing we’ve seen. We think 4G was radical... [it] enabled us to begin watching video on mobile devices, and it’s what has begun to push video consumption into the world of mobility” [1].

Mobile TV platforms such as OONA - the free AVOD U-Chose U-Share U-Get Rewarded Entertainment & Messaging Platform for viewers, telcoms, network and content holders, understands this 4G transition into a flexible mobile way of life, and the demand for premium content, extremely well. The platform, which is a step above OTT and television, is the brainchild of leading digital strategist, Christophe Hochart. It offers everyone who downloads the app, the choice of premium content and entertainment, as well as the free phenomenal live and on demand video offerings including: live sports, motoring, great films and series, educational broadcasts, documentaries, FashionTV, celebrity news, cookery specials, breaking news and more, over up to 300 national and international channels.

OONA came into fruition with 4G, and is looking forward the super high tech advantages of 5G, which will will make users' entertainment experiences second to none. OONA Free Mobile Television in partnership with Telkom Indonesia, is set to serve 185 million consumers in Indonesia, and is on course to expand to other parts of Asia, South America, Africa, the Middle East, the US and Europe.

OONA - The Entertainment Platform With a Difference

The OONA user experience is totally different to other platforms because:

• It is a world 1st ad supported instant entertainment site that has what viewers want to watch all ready for them. - This along with other analytics, is courtesy of Siskabot – the cool patented AI Genie in the App who has regular conversations with viewers to find out exactly what type of entertainment content and interesting ads they love to watch.

• It is interactive and offers various fun editing tools and stickers so users can embellish their entertainment screenshots, and share them on Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites.

• It gives out virtual currency rewards in the form of t-coins, for watching the content and ads they enjoy, sharing content with family and friends, and interacting with Siskabot. The tcoins can be redeemed for a broad range of branded goods and services, meals, fun days out, free telephone minutes and telcom products.

So What is This New 5G Dimension?

“5G Vision: 100 Billion connections, 1 ms Latency, and 10 Gbps Throughput” [2]

5G refers to the 5th generation of this future wireless mobile standard. “According to the Next Generation Mobile Network's 5G white paper, 5G connections must be based on 'user experience, system performance, enhanced services, business models and management & operations” [3].

Mobile networks are evolving at the speed of light, and “network access at anytime and anywhere is transforming the telecom industry. 5G technology will enable flexible, reliable, and secure wireless networks... leading the human race into the era of "Everything on Mobile" [2]. This era will comprise three concepts: latency, the number of connections, and throughput [2].

Latency

A 4G network's latency is just 50% of that of 3G [2].

Throughput

Growing consumer needs will be better served with a higher throughput. 4G networks' throughput ranks in at 10 times stronger than its 3G counterpart. - However, when 4K video services skyrocket, 4G networks are not able to comply with the new throughput demands. To that end, in order to keep up with the high demand, it is essential that 5G tech offers various new performance advantages [2]. These comprise:

• 100 billion connections
• 1 ms latency, and
• 10 Gbps throughput [2].

How Will 5G Impact Future Wireless Systems?

Firstly, let us compare 5G to 3G and 4G. 3G and 4G work via a signal from the closest telephone tower. Conversely, 4G offers lesser latency (the time-span between cause and effect). Moreover, it also generates a very welcome and far quicker internet connection. Supposedly, 4G should work at least of 5 times quicker than 3G; furthermore, in theory, 5G should be able to offer download speeds of as much as 100Mb per second [3]. Now that is something that could be of tremendous benefit to both businesses and individuals.

“The first 5G networks should begin launching from mid-2019” [4]

Cradlepoint's VP for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Hubert Da Costa, stated that: "5G Wi-Fi connections are set to be about three times faster than 4G, starting with 450Mbps in single-stream, 900 Mbps (dual- stream) and 1.3G bps (three-stream)"[3]. Its revved up speed is set to offer greater productivity for all suitable devices, which in theory, would provide a 10,000 Mb per second download speed. - A high tech feat that, according to Juniper Networks' senior EMEA marketing director, Paul Gainham, is likely to culminate in a ‘Gigabit Smartphone’ [3]. Further: “with greater bandwidth comes faster download speeds and the ability to run more complex mobile internet apps” [3].

Connections

While thousands of connections for each cell are provided by 4G networks, the latter is unable to fulfill the connection requirements that are essential for Everything on Mobile. Conversely, for every square kilometer, 5G networks offer up to a million connections. - So it is clear that this cutting-edge technology will deliver an exciting exponential increase in how many connections are available [2].

So What Are the Downsides of 5G?

Number 1: 5G will be more expensive to put out, and even though the most recent smart phones are likely to have 5G incorporated into them, older models will probably be redundant [3].

Number 2: A reliable wireless internet connection may be dependent on the number of devices connected to one channel. Therefore, due to 5G coming on board, crowding out the frequency range is likely to be a real possibility [3].

Number 3. In some countries, there are still issues with 3G and 4G, so to that end, not all consumers can rely on being able to receive a super fast connection right away [3].

Changes in Capacity

Networks also need to have the capacity to deal with high bandwidth applications including: “video, augmented and virtual reality applications; as well as bandwidth-heavy tasks and services that haven’t been invented yet [4].

How is the 5G Development Phase Going?

While 5G is still in development, and not up and running as yet, it is expected that: “the first "mobile broadband" 5G networks should begin launching from mid-2019” [4]. Networks using 5G are already being trialed in various countries across the globe, and more and more companies are launching 5G partnerships [3] - Apple and Intel, are a prime example [4]. Further, a number of companies are pledging funds to carry on researching 5G and its application [3].

Apple – A Main Contender in the Race for 5G

While it is common knowledge that Apple is trialing 5G, there is nonetheless, a question mark over where this state-of-the-art company will acquire the 5G modems that are essential for its connected devices. Apple: “holds several 5G patents. It joined the NGMN Alliance as a partner to help develop 5G in 2014, and since then, has introduced its own SIM technology in the form of the Apple SIM you’ll find inside an LTE-capable iPad Pro” [4]. Yet even Apple, which is regarded as: “one of the world’s strongest and most innovative teams of silicon and technology engineers” [4], could well miss the first anticipated 5G roll out date...

“Leading research firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, anticipates that by 2025, 5G infrastructure spending will surpass a whopping $326 billion” [5]

In the first instance, this spending will be specifically for certain major areas, namely: modems and protocols (AKA 5G IP); the 5G network; network transformation; data centres and edge computing [5]. And although it has to be said that all of these fields are likely to have more players striving for a piece of the action - the immediate 5G beneficiaries will probably be: Ericsson, Dell, and of course, Qualcomm [5].

In summary, in this truly exciting "Everything on Mobile era, which will include everything from convenient driverless cars, to fab entertainment from Free Mobile TV companies such as OONA, still has some clear and present 5G hurdles. - But the odds are that just as with all determined sportsmen, the early winners will be companies such as Qualcomm, which will revel in their success after spending years at the drawing board perfecting their technological expertise for the benefit of all of us.

References

[1]. Berman, Jeff (2018). “AT&T CEO: Demand for Premium Video, Broadband to Increase with 5G’s Arrival.” Media & Entertainment Services Alliance.https://www.mesalliance.org/2018/06/21/att-ceo-demand-for-premium-video-broadband-to-increase-with-5gs-arrival/ Accessed 25 Jun. 2018.

[2]. Huawei (n.d.). “5G Vision: 100 Billion connections, 1 ms Latency, and 10 Gbps Throughput.” http://www.huawei.com/minisite/5g/en/defining-5g.html Accessed 25 Jun. 2018.

[3]. Mercer, Christina & Williams, Hannah (2018). “What is 5G? Everything you need to know about 5G.” Techworld. https://www.techworld.com/apps-wearables/what-is-5g-everything-you-need-know-about-5g-3634921/ Accessed 25 Jun. 2018.

[4]. Evans, Jonny (2018). “MWC18: Where will Apple get 5G iPhone chips?” https://www.computerworld.com/article/3258821/apple-ios/mwc18-where-will-apple-get-5g-iphone-chips.html Accessed 25 Jun. 2018.

[5]. Newman, Daniel (2018). “Opinion: These 4 companies will be the big early winners from the $326 billion push to 5G.” Marketwatch.https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-4-companies-will-be-the-big-early-winners-from-the-326-billion-push-to-5g-2018-03-07 Accessed 25 Jun. 2018.

The Imminent Arrival of the Super Chatbots

“Most tech giants are investing heavily in applications and research, hoping to stay ahead of the curve of what many believe to be an inevitable AI-led paradigm shift” [1]

The New Breed of Chatbots

So what is heading the cutting-edge upgrade of chatbots and their interactive conversations? The answer to this is: self-governing navigation and computer vision. Now, due to revolutionary machine learning methods, high tech hardware and data availability, this has meant that their usability has been completely transformed. Today, advances in artificial learning are modifying issues that were until recently, deemed impossible to resolve. And they are gradually empowering our daily lives in all kinds of spheres [1] including media.

AI is Rapidly Heading Up the Popularity Charts

How can we define a bot's intelligence? “A chatbot is intelligent when it becomes aware of users' needs. Its intelligence is what gives the chatbot the ability to handle any scenario of a conversation with ease” [2]. In 2017, the market was overrun by a new chatbot generation - one that promised us a world with meaningful interactive conversations. “Helping turn this promise into reality is a combination of better user interfaces, the omnipresence of smartphones, and new, state of the art machine learning techniques” [1]. Deep Learning is a huge driver boosting this tide of unique AI applications - a sphere of machine learning which not so long ago, revolutionized areas including NLP (natural language processing), and computer vision, even though deep learning has been on the scene for fifty years or so [1].

Can Deep Learning Alone, Help Chatbots' Challenges?

The simple answer to this is no! In order to conduct and maintain a meaningful conversation with a human, the humanoid must be programmed to comprehend the context of what is being said, and this involves having abilities such as: logical reasoning, being aware of the consumers' intent and preferences, and being able to disambiguate a language's subtle deviations which can have radically different meanings [1].

Further, in the realms of super powerful chatbots, is is essential for the latter to be able to reply to intricate questions, not just using context, but also information that goes above and beyond the dialog restrictions. In order to reply to users' questions efficiently, until now, the chatbot has been completely reliant on previously shared conversational data between the user and itself. Further, a company's strategy and the users' intent also play a role in the type of reply the humanoid will come up with. Yet, if the bot needs to evolve to do more than just answer easy, one dimension questions: “it must blend the most prominent techniques emerging from the field of deep learning with solid statistics, linguistics, other machine learning techniques, and more structured classical techniques, such as semantic parsing and program induction” [1].

Data is King

Data is the first essential stage for constructing an intelligent conversation structure. In order to achieve its full potential, deep learning requires massive quantities of high quality data. Yet although there is a perpetual flow of eternal data streams, when it comes to machine learning algorithms, the majority of it is just too raw to be used as is. The sub-field of machine learning - unsupervised learning, is a potential solution to this dilemma. This is dedicated to extracting raw data information, and is something that does not require human input. In a nutshell, it transforms the raw data into a less complex form, thereby enabling an easier way to discover patterns [1].

Obstacles

One of the great benefits of deep learning, is that it offers a state-of-the-art performance, by providing cutting-edge ways to build. Once these techniques are optimised, it removes the necessity for a great deal of expensive and high quality labeled data – something that has been mandatory to ensure that chatbots perform well. There are however, a few obstacles in the way. - Deep learning is reliant on collecting a huge dataset which is extremely specific, followed by training a network [1].

While this is the basis for massively powerful systems, it does not have the flexibility to generate a natural conversation. Further, another hurdle in the search for bots who are really human-like, is empowering them with the means to: “reason with an internal model of the world. The level of automatic and broad reasoning that we humans have still eludes AI researchers, and is one of the last frontiers in the way of truly intelligent and autonomous... conversational bots” [1].

Ultimately, a conversational engine needs to be more precise. It is not enough to just utilise NLP to determine an arrangement of relevant data. The chatbot must have the means to analyse the input, “break it down, and present a response to the user that is not only clear and concise, but highly relevant to their taste — rinse and repeat” [1].

The Future of AI-Driven Conversations

“Any type of AI should one day be able to recognize how you’re feeling, and then use that information to respond meaningfully, mirroring a human’s emotional state the way another human would” [3]

At this moment in time, the revolution of AI-driven conversation is in its infancy. To that end, it is very likely that high tech innovations will surmount the current issues [1]. Users such as those who connect with Microsoft's personal digital agent, Contana, and consumers who get their entertainment from platforms such as OONA Mobile TV, the innovative AVOD OTT tech platform with premium options, which pioneered the patented AI Genie in the App, Siskabot, will before too long, see the day when they will be enjoying long intricate interactions with their humanoid counterparts. The bots will not just thoroughly understand the consumers and what they need, they will also do as OONA already does – know what their preferences are, and adapt their experience accordingly.

So What Makes OONA so Different?

OONA, the World 1st Entertainment & Messaging Platform that gives users a cool way of choosing, sharing & editing their fab entertainment, messages & ads, is delivering a high tech customer experience (CX), to engage users at a completely new level. Not only does it provide the very best in entertainment, and deliver rapid responses to commands and transactions, it also creates a deep personal one-to-one experience between the user and the world first AI genie in the app, Siskabot.

Putting Consumers in the Driving Seat

Siskabot appears in person when the app is downloaded, and she has regular conversations with each user to: 1. Find out the exact type of entertainment content they love, be it live sports, different film genres, series, FashionTV, educational broadcasts, documentaries, and so on. (These conversations are ongoing, as with up to 300 exciting channels, there is plenty to talk about, and we often change our preferences, so that is important too). And 2. To discover what kind of branded products and services they would chose, and the ads they would like to see which could help them save money on anything from cars to household goods to holidays to hot fashion items and beauty products. The conversations are geared to enable OONA to get to know more about each and every customer, and what drives their behaviour. The more the user interacts with Siskabot, the better and more fine tuned OONA's analytics become, and the more advantageous it is for all concerned. - This creates a win-win situation for the consumer, OONA, the telcoms, studios and content holders that OONA monitizes for.

Incentives For Connecting With Your Bot

OONA users are incentivised to regularly link up with Siskabot, and the rewards (in the form of a virtual currency) they earn for these conversations, are on a par with social messaging a friend about specific entertainment they have watched, or would like to see, something they can also do, and get rewarded for, via the OONA app. With the 2017 Telkom Indonesia-OONA partnership, that is set to serve 185 million Indonesians with Free Mobile TV from 2018 onwards, users are given rewards in tcoins which they can quickly build up in a virtual tcoin wallet, and then redeem them for all sorts of things from telcom products to a broad range of branded goods and services, fun days out, and delicious free meals. So with OONA, it really pays to befriend your bot!

In summary, in order to provide super chatbots, the industry and researchers have to integrate multiplex disciplines which incorporate not just deep learning, but also various other technical aspects to achieve a level of technology which merges language, environment and user preferences into one part of flexible intelligent software [1]. Platforms such as OONA Free Mobile TV have come a long way with their research, and deep learning and machine techniques, and it is now just a matter of time before their humanoid bots cross the human threshold. So let's give them a chance!

References

[1]. Mazdak Rezvani (2017). “Why chatbots need a big push from deep learning.” https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/23/why-chatbots-need-a-big-push-from-deep-learning/?platform=hootsuite Accessed 22 Jun. 2018.

[2]. Octane, Al (2017). “What Are The Best Intelligent Chatbots or AI Chatbots Available Online?' Chatbots Magazine.https://chatbotsmagazine.com/which-are-the-best-intelligent-chatbots-or-ai-chatbots-available-online-cc49c0f3569d Accessed 22 Jun. 2018.

[3]. Pardes, Arielle (2018). Wired. “The emotional chatbots are here to probe our feelings.”

https://www.wired.com/story/replika-open-source/ Accessed 22 Jun. 2018.