The fintech division of the Chinese company Alibaba, Ant Financial, has recently carried out its first blockchain transaction. The transaction from Hong Kong to the Philippines took only 3 seconds. The transfer was made from the AliPayHK application to a GCash payment service account with the support of the Standard Chartered bank. This service is necessary for Filipinos who work in Hong Kong because every year they transfer about $500 million to their families. Alibaba founder Jack Ma — we wrote about him earlier — asked his friend for the addition of such a function to AliPay because the commission that banks charge were too high. While blockchain transactions between countries are free at the moment, Jack Ma hopes to keep them free forever. He promised it will be possible to transfer money to other countries in the future.

Following the update of the 5G communication standard, a new WPA3 has appeared to replace the old WPA2 security protocol. The old protocol has been subjected to numerous attacks since 2017. As a result, many users lost not only personal photos and files, but also their credit card data and passwords. With the WPA2 protocol, hackers could download information to a USB flash drive and get passwords offline. With the new protocol it will become impossible. Now hackers only have one attempt to connect through Wi-Fi, and they need to stay online. But even if they guess the password on the first try, the data transferred to the network for the third-party user will not be available. Wi-Fi Alliance announced that they have already begun to certify devices with the new protocol. In order to use the new security protocol, many users will need to change their equipment. But in some cases, updates will be enough.

At Helsinki University you can now learn about Artificial Intelligence remotely. And it’s absolutely free! The online course is intended for those who are familiar with Artificial Intelligence only from fantasy books or for those who are worried that a new technological product will deprive them of their earnings. The course talks about what neural networks are and what algorithms are used when writing them. Participants will also learn how facial recognition works, using Facebook as an example. The theory of AI as a whole is described. The course is designed for people who already know English and takes 30 hours to complete.