Page 17 - bne_Tech_10_2020

NIBs
October 2020 www.intellinews.com I Page 17
Moscow Metro to introduce facial payment technology
Commuters in Moscow will soon be able to take
a ride on the metro with just a turn of their heads, as the Russian capital embraces next-generation facial payment technology, reports East-West Digital News (EWDN).
At least one turnstile at each metro station will be equipped with the contactless facial recognition technology as soon as next spring, Moscow authorities say. The system, which is presented as a world first, is currently in the first stage of
its testing, with initial test runs planned to be finished by October 1, 2020.
“The metro is moving to a new level: Face Pay,” Moscow Deputy Mayor Maksim Liksutov said in a statement. “Imagine the turnstile opening its doors in front of you. Sounds a bit fantastic, but this is our immediate future,” the official noted, without revealing any further details.
Romania’s IT training leader Bittnet buys 25% stake in software developer
Bittnet, a Bucharest Stock Exchange listed group of companies, a leader of the Romanian IT and digital education market, will take over a 25% stake in local software development company Softbinator Technologies.
The value of the transaction amounts to about $2mn, to be paid through a mix of cash and equity.
Softbinator Technologies, a product development company in fields such as fintech, edtech, healthtech, e-commerce, IoT, RPA, artificial intelligence/robotics, and blockchain, has two development centers in Bucharest and Constanta, which bring together over 80 software engineers.
The company estimates that it will reach a turnover of €2.47mn this year, double compared to last year.
It also expects a net profit of RON3.2mn €0.66mn, up by 44% compared to 2019.
Bittnet’s shareholders will vote on closing this deal in November.
Bittnet listed its shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in April 2015. Since then, it has carried out several acquisitions, using funds drawn from the capital market.
The group currently has a market capitalization of RON139mn (€28.6mn).
IBM builds disaster recovery site in cloud for Kaz Minerals
IBM announced on October 15 that it has constructed a disaster recovery site using IBM Cloud infrastructure for largest Kazakh copper miner KAZ Minerals. It is designed to help the company protect and maintain operations, including in cases of disaster.
With natural disasters globally becoming more common and unpredictable, Kaz Minerals needed to update its business continuity planning - as such, it turned to IBM to develop a cloud-based disaster recovery site for its on-premises data centre. The recovery site was built with reliance on IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers and VMware Site Recovery Manager with vSphere Replication. The solution is designed for automating the processes of recovering, migrating, re-protecting, testing and failing-back virtual machine workloads along with achieving target service level objectives.
“The hybrid cloud approach to combining disaster recovery site in cloud with the on-premises data center will position KAZ Minerals to efficiently restore mission critical business applications, including enterprise resource planning and analytics, in case a disaster affects the data center,” IBM’s statement said.
The company will be able to use the IBM cloud to take advantage of the native redundancy, availability, scalability and flexibility of the cloud platform. KAZ Minerals will also be able to avoid