Apollo GraphQL and MongoDB, Inc., announced a technology partnership that helps app developers build richer experiences faster, and reduce technical debt with a graph-native data layer. The partnership makes it easier for developers and teams to directly connect any supergraph powered by Apollo to a MongoDB Atlas database. Together, an Apollo supergraph and MongoDB Atlas create a composable and scalable GraphQL data layer. It provides developers with everything they need to efficiently use GraphQL:
A unified API, so app developers can rapidly create new experiences
A modular API layer, so each team can independently own their slice of the graph
A seamless, high-performance, flexible data layer that scales alongside API consumption
MongoDB’s flexible database paired with the GraphQL query language allows developers to work with the database in the language of their choice with a standardized spec that has large community adoption. With the nested document model, developers can model and query data intuitively without the complexity of mapping GraphQL to relational data and defining relationships across tables. When used with MongoDB Atlas’s multi-region and multi-cloud capabilities, an Apollo supergraph gives its developers a GraphQL layer to create end-user experiences for their apps and services.
TransPerfect, provider of language and technology solutions for global business, announced that it has acquired UK-based Sterling Technology, a European provider of VDR (virtual data room) solutions for secure sharing of content, business process automation, and collaboration for high-stakes dealmaking. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Sterling’s VDR solutions enable seamless file sharing and content collaboration among all participants, increasing productivity and accelerating deal timelines while delivering security and end-to-end support. The company has helped users from over 187 countries and 90 industries complete thousands of deals. With offices in seven major European financial centers, Sterling delivers service on the most critical transactions for the M&A, corporate development, real estate, capital markets, private capital, banking, and legal communities.
Sterling will continue to be led by CEO Geoff Keating, who, along with the rest of the company’s leadership, will join TransPerfect’s senior management team. Keating has served as CEO since 2008 and has led the company’s ascent to its position both before and after its separation from Sterling Financial Print.
The Joomla! project announced the release of Joomla 4.2 (now 4.2.2). The open-source web content management system (CMS) continues Joomla 4’s focus on accessible web design and brings new features. With Joomla 4.2.2, codenamed Uaminifu, we have new and improved features for bloggers and authors, web designers, extension developers and web agencies. What’s new in Joomla 4.22:
Allow to disable session metadata tracking for guest users
Reduce the number of permission columns
Smart Search: Allow fuzzy word matching
Package filter in the Extensions: Manage page
There are also many feature improvements included.
Joomla 3.10 is released alongside Joomla 4 as the last minor release of Joomla 3. Joomla 3.10 will continue to be supported with security fixes until 17th August 2023. As it is now a year since the release of J4.0, you should be planning or in the process of migrating to the latest version of Joomla. We provide resources to help with the migration on the documentation site.
The latest post from Girish Altekar on Intrepid technology and applications*. The introductory post is here and all our re-published intrepid posts are here.
If you have read the previous posts on Intrepids (see below), you understand how Intrepids empower individuals to manage and reuse their data efficiently while enhancing data privacy, increasing data control, and facilitating genuine competitiveness in marketplaces they are interested in. Above all, using Intrepids is a liberating experience for data owners as, untethered from call centers, complex web sites, and repeated data entry, data owners are free to go about their lives feeling secure about their personal data and knowing that their Intrepid driven requests are being honored accurately.
Businesses benefit also. The authentication and accuracy that is built into Intrepid driven data transfer empowers business applications to rely on actual dependable user data, instead of screen scraping and heuristics. Dependable data reduces the need for data verification and cleansing and drives the creation of new innovative applications that reduce business costs and improve customer experience. We have used Intrepids in sales applications where sales reps need to provide the same quote to multiple customers repeatedly.
Status
Intrep-id.com and related websites belong to DeepCoolClear, LLC, a small business based in Austin, TX, with related interests in managed WIFI/Broadband services.
We are a pre-revenue startup, but we hope you agree that we have accomplished much in building the base Intrepid platform, identifying, and building upon the initial applications and vocabularies. All our development to date has been funded internally.
We continue to work on making our platform robust. We are adding features that make Intrepids easy to use by individuals and for businesses to adopt. Our platform supports easy integration of Intrepids on business websites, super-fast design, and implementation of new vocabularies, and incorporates standard software engineering elements such as backward compatibility, Intrepid versioning, scalability, etc. Intrepids use a self-encrypting / decrypting mechanism that can be turned off and on a per vocabulary basis. Blockchain is under consideration for future development.
We also continue to work on a smartphone app that can receive Intrepids and create an Intrepid repository on a smartphone. From there, the app allows easy search of the repository to select and post an Intrepid to the receiver using NFC, Bluetooth, and other mechanisms.
These posts are intended to generate two kinds of interest.
We want to see if there is user interest in a privacy mechanism such as Intrepids. Please feel free to try out any application and give us your feedback if you think Intrepids, if/when widely adopted, may be useful to you.
We are also looking for strategic business partners who may be interested in exploring the use of Intrepids for their businesses and customers. Remember that any repetitive or burdensome data transfer can be eliminated by using Intrepids.
The circular problem that reduces incentives and limits Intrepid adoption is real and it will take time to get the flywheel rotating for the most general Intrepid use cases. Nevertheless, as demonstrated in these posts, there are many applications that businesses can deploy today, even if only to their customers, that deliver Intrepid benefits to their business and their customers.
We welcome interest in such strategic partnerships and other forms of collaboration / investment / JV from businesses who share our vision of putting data owners in control of their own data.
Intrepids for Entrepreneurs
We believe the Intrepid technology will find a natural home with entrepreneurs. Setting aside the few “horizontal” Intrepids, most Intrepids are “verticals” unto themselves. We have shown a few applications in these posts here, and entrepreneurs with domain knowledge in areas we haven’t explored will know of other Intrepid applications where Intrepid technology can be used to eliminate repetitive tasks with innovative applications. Individuals who share our passion and commitment about convenience, security, and privacy are invited to take these ideas forward.
By design, most Intrepids can be viewed as separate lines of business that entrepreneurs can grow with their domain knowledge and connections relevant to the specific market.
Intrepids for Investors
Intrepids are a new and innovative mechanism. The work we have produced is of value collectively, but we don’t believe the underlying ideas are protectable IP. And so, other than an idea that we believe in, we don’t have anything to offer to investors just yet. We welcome interest.
The latest post from Girish Altekar on Intrepid technology and applications*. The introductory post is here and all our re-published intrepid posts are here.
Most State Government interactions with their citizens are repeating in nature. Application for licenses, registration, services, or reporting taxes, revenue, and production details, citizens and businesses do these things on monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Much of the information provided is generally static with only a few fields whose values may change during each period. We believe there is an opportunity for State Governments (certainly Texas, our home state but we expect pretty much all of them) to reduce the wasted time and effort of their citizens when requiring them to comply with local reporting requirements.
The following Intrepids represent only a small fraction of applications of repetitive data exchange between Texans and the Texas State government. An Intrepid overlay application SaveTimeTx https://savetimetx.com/ reduces the effort required by citizens and businesses to file reports and transfer data to the State.
Webfile https://lnkd.in/g4vH8zRQ – filing tax reports online. Only the revenue fields change in each report period.
Production Report https://lnkd.in/gxgFxmF6 – Oil and Gas production report in TX. Most fields are static.
Vehicle Registration https://lnkd.in/gxwTHDK8 – Annual registration at DMV. All fields are static.
In a loosely coupled State/Citizen ecosystem, Intrepid-based filings or applications will save citizens and businesses significant effort over a single year. An Intrepid mechanism such as SaveTimeTX https://savetimetx.com/ (or equivalent) can significantly reduce friction between State/Citizen interactions.
The next post from Girish Altekar on Intrepid technology and applications*. The introductory post is here and all our re-published intrepid posts are here.
The Invoice Intrepid https://lnkd.in/gnkmNMya enables end-to-end generation and payment of invoices, directly from payor’s checking accounts. The BaankPaay https://baankpaay.com/ prototype application demonstrates how Intrepids can facilitate such a transaction, safely and securely, without giving access to the payor or the payee to each other’s bank accounts. Payments are transactional, vendors and customers don’t need to expend efforts to create auxiliary Zelle accounts. There is also no need to do provide banking and other data to 3rd party fintech intermediaries or pay rents to them.
Here is how a hypothetical transaction would work
Having delivered a product or a service, a vendor raises an invoice in their accounting system.
At some future point in time, their accounting application would simultaneously produce an Invoice Intrepid, identifying the customer, the vendor, the products/services, the amount to be paid, AND the vendor’s bank account information. Currently, the vendor would need to go to BaankPaay https://baankpaay.com/ to do this.
Vendor emails the encrypted Intrepid to customer.
Customer uploads the invoice Intrepid into to their bank. She is shown vendor’s name, amount, and purchase details but not the vendor bank account information.
Customer approves the payment and uploads her bank account Intrepid from which to pay. Customer also specifies payment parameters such as a payment schedule, as negotiated.
Customer’s bank executes a money transfer from customer account to vendor bank/account.
Customer’s bank sends her a transfer receipt.
For now, we overlook the regulatory or legal work banks may need to do before they deploy such an application but conceptually that is it.
The eighth post from Girish Altekar on Intrepid technology and applications*. The introductory post is here and all our re-published intrepid posts are here.
The Support/Receipt Intrepid enables a useful application for businesses. When businesses provide their customers a Support/Receipt Intrepid (https://lnkd.in/gvYwEZuz) for every transaction, they ensure that their customers, when seeking support/service, will always be able to authenticate themselves to automated systems. By presenting a precise and accurate record of all elements of the transaction, in all but the most complex support cases, software-based systems can respond to customer requests in an automated asynchronous fashion. Which reduces support costs tremendously.
Intrepids-based support enhances customer experience. No longer do they need to locate product / service identifiers (product/model numbers, paper/email receipts, warranty information), no longer do they need to be switched from call center to call center, no longer do they need to navigate complex websites to find support for their one need; they simply need to upload their Receipt Intrepid to NoCallSupport https://nocallsupport.com/ (or an equivalent site), create a support request from dropdown support menu options and submit it. They are no longer tethered to a business’ support call centers or websites to get their work done. They can go about their day with the assurance that their data/request has been received and when the request is completed, they will be notified by text or email.
Create a dummy Intrepid at Support/Receipt Intrepid page (https://lnkd.in/gvYwEZuz) and visit NoCallSupport https://nocallsupport.com/ to see this new support paradigm in action. The NoCallSupport application is customizable and business specific, so it is a demonstration, not a final product. Our Support/Receipt Intrepid should work for many businesses; a specific Support/Receipt Intrepid focused on your business alone is easily created. The Support/Receipt Intrepid can be viewed by customers but cannot be modified, and so retains its integrity through its life. For new businesses or startups, Intrepid-based support enables a new support paradigm that minimizes support costs and establishes a framework for “no call, no web, no touch” automated software-based support for your company.
The seventh post from Girish Altekar on Intrepid technology and applications*. The introductory post is here and all our re-published intrepid posts are here.
Starting with GDPR in EU and CCPA in California, the consumer privacy regulatory regimes empower consumers to instruct businesses on how their personal data is to be used. We are not experts on these regulations, but it seems to us that requiring businesses to follow consumer preferences on data use is not very useful if there are no easy mechanisms for consumers to transmit these preferences to businesses. No one is going to fill out forms at each website they visit instructing them on their preferences.
Check out the CCPA (https://lnkd.in/g3aMCWhQ) and the GDPR (https://lnkd.in/gRUjs7S3) data directive Intrepids and visit the MyDataPrefs (MDP) (https://mydataprefs.com/) application. These Intrepids allow users to capture their data privacy preferences in a structured format so they can be transmitted to a business existing under specific regulatory jurisdictions.
MDP, an overlay application that uses the Intrepid technology, enables users to create their own data preference Intrepids. When directed by users, it will (eventually) transmit these preferences to well-known applications (if required by the Regulations) at businesses.
We have not done this yet, but we plan to incorporate these preference directives into browser extensions that automatically transmit these preferences to every website the user visits. The return response can be saved as the evidence of the data preference transmittal and can be used to audit and track businesses for compliance.
Data Preferences Intrepid – this Support / Receipt Intrepid An Invoicing / Payment application State Government Applications Summing it up And Current Status
