IBM, Maersk Pull the Plug on Blockchain-based TradeLens Shipping Platform

Had followed this for some time, I thought it was a good example, used it in talks The 'why' seems weak.  Unless the fundamentals were just not there. 

IBM, Maersk pull the plug on blockchain-based TradeLens shipping platform  By Kyt Dotson in SiliconAngle

Computing giant IBM Corp. and Danish shipping company A.P. Moller – Maersk are discontinuing their blockchain-enabled shipping platform, TradeLens, which was jointly developed by the two companies for tracking shipments and managing supply chains in the container industry.

Maersk announced late Tuesday that the platform had failed to meet its commercial goals necessary to sustain itself, and thus the two companies are now pulling the plug on the platform. It’s expected to go offline by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

“TradeLens was founded on the bold vision to make a leap in global supply chain digitization as an open and neutral industry platform,” said Rotem Hershko, head of business platforms at Maersk. “Unfortunately, while we successfully developed a viable platform, the need for full global industry collaboration has not been achieved.”

TradeLens was launched in 2018 as a collaborative project between the two companies using IBM’s Hyperledger Fabric blockchain technology. It’s used to connect shippers, shipping lines, freight forwarders, port and terminal operators, transportation and customs authorities in order to reduce costs by tracking shipping data and documents.

The objective was to revolutionize the way that documents were transferred between different entities in the supply chain in order to smooth out operations and thus streamline efficiency.   Speaking to SiliconANGLE today, Neeraj Srivastava, co-founder and chief technology officer of DLT Labs, a blockchain firm that develops solutions for fintech and supply chains, argued that TradeLens failed because it spent too much time on hyping itself and too little time on innovation.

“TradeLens’ failure was not that the blockchain wasn’t worthwhile,” said Srivastava. “It’s that it spent too much effort on marketing the platform and hyping up its benefits and not enough time developing the technology to deliver on what the company promised. Too much hype is not good.”

Maersk said it intends to continue efforts to digitize supply chains even after shutting down TradeLens in order to optimize shipping and trade speeds.

Blockchain technology has been tested widely to track and protect supply chains, examples include IBM’s Food Trust Network for food safety, GrainChain for grains and Tradewind Markets Origins for minerals. ... ' 

AI Shipping and Technology issues

Emphasizing shipping issues. 

The Download: AI privacy risks, and cleaning up shipping  in TechnologyReview

Plus: Pakistan's devastating floods are displacing millions of people,   By Rhiannon Williams

August 31, 2022    Click through for details.  

What does GPT-3 “know” about me?

One of the biggest stories in tech this year has been the rise of large language models (LLMs). These are AI models that produce text a human might have written—sometimes so convincingly they have tricked people into thinking they are sentient.

These models’ power comes from troves of publicly available human-created text that has been hoovered from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs. 

My colleague Melissa Heikkilä, our AI reporter, recently started to wonder what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. A bruising experience a decade ago left her paranoid about sharing personal details online, so she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test to see what it “knows” about her. Read about what she found.

How ammonia could help clean up global shipping

The news: Foul-smelling ammonia might seem like an unlikely fuel to help cut greenhouse-gas emissions. But it could also play a key role in decarbonizing global shipping, providing an efficient way to store the energy needed to power large ships on long journeys.

What’s happening: The American Bureau of Shipping recently granted early-stage approval for some ammonia-powered ships and fueling infrastructure, meaning such ships could hit the seas within the next few years. While the fuel would require new engines and fueling systems, swapping it in for fossil fuels that ships burn today could help make a significant dent in global carbon emissions.

What’s next: Some companies are looking even further into the future, with New York–based Amogy raising nearly $50 million earlier this year to use the chemical for fuel cells that promise even greater emissions cuts. If early tests for ammonia work out, these new technologies could help the shipping industry to significantly reduce its emissions. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Pakistan is reeling from its devastating flooding

Poor policy making, mixed with a climate change-driven monsoon, has displaced millions of people and destroyed homes, food and livelihoods. (Vox) 

+ These images highlight the extent of the destruction. (The Guardian)

+ Residents are trying to salvage their belongsides from the waters. (BBC)

2 California has passed new online child safety rules 

The legislation will force websites and apps to add protective measures for under-18s. (NYT $)

+ The state also wants to punish doctors who spread health misinformation. (NYT $) 

3 NASA will try to launch its Artemis rocket again on Saturday

An inaccurate sensor reading is believed to have caused the botched lift-off on Monday. (BBC)

4 Elon Musk has found a new tactic to try to wriggle out of buying Twitter

He’s using the recent whistleblower allegations. (FT $)

+ What you need to know about the upcoming legal fight. (WSJ $)

+ Twitter is failing to adequately tackle self-harming content. (Ars Technica)

5 Deepfakes are infiltrating the mainstream

The technology is improving by the day, and we should be worried. (WP $)

+ A horrifying new AI app swaps women into porn videos with a click. (MIT Technology Review)

Robot Hauling with Autonomous Trains

Had heard of autonomous shipping, but with oceangoing ships and not with trains.    Here an interesting example. 

World's Largest Robot Hauls Ore Through Western Australia   By Evan Ackerman in IEEE Spectrum

The world's largest robot, called AutoHaul, is an autonomous train that hauls tons of material across Australia. The trains started running in direct supervised autonomy mode in 2017. A human was originally present on the train, but it was still operating autonomously, under remote supervision from an operations center. The train recently made its first trip using only remote supervised autonomy. The robotic system understands its performance, the load it is carrying, and the characteristics of the terrain, all of which enable it to drive itself faster and more efficiently than a human conductor. The system is designed to unlock significant safety and productivity benefits as a result of reduced variability and increased speed across the network, helping to decrease average cycle times. ... " 

Maersk Shipping on Blockchain

More on this example, previously reported:

Blockchain Is About to Revolutionize the Shipping Industry   By Bloomberg

Maersk, APL, Hyundai race to build paperless cargo system
Adoption of blockchain could generate $1 trillion in trade .... "

Amazon Shifts to Subscription for Prime Pantry

Seems more practically useful,  to larger and more systematic users.

Amazon shifts to a subscription model for Prime Pantry
by Tom Ryan in Retailwire with further comments.

Amazon’s Prime Pantry service is shifting to a $5 monthly subscription model from the $6 it currently charges per box.

Prime Pantry, launched in 2014, offers “low-priced, every-day essentials in everyday sizes.” Items include non-perishable goods such as detergent, paper towels, canned foods, breakfast foods, beverages and beauty and personal care items.

The programs selling points include offering savings without the need to buy in bulk and eliminating the need to visit stores for regularly-purchased items. Products arrive in one to four days. The Prime Pantry’s micro-website states, “Skip the trip to the grocery store and let us do the heavy lifting.” ... ' 

Maersk, IBM Launch Blockchain

Good to think about the value proposition here,  how it is beyond a simple ledger database approach.  The stated value is to have controlled data sharing among those shippers and other parties that sign up for the service.  Back to the idea of verified transparency which should lead to better data and thus analytics.  No mention of Smart Contracts, but seems to be a logical next step.

Maersk, IBM to launch blockchain-based platform for global trade  By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Reuters

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - The world’s largest container shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk is teaming up with IBM to create an industry-wide trading platform it says can speed up trade and save billions of dollars. ... " 

Tracking Ships, Containers with Blockchain

Another example of the used of blockchain as a database, a secure open distributed ledger.

The blockchain heads out to sea as IBM and Maersk develop ship tracking platform By Duncan Riley   In SiliconAngle:

The blockchain is heading out to sea with IBM Corp. and shipping operator A.P. Moller–Maersk Group (most commonly known as Maersk) teaming up to track shipping transactions using the technology that powers bitcoin.

The tracking system is being built on top of The Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger platform and will link shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, ports and customs authorities with a goal to track 10 million shipping containers by the end of this year, some 14 percent of the 70 million containers shipped globally each year.

IBM estimates that the digitization of the supply chain process from end to end could save shipping carriers a whopping $38b billion a year.  .... " 

IOT and High Value Goods

In Readwrite: Not extremely new.  Had seen solutions by GE using essentially the idea in remote power plant applications. Active RFID applications.   The idea has also been applied to container tracking.   Pointer to an ROI analysis.   But do expect it to expand via the use of better location intelligence applied to analytical methods. Our own interests focused on case or grouped goods on shelf or in inventory.

Cooperative Robotics for Amazon

Like humans being augmented by AI, here in the physical world.

How Locus Robotics Plans to Build a Successor to Amazon's Kiva Robots
By Evan Ackerman

Locus’ robot is designed to work collaboratively with humans to fill orders in a warehouse. It’s a mobile base that can navigate autonomously using lidar to track its location in a pre-mapped area, with cameras and 2D barcodes for verification. Each robot knows the location of every item in the warehouse, and when an item needs to be picked for an order, the robot will navigate to that item and wait.

Humans workers are assigned to patrol warehouse zones, and when they see a robot waiting, the worker reads the item that it needs off the screen, picks it, and moves on. The robot then drives to the location of the next item that it needs, or heads for a shipping station. It’s a very efficient system, since humans aren’t carrying anything or having to roam all over a warehouse to fulfill one order: instead, they’re doing what they’re best at, which is identifying and picking objects off of shelves. ... " 

Wal-Mart and Jet

Podcast on Knowledge@Wharton:

" .... Wal-Mart this week brought more muscle to its competition with Amazon by buying online shopping site Jet.com. Wal-Mart Stores will pay $3.3 billion for the two-year-old Hoboken-based firm. Jet.com’s “gain sharing” business model revolves around persuading customers to bunch their orders and pass on the savings in shipping costs with lower price tags.

Opinions are sharply divided over the wisdom of Wal-Mart’s move. For many analysts, however, Wal-Mart’s eagerness to strengthen its online attractiveness is seen as the right driver to grow its business, even if its strategies to achieve that goal are debatable.  .. " 

Marketing Augmented Reality is Here

In Adworld.   An overview of how it is being tested by marketers today.   Now we know that the right kind of simple quest game can work.    Now will other methods beyond gaming work too?

" .. First, let's define the new medium. Augmented reality, or AR, is simply the mixture of digital worlds (images, video and sound) and physical reality, experienced first by today's mobile screens and eventually by eye goggles with better vision or haptic suits with full-body sensation.

2016 is the year AR arrived. In February, the Florida startup Magic Leap secured $793 million in VC funding for its glasses that project high-resolution animations over real space. Microsoft in March began shipping developer kits for its HoloLens headset. And Facebook has purchased Oculus, a virtual-reality pioneer, for $2 billion. With all the big tech players investing, AR is coming fast. ... " 

Value of Functional Packaging

Always an interesting idea, and augmented reality and smartphones bring new capabilities forward. When will they actually create engagement, provide value?    To be clear,  the examples don't have to be that technological:

" ... In  June, Zappos ran a campaign called #ImNotaBox, which involved shipping boxes printed with a variety of templates for cutting and folding the empty packaging into a number of new functional items, according to Adweek. By following the instructions, recipients could give a Zappos box a second life as a smartphone holder, geometric planters and a decorative 3-D llama, among other things.

Zappos’ campaign speaks both to the importance of retailers finding new ways to provide experiential enjoyment beyond just the product being purchased, and to the serious look that retail is taking at promoting waste reduction and reusability.   ... " 

More discussion In Retailwire.

Process Maps for Supply Chain Applications

From a former colleague, via YourEncore:

Process Maps: Turn-by-Turn Directions That Lead to Supply Chain Optimization

Posted by Bob Weston

Last week, Dennis Trchka laid out Four Steps to Unlocking Supply Chain Value. The first step, documenting current processes, is the foundation from which opportunities to realize both bottom line savings and top line growth begin to appear. A Process Map (PM), quite literally, gets everyone on the same page. It’s a great visual aid that helps everyone in the organization “see” how a product moves through the supply chain, identify gaps and pain points, and begin to brainstorm new approaches and solutions.

During my 30-year tenure at P&G, I led a vast number of Process Mapping exercises across pharmaceutical, OTC and non-healthcare consumer product categories. We mapped activities as diverse as manufacturing forecasting, start-up processes, international shipping, warehouse utilization, and even personnel hiring. In every case, the exercise resulted in “aha” moments of discovery that led to specific action steps and operational improvements. .... "  

Freight Forwarding via Flexport

Addressing the opportunity in outwardly boring businesses.  Good overview.

" .... To get the best deal on each leg of the journey and handle the hand-offs through customs, freight forwarding services serve as an organizational logistics layer. They have direct relationships with carriers like truck owners and massive shipping container boats.

But like I said, it’s an unsexy business, so until recently, freight forwarding was still being done with a jumble of Excel, email, fax, and paper manifests shipped around the world. That made it extremely tough to spot overspending or snags in supply chains.

That is, until Flexport indexed all the available carriers into a searchable database in its free software for organizing and tracking shipments. ... " 

Blackberry Radar for Goods Security

Worked on related ideas for the supply chain enterprise a decade ago that used tagging and communicating capabilities to track trucks.  There are suppliers that do this already.  Huge amounts of money and security involved. A fundamental part of the IOT. Tracking things.  To me an unexpected participant in this space:

In the Blackberry Blog: " .... Efficiency and loss-prevention are keys to profitability for trucking companies, which are gaining a new way to boost productivity with the introduction of BlackBerry Radar today at the Mid-America Trucking Show. BlackBerry Radar is an end-to-end, Internet of Things (IoT)-based system that monitors the location of trailers and containers and delivers timely, actionable data to transportation managers via a secure, online portal. The portal is accessible from practically any location on any smartphone, tablet or computer. The system optimizes usage of trailers and shipping containers, improves on-time delivery and lets operators generate more revenue per trailer. .... " 

Amazon Air Cargo

Some interesting thoughts, though speculations, embedded in this article.   Makes sense for Amazon to test, control and optimize larger parts of its supply chain.  Watching this.

Is local air cargo firm hauling Amazon deliveries?

Is Aerosmith the name of Amazon's trial run in the air cargo business? And is that delivery service being tested in Cincinnati's backyard? Those are good questions that nobody's answering, although new hints of confirmation were dropped this week.

In recent months, analysts and other Amazon watchers have increasingly speculated that the e-retailer is testing such as delivery service of its own, instead of shipping through companies such as UPS or FedEx. 

Is Aerosmith the name of Amazon's trial run in the air cargo business? And is that delivery service being tested in Cincinnati's backyard? Those are good questions that nobody's answering, although new hints of confirmation were dropped this week.

In recent months, analysts and other Amazon watchers have increasingly speculated that the e-retailer is testing such as delivery service of its own, instead of shipping through companies such as UPS or FedEx.  ... " 

Light Transmitting Data

In CWorld.  Aka Li-Fi.   We looked at this for some specialized retail applications, it has been around for sometime.  It still does not transmit through walls or around corners.   But we all use lighting broadly.   Short non technical introductory piece.  " .... Yes, multiple tests have shown that LED lighting fixtures can transmit wireless data at very competitive high speeds. A commercial product started shipping several months ago. .... " 

Freight Forwarding

Freight forwarding in the supply chain.  Opportunities exist, but standards are one issue.  Planning is another.

WSJ:  " ... Companies that coordinate shipping for retailers and manufacturers, known as freight forwarders, do everything from finding the right combination of trains, planes and trucks for a speedy delivery to pushing shipments through customs.

Forwarders’ work touches much of global trade, but many customers complain that the industry relies on outdated technology: Orders are often placed via phone call, or even fax, and tracked using emailed spreadsheets. ... " 

Bouncing Camera Gathers Images, Realities

Fast image gathering for reconnaissance and image based reality creation.  Possibilities.

Police Are Now Testing This Harvard Startup's Throwable Cameras
Bounce Imaging believes its technology could also have potential for a consumer action camera—as well as virtual reality.

Back in 2012, Bounce Imaging unveiled a prototype for the Explorer: a softball-sized throwable camera that could almost instantly transmit 360-degree images to a mobile device when tossed into a hidden areas, like a hostage situation, burning building or the rubble of an earthquake. The idea was originally conceived with first responders’ safety in mind, but it quickly became clear that there was immense value for giving police personnel an idea of what they may face in potentially dangerous situations. Now, three years later, the Boston startup is in the process of shipping out the first batch of 100 Explorers, which will be tested out by the Revere/North Metro SWAT team and the Maine Department of Corrections, among other departments.  ... " 

Amazon Business

Some of the details here are interesting, like including procurement expertise.   See my other posts here on market based procurement and the application of analytics, which we made much value leverage of in the enterprise.

Amazon Launches Amazon Business Marketplace, Will Close AmazonSupply
" ... Now Amazon is taking its quest to win over the $7.2 trillion B2B sector a step further. On Tuesday, the Seattle-based web giant is launching Amazon Business, a new platform aiming to do for business customers what Amazon.com has done for everyday shoppers.

Companies that register for an Amazon Business account will have access to business-only products from IT and lab equipment to education and food service supplies, with bulk discounts and free 2-day shipping on orders over $49. ... "