PSPINC Official Company Blog

Facial Recognition: How it Works and the TSA’s Pilot Project

5月

24日

Facial recognition technology identifies and confirms someone’s identity using their face. Along with fingerprint validation, DNA matching, eye recognition, hand geometry recognition, voice recognition, and signature recognition, facial recognition is a type of biometric identification. And it’s growing in popularity, as we see via the TSA’s new pilot program, where they use facial recognition technology to confirm people’s identities.

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a rise in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, and with facial recognition technology becoming more popular, this is no exception. Additionally, the pandemic expedited contactless technology to minimize touch between merchants and customers. But the expansion of biometric identification and AI technology only raises concerns over data security among customers.

How it Works

photo of a woman in a coat using her cell phone

We can break the overall process of facial recognition down into three steps: detection, analysis, and recognition. Starting with detection, facial recognition finds a face in an image by using computer vision, which uses AI to identify people, places, and things in images quickly and accurately. With computer vision, machines can analyze image data in multiple different formats, including single images, video sequences, views from multiple cameras, and three-dimensional data.

In the analysis stage, the machine looks at facial geometry and facial expressions. It then converts that data into what’s called a faceprint, a unique data string of numbers or points. Lastly, there’s the recognition stage. This is where the machine will compare two or more images by looking at the faces to identify if it is, indeed, a face, or if it matches a face from a government-issued ID like a passport. And that’s exactly what the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to use it for.

TSA’s Facial Recognition Pilot Project

Using facial recognition technology, the TSA has started a new pilot project to confirm a traveler’s identity. All people do is present their ID card into a slot, look into the camera, and the screen will flash “Photo Complete”, which allows travelers to walk right through. The overall project is still in the early testing stages, as only 16 airports use this technology. But there are already early concerns and critiques over the new project. With some even comparing it to government surveillance. An open letter to the TSA from five senators even goes as far as saying it “represents a risk to civil liberties and privacy rights”, as an open letter from five senators to the TSA states.

There’s also the question of storing that data. The TSA says they’re not currently storing travelers’ biometric data, but that could easily change. And when it does, there are concerns over hackers who will try to steal it for nefarious reasons. Travelers also currently have the choice to opt in or opt out of this pilot project, but David Pekoske, head of the TSA, said it’ll eventually be a requirement. When that will happen is still unclear, however. And lastly, the algorithm facial recognition technology uses often struggles to recognize the faces of minorities, raising concern over bias.

What This Means

While many believe facial recognition technology impedes their privacy, technologists, like those at the TSA, boast its accuracy and efficiency and say it enhances overall security. It’s also important to realize we already use facial recognition technology with our personal devices, like enabling face ID on our phones. So, despite concerns, it’s clear that technology is here to stay.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#ai #artificialintelligence #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customerservice #customersupport #cybersecurity #facialrecognition #facialrecognitiontechnology #security #smallbusiness #tech #technology #transportationsecurityadministration #tsa

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 168 “Business Uses for Web Forms”

5月

19日

Online forms, or web forms, allow customers to enter valuable information. It could be as small and simple as their name and email address, or it can include payment information. Regardless, businesses can use online forms for multiple reasons:

· Sell products.
· Onboarding new employees.
· Capture new leads.
· Create an email mailing list.
· Gather feedback from customers.
· Collect information to provide a service.
· Many more!

In return, businesses can gain insight into their customers while also configuring, sharing, and managing those forms to optimize them for their business needs. Creating them, however, can be as easy as signing up for InforMakers, our online form builder! Get started for just $8/month.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #digitalmarketing #ecommerce #informakers #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingtips #newsletter #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #website #websites #webtools

Getting Verified on Social Media

5月

17日

Verified users on social media have been a thing for a long time. Since 2009, to be specific, when Twitter introduced the blue checkmark shown next to a user’s profile name. After that, other social platforms followed suit. Prior to Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, the checkmark beside someone’s name online became a symbol of authenticity to signify the user was whom they said they were.

After Elon Musk bought out Twitter for roughly $44 billion in October of last year, the verification process changed the following month. Now, $8/month is all you need to get verified on Twitter, ultimately meaning anyone who can afford to spend $8 a month can become a verified user. Regardless, other social platforms also have verification systems in place that aren’t solely based on financial means. But that may change once Meta rolls out their new verification service to Facebook and Instagram on a wider scale.

Meta’s New Verification Service

In February, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced they’d be rolling out their own verification service for Facebook and Twitter. According to his statement, this new system will aim to better protect people from fraudulent users. Although, the platform’s inspiration seems obvious as Twitter’s verification system has continually changed and become a frequent subject of ridicule since Musk’s takeover.

Meta first tested their new verification service in New Zealand and Australia in February, but they’ve since opened it up to the U.S. in March. However, we haven’t heard reports about it yet. All we really know about Meta’s verification service is that it takes a government ID to verify the account and getting verified on Facebook and getting verified on Instagram are two separate processes. And paid verification costs $11.99/month on the web or $14.99/month either on Apple’s iOS or Android.

Verification on Other Social Platforms

someone holding a phone with the youtube app opening

So far, Meta isn’t the only platform that’s followed Twitter’s example by charging for verification status. After Twitter’s new verification system went live, Tumblr took advantage of the public ridicule that came with it by advertising its own $7.99 verification status. But unlike Twitter, it was a one-time fee (Twitter’s is monthly) and you get two checkmarks. From the description, it’s very clear that it’s a joke. But despite that it’s a parody of Twitter’s checkmarks and holds no real value on the platform, it still earned a 125% boost in in-app purchase revenue by February after releasing it in November, according to TechCrunch.

But YouTube and TikTok don’t currently charge for verification. Instead, YouTube has a whole process where users can request verification, which requires user accounts to be public and active, have at least 100,000 subscribers, a profile photo, a banner image, a description, great content, and represent a real person, brand, or identity. On TikTok, verification exists, but it’s unclear how it’s done.

Regardless, verification used to authenticate users, especially public figures, on social media. But now, it just means that the user paid for that checkmark (or checkmarks, in Tumblr’s case). Even though Twitter and Meta claim this new process aims at bulking up protection against fraudulent users, it doesn’t seem to be helping as much as they said it would.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#app #blog #business #businesstools #cost #digitalmarketing #facebook #instagram #marketing #marketingdigital #mobile #smallbusiness #socialmedia #tech #technology #tiktok #tumblr #twitter #verification #verifiedusers #web #webtools #youtube

WebdeXpress: New Privacy Policy Feature Available!

5月

17日

We’re happy to announce that WebdeXpress, our web-building tool, now has a new feature! Now, while building your website, you can add a privacy policy notice above the contact form submission button. You can create this new privacy policy in English or Japanese and add a title, description, and an agreement checkbox description.

For website owners, privacy policies help set data privacy expectations with your website visitors. Adding one will give users an idea of what kinds of data you’re collecting from them, why you’re collecting it, and how they can contact you if they have any questions or concerns.

When you add your privacy policy form field, it’ll look like this:
privacy policy settings in wdx

Once you complete your privacy policy contents, it’ll appear on your contact form at the bottom like this:
privacy policy checkbox contact us form in wdx

privacy policy checkbox contact us form in wdx

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstool #dataprivacy #ecommerce #feature #newfeature #pacificsoftwarepublishing #privacypolicy #pspinc #smallbusiness #tech #technology #wdx #web #webbuilder #webdesign #webdexpress #website #websitebuilder #websites #webtools

Dreamersi Mail V5: New In-Email Spam Reporting Feature!

5月

16日

We’re happy to announce that Dreamersi, our premiere web and email hosting service, now has a new feature! We will now display an in-email warning for any incoming email that looks suspicious but isn’t caught by the spam filter.

screenshot of new in-email spam reporting feature

screenshot of new in-email spam reporting feature

When you report an email as spam, it will lead you to a page where:

in-email spam email

· The message removal option is checked by default
· You can choose to add the sender to your personal spam filter

When you report an email as not spam (“Looks okay”), it will lead you to a page where:

report email as not spam

· You can click on the “Submit” button to report the email as not spam to help our spam filter system improve its accuracy

In both instances, you’ll also receive a “Thank you for your report” page and a Thank you email.

The 'Report Spam Banner' option is also turned off by default, so unless you manually go in to turn it on, you won't see the report banner. To turn it on, go to 'Spam Filter Settings' and select 'On' in the 'Report spam banner' option at the bottom. Then click 'Save' and you will then see the banner the next time you receive an email that may look like spam.

spam filtering settings in dreamersi

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customersupport #email #emailhosting #hosting #pacificsoftwarepublishing #pspinc #smallbusiness #softwaredevelopment #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment #website

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 167 “Make Calls Easily with Tap-To-Call”

5月

12日

When our CEO, Ken Uchikura, realized his parents were having trouble calling him on their phones, he had an idea. If it was this hard for his parents to call people, it must be a problem other senior citizens face, too. That’s why he created Tap-To-Call. As the name suggests, users can easily make phone calls, as well as video calls, with the tap of a button!

While many senior citizens own a smartphone, about 42% according to Pew Research Center, technology evolves quickly. Even for younger people, keeping up with how fast technology changes can be difficult. Tap-To-Call makes it easier for those who aren’t as tech-savvy. For just $0.99, it’s easy to add, edit, and/or remove contacts. Just download the app on the iOS App Store to get started.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#app #appstore #blog #business #businesstips #call #ios #iphone #mobile #newsletter #phone #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #taptocall #tech #technology #web #webdevelopment

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 166 “Web Hosting for Your Website”

5月

5日

For anyone that has a website, you probably know how important web hosting is to your site. Having one is essential for keeping your site online, but it’s also important to have the right kind. The type of hosting you have for your site will dictate how much available space you have, how much monthly traffic can go to your site without it slowing down, and how secure your site is. Every person’s website needs are different, so it makes sense that there are different web hosting plans to fit those needs.

And that’s exactly why we offer different web hosting services, each with unique plans to fit your needs. For those that are looking for a cheap web hosting plan, Parcom is our budget-friendly service with a free plan as well as paid plans where you can get more for less. Or if you’re looking for more robust features, we built our hosting service, Dreamersi, in-house so we can deliver the best service for our customers. You can even get Dreamersi with email hosting, making it easier to manage your inner network. Learn more about our web hosting plans at pspinc.com/hosting.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #customerservice #customersupport #dreamersi #email #emailhosting #hosting #marketing #parcom #pspinc #pspincwhatsnewnewsletter #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webhosting #websites #webtools

Marketing Objectives and a Strategy Statement

5月

3日

The elements of a good marketing plan include two things: marketing objectives and a marketing strategy. Many people mistake an objective and a strategy as being the same thing, when, in fact, they are not. An objective is a more specific path to take to achieve your business goals. Examples include increasing brand awareness or increasing a certain perception about your product or overall company. A strategy, however, should encompass your objectives and steer your overall plan in the right direction. And constructing a strong strategy statement helps you do that.

For example, if you own a small business, you’ll likely want to increase its overall brand awareness. But your marketing plan still needs a focus. The best way to figure out what to focus on for your marketing plan is to research. What is it about your company that makes it different from others on the market? What part of your product or overall company do you want more people to know about? That’s where you should start.

SMART Objectives

When creating your marketing objects, a helpful acronym you can use is SMART. It stands for specific, measurable, attainable, reliable, and timely. Every business has goals in mind, but when you create SMART objectives, it narrows down your focus and guides you toward those goals. Without them, you’ll have goals without any clear direction or tasks going forward. And it’s hard to accomplish a goal if you don’t know where to start or how to achieve that goal. Creating a SMART objective means determining a more specific goal in mind, one that will focus on growing your brand on a single platform, like Instagram or your website. It means using specified but practical numbers and setting a definitive deadline for yourself.

For example, maybe you want to increase your brand awareness by increasing your overall website traffic. To determine a realistic number to grow by, look at the average amount of traffic on your website and base your objective on that. When looking at how to achieve that goal, marketing tactics could include improving your site’s search engine optimization (SEO), growing your social profiles, increasing email subscribers, or other avenues. For example, if you average around 120 users a day and determine that your site has poor overall SEO, you can strive to increase your average daily user count by 10% by making technical SEO fixes, which would also increase your site's organic search engine results page (SERP) ranking. If you're looking for tips on how to grow your social media pages, check out our new YouTube video.

A Marketing Strategy

Being equipped with those objectives makes forming a strategy that much easier. While your marketing objectives give you a clear set of steps for you to take to achieve your overall goal, your strategy statement will help inform them. It’s easy to say you want to grow your business online, even with specific goals in mind. But it still requires a sense of direction. How will you encourage users to subscribe to your email newsletter or follow you on Instagram? That’s where your strategy statement can help you. To construct one, it’s best to think about what makes your business unique or what you want potential customers to know more about. The question you really need to answer is: why should a customer choose your company over another? And what benefit can you leverage as a smaller company?

Whatever it is, use that to construct your strategy statement. For example, if you’re a smaller airline company looking to promote your family plans and overall safety, your strategy statement could be: “Fly with us, North America’s safest choice for family-friendly travel”. So, while people may use marketing objectives and a strategy statement interchangeably sometimes, they are different. They each help to inform the other and work together to help give marketers a clear direction in their overall marketing campaigns. And it’ll help you market your business moving forward. If you need any marketing help for your small business, reach out to our marketing experts here at PSPINC.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#advertising #blog #branding #business #businesstips #digitalmarketing #email #marketing #marketingdigital #marketingobjectives #marketingstrategy #marketingtips #sales #smallbusiness #smartobjectives #strategy #strategystatement #tech #technology

What’s New Newsletter Vol. 165 “Custom Web Design Solutions”

4月

28日

An important part of developing a business’s brand identity is its website. The elements that go into designing a business website include a logo, a simple navigation bar, a clear call-to-action (CTA), a product and services page, and an about us page. The web designer’s job isn’t just to create these components, but it also involves making the site look attractive using specific colors and overall imagery provided by the client. Those colors and imagery help create the overall brand identity of the site and business.

Now, to make it easier than ever, we’ve created budget-friendly web design plans perfect for your business needs. Whether you’re just looking for a basic web presence or a site with everything you’d ever need for your business, we’ve got you covered. To learn more about our web design packages, head over to our custom web design page.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.

#b2b #blog #business #businesstips #businesstools #ecommerce #marketing #marketingtips #pspinc #searchengineoptimization #seo #smallbusiness #tech #technology #web #webdesign #webdevelopment #webdexpress #websites #webtools #wordpress

Why Google Analytics is Switching to Google Analytics 4 and How to Switch Over Manually

4月

26日

Released in 2005, Google Analytics is a free web analytics service where users can view statistics and have access to basic analytical tools for their websites. These tools help website owners optimize their sites for search engines and better market their sites and potential businesses. Since 2012, Universal Analytics (UA) became the default property type. In 2020, Google released Google Analytics 4 (GA4), giving users the option to use either.

Starting July 1st, Google Analytics will not only switch to GA4, but it’ll also stop its data collection for UA properties. And they'll solely support GA4 rather than giving users the choice to either GA4 or UA. Even though it’s almost two months away from now, it’s recommended you switch over sooner rather than later.

Why is Google Switching to Google Analytics 4?

Internet users today are becoming more aware of their privacy online in recent years. With that concern, many users have opted out of tracking cookies, which are text files that collect data about a user’s behavior on their browser. When you first go to a website, many times, it’ll ask if you agree to accept tracking cookies. As users learn more about internet safety, more and more people are opting out of tracking cookies. For Google Analytics, that changes things because UA captures data by relying on first-party cookies. With more people opting out, UA’s data set will become less helpful moving forward. GA4, however, uses event-based data modeling to gather data.

How to Switch Manually from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4

two people looking at google analytics and a tablet

To manually switch over to GA4:

Create a GA4 property and data stream

For a site that already has analytics, start by going to the Admin (lower left) in Google Analytics
Make sure the right account is selected in the Account column (if you only have one Google Analytics account, it’s already selected)
Select the Universal Analytics property that currently collects data for your website in the Property column
Click GA4 Setup Assistant in the Property column
Click Get started under I want to create a new Google Analytics 4 Property
In the Create a new Google Analytics 4 property pop-up, depending on how your site is currently tagged, you can either:

Create and continue
Create property

Select the option that best describes your situation on the Set up a Google tag page and follow the instructions to finish creating your new GA4 property
Collect website and app data
Turn on Google signals
Add users

Even though it’ll automatically switch over (if you haven’t opted out), Google still recommends you manually switch to GA4 before the deadline on July 1st. The reasoning behind this is simple: the sooner you switch, the more data you’ll collect in the new system. And that data collection will be vital to help determine trends and insights and how to improve your overall business and marketing plans. If you need help migrating your data from UA to GA4, we have experts ready to help you with your SEO and other marketing needs.

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc.

1404 140th Place N.E., Bellevue, WA 98007

PSPINC Creates Tools For Your Business

Pacific Software Publishing, Inc. is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington and provides domain, web, and email hosting to more than 40,000 companies of all sizes around the world. We design and develop our own software and are committed to helping businesses of all sizes grow and thrive online. For more information you can contact us at 800-232-3989, by email at info@pspinc.com or visit us online at https://www.pspinc.com.