i3 - March/April 2017 - 12

Tech

By Mark Chisholm

I N T E R N AT I O N A L FO C US

RUSSIA

Prisma, a stylistic photography app
from Moscow-based Prism Labs,
has enjoyed explosive popularity since
launching in 2016, with users downloading the app and filtering more than
one billion photos. The app takes a user's
photo and stylizes it. For example, filters
can make a photo look like a painting
by Pablo Picasso or Vincent van Gogh.
The 25-year old Russian entrepreneur
and CEO of Prisma Labs, Alexey
Moiseenkov explained to Business Insider
that the app relies heavily on artificial
intelligence and deep learning, to stylize
the image as quickly as an Instagram
filter, making it ready to share.

Russian
Delegation
Visits
Belarus to
Invest

Moscow Hosts
Electronics Recycling Event
Moscow will host the Eurasian Waste
Electrical Electronic Equipment Solutions
Congress in late March. The event is the
second of its kind focused on electronics
recycling in the Eurasian Economic
Union (EAEU) nations - Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
According to Moscow-based Ruslom
and Rusmet, the event's organizers,
the EAEU is "a new and fast growing
recycling market
that generates
about 1.5 million
tonnes of electronic
scrap per year
with a value of
more than €400
million (USD
$430 million)."

LINKEDIN REMOVED FROM
APP STORES IN RUSSIA
Smartphone owners in Russia can no longer
download the LinkedIn app from the iTunes and
Google Play app stores, after the app ran afoul
of local laws that require companies to store data
on Russian citizens within the nation's borders.
Microsoft-owned LinkedIn has several million
users in Russia. "It denies access to our members
in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to
grow their businesses," said Nicole Leverich,
a spokeswoman for LinkedIn.

A Russian delegation
visited Belarus
in February, looking
for potential
opportunities for
venture financing.
"We have created
a new way to finance
innovative projects,"
said Chairman
of the State Science
and Technology
Committee of Belarus
Alexander Shumilin.
Potential targets
for investment
include radio
electronics, information technologies,
biotechnologies and
nanotechnologies,
according to
Shumilin.

Russian Social Network
Vs. Data-Mining Firms
Vkontakte, a Russian social network with 88 million registered users in
Russia and 143 million worldwide, has sued two companies, Double Data
and the National Bureau of Credit Histories, for what the company claims
is unauthorized collection of users' information. Vkontakte claims the
unauthorized collection slows the social network's speed, and wants
compensation. Vkontakte is the second most popular website in Russia
in terms of daily users, trailing search engine Yandex.
12

MARCH/APRIL 2017

I T I S I N N O VAT I O N

WEBSITE: SOVFOTO/GETTY IMAGES; MAP: PETER HERMES FURIAN/ISTOCK;
MOSCOW: DELPIXART/THINKSTOCK; RECYCLING LOGO: ISTOCK

Popular Russian
Photo App Uses AI
i3 - March/April 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of i3 - March/April 2017
