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Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

Expedia Group

Expedia Group – A Travel Technology Company leveraging its platform for connecting Travelers with Brands.

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Expedia Group is one of the world’s largest travel platforms founded by Rich Barton in 1996. The company was founded as a division of Microsoft twenty-four years ago. The company’s headquarters are based in Seattle, Washington, US. Travel technology is a sector that has gained huge demand and unleashed the potential for many companies in the past few decades.

Expedia provides a platform where travelers can connect with hotels, find different tour packages, and most importantly offers plenty of choices. A company like Expedia helps out every kind of tourist and traveler to have the best travel experience at the same time gives a platform for small travel businesses to grow. Since Expedia has a strong online presence, it provides exposure to local companies in the travel sector thus uplifting small businesses.

A Brief Introduction of Expedia Group

Expedia Group can be best described as a group of travelers and technologists working around the clock to make your journey memorable and worthy. The company is highly dedicated to connecting travelers with the right partners across a global platform. Throughout the past twenty-four years, Expedia has acquired and partnered with several companies creating extensive portfolios of many businesses and brands.

Expedia Group
Image Source: media.bizj.us

Today, Expedia has more than  70 terabytes of data which helps them show the most optimized path for both the business and the traveler to gain the best experience. Expedia has many products under its brand name such as BedandBreakfast.com, CarRentals.com, Hotels.com, Local Expert, etc. So, let’s have a glimpse at how this journey started.

History of Expedia Group

Back in 1996, there weren’t many online travel agencies and hence the market had lesser competition. Expedia was established as Microsoft Expedia Travel Services and soon the word Expedia became very common every time traveling came up as a topic of discussion. The word Expedia was born from two words “Exploration” and “Speed” and the quality of work justified the name of the company. The company went public in 1999 and got spun off as an independent business.

In 2001, IAC/InterActiveCorp showed interest in the company and bought shares worth $1.5billion. After two years, Expedia was fully acquired by IAC/InterACtiveCorp and it became a part of IAC Travel. After the acquisition, Rich Barton stepped down from the position of CEO and he was replaced by Erik Blachford. Next year, IAC Travel was spun off into Expedia and the former CEO was replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi. After IAC Travel and Expedia became a single entity the parent company spun off Expedia Inc in 2005. Many businesses were under the name of Expedia Inc such as Expedia Corporate Travel, TripAdvisor, Hotels.com, etc.

Expedia Group
Image Source: logos-download.com

In 2011, TripAdvisor media group was spun off from Expedia Inc and the latter got to keep the portfolio of travel transaction brands. This year the company also showed interest in gaining market presence in the Asia Pacific region and hence partnered with Air Asia, Tencent, and eLong. Under the leadership of Dara Khosrowshahi, Expedia became a Fortune 500 company. Gradually, the lines of businesses started expanding for Expedia as it started providing technology solutions and acquired companies in the same field. In 2013, the company invested in metasearch and partnered with Citigroup to create Expedia+cards so that members can earn points and certain benefits. The company went through a rather rough year in 2019 which led to cutting off 3,000 jobs in the next year.

Acquisitions

Expedia Inc acquired a lot of companies since it was born. Most of the companies are US-based businesses while a few are from European countries as well. Expedia made its first acquisition in 2000 when it bought Travelscape, an internet service provider company. Next year, Expedia bought Vacation spot which was also an internet service provider. Expedia bought a handful of travel agencies including Classic Custom Vacations, Metropolitan Travel, Egencia, Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. Recently it acquired CanadaStays, a Canadian holiday rental service.

The CEO: Rich Barton

Richard Barton commonly known as Rich Barton is a very famous American internet entrepreneur currently serving as the CEO of the Zillow Group. In 1989, he graduated from Stanford University with an engineering degree and started working for Microsoft in 1991. He founded Expedia while working in Microsoft as the company was planning to build a travel guidebook back then. Later, Barton understood the potential of Expedia and it was officially launched in 1996. Barton’s successful career made him a billionaire in 2020.

Murata Manufacturing

Murata Manufacturing – A Japanese company famous for manufacturing Electronic Components.

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Japan is one of the tech-driven nations that is growing in every aspect very rapidly. The country is not making impressive breakthroughs exclusively in the 21st century, as history is proof that Japan has always been a nation trying to uplift its economy. Many famous multinational conglomerates have their origin in Japan and one such company is Murata Manufacturing.

About Murata Manufacturing

Murata Manufacturing is a Japanese company established in 1944 in the electronic industry. The founder of the company is Akira Murata who started the company as a personal venture in  Kyoto, Japan. Murata Manufacturing develops a wide range of electronic products from power supply equipment to communication modules. The company is famous for manufacturing ceramic passive electronic components and dominates the market when it comes to ceramic filters. Currently, Murata Manufacturing has expanded its market beyond Japan to other Asian countries and in America and Europe as well. 

Founding History of the Company

The story of Murata Manufacturing began in 1944 when Akira Murata decided to go on a personal venture in the city of Kyoto. Akira started his business in a small factory of 150m2 where he manufactured titanium-oxide ceramic capacitors. The main use of these capacitors was in heterodyne radios. Since people had radio as the only source of entertainment and news back then, the superheterodyne radios became very popular.

In 1947, Akira started working with an assistant professor from Kyoto University and developed a practical barium titanate capacitor. This was a breakthrough for the company as it became the world’s first manufacturer to commercialize a practical barium titanate piezoelectric transducer for fishfinders. After some time, the market for Murata was going very slow as its AM radio ceramic filters took some time to gain demand in the market, and the quality of products also dropped due to compromise in raw materials after WWII. So, the company also started producing insulators and also built equipment for quality checks.

Murata Manufacturing
Image Source: getvectorlogo.com

In 1952, the headquarters of Murata Manufacturing was moved to another part of Kyoto City called Yamashina. The company started investing in research and development very early and its research division is called Murata Technology Research Laboratory Co. Murata’s research department introduced an electron microscope and spectrometer in 1956.

Growth and Expansion

The 1970s witnessed expansion in the international markets as Murata opened its business in Georgia, USA. Murata started expanding the range and production rate of its products and became the mass producer of SAW filter and dielectric filter for consumer products in 1975. In the 1980s, Murata introduced CERALOCK, a ceramic resonator for the PCs and it became a hit. In 1983, the company established Izumo Murata Manufacturing followed by a plant in Yasu-Cho in 1987 and the Yokohama R&D center in 1988. In 1988, the company also opened its business in Thailand.

In 1990, the company developed a very innovative design for gyro sensor technology to make it cos-effective and a comparatively smaller size for general customers. This new sensor was equipped with image stabilization and also detected travel directions in automobiles. Murata pitched this product using a small robot cyclist and the picture went viral all over the media. In 1994, Murata opened a sales and production company in Wuxi, China.

Murata in the 21st Century

Many new products came up in the 21st century and the company also evolved with time with the advent of the digital era. In the 2000s, Murata focused on developing equipment for wireless technology as the demand for communication through PCs was increasing rapidly. This was the time when the internet started ruling the digital market and everyone wanted an internet connection in their computers and smartphones.

In 2010, the company developed the world’s first smallest and thinnest pyroelectric infrared sensor and an ultra-thin piezoelectric speaker. The company acquired Peregrine Semiconductor Corp in 2014. Last year, the company announced the opening of a new R&D center in Yokohama. Currently, the company has more than 60,000 employees spread across the globe.

The Founder: Akira Murata

Born in 1921, Akira Murata is famous for establishing Murata Manufacturing and served as the President of the company from 1950 to 1991. From 1995, he served as the Honorary Chairman of the company until he passed away in 2006. Throughout his professional life, Murata was awarded many prestigious accolades including the Medal with Blue Ribbon of Japan (Ranju Hosho), Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany First Class, Order of the Sacred Treasure, etc.

OnePlus Nord CE 5G

OnePlus Nord CE 5G launched – List of specifications and features.

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On 10th June 2021, OnePlus launched the new model in the Nord series, OnePlus Nord CE 5G. The company made the announcement through an online live stream and revealed the new features of this latest smartphone. The new OnePlus Nord smartphone varies from the original Nord model that was released last year on a few grounds. Both the outlook and the internal system have been significantly modified to make it look both sleek and for better performance. The slim appearance of the new Nord CE 5G makes it the slimmest OnePlus model after the OnePlus 6T which was released almost three years ago. This new OnePlus Nord model comes in three different colors and each one has options for a matte and glossy back finish.

Specifications of OnePlus Nord CE 5G

The new OnePlus Nord CE 5G is powered by Android 11 and OxygenOS 11 with dual-sim (Nano). OnePlus has chosen the octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G SoC for running the system of the new model and it also comes with Adreno 619 GPU and RAM of 6GB. The display of Nord CE 5G features a 6.43-inch full HD AMOLED display. The aspect ratio of the display is 20:9 with a refresh rate of 90Hz.

OnePlus Nord CE 5G
Image Source: gsmarena.com

The OnePlus Nord CE 5G will be offering internal storage of 256GB with connectivity options including 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth v5.1, GPS/ A-GPS/ NaVIC, NFC, USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm headphone jack (Gadgets 360). The different types of sensors in the mobile include an ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer. Apart from these features, it has an in-display fingerprint sensor, speakers with noise cancellation support, 4500 mAh battery life. The battery has been improved as compared to the last Nord model by OnePlus.

Price and Availability

In India, the price of the new OnePlus Nord CE 5G starts from Rs. 22,999. This price is for the variant of 6GB+128GB. The price of the model for 8GB+128GB variants starts from Rs. 24, 999. One of the models of the new Nord CE 5G starts from Rs. 27,999 and is a showstopper with a 12GB+256GB storage variant. The three different colors available for all these models are Blue Void (matte), Charcoal Ink (Glossy), and Silver Ray. OnePlus Nord CE 5G will be made available from 16th June and you can also preorder from today itself. They will be available in the online stores of OnePlus and Amazon. 

Camera System of Nord CE 5G

OnePlus has always been one of the top choices of users when it comes to camera quality. Be it for photography, video calling, or taking selfies, the photographs produced by a OnePlus are highly distinguishable. The new OnePlus Nord CE 5G comes with a triple rear camera system. The camera setup consists of a 64-megapixel primary sensor with a lens of aperture f/1.79. The primary sensor has electronic image stabilization (EIS) which helps greatly while shooting videos with users being in motion. The secondary camera has a sensor of 8 megapixels with an ultra-wide lens of f/2.25 and the third one is a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor with an f/2.4 lens.

OnePlus can easily substitute heavy gear for a photographer especially while hiking or traveling in busy areas. The images and the videos are of very high quality and quench the need for a good camera. With the pandemic shifting of our work culture to a remote version, users can easily attend video calls with the front camera of Nord CE 5G which features a 16 megapixel Sony IMX471 sensor that also has EIS.

Seems like the rear camera system of the OnePlus Nord CE 5G is the center of attraction as it has multi autofocus options (PDAF+CAF). The shooting options available in the phone for the rear camera are Nightscape, Ultrashort HDR, Panorama, Pro Mode, Portrait, and Smart Scene Recognition. Videos can be recorded in 4K resolution with 30fps. Time-lapse can also be made while doing videography.

Adobe

Adobe Lightroom, Adobe Illustrator, and InDesign are updated for Apple’s M1 Processor

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Adobe has updated Lightroom, Illustrator, and InDesign so that it can run seamlessly on Apple’s M1 processor and utilize its true power. Be it working professionals or an early content creator, one can now use the Adobe Creative Cloud apps on the Apple M1 SoC with increased efficiency and productivity. Adobe claims that these apps have undergone third-party benchmark testing and now they will run 80 percent faster in Mac computers (M1 processor) as compared to Intel-based Apple laptops. All three apps of the Creative Cloud have received major updates and Adobe Lightroom has also been updated for other platforms as well. So, let’s look at the new features and what privilege the M1 users will get.

Updates for Adobe Lightroom

The new updates and the details for these Creative Cloud apps were shared in the Adobe blog on Monday. Both Adobe Lightroom and Lightroom Classic can utilize fully the power of Apple’s M1 SoC thus elevating user experience and getting work done smoothly. Pfeiffer Report conducted a benchmarking test according to which the app’s speed has doubled in the M1 processor as compared to Intel processor for Mac computers. The Super Resolution feature is working thrice the speed and back editing photos has become four times faster in this new Apple M1 processor. The other apps are also running way faster as compared to Intel-powered processors.

Adobe
Image Source: macrumors.com

Lightroom now has a new feature called premium presets which are curated by professional photographers. The Lightroom presets are always in high demand especially for content creators as they want to make it look more “aesthetic” on social media. The new presets are divided into seven categories, namely, Portrait-Deep Skin, Portrait-Medium Skin, Portrait-Light Skin, Cinematic, Futuristic, Vintage, and Travel. The number of presets will keep increasing as the app will get updated. This new preset feature is not only for M1 users but also Windows, iOS, Android, and the Web. By bringing this new feature Adobe is making the photographer community as many people struggle with post-processing skills like color grading.

Lightroom has also launched a collaboration tool with the help of which users can allow other users to edit albums. In order to do so, one user has to send an invite so that other users can edit them in the shared album. Super-resolution is another great feature of Lightroom as it uses Artificial Intelligence to increase the resolution of an image. Apart from these, Lightroom has also added a feature of Tethered Live View for certain Nikon cameras.

Updates for Adobe Illustrator and InDesign

With so many designers using Illustrator and InDesign for professional purposes, Adobe’s main goal was to optimize the performance and speed for these two apps. Users of M1 Mac have been using the Creative Cloud apps on their computers for a while, but with this new update, Adobe Illustrator speed has been increased by 65 percent in terms of performance. InDesign users will experience a 59 percent improvement in the overall performance of the app.

Adobe
Image Source: engineeringandphotography.xyz

InDesign is mostly used to design layouts of print publications, magazines, eBooks, etc. Now, the users will experience lightning-fast speed when it comes to opening a file and working on it. According to Adobe, InDesign will open a graphics-heavy file with 185 times faster speed than it used to be and scrolling performance for text-heavy documents has been increased by 78 percent. With such increased speed, one can complete tasks much before the deadline and take up new work without thinking about efficiency.

With the launch of the adaptive version of Adobe Illustrator for the M1 processor, it will take less time to load files going through the workflow in a much easier way. For Illustrator, the scroll performance while working with complex vectors has been made 390 times faster, and opening a complex file with 31 artboards has been made 119 percent faster. Adobe has mentioned in the blog that the new releases will be available to everyone across the globe very soon. The professionals and new creators will experience better workflow, especially in this remote working system while keeping themselves more engaged.  

Arista Networks

Arista Networks – An American company Pioneering in Cloud Networking Solutions since 2004

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Arista Networks is famous for providing cognitive cloud networking solutions for large data centers, high-performance computing centers, and high-frequency trading environments. The company is based in Santa Clara, California and it offers a wide range of products and solutions from cloud networking to telemetry and analytics. Andy Bechtolsheim, David Cheriton, and Kenneth Duda co-founded Arista Networks in 2004. The founders came from a background with rich experience in semiconductor and hardware design.

Introduction to Arista Networks

Arista Networks provides a highly efficient networking solution to big data centers as the products include an array of Ethernet speeds from 10 to 400 gigabits per second. The platform of Arista is also made highly secure with CloudVision and Arista EOS (Linux-based network operating system) which is installed in all Arista products. Apart from the highly experienced co-founders of Arista, the current President and CEO of the company is Jayshree Ullal who also has a luminous career history. Arista is very famous around the world for picking up a team of intellectuals who have a rich professional history thus operated by a team of visionaries. The company went public in 2014 and is listed as ANET in NYSE.

Arista Networks
Image Source: fortune.com

Founding History of Arista Networks

As mentioned earlier, all the founders are from an industrial background as they were associated with large enterprises before co-founding Arista Networks. Andy Bechtolsheim co-founded Sun Microsystems back in 1982 and he served as the chief hardware designer of the company. Andy, along with David, co-founded a new company called Granite Systems in 1995 where they started developing Gigabit Ethernet products. After a year, the company was acquired by Cisco Systems. After a few years, Andy and David again opened up a new start-up called Kealia but again it was acquired by Sun Microsystems.

After this acquisition, David and Andy worked at Cisco in executive positions and along with Kennetth Duda. Kennetth Duda was the first employee of Granite Systems and that’s how he met the other two co-founders. They successfully developed a product line for the Cisco company called Catalyst and decided to establish their own company in 2004 which is currently known as Arista Networks. Jayshree Ullal, the current CEO of the company is also an ex-employee of Cisco who worked there for fifteen years. From 2014, there have been several differences followed by filing lawsuits between Cisco and Arista and the latter agreed to $400 million as a part of the settlement.

Customers and Acquisitions

Arista’s customers mainly include big enterprises around the globe that require highly efficient and fast networking platforms. Currently, Arista has many big customers who are in the list of Fortune 500 companies. Arista delivers its products across the data centers and campus with routing and software solutions in order to monitor and be responsive globally. There are around 7,000 customers worldwide served by Arista Networks on a daily basis.

Arista Networks
Image Source: arista.com

Arista Networks have acquired quite a few companies in the last few years. It’s latest acquisition is Awake Security which is a network detection and response platform that uses AI to prevent both internal and external threats. Along with Awake Security, the company also acquired Big Switch Networks last year. This acquisition led to the availability of DANZ Monitoring Fabric, a network observability software across all switching networks of Arista. In 2018, the company acquired Mojo Networks which provides Arista with Wifi solutions for networks across campus and enterprise. Arista also acquired Metamako in 2018 which augments Arista’s low latency platforms.

The Founders of Arista Networks

Andy Bechtolsheim is currently serving as the Chairman and the Chief Development Officer of Arista Networks. Previously, he worked at Sun Microsystems where he was in charge of next generation server, storage, and network architectures. Andy is a computer engineer who went to Carnegie Mellon University and received his doctorate from Stanford University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

After co-founding Arista Networks, David Cheriton co-founded a couple of more companies like Apstra Inc and BrainofT Inc. He received his bachelor’s degree from University of British Columbia and his masters and doctorate from the University of Waterloo. Currently, he is a computer science professor at Stanford University.

Kenneth Duda is the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President, Software Engineering at Arista Networks. He also worked as the CTO of There.com where he built a real-time 3D distributed system. Kenneth went to MIT where he graduated in three different engineering courses.

Taxation System

Taxes Might Elevate for Tech Giants like Apple and Google as G7 Nations reach Landmark Deal.

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Taxes might increase for multinational conglomerates like Apple, Amazon, and Google as many nations are looking at it as a way to cope up with the post-economic crisis of COVID-19. Large advanced economies like the United States, Britain, and others have reached a landmark deal last weekend which will lead to higher global taxation of these huge tech giants. In total, seven large economies have agreed upon this new minimum global corporate rate of at least 15 percent and also to pay more tax in the markets where they operate in terms of selling products.

The new global tax system has been revised in accordance with the global digital situation and taking in consideration the post-pandemic crisis. Rishi Sunak, British Finance Minister, made a comment that the G7 finance ministers have landed its conclusion to reform the global tax system thus making it fit for the global digital age. Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary, said that “significant, unprecedented commitment, would end the race to the bottom of the global taxation system (Gadgets 360).

Global Taxation System

Many new amendments have been made in the new form of the global taxation system as it promises to end the national digital services taxes levied by many European countries including Britain. According to the United States, this service tax was biased and exclusively targeted the US-based tech giants. All the other measures and the final agreements are not yet decided. A meeting of the G20 will be held next month in Venice which will include many emerging economies to discuss more terms about this new rule. Rishi Sunak has said that the entire process is completed and this is just the first step.

Taxation System
Image Source: newsbreak.com

Apart from the elevation in the tax rate, a few other major concerns will also be expressed in the upcoming days. The ministers of these nations have decided that the tech giants should clearly lay out their environmental impact in a direct and standard way. This will help the potential and new investors to decide if they want to invest in a particular company or not. This is one of the key goals for Britain and it will also increase the transparency between a company and the investors.

The big tech companies are always targeted by governments as they dominate the market and yet pay a little tax as compared to their annual revenue. It’s been quite a long time that economically superior nations have tried to raise more revenue from Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.

Nations supporting this new Taxation System

With support from the US government, the Biden administration has proposed the minimum global corporation tax rate of 15 percent, above the level in countries like Ireland and below the lowest level in G7 (Gadgets 360). Both Germany and France have agreed to this agreement but the French Finance Minister has said that he would fight for a higher global corporate tax rate and that’s a “starting point.”

The path to the final agreement will not be very smooth as the tech giants won’t agree to pay a very high rate of tax easily. These multinational companies have a huge market in every continent especially Europe, America, and Asia. So, both the high-end corporations and the government have to find a way to co-exist peacefully.

The German finance minister has added that these tech giants won’t be able to get rid of paying high tax anymore by booking their profits in the lowest-tax countries. Ireland has a tax rate of 12.5 percent and its finance minister said that the global deals before coming to a final decision should consider the scenario of smaller nations as well. Sunak further added, though the deal is advantageous for the nation’s economy, it is uncertain how much money Britain would raise.

It is yet to decide exactly which companies will fall under this new rule as till now the agreement only mentions large multinational enterprises. But, the main companies on the list are Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.