Your Tech Story

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

Stadia Makers

Google Extending Its Support to Indie Developers by Launching Stadia Makers Program

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

Google Has recently announced that it will be launching the Stadia Makers Program in collaboration with Unity. There are many independent game developers out there making the game development community stronger day by day. Many people are very much interested in game development but opportunities and time are the greatest issues. With Google announcing in this period of quarantine, game developers would certainly not take their eyes off the computer.

The Big Announcement 

On 23rd March 2020, Google announced the launch of the new Stadia Makers Program for attracting the independent game developers. The company announced at the Google for Game Developer Summit. Google made this strategic move in collaboration with Unity to help attract the best game developers around. Through this program, Google will be looking for developers using Unity 2019.3 for developing games. It is especially those who are trying to launch their games by 2021.

What are Stadia Makers?

Google has launched the Stadia Makers program as an initiative to support independent game developers. Many independent game developers are excelling at their skill for a long time. But, they cannot come up to the surface due to lack of funding or technical assistance. Moreover, though the gaming industry is having an embarking turnover, many people don’t support it. Young students who have shown interest in game development might also be suppressed due to orthodoxy.

So, Google has made this inspiring program to give gamers a little push. And, it will help Google finding the creamy layer of the best game developers for its team. Google has released Stadia Makers in November 2019. Since then it has the game developers has created and launched 30 games and double updates. Google has also announced that 120 games will be shipping in one year.

Stadia Makers’ partnership with Unity

Stadia Makers has come into a joint venture with Unity for releasing this new program and expansion as well. To attract more game developers into the site what can be better than partnering with one of the largest game developing platforms. Even a beginner in this field uses the Unity game developing software and pro as well.

Unity, since 2005 has created a rich and ethical history in the book of game developers. In 15 years Unity has successfully established a very strong relationship with the developer community. It also provides new platforms and gaming services in a regular interval. Today, it is not only providing support to Stadia Markers but twenty-five other such platforms as well.

Advantages of Stadia Makers program

The program as well the partnership will have numerous benefits for the indie game developers. Initially, when a game developer makes a prototype that is nothing but the skeleton of the actual game. It needs numerous testing and technical supports. Stadia Makers will be providing the game developers with this technical support to launch his or her game. From alpha testing to making it certified, Stadia will take care of everything.

Technicality is not the only issue for any virtual application. Money is also a big factor along with tech support. Funding is a very crucial and sensitive part especially when it comes to launching and developing across a cross-platform. Stadia Makers has declared to offset some of these costs.

Last but not the least, this program will also provide free development hardware. The participants of this program will also be given the varying number of physical development kits depending on the size of the team. But, one most important thing is that the game should be developed using the platform of Unity 2019.3.

Other steps were taken by Stadia

Stadia Makers apart from just establishing a partnership with Unity did many other things. Since the launch of the Stadia didn’t go so smoothly in November, it tried hard to excel afterward. Stadia has declared the acquisition of Typhoon Studio and hiring of Shannon Studstill to focus on exclusive content. Google has also said that this is just the first step to something bigger for the gaming community in the future.

Moreover, in this pandemic of COVID-19, the users have increased not only in Stadia but participation in many other programs. Stadia has not announced any detailed news about the funding to date.

SAP SE

SAP SE – The Largest Company Developing Enterprise Software For Business Operations

Leave a Comment / start-up, Tech Story / By

Even a small enterprise needs the help of the IT sector to run his or her business smoothly. With the arrival of digitalization, we don’t realize to the extent we are getting dependent on the internet. Data transfer, data storage, software development has become an integral part of the tertiary sector of the economy. With emerging businesses in every field, the software companies are also flourishing providing them with enterprise software. SAP SE is the world’s leading enterprise software company. It develops software for carrying out numerous business operations and to provide better client-customer relation. Five founders, Dietmar Hopp, Hans-Warner Hector, Hasso Plattner, Klaus Tchira, and Claus Wellenreuther founded the company in 1972. It is one of the oldest companies in the sphere of software development and one of the most successful as well. It is a company that serves worldwide with an employee count of more than 100,000.

About the Founders

All the five founders worked at IBM before founding SAP SE. When the company was founded Dietmar Hopp served as the CEO of the company for ten years. In 1998, Dietmar became the Chairman of the supervisory board. And, from 2003 he served as a board member for a couple of years.

Hans-Werner Hector is famous as a German software engineer and an entrepreneur. His net worth is $1.9 billion. It was through the success of SAP SE he became one of the richest men in the world. Due to some arguments and conflicts of interest with his partners, he left the company in 1997.

Hasso Plattner served as the Chairman of the supervisory board of SAP SE since 2003. After the financial year 2017, Forbes reported his net worth to be $13.1 billion. In 2005, he founded Hasso Plattner Ventures, a venture capital fund to support the young entrepreneurs. Currently, he lives in Potsdam, Germany.

Klaus Tchira served as the board member of SAP SE from 1998-2007. In 1995, he founded a non-profit organization, Klaus Tchira foundation for supporting innovative projects. He passed away on 31st March 2015.

Claus Wellenreuther left IBM in1971 and then programmed a financial accountancy system for batch processing. After this, he joined the co-founders of SAP SE and founded the company. He also founded DCW software in 1982 which SAP acquired in 2003.

Origin of SAP SE

Initially, IBM received the rights for working on Scientific Data Systems (SDS)/ SAPE Software project. Five scientists from the AI sector of the company worked in it until the project was called off. So, instead of leaving it midway the co-founders of SAP SE decided to resign from IBM and establish another company. SAP SE is the abbreviation for Systems, Applications & Products in Data Processing.

The Journey of SAP SE

The first client of SAP SE was the German branch of Imperial Chemical Industries. SAP SE was interested in making real-time system software. So, they developed the payrolls and accounting software instead of punch cards. On the contrary, IBM used punch cards for storing the information.

In 1973, the company launched its first commercial product which was known as SAP R/98. After this product, much other modified software was launched using the base model of SAP R. In the late 1970s, SAP R/2 was launched followed by SAP R/3 in 1992. In the meantime, the company shifted its headquarters to Walldorf, Germany.

In the following years, SAP got listed in the German Stock Index DAX and STOXX Europe 50.

Expansion 

From 2012, SAP eventually started showing interest in cloud-based storage. A company in the IT sector always needs to keep up with the changes taking place around the world. So, it started acquiring companies that could help it sell cloud-based products. In 2014, the company acquired Concur Technologies, a cloud-based travel management company for $8.3 billion. This year, the company came into a joint venture with IBM for the same purpose.

To date, the company has acquired more than 70 other companies on an international level. Some of the biggest companies SAP bought are Qualtrics, CallidusCloud, Concur Technologies, Ariba, etc. SAP has a partnership with companies like Adobe, GK Software, CA Technologies, and many more.

The company also plans to invest billions of dollars in sectors like the Internet of Things. By the end of 2020, the Company will invest around €2 billion in sectors like this. The company is also planning to cut employees. Currently, the Company is putting exclusive interest in sectors like AI, ML, IoT, and the blockchain community.

TaskRabbit

TaskRabbit’s Platform Helps Getting Done Daily Chores of Household

Leave a Comment / start-up, Tech Story / By

Platforms that provide the service of freelancing have become very common among us. For the past two decades, we have been receiving an enormous response from the freelancers through these websites. But, these websites are mainly about finding skilled people in the IT sector and related departments. Most of the services are related to the sphere of digital marketing that every company needs for its operations. But, have you ever taken a pause and thought about the daily lives of people? For example, what if you have to leave for office early and had no time to go for grocery shopping? Small chores like these in our daily lives are very crucial yet with every passing day we find it difficult to make time for it. And, especially working women can understand the pressure of this who also needs to take care of a family. Leah Busque, an American entrepreneur founded TaskRabbit in 2008. She created this online marketplace to find us freelancers who are up for doing normal daily chores. The platform connects the user to the freelance labor who is willing to do jobs like cleaning, delivery services, etc. TaskRabbit’s headquarters is currently based in San Francisco, California. To date, it serves more than 60 cities in different countries.

Leah Busque

Leah was born on 15th November 1979. She went to Sweet Briar College to acquire her bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. She graduated in 2001. Leah worked at IBM before founding TaskRabbit. She served as the CEO of the company from 2008 to 2016. Leah successfully expanded the company’s services to 44 different cities. In 2016, her position changed to Executive Chairwoman of the company.

She became the General Partner at FUEL Capital in 2017. Currently, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Leah has two children.

How did it start?

The idea of creating such a platform to help common people with their daily life chores is very innovative. It is simple but not everyone thinks of it. When Leah thought about it she was still working at IBM. It was one fine night that she along with her husband was going out for dinner. But, unfortunately, she had a pet dog to feed and was out of dog food.

This is how the idea to create an online network came into her mind. A platform where they can state their needs and someone will take up the job and they will be paid. Both, Leah and her husband were into technology so the later part of the founding story isn’t that tough. Everything happened so quickly that before the couple stepped out for dinner, Leah bought the domain Runmyerrand.com.

The Next Step

Leah started working in it from the very second the idea crossed her mind. She took this seriously and left her job after four months. They applied in an incubator program in 2009 and became one of the 25 companies that were invited to participate. It went well and they were able to raise $1.8 million as the seed funding. It took some time to build everything starting from the UI to the payment platform. After a few tests, the company hired its first full-time employee, Brian Leonard.

The Success

In April 2010, Leah finally changed the name of the company to TaskRabbit. Initially, the office of the company was situated in Boston which moved to San Francisco Bay Area in 2010. Next year, the company raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Shasta Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, etc. By this time the company had 13 employees and nearly 2,000 “runners”. By the end of 2011, TaskRabbit raised another $17.8 million in Series B funding.

In 2012, the company expanded its services to New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Illinois, etc. Next year, TaskRabbit hired Stacey Brown-Philpot as the first COO of the company. In 2016, she became the CEO of the company and currently holds the same position. In 2015, the number of freelance labor turned out to 15,000. Gradually, the services were expanded to 47 cities of the U.S., 4 cities of the U.K., and 1 Canadian city.

In 2017, IKEA Group announced the acquisition of the company. It declared the company would continue to operate independently. Currently, there are 60,000 workers that are finding jobs through the platform of TaskRabbit.

Tim Cook

Apple Has Responded To The Need Of The Hour By Donating Masks

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By

The deadly consequences of the novel coronavirus have shaken up the entire world. Every citizen from every nation should be grateful to the healthcare sector, all doctors and nurses. But, with the rising number of affected people, every country is suffering from a major crisis of masks. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple has announced a donation of 2 million masks to the healthcare workers of Europe and the USA.

Shortage of masks 

The demand for masks has surely increased in a few days. The common citizens also use masks every time they are stepping out of the house. But, people who are working in the healthcare sector need proper masks. The doctors and employees at the medical units are putting their life at stake and working. This has led to the acute shortage of masks and the demand for it is growing exponentially. Moreover, the acute shortage in the production of masks has also resulted in black marketing.

Responding to this Apple CEO Tim Cook has tweeted on 21st March 2020 that the company will donate 2 million masks to the medical professionals. Everyone stood by this gesture and other companies are trying as well to donate masks to them.

N95 Respirators

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Human Services in association with the Federal Emergency Management Agency has ordered millions of N95 Respirators. Mike Pence, Vice President of the United States confirmed the news but he was not specific about when these masks will reach the medical units.

N95 Respirators are easy disposable masks but not fit for all common people. Though these masks provide a proper seal and keep the infected droplets away, people should take proper precautions. With the terror of coronavirus increasing day by day, you should learn about the right thing and practice it. The production of N95 Respirators is for meeting the need in the health care units and not for common use.

The N95 Respirators should be used under medical supervision. As much as it is effective in sealing your mouth and nose area from outside droplets, it can cause breathing problems. So, patients with chronic respiratory, cardiac, and other medical complications should not use it without consultancy. It is also imperfect for children to use as well.

Donating the construction masks

Masks that are used in the construction sites are very effective in infiltrating pollutants. These masks have proved to be very useful as a barrier against the impure droplets of air. So, Pence called a meeting to notify the companies that construction masks should be donated to the hospitals and medical units. The construction masks are perfect and replaceable during this time of shortage.

Moreover, the industrial companies are also ordered to not order any more masks. All the produced masks will be supplied to the medical professionals in this time of emergency. He also said its better to take all the preventive measures rather than going mask free to the danger zone. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said that within a week the shortage of masks will be covered.

Donation of other companies

It is not only Apple that is making donations for the healthcare sector. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla is known for donating 50,000 N95 Respirators for the healthcare workers. A UW medicine physician, Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf received it a day ago. Along with the N95 masks he has also sent plenty of special helmets to fight this deadly pandemic.

Mark Zuckerberg also announced the donation of 720,000 masks for the same cause just like Apple and Elon Musk. He also donated the stacked up wildfire masks for a greater emergency. And, along with that he also donated $1 million to help report news from the areas of the virus outbreak.

Mask shortage in Amazon

Meanwhile, Amazon is struggling to meet the masks need for its employees. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon declared that Amazon is currently facing a major crisis of masks. While other companies are donating masks to the healthcare units, Amazon cannot secure their employees. It has ordered millions for those who cannot work from home, but the delivery is questionable.

Byju's Logo

Brush Up Your Skills With The Learning App Of Byju’s

Leave a Comment / start-up, Tech Story / By

The start-up culture of India has developed in the last two decades. Previously, it was America who hyped about the start-up community while India was being orthodox. But, the time has brought before us some of the most successful start-ups rising from the Indian community. These days the young minds create the start-ups who want to bring a diverse change in our society. But, for transforming our society and eradicating all the delusional thoughts holding it back from developing education is the priority. And, speaking of education, we have already heard of Unacademy, Udemy, etc. They are trying to reach even the most rural students and enlighten them. The idea of a start-up for providing online education is truly a need especially for a developing country like India. Byju Raveendran founded Byju’s Learning App in 2011 to provide online education and online live classes. Currently, the headquarters of the company is based in Bangalore, India. With only five employees in the team, Byju serves students across the world.

About the Founder Byju Raveendran

Born in the 1980s, Byju Raveendran belonged to a small village in Kerala. Both of his parents were from teaching background but he was never pushed for excelling in his academics. His father wanted him to be more interested in sports. He completed his schooling from a local school and went to Government Engineering College in Kannur, Kerala.

Raveendran acquired his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He chose to study engineering over medical because he won’t be able to make time for playing sports as a medical student. After his graduation, he joined a company as a Service Engineer. Raveendran cleared the CAT exam with 100 percentile but declined to take admission for MBA.

This is when his entrepreneurial journey started and he co-founded Byju.

The Idea

After making it to the finest IIM of India, Raveendran still decided to not go for an MBA. This was the turning point of his career and he aced it. While his friends took admission in the top IIMs, Raveendran decided to teach the MBA aspirants. So, he started providing offline tutorials to the students. And, he used to take classes on the terrace of his friend’s house.

Origin of Byju’s Learning App

While Raveendran started taking coaching classes, he initially didn’t charge any money. But, the students were free to sign up for the paid advanced classes if they liked the preliminary ones. The number of students grew eventually. And, one fine day he found himself conducting mathematics workshop comprising of 20,000 students around major Indian cities.

From Offline to Online

Since the number of students grew exponentially, Raveendran decided to record his lectures. By 2009, he started making video lectures for students across 45 different cities. Raveendran’s tutorial videos pushed him to open a company, Think and Learn. He established it with a passion to create learning videos for school students. The idea expanded to provide competitive support as well.

The Success of Byju’s 

After Raveendran founded the company in 2011, he finally launched the Byju’s app in 2015. The launch of Byju’s app was very successful witnessing more than 2 million downloads in the first three months. Next year, Byju’s app became the Best Self-Improvement app under Google Play India. In 2017, the company released two more apps, Byju’s Math App for kids and Byju’s Parent Connect App respectively. The later helped the parents to track their child’s progress. The company received its initial funding from Aarin Capital back in 2013.

By the end of 2018, the app had 15 million users and over 900,000 paid users. Byju’s also acquired a couple of companies in its journey. It acquired TutorVista in 2017 and Osmo in 2019. Within 2018, the company raised around $250 million from its global investors. Recently, it raised another round of $50 million from Mark Zuckerberg, Sequoia Capital, Sofina, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, etc. In 2018, Byju also took an entry into the unicorn club valued at $1 billion. This year, Byju’s also received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for start-ups.

Byju’s is the only start-up in Asia that is backed by Mark Zuckerberg. By the end of 2019, the company’s total funding summed up to $971 million and its total valuation to $8 billion. The app had more than 10 million downloads by 2019.

slack

Slack Awaits Its Biggest Makeover For Improving User Interface

Leave a Comment / Product, Tech News / By

Slack Technologies released its messaging application in 2013. The user interface had some flaws that the company is trying to fix. Every application comes up with the latest and modified version after a fixed period. But, Slack has declared that this redesigning of the application is going to be the biggest in its history.

Prior problems faced by the users

Apart from the basic structural design, every user wants to customize and make sure they are comfortable using any application. An application might have the power to do multiple tasks at a time. But, the problem arises when your users don’t know how to do it at all.

Slack is a very powerful platform that provides a tool for instant messaging. It is available in eight different languages. Currently, it has 12 million active daily users. But, every time the customers provide feedback, the common question “how to use the features” has come up. Jaime DeLanghe, Director of Product Management, Slack said that they were too busy delivering customer value. But, it is high time to take a pause and provide some space to the user interface.

We have often run by the common proverb, “Too many cooks spoil the broth”. Here is the thing; Slack is having the innumerable number of features. But, what is the use of it when the customers cannot use it properly? Everything needs to be in the proper place, customizable, a lot simpler, and well fitted on the screen.

The trendy sidebar

The news of the redesigning has created a “face-palm” situation for the users. Many of them are in tension if it gets more complex. But, Ethan Eismann, Vice President of Design, Slack stated that the redesigning will adapt some old school ideas as well. They are working on making it as simpler as possible.

Slack users have previously faced the problem regarding customizing which led to the introduction of a sidebar. Out of all changes that are going to take place, the sidebar is the real hype. One person must be busy working on a project and discussing it at the same time. So, the new sidebar will allow the user to segregate all you need to be in one section. And, the users can then simply drag and drop it in the sidebar. So, it just stopped getting messy and confusing in the first place.

Moreover, this sidebar also has a new compose button which will allow the users to start a conversation into any Slack Channel. The users can either DM or any other way as it will work more like a universal texting button. Another section called People and Mentions & Reactions has been added to the sidebar. This allows the user to find relatable channels and pings, and also suitable people the user wants to DM. So, the redesigning will make Slack more time-efficient along with making it comfortable to use.

But, this whole thing of organizing the channels and conversations under one roof is available for the paid-users only.

What are the other modifications?

It is to be noted that a lot of changes are going to take place in the application, especially the frontend development. Apart from the sidebar, Slack is introducing a top navigation bar. This has been introduced so that the users can search and switch between pages. This feature also helps the users to view their browsing history. The activities that the user might carry out in the navigation bar will support mouse and keyboard shortcuts.

The shortcut button is modified which can be used now access conversation tools. Previously, this was to be done by text commands. The application will also have a new compose button and other small changes.

Redesigning is important than adding new features

When a modified version of an application is released it comes with new features. But, this time Slack has decided to arrange its existing features in a better and clearer way. Instead of adding some new features and making it messier, it is important to think about the user interface. So, Slack has decided to make changes in the mobile application and undoubtedly in UI.

Slack is also thinking about the new users coming from a habit of using a different application or only drafting emails. The company has already started implementing the changes to make Slack spacious and well-arranged.