Your Tech Story

Yashica Vashishtha

Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.

Pixel Buds A-Series

Google Launches Pixel Buds A-Series; Much Cheaper than the Previous Ones.

Going wireless is the current passion for every other technology company today. Starting from mobile phones to gaming consoles and earphones, everything has gone wireless. The earphone industry has taken off quite rapidly in the past few years, as from JBL to Apple, you get a variety of hands-free earphones and headphones at a different price range. Google, too, has its series of truly wireless earphones, i.e., Pixel Buds, and now, it has brought another series of the same i.e. Pixel Buds A-Series.

Google has launched a new pair of Pixel Buds under the series name Pixel Buds A-Series, having a similar design to Google’s original Pixel Buds, but at a much cheaper price. Though there have already been many speculations about these Pixel Buds through some leaks, the company has revealed much more than that today, through its official launch announcement.

Pixel Buds A-Series Features

Though the Pixel Buds A-Series has been priced at a lower price, i.e., $99, the company hasn’t compromised on the quality of the product. The earbuds come with 12mm dynamic drivers, and the user can still control it through the hands-free “Hey Google” voice commands. Though the Pixel buds do not possess the noise cancellation feature, the quality is still as good as the original pixel buds.

The earbuds come with the Bass Boost feature (providing a powerful bass), captivated touch sensors (to make calls, pause-play music), a motion-detecting accelerometer, beamforming mics, as well as a single IR proximity sensor (to detect if the buds are fitted in the ears properly or not). Also, the new Pixel Buds possess the adaptive sound feature, such that it balances the volume according to the surrounding. Like the standard Pixel buds, it is also rated IPX4 for water and sweat resistance and also supports Bluetooth 5.0 for connectivity.

Pixel Buds A-Series
Image Source: blog.google

Talking about the usage, Google has claimed that the Pixel Buds come with a battery life of five hours and 24 hours counting recharges in the case. The buds also provide three hours of listening time on a mere 15-minutes quick charging. The charging case of the buds comes with USB Type-C charging and also features the hall-effect sensor to detect if the charging case is opened.

Coming to the design of the A-Series Pixel Buds, these are similar looking to the original Pixel Buds, except, the size of the integrated ear hooks has been reduced a little. Also, the company has softened these hooks to make them more comfortable to wear. Apart from that, Google has also done some good work on improving the new Pixel Buds by targeting the connectivity and audio cutouts issue raised by the older customers of Pixel Buds.

Price and Availability

Google, this time, has worked on bringing a much cheaper pair of earbuds for its customers, as the standard Google Pixel Buds cost $179 for a pair, whereas the newly launched A-series buds are available for $99. The cheaper price of the earbuds has also lead to the reduction of some of the features, such as noise cancellation, but still, the sound quality is similar to the original earbuds by Google.

Google has just launched the A-series Pixel Buds and has made them available for pre-orders in the United States and Canada. The Two countries will also be able to get them in the market starting from June 17. The company has not made any announcements on when the new A-series Pixel Buds will hit the global market.

Airbnb

Airbnb – ‘Need to Succeed’ Story of Two Roommates.

The rise of online services has eased down many things for people, from making payments online to buy food and getting new fashion clothes to booking hotels for vacations. Airbnb is a similar online service developed by two designers, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, struggling with finances. Airbnb is an online platform, where people are offered services like renting hotels, lodges, homestays, spare rooms in a house as well as various activities for vacations. The platform has been loved for its simplicity and flexible services and is operational in most tourist destinations across the world.

A Brief Introduction of Airbnb

Airbnb is a 12 years old company founded in San Francisco, California by two designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. Being a millennial product, the service is available on both websites and mobile. The idea behind Airbnb is to make a profit with commissions. People use the Airbnb website or app to rent their property for few days for people who want a comfortable yet cheap stay during their vacations. People rent and book accommodation on Airbnb, and the latter charges a minimal fee from them.

Airbnb
Image Source: designindaba.com

As per 2019 records, around 6000 people are working for the company, and it made an annual revenue of $3.378 billion in 2020. The subsidiary companies of Airbnb include Luxury Retreats, International Inc., Tilt.com, Accomable, Aibiying, Trooly, Inc., Deco Software Inc., Trip4real Experiences, Airbnb UK Limited, and HotelTonight.

The Back story

Airbnb started as AirBed & Breakfast, when two roommates, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, rented their room with three air mattresses to earn some money in 2007. Nathan Blecharczyk dived in as the third founder of the company in February 2008 and held the position of Chief Technology Officer. To expand their business, the three built a website with the domain airbedandbreakfast.com. The website allowed people to book for quarters having air mattresses along with breakfast service for their stay.

The Industrial Design Conference during the summer of 2008 brought the first customers for the company as these customers were unable to find places to stay. The founders of the company then attended the training sessions at Y Combinator in January 2009 to understand better ‘how to run a startup’. Going to the training at Y Combinator also brought the founders their first big venture funding worth $20,000, which they used to market their website across America. In just two months after their training session, Airbnb had registered 10,000 users. Meanwhile, the name of the company was also changed to Airbnb. The company also moved from only renting the air mattresses to renting rooms, apartments, and even a whole house on their platform.

Airbnb got its next big investor the Sequoia Capital and raised $7.2 million in a Series A round in 2010. The next year, it became the winner of the “app” award. The company started to expand overseas, and in October 2011, it opened its first international office in London, followed by the establishment of offices in Paris, Milan, Moscow, Berlin, Barcelona, etc., in the next few years. In the following years, Airbnb established its European headquarters in Dublin. The company also entered Asia after it opened an office in Singapore in December 2012.

Airbnb
Image Source: adage.com

By 2013, the company had registered around 250,000 properties to its platform. Airbnb revamped the website, mobile app, and the logo of the company in 2014, to make bookings, even more, easier for people. Due to the simple and useful concept of Airbnb, it was growing too fast, raising billions of dollars from the biggest investors in the world, including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Capital, and Technology Crossover Ventures, etc. In 2016, the revenues generated by the company were 80% more than the previous year. The company announced two new features on the platform, Airbnb Plus, which listed the collection of best places service/rating wise, and Beyond by Airbnb, a service that offered luxury vacation rentals. As per the 2019 records, two million people had registered to Airbnb globally.

The CEO: Brian Joseph Chesky

Brian Joseph Chesky is one of the founders and the current CEO of Airbnb. He was born on 29 August 1981 in Niskayuna, New York, U.S. Chesky completed his high school education from Rhode Island School of Design and got a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in industrial design in 2004. Soon after he got his degree, he moved to San Francisco, where he founded Airbnb with his roommate Joe Gebbia as a result of ongoing financial issues.

Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies – The Spun-off Electronics Division of HP, Making Big in the Industry.

Keysight Technologies can be cited as the spun-off company of Hewlett-Packard, as it was one of the electronic test and measurement divisions of the latter before Keysight could be called an independent company. First, Keysight was a division at HP and then was taken over by Agilent Technologies (another division of HP).

The company came into being in 2014 and has made its separate identity in the world of electronics. Keysight Technologies, after getting separated from Hewlett-Packard, continued to manufacture and supply the electronics test and measurement equipment and added software development to one of its specializations.

About the Company

Though Keysight is a seven years old company, still with the experience of being a part of two big names Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies, it was able to make its mark in the industry quite smoothly. Today the company has its own several divisions, including PathWave Design and PathWave Test oscilloscopes, etc., and over 14000 people are working for the company. Other than America, Keysight Technologies is operational in countries like UK and Australia. As of 2019, the company made an annual revenue worth US$4.3 billion.

A Brief History Keysight Technologies

The founders of Hewlett-Packard, Dave Packard, and Bill Hewlett, who were also good friends from their graduation from Stanford University, founding HP from a garage in Palo Alto, California, in 1939, today known as the Silicon Valley. The two started the company after they discovered their passion for innovation while camping in the Colorado mountains.

If we look at the beginning of HP, it started as an oscillator and electronic measurement manufacturing company. As time went by, HP excelled in its field and also added many other divisions, like the manufacturing of computers and printers, to its business. In 1999, the company separated its test and measurement components business and the computer-printer manufacturing business. The former went under the control of Agilent Technologies, the Medical Products and Instrument Group formed by HP.

Keysight Technologies
Image Source: keysight.com

For about fifteen years, Agilent handled the operations of Keysight Technologies, but on November 1, 2014, Keysight officially became a separate electronic measurement company through the spinning off of Agilent Technologies. Since then, the company has only stepped towards success. It also made some major acquisitions in the past seven years, which include Anite PLC (2015), Electroservices Enterprises UK Ltd (2015), Ixia (2017), Thales Calibration Services (2018), Eggplant (2020), and Quantum Benchmark (2021).

Keysight Technologies has established its headquarter in Santa Rosa, California, U.S., and trades on the New York Stock Exchange as KEYS.

Products by Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies, being a part of HP in the past, have similar values attached to its work. The major fields Keysight is focussing today include 5G, automotive, Internet of Things, network security, etc. and manufactures software and hardware products for benchtop, modular, and field instruments. Oscilloscopes, in-circuit testers, logic analyzers, signal generators, vector network analyzers, atomic force microscopes (AFM), automated optical inspection, automated X-ray inspection (5DX), power supplies, tunable lasers, optical power meters, wavelength-meters, optical modulation analyzers, etc. are the major products manufactured and shipped by Keysight Technologies.

The CEO: Ronald S. Nersesian

Ronald S. Nersesian is the president and the CEO of Keysight Technologies. Nersesian has got a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Lehigh University and has completed an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.

Nersesian started his career with Computer Sciences Corporation as a systems engineer for satellite communications systems in 1982. After working for two years at the company, he joined Hewlett-Packard in 1984 and continued to work at the company till 1996, when he joined LeCroy Corporation. In 2002 Nersesian joined Agilent Technologies as the vice president and general manager of the Design Validation Division of the company. Till 2014, he managed various roles at Agilent Technologies, like the executive vice president and COO of the company. In 2014, Nersesian was appointed as the chairman, president, and CEO of Keysight Technologies.

Ciena

Ciena – The Pioneers of Optical Connectivity.

Ciena is an American telecommunications networking company that has ruled the telecom industry. The company is one of the largest equipment and software services providers and has its headquarter located in Hanover, Maryland, United States. The company is around 30 years old and has been leading the game of networking ever since.

According to the 2019 records of the company, Ciena made $3.57 billion in revenues that year and around 7000 people are working for it, including 2700+ R&D specialists. Ciena has a strong client base, AT&T, Verizon Communications, Korea Telecom, and Sprint Corporation being some of them. The company operates in 35 countries having 60 offices globally.

The Founding Story of Ciena

Ciena started its journey as HydraLite in 1992. David R. Huber founded the company with a plan of applying fiber-optic technology to cable television. The company received its initial funding of $40 million from Sevin Rosen Funds, Charles River Ventures, Japan Associated Finance Co., and other local investors. Huber changed the name of the company to Ciena and established an office in Dallas in February 1994. Ciena launched its very first products in 1996, Sprint Corporation being the first client of the company.

After selling its first products, the company made an annual revenue of $195 million. By the year 1997, the company started to make new clients and established its headquarter in Maryland. The same year, in February, it went public on NASDAQ and valued at $3.4 billion, the largest for a startup at that time.

Ciena
Image Source: ciena.com

In the year 2001, Ciena was the second-largest manufacturer of fiber optic networking equipment in the US. But since due to the telecom crash, the technology shift took place, and the companies suffered huge pressure of serving the growing demand, Ciena too had to face some losses. Ciena leaders knew that with time they had to bring change to the company technology, so they changed the business strategy for the company. The company started to invest in other companies with diverse services. It acquired around five network companies between 2001 and 2005.

Ciena, by this time, had also started to strengthen its R&D department and built the first converged packet-optical platform that reduced the requirement of the amount of equipment to set up a network. In 2009, Ciena made $39 million in profits after making sales worth $902 million. In the next ten years, the company had a raised manpower to 5,345 people. Reportedly, the company revenue for the year 2017 was approximately $2.8 billion. Ciena also appeared on the Fortune 1000 list a few times.

Products and Services

Ciena is the producer and supplier of network equipment, software, and services for the telecommunication department. The company also provides assistance to cloud service firms as well as companies offering voice and data traffic on communications networks. Optical switches, routing platforms, and equipment for undersea cable networks are some of Ciena’s major products. Ciena has also developed machine-learning algorithm-based software programs like Blue Planet that help companies program their communication networks.

Acquisitions by the Company

Ciena
Image Source: mergr.com

Ciena started to expand its operations by acquiring other companies starting from 1997. The major acquisitions by Ciena included AstraCom Inc. (1997), ATI Telecom International Ltd. (1998), Terabit Technology Inc. (1998), Omnia Communications Inc. (1999), Cyras Corp.(2000), ONI Systems (2002), WaveSmith Networks Inc. (2003), Akara Corp. (2003), Catena Networks (2004) and Internet Photonics (2004), World Wide Packets Inc. (2008), Nortel’s optical technology and Carrier Ethernet division (2009), Cyan (2015), TeraXion Inc.(2016), Packet Design (2016), and DonRiver (2018), etc.

The CEO: Gary B. Smith

Gary B. Smith is the CEO of Ciena Corporation. He belongs to the British ethnicity and has been working in the American telecom industry for many years. He was born and brought up in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and holds an MBA degree from Ashridge Management College.

Smith has been working at executive positions in many companies. He was the vice president of the sales and marketing department at Cray Communications, Inc. and Intelsat for a few years. Smith then joined Ciena in 1997 as the vice president of worldwide sales and was promoted to be the CEO and president of the company in 2001.

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific – An Approach to Excel the Healthcare Industry Via Technology

The internet and IT technology boom has helped people bring innovation to various industries. Whether it is for defense, corporate, or healthcare, every other field is trying to get their hands-on advanced technologies to make things simpler for the employees of their industry as well as the end-user of their products. Thermo Fisher Scientific is one such company that has been working towards the advancement of the healthcare industry so to ease out things for the health workers and provide better options for its customers.

A Brief Introduction

Thermo Fisher Scientific is an American Laboratory equipment company, which is the result of a merger between Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific, the former being a leading provider of instruments and analytical services and the latter one of the well-known biotechnology companies of America. The company works in the field of manufacturing scientific instrumentation, reagents, and supplying consumables. Other than that, the company also provides software services to healthcare, life science, and laboratories in academies, etc. The company also ships products to some of the government departments and other industries.

The Founding of Thermo Fisher Scientific

Though the company is a resultant company of a merger and was established in 2006, its history dates back to over a hundred years from now. George N. Hatsopoulos and Peter M Nomikos founded Thermo Electron (one of the merged companies) in 1956. The company started as the supplier of analytical and laboratory equipment. On the other hand, Fisher Scientific was founded by Chester G. Fisher in 1902. The company sold the laboratory equipment, chemicals, supplies as well as provided services in healthcare, scientific research, safety, and education.

After ruling their respective industries, in 2006, Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific decided to merge and unify their operation. This way, the company became a single company. The merger was a stock-for-stock exchange tax-free partnership between the two companies. After combining their operations, the company had 30,000 employees, and the annual revenue for the two as one company was recorded to be US$9 billion.

Thermo Fisher Scientific
Image Source: thermofisher.com

Currently, Thermo Fisher Scientific is dealing in the products like Analytical/other equipment and instruments, laboratory reagents and consumables, science software, and services for research, discovery, analysis, and manufacturing. Though the companies have combined their operations, Thermo Fisher Scientific manufactures and supplies the products with brand names Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific. Other than these two, the company also ships products under the brand names like Chromacol, Nalgene, Cellomics, Pierce Protein Research, and Fermentas. Despite being a major dominant in the American market, Thermo Fisher Scientific has also expanded into Europe and some Asian countries, including China.

Acquisitions by the Company

Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific already had about 15 companies acquired under their name before the merger. And after the merger, in just fifteen years, Thermo Fisher Scientific made approximately 50 acquisitions. The major acquisitions by Thermo Fisher Scientific include Phadia (2011), autoimmune (2011), Life Technologies Corporation (2013), Advanced Scientifics (2015), Alfa Aesar(2015), Affymetrix (2016), FEI Company (2016), Finesse Solutions, Inc. (2017), Patheon (2017), Brammer Bio (2019), Qiagen (2020), Henogen SA (2021) and PPD, Inc. (2021), etc.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Today

It hasn’t been long since Thermo Fisher Scientific started to work as an individual company. But despite that, it has reached new heights and has made its separate identity other than its parent companies. Today, it is counted among the Fortune 500 companies and has been making annual revenues of more than $20 billion. Today the company is serving worldwide, and over 70000 people are working for it. The company is public and trades on NYSE as TMO. The company headquarters is established in Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S., and has its various offices in different parts of the world.

The CEO at Thermo Fisher Scientific

Marc N. Casper is the CEO and the president at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He has been serving as the CEO of the company since 2009, and other than that, he is a member of the boards of trustees of Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Wesleyan University, as well as the board of U.S. Bancorp.

Casper completed his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Wesleyan University and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. In 1997, he became the president at Dade Behring. In the year 2000, he joined Kendro Laboratory Products as the CEO and the president of the company and worked for one year. Casper joined the Life Sciences sector of Thermo Electron in 2001 as the president.

Amazon

Amazon to Buy MGM, the Creators of the James Bond Franchise via an $8.45 Billion Deal

Online streaming has been the most popular industry today, and there has been a flood of online streaming platforms lately. From Netflix to Disney and from Apple TV+ to Amazon, there has been a tough rivalry between these big-name companies regarding ‘who bring better for the viewers?’ This time, leading to the going on streaming war, Amazon has stepped up its game a bit as it has announced to buy the James Bond franchise MGM for a sum of $8.45 billion.

A Brief Introduction of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

MGM aka Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures is an American movie and TV studio based in Beverly Hills, California, and the one behind popular movies like the James Bond Franchise and Shark Tank. MGM is one of the oldest studios in Hollywood and was founded in 1924. The company is best known for its lion roaring logo along with the great movies it has offered in the past. The company works through its main three divisions, including MGM Home Entertainment, MGM Interactive, and MGM TV & Digital Group. Rocky, Legally Blonde, James Bond, The Pink Panther are some of the famous movie series released by MGM.

Amazon and MGM deal
Image Source: gamersgrade.com

Amazon and MGM $8.45 Billion Deal

Amazon is a conglomerate and has its branches in almost every field. The company already owns a streaming platform with the name Amazon Prime and buying MGM would be its way to Hollywood, such that to bring even more exciting projects to its platform or maybe to try its hands in Hollywood movies production. Amazon has agreed to pay a sum of $8.45 billion so to acquire the movie studio, and the deal will be the second-largest acquisition by Amazon after the $14 billion worth deal of buying Whole Foods.

The deal will provide Amazon with the rights of 4000 movies, including the James Bond and over 17000 TV series produced by MGM, which will then be streaming on Amazon Prime for free for the people with Prime membership enhancing the Prime library. The deal will also get the company access to MGM’s cable channel named Epix.

“The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling,” said Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios.

There are already about 200 million subscribers to Amazon Prime who are freely accessing the content on Amazon’s streaming platform along with other perks like getting free shipping on their orders. However, the streaming platform could not offer very exciting content to its subscribers in recent days. The addition of more content to the platform from MGM will surely help the company raise its client base.

Amazon
Image Source: ca.news.yahoo.com

But still, some limitations will come along with the deal, as there are many incomplete contracts between MGM and other streaming companies that Amazon needs to wait to complete to stream the shows under the contract, for instance, shows like The Voice.

The pandemic has closed down all the theatres, and the online streaming platforms are the only way to entertainment for people, raising a tough competition between the big streaming platforms. Recently, AT&T and Discovery announced a similar deal worth $43-billion between them, merging their entertainment business that may also include HGTV, CNN, Food Network, and HBO as partners.

Though the company is trying its best to compete with its rivals, in recent times, these rivals have been criticizing the business practices of Amazon. Amazon started as a bookselling company, but today it has built a $1.6 trillion empire through its expansion strategies, spreading its wings into e-Commerce, cloud computing, online video streaming, etc.