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Go-Jek : The Popular Ride-hailing Service and One of the First Unicorns of Indonesia

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Two decades ago, there were a few companies like eBay and Amazon that dreamt about the home-delivery and online shopping service. Later, people went to start ride-hailing through apps making our lives even easier. And today, we have got hundreds of such services, some really successful and some are still struggling for survival. One such service or we say platform, providing multiple such services, is Go-Jek. A company, despite running in only five countries, is a Unicorn, and in fact, is the first Unicorn company from Indonesia. The company is dedicated to providing three services in three categories, i.e., Go-Ride, Go-Send and Go-Mart, offering 18 app-based on-demand services.

Go-Jek was founded by Nadiem Makarim in 2010, as motorbike hailing service with a fleet of 20 motorcycles. The company ran a call centre to receive bookings for the motorbike rides and would send a notification to the drivers nearby for the pickup.

The Founder

Nadiem Makarim, a native Indonesian, was born on 4 April 1984 35 in Singapore to a lawyer father. Makarim completed his high school education from Jakarta, and later, joined the Brown University, from where he received a graduate degree in BA. He then went to Harvard University and pursued an MBA degree.

go-jek founder
Image Source: vulcanpost.com

After completing his education, he came back to Jakarta and started working at McKinsey & Company as a management consultant. He then left his job to start his entrepreneur journey, and to co-found an online fashion shop, named Zalora. But later, he had to leave the company and joined Kartuku a payments service provider, as the Chief Innovation Officer.

Founding Go-Jek

Makarim mostly used motorcycle taxis for transport. This was the cheapest and convenient method for daily travel. With time, he realised that there is a great opportunity in the business. So he went to co-found Go-Jek in 2010. The name was inspired by word Ojek that means motorcycle in Indonesia.

In the beginning, there was a lot of wait time for the drivers as there was no effective method to connect the driver and the passenger, such that the passenger took a lot of time to find the driver. This was a big issue, and Makarim wanted to solve it. Despite that, the company had joined in about 200 drivers by 2014. The next year, finally Makarim launched an app for the platform, such that it became really easy for the drivers and the passengers to track each other in time.

Becoming the Unicorn

The company raised a $1.5 billion in fundraising in 2014, becoming a unicorn within four years of its inception. In another round of funding, the company raised a $550 million in August 2016, and companies like, Google and Tencent, being among the prime investors. It also received a sum of investment from Indonesia’s biggest companies, Astra International and Blibli.com, the same year. The company was the most popular ride-hailing service provider in the country.

The same year, Go-Jek partnered with the renown Indonesian taxi company Blue Bird and expanded its service to taxis with the name Go-Car. It also launched an auto service, named Go-Auto, the same year. It also went to acquire two Indian companies, C42 Engineering and CodeIgnition. Other than that, Go-Jek also acquired India-based app development company named Leftshift and a healthcare startup Pianta. It also took over another Indonesian company that provided online ticket booking and event management service, named Loket.com.

In 2017, Go-Jek expanded its services into the fin-tech field through its Go-Pay virtual wallet and acquired companies named Kartuku, Midtrans, and Mapan. The users can use the wallet to pay in any retail shop, both online and offline. They can also withdraw money at the partner banks’ ATMs. The company also added the payments through QR scanning after getting a license from the central bank in the same year. Go-Jek has also partnered with Google for its GPS service and soon will be partnering with Amazon for its retail services.

The Expansion

In 2018, the company valued at $5 billion, exceeding the total market cap of all transportation companies in Indonesia Stock Exchange. Today, the company has its international offices in Singapore, India, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.

Through its food delivery services, Go-Jek has partnered with about 250,000 merchants in Indonesia. The company has also established a food and beverage selling service through its Go-Food merchants. The company is hosting a fleet of 1,000,000 vehicles for its ride-hailing service alone in Indonesia. Along with that, the Go-Jek branches include Go-Ride, Go-Shop, Go-Mart, Go-Box, Go-Tix, Go-Clean, Go-Plus, Go-Bills, Go-Massage, Go-Play, Go-Studio, and more.

As of February 2019, the estimated value of the company is about US$10 billion.

Alexa Event

Amazon Alexa Event : Everything That Amazon Announced this Year

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The festive season is almost here and so the Amazon’s sale is. Amazon ahead of its upcoming season sale hosted its Alexa event, and to include more products to its sale, the company just introduced a new lineup of products at the event.

Last year, the company released around 70 products, including the echo speakers and many updates to its old products. Though we get the idea about the new launches in advance through some of the leaks, this time, Amazon was successful to keep the things under the wraps. But as the event is final over, we have got news about everything it launched at the Alexa event.

The Alexa Event was an invite-only event and the company took it to the stage to introduce its guest with new Echo devices, new Echo earbuds, a new Echo display, Smartglasses, and even a revamped oven powered by Alexa.

Alexa Event
Image Source: cnn.com

This time, the company came up with some unique upgrades to its Echo devices, like an Echo Dot with a clock. Amazon has now included a LED clock to its Echo Dot, that can also show the weather. The clock can be switched off, if not required. You can also use it to set the alarm. For this new feature, you need to pay an extra $10, making the price of Echo Dot a $59. It means the old Echo Dot is still there, and you can even buy it without the clock.

After Google’s Nest Max and Apple’s HomePod, this time, Amazon has brought its new Echo Studio, that offers a 3D audio and Dolby Atmos. The devices include a 5.25-inch woofer, and a 1-inch, front-firing tweeter. There are also three, 2-inches, mid-range speakers included in the speaker to provide awesome audio quality in different directions in the room. The company has also added the lossless music playback to the speakers, such that it will produce a great sound when Amazon’s HD songs are played on it. The speaker costs $199.99.

Amazon, like the other big companies, has now brought new Echo earbuds that also render support for Alexa. The wireless earbuds are incorporated with Bose’s Active Noise Reduction Technology and cost $129. These super small earbuds can run up to 5 hours with full charging, and with its case, you can charge them three times. These earbuds are one of the surprise elements from Amazon.

Another surprise product that the company revealed at the event is the 8-inch screen Echo Show 8. The devices come with an inbuilt camera and have got an HD display, such that you can make quality video calls through it. The device is perfect for watching videos, playing music and even keeping an eye on your kids. The price of the device is set to be $129.

Incorporated with four micro speakers, the company introduced a pair of eye frames costing a $179.99. The eyeglasses offer support for Alexa, such that it reads the notification and other information to the user. The eyeglasses are connected through the smartphone and lead the sound directly into your ears. There is no display, but Alexa will do all the work for you.

Another unique product that the company released during the Alexa Event is a Ring named Echo Loop. The $129 ring is a smart ring featuring a haptic engine and two microphones. The ring and the frame will only be sold on an invite-only basis.

Other than these devices, the company launched a $249.99 Alexa-powered smart oven, a $25 Echo Flex device, $249 Eero router, Amazon Sidewalk (a device to connect all the IoT devices around you), etc. There have also been some new upgrades to the Amazon devices, like the multilingual-mode and Neural Text to Speech model added to Alexa.

kingston

Kingston : The Largest Memory Module Manufacturer Company in the World

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Change is the basic rule of life, and along with life, there are many things that go through changes with time. One of the main thing that has been changing with a high pace is technology. In the past decade, we have seen the most dramatic advancement in technology, and thus, we are introduced to many unusual things. Memory devices, being the most important part of the technology products, has seen a lot of good transformations, and for such innovative products, we can give the credit to the tech companies like Kingston.

Kingston Technology Corporation is a multinational computer technology company, and one of the most popular flash memory products manufacturers, based in California. David Sun a native of Taiwan, and John Tu from Chongqing, China, founded the company in 1987 in California. At the time, they were completely broke, the two spotted the opportunity in the shortage of 1Mbit surface-mount memory chips in the market and built Kingston.

About the Founders

David Sun is the COO of Kingston Technology, born in October 1951 in Taiwan. He graduated from Tatung University, and after completing his education, he moved to the U.S.

Founders Kingston
Image Source: moneyinc.com

On the other hand, John Tu had to go through some hardships to get the education. He was born in 1941 in Chungking, China, but had to move with his family to Shanghai in 1945. After around two years, as the Chinese civil war broke, his family moved to Taiwan. Lack of availability of good schools and college, Tu then moved to Germany to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. But again, as he did not know the language, it became difficult for him to choose the college and start studying.

After a lot of struggle, with the help of a priest, Tu joined a language school in Munich and started working at a shipbuilding factory for his apprenticeship. Finally, he got enrolled in the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt and received a graduate degree in electrical engineering. As soon he completed the degree, he got a job at Motorola in Wiesbaden, and after working for a year, he moved to California on the recommendation of his sister, who was already living the U.S.

Founding Kingston Technology Corporation

Coming out of a life full of struggles, John Tu had to start working, as soon as he reached the new country. He started a gift shop in Arizona, and later, invested in various other ventures. In 1982, Tu met Sun in California, and being from the same background, they became friends. The same year, they decided to start a computer hardware company named Camintonn Corporation. The company was then acquired by another company, and each of them received $1 million after the deal.

But due to some bad business decisions, in 1987, they were broke. They could do nothing but try their luck with another business. They started Kingston Technology Corporation focussed on manufacturing computer memory products to fulfil the demand in the market. Kingston started manufacturing memory devices for different PCs, as a result, started growing at a rapid rate. The company was the result of the biggest failure of the two co-founders, but still, it was their biggest success, too.

The Success

In 1990, the company expanded its manufacturing lineups to processor upgrades, networking and storage products. And, in two years, Kingston was ranked as the number one fastest-growing privately held company in America by Inc. The company received its ISO 9000 certificate in a single attempt in 1994. The next year, the company was a unicorn, with the sales exceeding $1.3 billion, and it had grown to 500 employees.

It was in 1996 when for the first time, a PC company (Toshiba) and a memory products manufacturing company (Kingston) collaborated to develop co-branded modules. The same year, the Softbank bought 80% of the company shares for $1.8 billion, but in 1999, the two co-founders bought the shares back for $450 million. The company expanded its branches to Europe, establishing its first office in London, United Kingdom, in 1996. The next year, the company had offices in Taiwan, Japan, Dublin, and a in few other locations.

In 2000, the company formed two spin-off companies named Validation Labs, Inc. and StorCase Technology, Inc. Kingston has featured in The 500 Largest Private Companies in the U.S, by Forbes over five times. It has also been named as the world’s number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market by iSuppli for 12 consecutive years. It was also named the world’s number-one memory module manufacturer for the third-party memory market by IHS multiple times.

Kingston has always believed in the motto of “be real good at what you do, or do nothing!”. It has been the symbol of reliability and quality since its inception. The story of Kingston inspires us to put the hard work in the right direction and persistence, such that success will be never un achievable.

gmail dark mode

Gmail Finally Released the Dark Mode for the iOS and Android Users

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Though the smartphone makers can’t keep people from using their phones more, they are trying hard to help them escape any kind of healthwww.yourtechstory.com/2019/09/11/apple-event-2019-products-apple-talked-about/ issues. Last year, companies like Microsoft and Apple included such features to their OS that would alarm the user about how long they had been using their smartphone. Another thing that those companies have done is that included dark mode to the new OS they released.

On the same league, we had been waiting for similar dark theme on Gmail, too, and finally, the company has released the dark mode for Gmail. The new dark theme will turn the default white background into black. Gmail launched the dark mode theme for both iOS and Android today, but some of the users may only use it after fifteen or more days.

There are many users who use their smartphones and work on their laptops at night. Considering which, Gmail has incorporated the dark mode to it as the users won’t feel any strain on their eyes while using Gmail in the night time. And, it is not necessary that one can only the dark theme in the night. The dark theme can be turned on in the day time as well. Also having the dark mode will also save the device’s battery, as darker pixels need less power than lighter pixels.

gmail dark mode

The users already using Android 10 or iOS 13 with dark theme enabled on their device will get the dark mode on Gmail auto-adjusted. The dark theme will also be automatically turned on for Gmail on the Pixel smartphones if the user has enabled the battery saving mode on it. For the users using an older version of iOS or Android must make changes to their settings to get the dark theme on their Gmail.

You can check if your Gmail app has got the dark theme or not, from its settings. Go to the Gmail settings and under theme option, you will find the option to activate the dark theme. Else you might be among the users who, according to Google, will get the theme within or after fifteen days.

cloudian

Success Story of Cloudian, a Data Storage Company, Co-founded by Hiroshi Ohta

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The advancement of technology is providing us with stairway to a new world. Every day, every second, our world is changing. New gadgets and new phenomenons are discovered daily. The path, that we have chosen for modernizing our world, depends vividly on data. Today, everything that we do, from launching a website to posting a picture on our Instagram account, data is needed. And, after a few decades, our world will reach a certain position where the development of every nation will be decided by the amount of data one can store or have access to.

And, speaking of data, as such an integral part of the modern sphere, it is definitely necessary to mention Hiroshi Ohta. Hiroshi Ohta, along with Michael Tso founded Cloudian, a company that brought innovation in the data storage system. Founded in 2011, the company has its headquarters based in San Mateo, California, United States.

The main product of Cloudian is object storage software that was built for big enterprises as with new software and applications from a huge number of companies made data storage really tough and complex. So, an easy to use data storage system was the cry of the hour.

The Idea Behind Cloudian

cloudian founder hiroshi ohta
Image Source: advertisingweek.com

Before Hiroshi Ohta came up with the idea of building his own company, he used to work at J-Phone. It is a telecom operator company, based in Japan, where Ohta was in charge of service development. During his time in this mobile company, he pioneered many skills and also provided the base for “Sha-Mail”, first mail in the world with pictorial advantage. Since he worked in the sector of communication, Ohta spotted a significant increase of users in the telecommunication world, and this resulted in the gathering of data in networks.

With an increase in the number of smartphones, laptops, and tablet in today’s world, the audience might likely run out of data and need to pay for storage. And, if such a situation arrives, where data becomes an integral part of our basic requirements, then it definitely has to be affordable. Thinking about this, Ohta decided to quit the company and built data storage product for the traffic insanely driving to the cloud world. He started working on Cloudian Hyperstore software (a software having Amazon S3 support).

Why Object Storage Technology?

The biggest advantage of this kind of storage software technology is that you can store and have access to data irrespective of your geographical location. Previously, the software that had been created by many companies only limited the scope of accessing data from nowhere, but the data centres. But, Ohta undoubtedly solved this problem through Cloudian software.

Another big problem that started arising was the cost of maintenance because some software programs were targeted to increase the data volume. This increased the cost of storage and got off track from one of the data storage’s biggest goal, that is being economical.

Cloudian’s products solve both the major problems, along with keeping the quality of products high. From media to medical school, every institution, company, organization, including a single user, need data storage facilities for various reasons. And, there is no scene of “market drop” in this area, at least, for half a century now.

Success of Cloudian

One year, after founding the company, Cloudian signed a deal with a Japanese telecommunication company to fuel its cloud object storage service. This was the big start after which Cloudian has entertained many lucrative clients, including Motorola, Element Fleet, Tyco and many more.

The company also has a very fancy list when it comes to investors. In 2014, the company raised $24 million from Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs, INCJ and Fidelity Growth Partners Japan. In 2016, four new investors were added to list including Lenovo, City National Bank, Epsilon Venture Partners and DVP Investment. Cloudian raised $41 million in the funding round of October 2016. After the new Series E funding round, the total worth of Cloudian hit an impressive figure of $173 million. The company has also established a partnership with Cisco, which triggered the list of investors, and basically, means more funding.

Future Aspects

One of the most important targets that Ohta talks about is the users should be very familiar and comfortable to use these products. Also, the applications that are being created with Cloudian’s storage technology as the backbone should be at best interest of the audience.

Mac Pro

Apple Mac Pro Computers’ Production will Solely Take Place in the U.S.

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The China-U.S. trade war does not seem to settle anytime sooner, amid which, many of the tech companies are facing real big issues. Even companies like Apple, despite being the biggest tech companies are not able to escape the heat.

For the past few years, Apple has been importing some of its major Mac components from China, as buying or manufacturing the same parts in the U.S. is a bit expensive. But due to the friction between the two countries, Apple had to make new arrangements for the components. At last, the company has got a green signal from the U.S. government for a cut in the tariffs on in-house manufacturing of the same components.

So finally, Apple now will be manufacturing its new Mac Pro computers solely in the U.S., and that too, in Austin, Texas. The company revealed the news on Monday, but it did not give any hints on when the computers will be out in the market. According to the previous reports from June, the company was planning to do the manufacturing in China, but as the government has given some revise on the tariffs, what can be better than that for Apple?

Mac Pro
Image Source: ilounge.com

“The Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever and we’re proud to be building it in Austin. We thank the administration for their support enabling this opportunity. We believe deeply in the power of American innovation. That’s why every Apple product is designed and engineered in the U.S., and made up of parts from 36 states, supporting 450,000 jobs with U.S. suppliers, and we’re going to continue growing here.” said the Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The new Mac computer is the same $5,999 redesigned computer, that the company had revealed at the Worldwide Developer Conference in June. For the manufacturing of the various important parts, Apple has partnered with over a dozen American companies.

Over the China-U.S. trade war, U.S. President Donald Trump also encouraged the U.S. based tech companies for manufacturing the products and their parts within the country. On this, he gave a statement, “Make then in the U.S.A., no Tariffs! A man I have a lot of liking for and respect is Tim Cook, and we’ll work it out, I think they’re going to announce that they’re going to build a plant in Texas and if they do that I’m starting to get very happy, okay.”

If the manufacturing is solely done in the U.S., Apple may spend $350 billion in the U.S. by 2023, contributing to the U.S. economy to a high extent.