Tech News

Walmart Launches Delivery Unlimited, a Subscription Service for Grocery Delivery

Amazon announced its own delivery service to support its one-day delivery service, and recently, another tech giant, Target, also launched its one-day delivery service for the online purchases. And now, Walmart also revealed that it is going to start an unlimited grocery delivery service called Delivery Unlimited for its customers.

Grocery deliveries are picking quite a hike, and now, Walmart is also looking forward to serving its customers with unlimited deliveries. The company is already providing its customers with delivery services, costing them between $5 and $10 fee per delivery, for the purchases they make online. The company also has been providing its customers with a monthly fee for a limited number of deliveries through sign-ups.

But now, with a $98 yearly subscription, the customers will get access to the unlimited deliveries on online purchase from the Walmart website. The company is also offering its customers a monthly subscription of $12.95 for the deliveries, such that they do not have to pay the pre-order fees on the deliveries. The users just need to go to the Walmart website, and after, making purchases, they will be asked for the delivery options upon the checkout, from where they can opt for monthly or yearly subscription.

The subscription service from Walmart can be a big money saver for those customers, who regularly purchase grocery from Walmart. Unlike the other grocery sellers, Walmart does not have its own delivery service or has got a contract with a single delivery partner. In fact, it is tied up with various delivery providers, including Point Pickup, Skipcart, AxleHire, Roadie, Postmates, and DoorDash.

Walmart has even introduced a free and one-day delivery service to its customers for orders above $35. Along with that, it has also started an in-house delivery, through which the delivery boys will place the ordered food items directly into the customer’s refrigerator.

The news was first reported by TechCrunch, while the company has not given any statements over the matter, not even over its site’s FAQ section. Though, one of the Walmart Store’s Instagram account had mentioned the same in a post in March this year.

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.

www.xornor.co

Amazon Closes Down Spark Before it Completes its Two Years Anniversary

News, Social media, Tech News / By Yashica Vashishtha

Most of the people might not know, but approximately two years ago, Amazon had launched a social networking platform named Spark. And since it has not made it to the global audience, it seems, Amazon has shut the platform down, even before it completes its two year anniversary.

Amazon Spark was a similar platform to most of the other social media platforms, where users could post pictures, stories and could connect with people. One of the most important features, that Amazon had added to it, was the ability to sell and purchase things over it. The app was launched in a hope that people will come to the app through their influencers and will make purchases, accordingly. Users were even allowed to tag the products available on the Amazon website.

Like Instagram, the users could react to the posts through smiles and post comments on it. In fact, Spark was considered as one of the competitors of Instagram. But the platform was primarily developed for the Amazon Prime members and was focused more on shopping and sales.

“Whether you’re looking for inspiration for home décor or seeking advice for the best long-distance running shoes, Spark makes it easy to discover and shop stories and ideas from a community that likes what you like.” Amazon has said during the launch of Spark in 2017.

Though the platform entirely focused on sales and shopping, it had copied a few features from its rival Instagram, like the posts from fashion and travel bloggers. But the problem was that it was restricted to only the Prime members, and only they were able to use it. The reach of the platform was limited, and the users did not have anyone familiar to connect with over this very platform.

Though Amazon has not given any statement on the matter, meanwhile the link to Amazon Spark is redirecting to #FoundItOnAmazon site, one of the other easy shopping tools from Amazon. Earlier the Amazon’s notification section had been changed for including updates from Spark. But now the navigation has once again been simplified.

Yashica Vashishtha

www.xornor.co

Stratolaunch, the World’s Largest Airplane is Up for Sale for $400M

News, Tech News / By Yashica Vashishtha

World’s biggest plane and the dream project of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Stratolaunch is for sale. The cost of the plane has been set to be $400 million by the holding company Vulcan Inc. reported an anonymous spokesperson.

Stratolaunch is the only biggest plane in the world and is manufactured by Stratolaunch Systems, a company founded by Paul Allen, after eight years of research and production process. It was a dream of Paul Allen to build a 5,00,000 pound plane, and noticeably, it has not even been two months when the plane took its first and only flight.

Based in the Mojave Air and Space Port in California, the giant aeroplane has a 385-foot wingspan, six engines, 28 wheels and has a capability to fly up to an altitude of 35,000 feet. The plane has been manufactured as a flying launchpad for rockets from where they can self lunch themselves, from the air to space. The plane had successfully completed its first flight in April, where it flew for over 150 minutes and reached an altitude of 15000 feet at a speed of 189mph.

According to the sources, Vulcan is already in talks with the British billionaire and the founder of Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson, about selling the plane. Another potential buyer for the plane includes Northrop Grumman, the company that is in an agreement with Stratolaunch to provide rockets for the plane’s air-launch operation. Though there have been no comments on the matter from either party as yet.

Along with the plane, the company would also be giving away the intellectual property and Mojave facilities to the buyer. But a price equal to $400 million is a big amount, and it seems even bigger when the scope of the success of the plane is unclear. Since there has been no such planes or such services, that can convince the buyers with the profits it may gain, it is natural for them to be sceptical about buying it.

Yashica Vashishtha

www.xornor.co

Tesla to Bring Support For YouTube Along Next Update to its In-car Software

News, Tech News / By Yashica Vashishtha

Tesla has always brought something different for its users. This time, the company reported that it will be bringing YouTube to the central screen of its Tesla cars, soon. The company’s founder and CEO, Elon Musk, during a Q&A session held at the E3 event in Los Angeles, revealed that the company has been working towards hosting video streaming on the central infotainment screen of the Tesla cars since past one year, and YouTube will be the first video streaming service coming to it.

Last August, Musk responded to a Twitter request about bringing video streaming to the Tesla cars’. In the tweet, Musk had indicated that the streaming service will come along with the ‘Version 10” of its in-car software. Currently, Tesla cars are running the ‘Version 9’ of the software on its infotainment screen. At that time, Musk did not give any names on which streaming service it would be, but during the Q&A, Musk clearly mentioned YouTube as one of the video services for the central screens of the Tesla cars.

The company has already offered games and has been hosting “Easter eggs” on the central screen of the cars, and this will be the first time that any of the automobile company will stream YouTube over its cars’ infotainment screens.

Along with YouTube, Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter will be joining Cuphead, Missile Command, Asteroids, Lunar Lander, and Centipede as one of the games to be played on the big central screen of Tesla cars.

Though people are questioning the need of videos and games on the screen of a car, the company has clarified that the owner or the passengers of the car will only be able to see the videos or play the games while the car is parked. In most of the cases, people only sit inside a car when they are charging it at the Supercharger stations. This way, now the passengers and the drivers will enjoy their time through YouTube and video games, at the charging station while waiting for their cars to get fully charged.

Yashica Vashishtha

www.xornor.co

Zomato Successfully Tests Food Delivery Using Drones at 80kmph

News, Tech News / By Yashica Vashishtha

Drones are helping in almost every field, from aerial surveillance to the exploration of oils, gas, etc. And now, you can get your food delivered to your doorstep through a drone. Zomato has successfully tested delivering food using a hybrid drone, with a fusion of rotary wing and fixed wings. The drone covered a distance of 5 km in 10 minutes at a peak speed of 80 km per hour.

“The drone was tested last week at one of the remote sites approved by the DGCA. Such tests are done at very remote sites which are specially designed to conduct such tests,” said Zomato in a statement.

The company has not revealed the location where the drone-delivered the package, but it carried a payload of five kg.

Since the regulations do not allow such experiments and drones carrying payloads outside the visual line of sight, DGCA has asked the interested organisations, through a notification released on 13 May, to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the DGCA for conducting experimental Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations (BVLOS) of drones. The regulations have said that the rules will be evolved for the companies that will bring new technologies.

Zomato, last year, acquired the drone delivery startup TechEagle Innovations in order to experiment with the food delivery through drones, such that to serve its customers better. The company has revealed that it is forming a consortium to carry out such practices and move forward with its new idea of deliveries through drones.

“While regulatory hurdles are not trivial, and the government’s concerns need to be looked at from various (valid) points of view, the tech is ready to fly and I am confident that drone delivery will be commonplace sooner rather than later,” said Deepinder Goyal, Founder and CEO, Zomato.

The company is stepping towards deliveries through drones, to reduce the congestion on the roads and to provide faster deliveries to the customers. Though the average delivery time, the service takes to deliver food, is 30 minutes and with drones, the company wants to achieve lesser delivery time.

Yashica Vashishtha

www.xornor.co

Telegram Faces Major DDoS Attack; Claims China is Behind it

News, Tech News / By Yashica Vashishtha

Telegram, one of the most secure encrypted messaging service took it to Twitter, Today, to reveal that it was dealing with and has recovered from a powerful DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack on Wednesday. The company tweeted that the users in the U.S. and the other countries may face issues in the connection, due to the attack.

On Wednesday, the platform was hit by DDoS, and it took down the app for over an hour. While dealing with the attack, the company even went to Twitter to explain to its 200 million users how the attack works.

Telegram tweeted through its official account, “A DDoS is a “Distributed Denial of Service attack”: your servers get GADZILLIONS of garbage requests which stop them from processing legitimate requests. Imagine that an army of lemmings just jumped the queue at McDonald’s in front of you – and each is ordering a whopper.” The company stated in the next tweet, “The server is busy telling the whopper lemmings they came to the wrong place – but there are so many of them that the server can’t even see you to try and take your order.”

The company also Tweeted about how the attackers accomplish a DDoS attack, and then, it also confirmed that users that the users’ data is safe.

The company has been the main target of countries like Russia, Iran and Indonesia, providing the reason that the app has been used to encourage terrorism and political protestors. These companies even blocked the service for a long time. But this time, Telegram has clearly indicated that the attack has come from China.

The CEO of the company, Pavel Durov, tweeted, “IP addresses coming mostly from China. Historically, all state actor-sized DDoS (200-400 Gb/s of junk) we experienced coincided in time with protests in Hong Kong (coordinated on @telegram). This case was not an exception.”

The protesters in Hong Kong are protesting in response to the law that gives China the authority under the “one country, two systems” principle, through which it can extradite its citizens to China. According to the sources, these protesters used Telegram for communication, and even, the Telegram group administrator had been arrested in Hong Kong claiming that he conspired to commit public nuisance.

Yashica Vashishtha

Follow Us