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iOS 16.1

Apple To Release iOS 16.1 Update With New Features on October 24

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Apple will launch iOS 16.1 on October 24, 2022. The new update will be accessible on iPhones running on iOS 16 i.e iPhone 8 and models thereafter. 

iOS 16.1
Image Source: thetimesofbengal.com

Apple has revealed that iOS 16.1 will be released soon and will include new features like “Live Activities,” “Clean Energy Charging,” etc. The latest update will include a few significant changes. With the help of Live Activities, users will be able to stay informed about events in real-time through their lock screen.

Using this feature users can simply glance at the lock screen to keep up with a current sporting event, monitor their ride’s progress, or check the status of their order. In essence, a widget in the notification area will pop up to display real-time updates, somewhat like other notifications.

The new update allows users to remove the Wallet application from their iPhones. As one may anticipate, uninstalling the Wallet app prevents you from using a number of features, such as Apple Cash, Apple Pay, and Apple Card. The new iOS 16.1 supports Matter.

A new intelligent connectivity standard called Matter will allow compatible devices to function in unison across the platform. Clean Energy Charging seeks to reduce the carbon emissions of the iPhone by planning charging periods for when the grid is utilizing greener energy sources.

The new battery symbol, which finally shows the percentage, was one of the new features of iOS 16. It was already fairly good, but iOS 16.1 improves it a little by making the font bigger and hence easier to read.

Due to their smaller displays, some iPhone models, including the iPhone XR, 12 mini, and 13 mini, were unable to show the battery percentage. However, all iPhones operating the most recent OS version now have access to this feature thanks to the iOS 16.1 update. 

Apple will now provide customers with more precise control over the copy-paste capability with the next iOS 16.1 update. One can now allow or restrict copy-paste functionality for every app. One can choose to have the app request their consent each time they want to copy material from another app. Additionally, one can permanently permit it or refuse access; the choice now mostly rests with the user. 

With the introduction of iCloud Shared Photo Library in this update, there is a new, seamless way for families to share images with a different iCloud library in which a maximum of six users can collaborate, contribute and enjoy. Existing photos can also be added to the iCloud Shared Photo Library, and the system will automatically organize them according to several criteria, including date, by default.

Prior to iOS 16.1, Apple’s home workout app Fitness+ needed an Apple Watch device to function, however, this requirement is no longer a factor. Users can now monitor their workout sessions from an iPhone even without the Apple Watch. Apple does not currently provide the Fitness+ service in India. 

On October 24, Apple will also release the updated iPad OS 16.1. Users of iPads will notice a number of changes in the new iPadOS 16, most notably the contentious new Stage Manager multitask function.

wireless underwater camera

MIT engineers create a wireless underwater camera without batteries

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According to some estimates by scientists, more than 95 per cent of the earth’s ocean has never been observed, meaning we have seen less of our planet’s ocean than the far side of the moon or Martian surface. One major challenge which prevents widespread undersea exploration is the high expense of powering a wireless underwater camera for a long time. If we do that now, it will require tethering it to a research vessel or regularly sending a ship to repower the batteries.

wireless underwater camera
Image Source: techeblog.com

Some engineers from MIT have taken a giant step to deal with this problem by creating an ultra-efficient battery-free and wireless underwater camera. It is approximately 1,00,000 times more energy-efficient than the other undersea cameras. This device can take colour photos and transmit image data even in the dark underwater environment wirelessly through the water.

The feature that makes this autonomous camera extraordinary from the other underwater cameras is that it is powered by sound meaning it converts mechanical energy into electrical energy from sound waves travelling through water which powers its communications and imaging equipment. The camera also utilizes sound waves to transmit data to a receiver that can rebuild the image after capturing and encoding the image data.

Since it does not need a power source, the camera could operate for weeks on end before retrieval this would allow scientists to explore remote parts of the ocean pollution or supervise the growth and health of fish raised in the aquaculture farms.

“One of the most exciting applications of this camera for me personally is in the context of climate monitoring. We are building climate models, but we are missing data from over 95 per cent of the ocean. This technology could help us build more accurate climate models and better understand how climate change impacts the underwater world,” says Fadel Adib, senior author of a new paper on the system. He is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Signal Kinetics group in the MIT Media Lab.

Source: scitechdaily.com

Other co-lead authors and signal kinetics group research assistants joining Adib on the paper are Sayed Saad Afzal, Osvy Rodriguez, Waleed Akbar, research scientist Unsoo Haa and former group researchers Mario Doumet and Reza Ghaffarivardavagh. The paper is published in the ‘Nature Communications journal on 26th September 2022.

Going Battery Free

Scientists needed a camera that could run autonomously for long periods and could harvest energy underwater while draining very little power. Piezoelectric material-made transducers are used in the camera’s exterior to acquire energy.

They create an electric signal when a mechanical force is applied to them, they vibrate and convert the mechanical energy to electrical energy when a sound wave travelling through the water hits the transducers.

“We were trying to minimize the hardware as much as possible, and that creates new constraints on how to build the system, send information, and perform image reconstruction. It took a fair amount of creativity to figure out how to do this,” Adib says.

Source: scitechdaily.com

Sending Data with Sound

When the image data is captured then they are encoded as bits and sent to a receiver one bit at a time through a process called underwater backscatter. The receiver acts as a mirror to reflect the waves and transmits sound waves through the water to the camera.

“This whole process, since it just requires a single switch to convert the device from a non-reflective state to a reflective state, consumes five orders of magnitude less power than typical underwater communications systems,” Afzal says.

Source: scitechdaily.com
Lam Research

Lam Research: The Innovative Journey of a Future-oriented Company.

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Innovation is what keeps a company to stay relevant to the changing market trends. This innovation keeps the company going and deal with high-pressure competition. Lam Research is a company that also believes in adapting the change and making use of the technology of the future. This very attitude has kept Lam Research stay on the top in the semiconductor market even after 30 years of its inception, and it has never failed to impress its clients with the innovation it brings for them.

Establishment of Lam Research

Lam Research is a leading semiconductor processing equipment design and manufacturing company. It serves the major semiconductor manufacturing businesses from all around the world. The major areas where the company serves, include the United States, Europe, and Asia. The company products involve the manufacturing of equipment for front-end wafer processing and back-end wafer-level packaging (WLP).

Lam Research company headquarter is located in Fremont in Silicon Valley, California. As of 2019, Lam Research made an annual revenue of US$ 9.65 billion, and around 10,700 employees are working for the company in its various branches in the world. Currently, Timothy M. Archer is serving Lam Research as the president and chief executive officer. Before that, he was working as the executive vice president and chief operating officer of the company.

Products from Lam Research

The company specializes in manufacturing thin film deposition, plasma etch, photoresist strip, etc., for the manufacturing of semiconductors. The company offers smart wafer processing solutions for the tine chips to be used in the transistor, interconnect, patterning, advanced memory, and packaging to sensors and transducers. The products made by the company are essentially used in mobile phones, computing devices, entertainment systems, and also in the new smart cars.

Lam Research
Image Source: twitter.com

The Back Story

David K. Lam founded Lam Research in 1980. Lam was working as an engineer at Hewlett-Packard when he thought of bringing better plasma etching equipment into the market at the time when the semiconductors were reducing in size. He was sceptical about his business plan, but Intel’s founder Bob Noyce helped him in raising the funds for the company.

The Company introduced its first automated polysilicon plasma etcher, AutoEtch 480, in 1981 and sold the first system in the January of the next year. Just four years of its inception, the company had its first IPO on NASDAQ, and it traded as LRCX. Though Lam was the founder of Lam Research, he left the company in 1985 and joined Link Technologies. During the late 80s and the beginning of the 90s, the company had started to expand overseas. The company established its factory units and customer support centers in countries like Taiwan, the U.S., China, Korea, Singapore, and Japan.

Lam Research also did some major acquisitions during the same time. It acquired the chip equipment manufacturing company, OnTrak Systems Inc., in 1997 by paying a sum of $225 Million. This acquisition helped the company grow even faster. In fact, the CEO of OnTrak Jim Bagley was also appointed the CEO of Lam Research in the same year. In the late 2000s, Lam Research made some powerful acquisitions, including Bullen Semiconducto (2005), SEZ (2008), and Novellus Systems (2011). Lam Research also made it to the Fortune 500 list in 2016.

Lam Research in 2017 established an investment firm named Lam Research Capital to enhance its investments in new companies.

The Founder: David K. Lam

Before becoming a famous entrepreneur in the U.S., David K. Lam had to wander around in various countries. He was born in Guangdong, China on 10 February 1943, but he spent most of his childhood in Cholon, South Vietnam. In the mid-50s, he, along with his family, moved to Hong Kong, where he joined Pui Ching Middle School.

To complete his further studies, Lam flew to Canada and attended the University of Toronto, and received a bachelor’s degree in Applied Science in Engineering Physics in 1967. He then completed an M.S. degree and an Sc.D. doctoral degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the 1970 and 1973, respectively. As soon he completed his education, he joined Texas Instruments and Hewlett-Packard. This was the same time when he thought of founding Lam Research. Currently, Lam is serving as the chairman of Multibeam Corporation.

National Instruments

National Instruments: The Success Story of a Company Running After Innovation

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Necessity is the key to invention. This is the statement that has been the basis of most of the inventions and innovation that has taken place in the world. There have been many stories of success that are the result of need, need to bring about change, and need to get the best technologies for solving the most complicated problems. NI aka National Instruments Corporation is also one of the success stories whose foundation based on the need to turn things simpler and make work easier for people.

National Instruments Corporation

NI is an American technology company which is based in Austin, Texas. The company is known for its automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software. The popular software products from NI include LabWindows/CVI, LabVIEW Communication System Design, DIAdem, VerusStand, NI TestStand, NI Switch Executive, NI Multisim, etc. NI builds programs to help people do their programming even faster and better by providing them with easy to use automated programming environment.

National Instruments
Image Source: ni.com

For example, LabVIEW is a graphical development environment, whereas the LabVIEW Communications System Design Suite is built to provide its users with faster deployment of the communication systems. Similarly, NI’s NI DIAdem is used for data management, and NI VeriStand is designed for real-time testing. The company has also introduced many hardware products as well. These products include NI CompactRIO, NI roboRIO, NI CompactDAQ, STS, PXI and PXIe Platforms, etc.

History

NI’s history is as old as forty years.  The company was founded in 1976 by three colleagues, James Truchard, Jeff Kodosky, and Bill Nowlin, working at the University of Texas at Austin Applied Research Laboratories. The three co-founders were part of a team that was researching for the US navy during the 1970s. While working together, the three realized that the technology they were using was quite outdated and took way too much time to complete a task. The three thought of developing a new data analysis product that would be faster and would be easy to use.

For the purpose of developing a new product, like many other technology companies, the three founded their company working in the garage of James Truchard in 1976. After a lot of brainstorming and discussion over names like Longhorn Instruments and Texas Digital, they finalized National Instruments (NI) for their new company.

The three were still working at the university and were handling their company work through the garage only. They took a loan of $10,000 from the Interfirst Bank. For the marketing of their company they used the method of cold calling and bagged their first contract from San Antonio based Kelly Air Force Base. They also hired Kim Harrison-Hosen for all their office work, and by the end of the year, they had successfully connected with three clients.

In 1978, the three moved the company to a real office at Burnet Road in Austin. The co-founders focused on the marketing of their company, and through mails and cold calling, they were able to get orders worth $400,000 in the next two years. In 1980, the profits made the co-founders confident enough to leave their jobs and focus solely on company operations.

NI then started to take up new projects so that to expand the scope of the company. By 1983, the company had changed two offices, and in the same year, it produced its first GPIB board used to connect instruments to IBM PCs. The latest discovery of that time was the Macintosh computer, and NI wanted to take advantage of this opportunity.

NI, in 1986, introduced its first flagship product, i.e., LabVIEW graphical development platform for the Macintosh computer. Later, in 1991, NI got the patent for LabView. This software was easy to use as the programmers did not have to write the code, but they could program graphically by connecting the icons given. After Macintosh, the company released LAbWindows for Microsoft DOS. In 1987, NI opened its first international office in Tokyo, Japan. NI also launched the National Instruments Alliance Partner program to connect with third-party developers and engineers to enhance the capabilities of NI products.

NI had $100 million in annual sales in 1993, and by 1998, the company had hired 1000 employees, such that they had to move to a new office. This new office boasted an employee-friendly environment that included play areas and a gymnasium for its employees.

Though NI had already appeared on the web, at the beginning of 2000, the company started its website with the domain ni.com. With the widespread of the internet, NI started to work on web technologies. It also launched the NI Developer Zone, where users could access the sample codes and sample programs and seek help from the NI engineers. The company launched its first international manufacturing unit in Debrecen, Hungary, and by 2006, it had around 40 sales offices opened globally. In 2013, NI acquired Digilent Inc.

The CEO of the Company

National Instruments CEO
Image Source: ni.com

Eric Starkloff is the current CEO of NI. He is also one of the board members of NI and the President of the company. Starkloff is a graduate in electrical engineering from the University of Virginia. He started his career with NI as an application engineer and has been working at NI for more than twenty years.

NI Today

NI is one of the biggest technology companies in the world. After moving to different size offices, the company now headquarters in Austin, Texas. Michael E. McGrath is the current Chairman of the company, and Eric Starkloff serves as the CEO at NI. The company has got over 7500 employees globally, and the annual revenue of the company, as of 2019, is recorded to be $ 1.353 billion. NI went public in 1995 and is listed on NASDAQ as NATI.

local motors

Jay Rogers : The Founder of Local Motors and Inventor of First 3D Printed Electric Car

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There have been startups based on daily needs and also on the pain points people go through every day. But sometimes, it is the question of life and death, and the safety of people. There are many such examples of startups that are inspired by the people’s safety, and one such startup is Local Motors, that have a great story behind it.

Local Motors was founded by Jay Rogers in 2007 and have its headquarters situated at Phoenix, Arizona. Local Motors is a car manufacturing company that builds its autonomous cars with the help crowdsourcing.

Before starting up Local Motors, Rogers was a Marine in the US navy. But even before that, he was a confused young lad, who did not have any idea what would be the best career choice for him. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in banking and was about to opt for an MBA for his post-graduation when he met a fellow from the same MBA batch, who had also been a marine.

Jay Rogers Local Motors
Image Source: zimbio.com

Influenced by that person, Rogers, in 1999, joined the U.S. Marine Corps. He served as a marine for seven long years and went through random experiences. He was posted in locations, including Iraq. In 2004, when he was appointed in Iraq, he lost one of his fellow officer and friend, Brent Morel while riding a Humvee. Rogers found it stupid to deploy a Humvee in Iraq as the vehicle have a heavy engine. Again in next couple of years, he lost his another friend due to the failed landing of a Boeing Vertol CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter.

These incidents hit Rogers hard, as he found out that these two vehicles were the best vehicles built in America. Still, these were not smart enough to save human lives. After seven years of his service as a marine, Rogers returned to complete a degree in business from the Harvard University, to give a direction to his new startup that was inspired by the sad incidents happened in his life. He wanted to start a company that would create smart vehicles to help people with their needs.

Rogers studied the business models of various car manufacturing companies, and what they all were doing was not customer-focused. He had a different approach, through which he wanted to build customer-oriented vehicles. So he thought of building a unique open-source micro-factory for rapid manufacturing.

But without investments, it was not possible to build a company, and then the products. So he approached the investors from the silicon valley, but for his disappointment people were more interested in investing their money in the already famous companies like Tesla. But without losing hope, Rogers raised a $10 million with the help of his family, friends and a few investors.

But the amount was not sufficient for both designing and developing the product. But Rogers again came with a unique solution. He opted for crowdsourcing the design concept for the company’s first product, offering $20,000 for the winner. An art student won the competition, and in 2009, based on the same design, Rogers launched the Rally Fighter, the first Local Motors product and a souped-up, fibreglass-chassis dune buggy made to run in the desert. The car was a massive success. A total of 20 units of this desert crawler was sold in the same year.

Since the launch of Rally Fighter, the basic business model of the company includes designing, engineering and manufacturing of automobiles open source, such that the designers are welcomed to submit their designs, and the community votes and selects the winners. Even though a single winner is chosen for the design, the community members can suggest improvements for the same. For Rally Fighter only, 35000 designs had been submitted by designers.

Rally Fighter was a giant desert truck, so now Rogers wanted something that would be suitable for the general public. On the arrival of the 3D printers in 2014, he opened a challenge for the Local Motors’ employees as well as for the community members to make the world’s first drivable 3D-printed automobile. 200 designers participated in the challenge, and Strati became the world’s first 3D printed electric car. The car was manufactured in 44 hours and in front of a live audience at the International Manufacturing Technology Show in McCormick Place, Chicago.

Though the car was not powerful enough, it set new technology standards. It gave Rogers the confidence of building something new. A few months later, Local Motors was invited to Berlin’s Urban Mobility Challenge, to build an emission-free minibus. Again Rogers notified all its 200,000 in the community for the designs for a $20,000 top prize. The design of a 24-year-old Colombian industrial engineer, Edgar Sarmiento, was finalised for the challenge and Olli was manufactured. The 8 to 12 seater minibus, Olli, was manufactured in the partnership with IBM.

Olli was demonstrated on Facebook Live of Berlin’s Urban Mobility Challenge. People were quite impressed with the design and the capabilities of the vehicle. So the company received $1 billion in financing from Florida-based Elite Transportation Services (ETS) for Olli. The company also received funding of $20 million from Texas-based Xcelerate.

The company is looking forward to embedding the autonomous driving and artificial intelligence to the new models of Olli. For bringing the new technologies to Local Motors, the company has partnered with International Business Machines Corp.’s Watson program for artificial intelligence and also with Robotic Research LLC.

Currently, Jay Rogers is serving the company as the CEO.

Instacart

Apoorva Mehta : The Founder of Instacart, the ‘Uber of Grocery’

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The internet and the rise of the tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have inspired a lot of people out there to start their own innovative business. And there is much evidence that the inspiration has worked for numerous people. The Internet has helped people to get idea from their daily needs and transform it into a successfully functioning business. One such person, who was inspired by the success of the big tech companies, is Apoorva Mehta, the founder of Instacart. Mehta was awed by the fact that how the new startups were getting success overnight. And hence, after trying out over 20 business ideas, he finally started Instacart.

Early Life and Career

Mehta belongs to the Indian descent, but was born and brought up in Canada. He had always been inclined towards the internet and technology. He had also been interested in learning science and computer programming. After completing his school education, Mehta joined the University of Waterloo, to complete an electrical engineering degree.

After completing his graduation, Mehta worked for companies like Qualcomm and BlackBerry. Though he had got good jobs, he was a bit confused about what he really wanted to do. Later, in 2008, Mehta moved to Seattle, to work with Amazon. He joined Amazon as the supply chain engineer. But, here too, he could not feel the passion for work and left the company after two years, in 2010.

The Inspiration for Startup

Apoorva Mehta Instacart
Image Source: celebritynetworth.com

With the rise of the tech companies, he had already developed an interest in entrepreneurship, so Mehta started looking for ‘the’ idea, that would help him establish a successful business. It took him over two years and 20 failed startup ideas to finally reach to Instacart. Before Instacart, Mehta tried to build an ad network for the gaming com to developing a social network for lawyers. But nothing worked for him.

After brainstorming for two long years and testing out those twenty startup ideas, Apoorva Mehta stopped and analysed, what he was doing wrong. He even thought of quitting, as none of his ideas had worked out. But persistence is the key. This time, he decided to work with passion and patience. He also realized that a business is successful when it solves a problem. So, he started looking for a problem that he could solve. Ultimately, he got an idea of developing an online grocery delivery service, which came out straight from his own pain point.

While working at Amazon, Apoorva Mehta was unable to find time to go for grocery shopping. He could order anything online, but there were no grocery delivering services. He found an opportunity in the problem and started working to solve it.

Finding the Investors

Mehta developed the app for his new startup ‘Instacart’ and started looking for investors. He tried to get into the Y Combinator tech incubator 2012, but the summer intake was already closed. So he had to take the other way around. He met a few of the partners of Y Combinator to request them to provide him entry into the incubator. But no one agreed. He met the last partner, who did not reject him, but said that the startup idea was nearly impossible.

Apoorva Mehta came back empty-handed but sent a pack of beer to that last partner through his app. This act made that partner think of this idea again, and he convinced the other Y Combinator partners to open the entry for Mehta. And this way, the doors of success were also opened for Mehta and his startup. Finally, he launched the company in 2012, in San Francisco.

The Rise of Instacart

In two years from its inception, the company gained a $40 million and spread to 17 different locations within the U.S. and Canada. The company was named as the ‘Most Promising Company in America’ by Forbes in 2015, and even, valued at $2 billion just in three years.

In 2016, the company went to expand in the North Chicago Zone, and the next year, the company was serving in 1,200 cities in 25 states. By the end of the year, the company partnered with Loblaw Companies for deliveries. The company raised a total of $400 million investment and valued at $3.4 billion.

In 2018, Instacart partnered with companies like Walmart Canada, HyVee, The Fresh Market, Harps, Lunds & Byerlys. It even acquired a Canada-based grocer named Unata. After raising a $200 investment in February 2018, the company raised another $600 million funding in October the same year and valued at $7.6 billion.

Mehta’s startup idea was unique and became successful within a year of its inception. And today, it is among the unicorn companies. The reason behind the success of Instacart is that it was different from the other businesses. It won’t be wrong if we call Instacart the Uber of grocery, as there was no warehouse to store the grocery and no official vans were bought to do the deliveries. In fact, the grocery came directly from the retailers, and the company hired people with their vehicles to do the deliveries. Both Instacart and the retailer are in benefit, and there is no spending of money on the physical cost resources.