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Google Pixel

Google Pixel Fall Hardware Event 2019: What to Expect

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Tuesday is the day when Google will be hosting its annual fall hardware showcase event, and as all you know, the event will be finally launching the Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4 XL smartphones. But other than that, the big event will also be revealing some of the major updates to the company’s existing products as well as the other new products.

Pixel 4 has already been in news, and the rumours have got us most of the information about the smartphone. According to the rumours, there are two sizes available in the phone, and it will be in three different colours, i.e. ‘just black’, ‘clearly white’, and ‘oh so orange’. One of the new changes to the new smartphone includes a second, 16-megapixel telephoto, camera lens. The camera will also include some of the new photography tricks in it, like an astrophotography mode that makes the night sky pictures even more magical by capturing the stars even clearer. One of the tricks also includes the “Motion Mode” that is specifically designed to take better action shots.

Google had been working on new radar motion sensors called Soli, which according to the rumours, the company will finally be installing in the smartphone. These sensors will make the smartphone do things only by sensing the user’s gestures, like swipes in the air for changing the song on the music application. There will also be a new face recognition feature that will allow the users to unlock the smartphone and in any orientation. Though the rumours have also claimed the Pixel 4 smartphones to be 5G supported, there is no indication from Google of the same, as it is still working on the technology and cannot launch it any sooner.

Google Pixel
Image Source: trustedreviews.com

Other than the smartphones, the company has made some improvements to some of its products. The Google Assistant has received the major updates and is being called as the ‘next-generation Google Assistant’. The new Google Assistant is ten times faster and will also be available on the Google Pixel 4 smartphones. So, the Assistant will be one of the major highlights of the event.

The company had introduced a Pixelbook laptop in 2017, and there had been no news on new Pixelbooks since then. But as the company had revealed at the beginning of this year that it is working on the next Pixelbook, there are high hopes that it will be showing off a new Pixelbook at the event. Believing the rumours, Pixelebook Go is the upcoming laptop, that may have a 13.3-inch touchscreen. According to a blogpost from 9to5Google, like the Pixel 4 smartphone, the Pixelbook may be in two colours ‘just black’, and ‘oh so orange’.

It is also expected that the company may give us some of its new Nest products. There is a possibility that the company may showcase a new mesh router system that will provide wifi connection to the various Google Home devices. There is another device called Nest Mini, that may attract people’s attention during the event, as it is a small smart speaker from Google that they can also hang on your wall.

Last but not least, one of the new products from Google is a pair of new Pixel Buds. There is not much information about the buds, but we expect them to be completely wireless this time. And according to a tweet from Android and Chrome chief Hiroshi Lockheimer, these new buds are incorporated with great sound quality, sweat proof, better battery with USB C charging port, and more.

So only one day left for the event, and we hope Google will bring even better features and products at the event.

Playstation 5

Playstation 5 is the New Console from Sony Coming in 2020 Holidays

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Keeping the legacy, Sony has followed the tradition and has announced that its “next-generation console” will be called the PlayStation 5. The company also accepted that it would be simple for the users to call it a PS5. Though in April Sony had revealed that it is looking forward to selecting a fancy name for the console, it seems that there is nothing that would better suit it than being called PlayStation 5.

Along with the new name, the company has also revealed some details about its new and upgraded controller, which possibly will be called Dualshock 5. The new controller has been incorporated with new haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. The haptic feedback is a replacement for Sony’s rumble technology, which has been there in every console from the fifth generation consoles of the PlayStation.

With the new haptic feedback, the upgraded console will offer a “broader range of feedback.” The new update will make you feel different things in different ways, like the company said in its blog, the crashing on the wall and making a tackle on the football field will feel much different from each other. The upgrade will also make you feel the various textures when running through in the game while playing.

Playstation 5
Image Source: express.co.uk

On the other hand, the adaptive triggers will be installed in the primary R2/L2 triggers on the PS5’s controller. The new adaptive triggers are programmable ones, such that the developers can “program the resistance of the triggers.” As the name suggests, the controller will adapt to the scenarios in the game, and the players will get to feel the resistance and the increased tension in their hands through the controller. The company has already sent the early versions of the new controller to the creators so that they can make use of its features for the development of new games.

Sony said in the blog post that when the two features will work together the player will get a beyond realistic experience. The company did not confirm the name of the controller, but as it has given the latest version of the console a similar name, i.e. PlayStation 5, there is a possibility that the new controller will be called the Dualshock 5 as well. Other than these updates, the company has revealed that it will be launching the new PlayStation in the holidays season of the next year. So there is almost a year in between the launch of the new console. And meanwhile, the company will be making frequent about the new features of the console before the launch.

xerox

Joseph C. Wilson : The Founder of Xerox Who Brought an Innovation in the Printing Industry

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The great inventions in the sector of printing and photocopy have made our lives much easier. Think about a world where we needed to pay a few dollars just for one colour print, absolutely not affordable right? Given that photocopy is essential in every sector starting from an educational institution to a corporate company and even a hospital, it had to be made pocket-friendly. And, with the inventions made by Xerox Corporation, especially Joseph C. Wilson the industry of photocopying will not be dealt with casualties at least for the next century.

Xerox Corporation, a multinational conglomerate pioneering in the world of the printing industry was founded more than a century ago in 1906. The company then was established as The Haloid Photographic Company, and the three masterminds behind this mammoth transforming setup were Joseph C. Wilson, Chester Carlson, and Jeff Leonard. Let’s have a detailed look into the life of Wilson, and his inventions, and how it led to founding Xerox.

Life of Wilson

Born in 1909 to J.R. Wilson and Kate Wilson, Wilson spent his childhood in Rochester. During his early childhood, Wilson grew a love for literature in his heart. He completed his high school from West High School, Rochester and pursued economics in the University of Rochester. Later, he went to Harvard to complete his MBA. After getting his business degree, he joined Haloid and became the head of the company.

History of Xerox Corporation

Xerox founder
Image Source: Xerox Twitter

Xerox was founded on 18 April 1906 as Haloid. During this time, Carlson worked independently on his innovation that revolved around printing images. He was a very promising physicist, and Wilson after taking over the company from his father showed keen interest to work with Carlson’s product. And all of these happened during the time of the Second World War, which added up mostly to the sale of photographic papers for government work. Though the photographic papers were in demand, Wilson had strong competitors, too. So, he needed to come up with an excellent idea at the earliest hour to save Haloid from dissolving.

Wilson wanted to launch a new product called Xerox 914, which had Carlson’s technology incorporated in it. It took Carlson almost two decades to perfect the technology, and finally, it was released in 1959. The product brought a revolution in the industry, resulting in $60 million revenue of Xerox at the end of 1961, which escalated to $500 million by 1965. The technology that was used in the product was Electro-photography, and Wilson gave it a new term called “xerography’.

That is how Haloid came into the spotlight, and its most important goal was to make photocopying easier and cheaper for the world.

Wilson’s Idea Flooded the Company with Profits

A year after the launch of 914, Wilson Center for Research and Technology was established in Webster, New York, and the following years, the company was enlisted on the New York Stock Exchange as Xerox (XRX). In this year, the company’s earnings grew to 151%.

In 1969, another invention followed. It was a laser printer, Xerox 9700 and brought billions of dollars of business to the company. Once the company settled on firm grounds, it made multiple acquisitions, including University Microfilms International, Scientific Data Systems, Electro-Optical Systems, etc. Even after Wilson’s death in the early 1970s, the company is still embarking with new technologies, acquiring gigantic businesses and making great innovations. In 1970, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center was developed, and it started developing modern technologies like graphical user interface and laser printing.

With the advent of a new decade, a new century and a millennium, Xerox started the year 2000 with a big acquisition of Tektronix colour printing for $925 million. This was followed by further acquisitions of companies like XMPie (software provider) and Newfield IT.

Currently, Xerox Corporation is a major part of the IT industry with its headquarters based in Norwalk, Connecticut, New York. The products of Xerox include printers, scanners, projectors and other office equipment. With John Visentin as the Vice Chairman and the 10th CEO of the company, around 35,000 people are working together to find more efficient equipment for the near future. Today, Xerox has become a significant brand name both in research and development and marketing.

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.

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.