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Apple’s Fall Event 2018 : All About the New Launches

iphone
Image Source: osxdaily.com

Apple’s annual event took place yesterday in San Francisco, California. The event was streaming live on the Apple TV and Apple’s event page, broadcast in London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney.

Apple, in its 2018 event, has announced a range of new iPhones along with its FDA-approved watch, that is capable of reading the heartbeat.

Apple’s new iPhone series includes the iPhone XS having a 5.8-inch OLED display screen, iPhone XS Max with 6.5-inch OLED display screen and iPhone XR with 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display Screen.

The iPhone XS and XS Max has come with a better camera resolution and are embedded with the faster A12 processor implanted in a stainless steel body. The new iPhones will support the eSim feature that will eliminate the need of inserting an extra sim card with the help of an inbuilt sim card.

On the other hand, the iPhone XR is having an aluminium body with a single 12MP wide angle back camera, providing the same depth-of-field effect. The iPhone XR has come with an improved battery with approximately 90 minutes more battery life. The iPhone XR will be available in six different colours black, white, blue, red, yellow, coral.

The price of the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR will start from $899 (Approx. 64,800), $999 (Approx. 72000) and $749 (54000), respectively. All the three phones will be available in a storage range of 64GB, 256GB and 512GB, that will vary the price accordingly. And, finally, the new iPhones are going to have two sim card slot that can help in boosting its sale.

Another product that was introduced at the event is an edge-to-edge screen watch, with a thinner body and a 30% larger screen, an addition to the Apple Watch Series 4. The new Apple 4 series watch is a GPS-only cellular model watch that is redesigned with enhanced software and hardware. The watch is having a faster S4 processor and ECG/EKG monitor. The watch is capable of reading the heartbeat rhythm and can sense if the user has fallen. In such a situation the watch will make a call to the emergency asap.

The preorders for the iPhones as well as the watch will start from 14 September and will be available in the American markets from 21 September, this year.

Daniel Zhang to Replace Jack Ma as the Chairman of Alibaba Next Year

Alibaba
Image Source: nan.ng

On last Friday, the Chinese billionaire Jack Ma announced his retirement from the position of the chairman of Alibaba. He is going to serve as the chairman of the company till 10 September 2019 and will stay a member of the board until 2020. Jack Ma is only 53 and wants to devote his time to Philanthropy. At the age of 53, he is the only Chinese billionaire who has taken such a decision.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999, as a business-to-business marketplace. Soon, he expanded the business, to obtain a $420 billion profit, within a few years, making Alibaba as a consumer based platform. He also tried his hands in cloud computing, digital media, and other industries, including the payment gateway AliPay. His success story inspires everyone and he is referred to as ‘Teacher Ma’, in China. His decision has shaken the whole world, but he has got a plan for himself. Jack Ma is going to stay as a lifetime partner of the Alibaba Partnership and will continue working with his philanthropic organisation, the Jack Ma Foundation.

Jack Ma had already decided to retire from his post, a long time ago. Almost a decade ago, he had asked his team about what they will do without him. Now when he is stepping down from his position, the current CEO of the company Daniel Zhang is going to replace Jack Ma, to hold the position of the chairman of the company.

Daniel Zhang joined as the CEO of Alibaba, in 2015, and since then, Alibaba has seen consistent and sustainable growth, for 13 consecutive quarters. On this Jack Ma said, “This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up to the next level of corporate governance from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on systems of organizational excellence and a culture of talent development”.

Apple Announces an Online Portal to Cooperate with the Law Officials

apple
Image Source: marketexclusive.com

Since our lives have been so attached to our smartphones and we have stored almost every personal data in our phones, the data security has become the main concern. Over the past few years, the cyber-crime has also made the law enforcement officials to request the user’s private data from the top tech companies. The tech companies also respond to those queries with a sense of responsibility.

On September 4, Apple wrote a letter to Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democrat from Rhode Island, regarding a web portal that will help the police to request the user data stored in the iCloud. Apple is going to launch the web portal by the end of the year. It will constitute a team of trainers that will train the police about which data to be obtained and how it can be obtained.

Apple said in the letter that last year it answered to 14000 law enforcement requests. Among which 231 requests were regarding the domestic emergency and were addressed within 20 minutes. Until now, the law enforcement officials requested the data through emails to an Apple law enforcement email account.

The online portal will be a more convenient and a centralized hub. It will help the police officials to make and track requests, easily. Apple has created a set of strict guidelines on how and which data can be obtained. Apple has already trained over 1000 law enforcement officials that were trained in its training institutes. Now for further training, Apple is going to develop an online training program. The trainers from Apple will help the officials in the training and the training portals will be available globally.

Japan is All Set to Test World’s First Space Elevator

space elevator
Image Source: dazeddigital.com

The old fantasy story of the celestial castle has been the base of many famous sci-fi movies. In the past century, many scientists have also given their theories, on how a ladder can be placed between the earth and space. But, until now, nobody has come with a real plan for such an experiment.

Even with a low rate of success, the scientists from the Shizuoka University Japan, have announced that they are going to test a miniature elevator in the space, in the coming week. Japan is all set to send two tiny, 4-inch cubic satellites, to the International Space Station (ISS), with an H-2B rocket. The 2.4 inches elevator, will be contained in one of the satellites, and after, reaching into the orbit, the motors will power the satellites with a 33-foot steel cable. The elevator will then travel from one satellite to another through the cable, having a camera attached to it, that will record the whole experiment.

This experiment is going to be the first of its kind. Many scientists have thought of carrying out such experiments, but it is difficult to achieve the favourable conditions for one. First of all, no material has been found that is as strongest that can be used to build the elevator and the cable to hold the elevator throughout the travelling.

The geo station to launch the elevator must be nearby the equator of the earth, where the possibility of hurricanes and tornadoes is scarce. Also, the gravity and wind in the upper atmosphere can be a hurdle for such an experiment. If such experiment is succeeded, not only the astronauts but also tourists can go up in the space in the time of approximately eight days.

After Apple Amazon Also Joins the $1 Trillion Club

amazon
Image Source: marketwatch.com

It is quite difficult to believe that once a non-profit online bookstore, that was founded in a small garage, has hit the $1 trillion mark in business, after 21 years. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is one of the biggest beneficiaries of Amazon’s growth and under his leadership, Amazon has become the second tech company that has hit the $1 trillion valuations.

Noticeably, Amazon valued $600 billion in January 2018, and in just 165 days of trading, it has joined the 1 trillion club, as the second member, just after Apple. In the past, Jeff Bezos has done a few massive investments that have led Amazon to reach this position. In the beginning, Amazon was an online bookstore but now it has its hand in various other fields too.

Amazon has excelled in AI and has acquired a pharmaceutical store PillPack for $1 billion. It has revolutionised the way of shopping and its retail unit has added a lot of revenue to its growth. The main contributing industry that has helped Amazon to achieve the $1 trillion mark is AWS. The Amazon Web Services has been contributing as of 65% to the company’s growth, providing a $25 billion in revenue annually. Also, its fastest-growing ad business has generated $2 billion in quarterly sales recently.

No wonder that Amazon has become the number one retailer in the US that captures nearly half of all U.S. dollars spent online. Some analysts have even mentioned that soon Amazon can overtake Apple if it keeps growing at such pace.

Twitter is Preparing to Roll Out New Features Presence & Threading

twitter
Image Source: bgr.in

Facebook, Instagram and many other social media platforms have included the status feature to their inbox that shows if the user is currently active or not. Facebook also allows the user to choose between showing its status to its followers or not.

On 1 September 2018, Jack Dorsey the CEO of Twitter also talked about some new features like Presence, to be added to Twitter, through one of his tweets. He wrote, “Playing with some new Twitter features: presence (who else is on Twitter right now?) and threading (easier to read convos)”.

As he has talked about Presence and Threading, it clearly shows that those two features are somewhat similar to the Facebook’s Messenger’s features. With Presence, you will be able to see all the online users and you can easily engage with them. Also, Threading will help you follow or stick to a particular thread of conversation, in an easier way as compared to the current embed and click-through method.

Most of the Twitter users have given positive feedback to the threading feature as they mentioned that with the present thread it is difficult to go through all the tweets using the @reply and is a bit annoying. But, most of the users disliked the Presence feature as showing the other users the online status can be disturbing. Upon which the Twitter’s head of product Sara Haider replied, “would definitely want you to have full control over sharing your presence.”

It means that the user will be able to update its status according to one’s will. According to Dorsey’s tweet, Twitter is only performing the test right now and he has not mentioned the particular date when the new features will roll out on Twitter.