Sleep deficit is one of the major problems we are facing. And why does not technology provide a way to have a better sleep? ResMed has take this question seriously and worked out in this direction. The output of this is the product that enhances sleep, called ResMed S+.
ResMed S+ Sleep Tracking system
ResMed S+ Sleep Tracking system
There are many other sleep tracking systems available but, ResMed S+ is the first contactless sleep tracking system. S+ starts its working by analysing the environment of the room you sleep. It suggests the effective ways to improves your sleep based upon the environment. It syncs with your smartphone for interaction.
Relax and Clear:
The ResMed S+ comes with sounds designed in specific to sync your hobbies like breath of your sleep, which helps you fall asleep very easily. "Mind Clear" is the feature of ResMed S+ for recording the to-do list from your smartphone, and allows you to have better sleep, without prioritising tomorrow before your sleep.
S+ Environment analytics
S+ Environment analytics
Score and improve:
After collecting the details like gender, age and working hours, ResMed S+ records your sleep and compares them against the scientific numbers. You can verify your sleep score after you wake up and opt for better sleeping activity. Also, S+ senses your breath and physical movements.
Monitor and rise:
There are four stages of sleep - Sleep onset, Light sleep, Deep sleep and REM. S+ tracks your sleep with these four stages and provides you a feedback. It prepares a personalised sleep chart, which is suggested by experts for a given gender and age group. S+ is capable of setting an alarm based on your sleep activity, instead of awaking you in the middle of nowhere.
S+ Sleep analytics
S+ Sleep analytics
Technology of ResMed S+:
S+ measures the movements of the subject using ultra low power radio waves. The working of S+ is very similar to that of the echo location mechanism bats use. S+ transmits radio pulses at a frequency 10.5GHz and calculates the position of the subject based upon the echo received. Except human body, almost the objects like blankets and beds are transparent to these radio pulses.
ResMed has patented a special sensor called SleepSensor that monitors the sleep of a given subject, without contacting the subject. And the proprietary software from ResMed performs different analytics on your sleep and provides you the feedback.
ResMed S+ - The Sleep tracking and improvement system for insomniacs
ResMed claims that S+ starts working and improving the sleep from day one. Either you have a better sleep or you suffer from a sleep disorder with S+. And the advantage of S+ in the context of sleep disorders is that it can provide your sleep analytics to the doctor, so that diagnosing becomes easy. The price of ResMed S+ is $130 USD and you can but it here!
July 30, 2017
Recently, Intel has introduced Bat sensor into Cricket for different analyses of the batsman's performance. Now, it time for the technology to move on to the another sport - Golf. Precision putters and state-of-art custom irons are the two major aspects the Golf players wish technology to contribute. With the advancements in wearable technologies for sports, especially for Golf, the acquisition of data analytics has reached to a whole new level. The players may be either professional golfers or simply recreation players, the wearable technology for Golf can provide a better understanding towards the game and the analytics.
Wearable technology in Golf for real-time swing analytics
Wearable technology in Golf for real-time swing analytics
The Limits of Equipment:
The companies holding Golf teams usually introduce new club heads and shafts that are lighter, stronger and more aerodynamic than the previous ones. These clubs help the players to play a perfect game with the enhancements - designed with bigger "sweet sports". Technically speaking, the conventional usage of clubs do not give fruitful result to the game.
The best drivers I’ve ever used have come out in the last six months. There are just so many more options than ever before. - Brian LoGrasso, the manager of the Edwin Watts Golf Superstore.
On the other hand, the Golf balls have also new methods of construction - multi-layered construction that helps the ball to fly high and straight. All of these enhancements help the professionals experience a better game.
Big Data on the Driving Range:
The advanced command center helps the players to gather and analyse the real-time performance of a player over a tour, for every individual swing. At the end of the course, the player can view different parameters of their play - stroke distance, stroke trajectory etc.
The data doesn’t lie. It shows a golfer’s tendencies in different situations. Our data shows that 94 percent of golfers under-club. Most golfers hit the club they chose well, but still come up short. That’s because they had the wrong club selection. - John McGuire, CEO of Game Golf.
A Digital Caddy and Coach:
The best resource a Golf professional can opt for is a caddy. A caddy can advise and motivate a player based upon the previous experiences with other caddies.
New products like Garmin Approach can, literally, replace a caddy. Garmin Approach is a smart watch that uses GPS to track the ball with respect to the hole. It also consists of more than 40,000 courses for different maps.
Garmin Approach 6S smart watch
Garmin Approach 6S smart watch
The Garmin Approach 6S is available at a price of $350 USD. The high end Garmin Approach smart watches come with enhanced analytics that help the player to shape up the game paly. There are other smart watches available like Swingbyte that is more into real-time analytics of the play, including the angle of swing and analysing what's wrong with the angle with respect to the play.
July 30, 2017
With technology, the world is getting smarter. There are no limitations to turn a device into a smart device. Simply, for a device being smart means to be able to connect to other devices without a physical medium - wireless communication - that helps the device to be autonomous. Smartphones, smart homes, smart buildings, smart vehicles, smart speakers and now, Smart ships or smart cruises are joining the list!
MSC Meraviglia smart cruise
MSC Meraviglia smart cruise
It is as easy as you may missing the route of your journey on road as that of a voyage. To address the navigation for on-road journey, we have smart cars and for a voyage, smart ships hold good solution. MSC Meraviglia is a cruise ship that seems like a small city on water, with 19 decks filled with different facilities like cabins, restaurants and attractions. This is all the physical appearance of the cruise.
Moving on to the "smartness" of the cruise, it is equipped with more than 4,000 sensors and 144 digital screens to allow access to the passengers with a simple wristband. These displays also help the passengers get every detail of their voyage - location of the cruise in the sea, climatic conditions, menus of different restaurants on the cruise etc.
Seaworthy Tech Features:
Carnival Cruise Line is a Miami-based cruise line. Its reputation is all about being the largest cruise line in the world. In Consumer Electronic Show 2017 (CES 2017), Carnival has introduced revolutionary cruise smart wrist band, which helps the user for multiple purposes on board. Children can be located by their parents with the GPS tracking system of the band. The band allows the passengers even to pay for the purchases on board. Simply, it acts as a guide to the passengers during the voyage.
Read more: Microsoft AI for Earth program.
Swiss line MSC Cruises has built Meraviglia to provide world class smart voyage to their passengers. The other technologies on the cruise are Virtual Reality (VR) Formula 1 racing simulators, a 4D cinema and a promenade ceiling covered by the largest LED dome at sea, projecting an ever-changing digital sky. These features enhance the experience of the passengers. More than tipping money for the journey, passengers can make memories with such astonishing feature.
Boat to the future:
While other cruises are still working to achieve such features, Meraviglia has already equipped them!
This is only the starting point. We will be able to further evolve toward a more personalised experience powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide information to each guest relevant to where they are and what time of day it is. - Pronzati.
Along with these technologies, MSC is working to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Face recognition technology, to still enhance the voyage experience to the users. With the help of AI, the crew of the cruise can speak to the passengers in which ever language they're comfortable in. MSC for Me is the app that supports MSC to achieve all of these smart features with the smart wrist band. With the Face recognition technology, MSC will be capable of eliminating the smart band also.
Read more: Next generation Artificial Intelligence. 
MSC Meraviglia smart band
MSC Meraviglia smart band
On the other hand, MSC is planning to accommodate real-time VR experiences to the passengers. With VR, the passengers can gain more information about the places they are going to visit or they've visited without the help of any guide. MSC is also working on a GPS system that allows the passengers to locate them on maps. Though there are several challenges faced in this context, researches are still going on in this direction.
Read more: Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality through 5G.
Bon Voyage!
July 29, 2017
Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) is the part of Microsoft that takes care of security in Microsoft products. As a part of MSRC bug bounty program, Microsoft announces bounty for every quarter. MSCR is one of the Microsoft's longstanding strategies for better security to the Microsoft applications.
Microsoft Bug Bounty Program ranging from $5,000 to $250,000
Since 2013, Microsoft has been launching bounties under different features and versions of Windows OS. As a part of the MSRC bug bounty program, Microsoft has announced a bug bounty ranging from $5,000 to $250,000 USD with the target Microsoft Hyper-V.
MSRC Bounty Program highlights
MSRC Bounty Program highlights
Bounty payout ranges by MSRC
Bounty payout ranges by MSRC
Read more: Google Bug bounty of $200,000 USD.
July 29, 2017
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most rapidly emerging fields in the recent times. Deep learning has taken computer vision to he next level. Over few years in the past, research has been answering many of the most challenging aspects of AI. Though deep learning has achieved so much through Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), there are two major challenges face by the deep learning approaches - they require heavy samples of data for training and a kind of compute that not responsive to the general purpose architectures. Certain firms have designed their own architecture versions that are capable of computing the data for DNNs.
Microsoft's Second gen HoloLens HPU comes with AI coprocessor
HoloLens comes with a Holographic Processing Unit (HPU), that processes the data collected from the sensors. The HoloLens has different kinds of sensors - head tracking sensors, Microsoft's custom time-of-flight depth sensor, infrared camera and the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). With all these sensors equipped on-board, Microsoft HoloLens stands as the fully self-contained holographic computer.
Read more: AI for Earth by Microsoft.
Harry Shum is the executive vice president of Microsoft's AI R&D group. On 23rd July, Harry has announced that the next generation HoloLens is under development at the conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) 2017. He has also mentioned that this iteration of HoloLens will be equipped with AI co-processor for the HPU primary processor. Also, at the event, Harry has illustrated the prototype of the next gen HoloLens.
Read more: Microsoft Smart Grids.
The are many application specific implementations of the AI co-processor for HoloLens. One of them is to keep the HoloLens running, even though the HoloLens battery is off. A similar approach is being implemented in Microsoft's Mixed Reality (MR) applications.
The AI co-processor is designed to work in the next version of HoloLens, running continuously, off the HoloLens battery. This is just one example of the new capabilities we are developing for HoloLens, and this is the kind of thinking you need if you’re going to develop mixed reality devices that are themselves intelligent. Mixed reality and artificial intelligence represent the future of computing, and we’re excited to be advancing this frontier. - Harry Shum at CVPR 2017.
Read more: Microsoft's Fluent Design. 
July 28, 2017
Internet of Things - The trend that technology is running after. Connected devices, connected vehicles (C-V2X), smart homes, smart buildings and the list goes on - all of these are possible through IoT. Experts are estimating that more than 26 billion devices will be connected to IoT by 2020. This article lists the top IoT devices that will walk along with you into the future.
Top 10 IoT device trends to come along with you into the future
1. Gesture control armband:
The Gesture control armband allows the user to control technology just with the help of various hand movements, through wireless medium. Communication to the smart device through the Gesture control armband is achieved in three phases - sensing the electrical activity of muscles, recognising the motion of the hand and transmitting it to the smart device. The instructions are perceived by ElectroMyoGraphic (EMG) sensors, where these sensors are capable of sensing the electrical activity of muscles. The motion of the hand is recognised by gyroscope and accelerometer. The instruction received through both of these methods is transferred to the smart device to process and serve the purpose either with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth communication. Myo Alpha and Myo are the two gesture control armband models launched by Myo.
Myo Gesture control armband
Myo Gesture control armband
These devices are not integrated with IoT. Myo is working on integrating IoT to these devices in order to achieve better results and user experience. Once these devices are integrated with IoT capabilities, the user can literally measure the activity performed daily.
2. Smart speakers:
Qualcomm is completely immersed into working with smart devices; Smart speakers is one of them. With Smart speakers installed into a home, the user can experience complete music. The speakers can be operated using any connected smart device - be it a smartphone or a tablet. The environment can be set in such a way that the user can synchronise all the speakers to play single track or multiple tracks based upon the requirement.
Smart speakers
Smart speakers
Internet of Technology for Smart speakers helps the users to play music based upon the mood and the audience available in the given environment. This enhances the user experience with music.
Read more: Qualcomm's Smart speakers.
3. Zigbee Connected light:
Connected light is the technology that helps users to save energy efficiently by providing a "smart" way to control the lighting devices in the home. Zigbee is the alliance that was founded in 2002 to work on the same. Zigbee is the language of connected lighting in homes. Zigbee allows the users control the lighting devices using single smart device. It lets the users control every device individually with a smart device. The network formed by these connected light devices is called Light connected network. When IoT is enabled to such technologies, the way we conserve and consume energy can be improved a lot.
Zigbee Connected Light
Zigbee Connected Light
4. Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS): 
Road safety is one of the major challenges of mankind. ADAS is a way to provide road safety. The ADAS consists of different sensors - RADAR, night vision devices, LIDAR, cameras, ultrasonic and Photonic Mixer Device (PMD). All of these sensors provide safe on roads through sensing the road along with the surroundings. With ADAS and IoT together, is capable of creating best possible safety on roads to the users. This results in reduced traffic and road accidents. In simple words to say, all the vehicles come onto roads in an effectively controlled manner to avoid side-effects of traffic.
Example ADAS Sensors
Example ADAS Sensors
5. Smart buildings:
Smart buildings is the next big thing that can leap the lifestyle far forward. A smart building is a connected space that collects user data based upon daily activities through sensors. This data is uploaded to the cloud for analytics and the user is notified based up on the analytics. Sensors can be outfitted on building equipment such as building information management systems (BIMS), smart lighting, BEMS, facilities management systems, building security systems, elevators, furniture, walls and windows, and more.
Smart buildings
Read more: Smart buildings.
6. Smart home:
Qualcomm has introduced Mesh Networking Platform that replaces the conventional Wi-Fi router with a new Wi-Fi gear. The major advantage of this Wi-Fi gear is that it is very easy to install and almost covers connectivity to the home entirely. The router can also be synchronised to cloud using IoT. This Wi-Fi gear also support voice assistance, as it has become one of the basic parameters of being smart. Communication with every smart device, voice assistance and access across wide device are the three major features of Smart home.
Smart home
Smart home
Read more: Qualcomm Mesh network platform for smart home.
7. Smart Glass:
Smart Glass, unlike the preceding devices, is driven towards the health of the users. Water consumption is one of the activities that helps perfect metabolism of humans. Sometimes in a busy and sometimes involved in some activity, we neglect consuming water. The smart glass reminds the user to consume water and keep up the body metabolism. The demand and supply of fresh water are not meeting each other. Hence, water should be used with caution. Except for sensitive applications, usage of fresh water is to optimised. With IoT capability through  Smart Glass, water for consumption and other uses can be separated, which ultimately results in water conservation.
Smart Glass
Smart Glass
8. Pulse Oximeter:
Oximeter, as the name suggests, is used to measure the level of oxygen in body. It is considered to be a non-invasive, painless, general indicator of oxygen delivery to the peripheral tissues. IoT integrated with Oximeter helps several major advancements in medicine. The analytics help the scientists to figure out the root causes for different diseases.
Pulse Oximeter
Pulse Oximeter
9. Connected vehicles:
Connected vehicles is another major sector of IoT applications. A city can be made systematic based upon the statistics collected from different ways people choose to drive. Connected vehicles, just like ADAS, helps to reduce on-road mishaps. This revolution has finally led to Cellular Vehicle to everything connectivity (C-V2X).
Connected vehicles
Connected vehicles
Read more: Connected vehicles through C-V2X.
10. IoT in agriculture:
As the global population is increasing, the demand and supply for food is not being balanced. With the intervention of IoT, farmers can get the insight of different factors like climate, moisture of the soil etc. Also, the insights based upon type of soil and season can help farmers conserving the land for different seasons for different season-based crop.
Smart Agriculture
Smart Agriculture
Read more: Digital Agriculture.
July 27, 2017
"Connected World" is the word that we are coming across in the recent times. But, there is still more to know about the term "Connected". Gradually, we are moving into a world where every thing is connected to every other thing - be it smartphone connected to you home theatre, a table connected to smart TV or even a smart home that can be operated by your smart watch! There are innumerable applications of connected devices. This article is specific to yet-another connected technology called Cellular Vehicle-to-everything technology; in short, C-V2X, where 'X' represents everything.
Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology for Connected World
Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology for Connected World
The V2X technology, as the name suggests, connects your vehicle to everything. The objective of V2X technology is to provide accident-free, eco-friendly and more predictable and productive travel to the users along with more efficient, more enjoyable driving experience. The characteristics of the C-V2X vehicles are:

  • Highly secured
  • Highly intelligent
  • Always connected
  • Incresingly autonomous
  • Increasingly electric (or hybrid)

Always-connected vehicle of the future
Always-connected vehicle of the future
When talking about the V2X vehicles, we can classify their capabilities into two categories - Heterogeneous connectivity and On-device intelligence.
Read more: Microsoft's connected vehicle platform.
Heterogeneous connectivity includes the capabilities of communication to everything, Connected infotainment, Wireless EV charging, Real-time navigation, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connectivity and Cellular connectivity. On the other hand, on-device intelligence includes the capabilities of intuitive instrumentation, immersive multimedia, augmented reality, always-on sensing, computer vision and machine learning.
Part of rich roadmap of technologies
Part of rich roadmap of technologies
The V2X connectivity gives vehicles the capability to communication with each other. For instance, suppose that you are about to hangout for a long drive. Imagine, a single touch on your smartphone you will get the route to your destination on your maps, traffic updates over the route, your playlist will be updated based upon the weather, the condition of your will be popped up and finally signals the location of your car keys! How comfortable it is! This is what the purpose of V2X technology is.
Read more: Is 5G really better than 4G?
Cellular V2X (C-V2X):
C-V2X is the unified connectivity platform for connected vehicles that operates on LTE. Upon the availability of 5G commercially, the mode of communication will be upgraded. The C-V2X defines two complementary transmission modes - Direct communications and Network communications.
Flexible 5G network architecture also brings benefits
Flexible 5G network architecture also brings benefits
Characteristics of Direct communication:
Built upon LTE Direct device-to-device design with enhancements for high speed, low latency, high density and improved synchronization.

  • Proximal direct communication over hundreds of meters separation
  • Latency-sensitive use cases like V2V safety
  • Operates both in- and out-of-coverage

Characteristics of Network communication:
Messages over the network can either be broadcast or unicast from V2X server to vehicles.

  • Wide area network communications
  • More latency tolerant use cases like V2N situation awareness
  • Leverages existing LTE networks

Challenges faced by V2X communication:
High relative speeds - The V2X communication cannot be implemented effectively with the vehicles are moving with high relative speeds. This is one of the biggest challenges, as speed is one of the major objectives of the means of transport (vehicles).
High node densities - The V2X communication becomes ambiguous when the number of vehicles in a given location/region is high.
Read more: VR & AR through 5G communication.
Time synchronizatoin - Time synchronization is a major factor in case of devices out-of-coverage.
C-V2X designed for both in-coverage and out-of-coverage
C-V2X designed for both in-coverage and out-of-coverage
Qualcomm is one of the firms working on connected devices and connected vehicles.
Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive solutions
Qualcomm Snapdragon automotive solutions
All the LTE communication devices are subjected to be replaced with 5G devices upon the availability of 5G commercially.
Read more: 5G is not just about smartphones.
July 26, 2017
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are two distinct experiences, built on very similar underlying technologies. The performance of both AR and VR depends upon the network. Though the 4G networks provide high data rates, the data rates required by AR and VR are not completely achieved through 4G; latency and capacity are the major problems faced by 4G communication with respect to VR and AR.
Read more: 5G is more than communication for smartphones!
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality through 5G communication
Capacity:
The way we want to experience videos has changed a lot over years. The next generation videos come with high resolutions like 4k and 8k, with 360 degrees coverage and high framerates. Videos meeting all these characteristics result in huge size files. Through 4G communication, such high resolution videos cannot be streamed smoothly; to be particular, VR or AR can provide the intended experience to the user through 4G. Hence, 5G comes into rescue that can provide much higher datarates in comparison with 4G. The peak datarate of 5G communication is expected to be 20Gbps where as the datarates at cell edges to be 100Mbps.
The bandwidth requirements for streaming various visual content
The bandwidth requirements for streaming various visual content
Latency:
Latency is a major factor that affects the experience of users with VR and AR. For the videos like 360-degrees, latency is not an issue. Such videos are "static" in nature. But, this is not the case in VR or AR videos. These videos are almost "dynamic" in nature. Once a user starts streaming a VR video, these should not be a pause for buffering, which kills the user experience with VR. The 5G communication is capable of providing such flawless experience to the users.
Network topology of 5G communication for least possible latency
Network topology of 5G communication for least possible latency
Read more: Huawei's TAC-2020 based on Tactile interent.
The 5G latency can be broken down into three network topologies - Public cloud to device, Telco cloud to device and Telco edge to device. The latencies of these toplogies are very less when compared to the 4G communication - 50ms to 100ms, 20ms to 50ms and 1ms to 2ms, respectively.
Capacity vs Latency
Capacity vs Latency
High mobility:
Mobility of human beings affects on communication. When the user is using smartphones for data streaming, mobility plays a major role in communication. Suppose that a hand-off occurred when a user is playing an online VR game. This results in the disturbance in the game and finally affects the user experience. When compared with 4G, 5G is very less affected by hand-offs. Though the user is moving with speeds higher than normal speeds, this is not going to affect the data streaming of the user.
Mobility in 5G
Mobility in 5G
5G communication is not just about mobile communication as 4G did. It is a mode of communication. Unlike 4G, 5G is going to serve every aspect of communication to provide an always-connected environment to the user. With IoT and AI, 5G plays a major role in connecting devices and humans. The part of 5G communication in smart devices is to the maximum extent. In the automobile industry, with the invent of automotive vehicles integrated with IoT and AI, 5G communication can efficiently serve the purpose, when compared to 4G communication.
Read more: Is 5G really better than 4G?
July 25, 2017
We are now living in a data-driven world. When we don't understand something in our studies, we have lot of websites providing respective data. When we are not updated with the release date of our favourite movie, we just surf through the movie websites like IMDB. We can get the recipes of our favourite dishes even in the text format or in the video format. Need a scholar explanation, we have scholar articles available. Whatever, wherever and whenever we are able to access required data just with single touch and sometimes, with single vocal instruction. Data is available over the internet and we just need to use that for our purpose. This article presents you the prominent five ways that data is changing the world and technology around us.
Five ways data is changing the world and technology around us
1. Connecting People and Societies:
The best example to start with the influence of data over connecting people and societies is the social media. Before the intervention of social media, communication between people was very limited. When social media started expanding its roots into the society, people became closer. Every individual is able to connect, share, chat and view other irrespective of the geography. On the other hand, social media has become a platform for generating revenue for lot of people.
With the help of different metrics collected from the social media, the firms are able to display precise ads to the users. This has drastically diminished the redundancy in reaching target people for a product. This helped to carry out efficient and effective business that is highly satisfying the customers.
Connecting People and Societies
Alongside social media, the way data is communicated over smart phones and other means of communication is keeping up people connected and to be available within fraction of seconds. This enhanced communication media is helping in the cases of emergency, which is the major advantage of data. Though there are several disadvantages, these are overshadowed by the extent of advantages we gain.
2. New ways to Measure, Manage and Control:
To be precise, IoT is the best example to objectify three parameters measurement, management and control. Suppose that a device is connected to the cloud through IoT, every activity of the device is registered and analyzed by the cloud, producing insights if the activity is repeated. The parameters affecting the repeated occurrence of the activity can be measured. Once measured and found that it needs any management, it can be managed either at the resource level or at the production level. The activity can be controlled based upon the necessity of the individual. Data stored improves transparency and a perfection for a given activity.
New ways to Measure, Manage and Control
We have many other sources of data - CC cameras, PCs we use etc; in simple words to say, every electronic device is capable of generating data, including toys for kids. From the age of managing huge physical libraries, we have migrated to minute storage capable of storing volumes of libraries.
3. A profound way to search:
As mentioned earlier, we are able to store data in minute storage devices. Hence, we can search the data we need efficiently. With the help of simple keywords, we can fetch the information we need within seconds. When compared to the previous methods of searches, the mode of search and representation of data fetched for a search has changed drastically. On the other hand, the generation of data in past decade is more than that of the entire data generated by mankind in last century. Hence, there is need of efficient ways to search data that matches the context and pointed towards the requirement. Though the data is being gathered in huge chunks, we are capable of accessing required data even with handheld devices like smartphones and tablets.
A profound way to search
4. Activity Automation by Machines:
Do you know that every single activity on your PC is being recorded? You know or not, it is done; even your mouse click and key press. The same way, data related to every single process on your PC will also be recorded. All these activities are stored in the special files called logs, which are automatically generated. Suppose that your PC has generated one thousand logs over a session of PC usage. Extrapolate the forever-power-on servers storing the logs. These logs are generated automatically from the instant when a computer powers up.
Activity Automation by Machines
Activity Automation by Machines
Servers and remote machines are not maintained by human beings, instead these are automated based upon the logs. For example, if a server gets more than the threshold number of requests from single IP, the IP is blocked to access the particular server. This is done by automation of servers through security policies. So many such security measures are taken care based upon the logs generated.
5. Enabling New Discoveries:
With data acquisition, there has been several patterns discovered, about different sectors. These patters are now helping in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Deep learning enables machines to scan thousands of medical reports to convert raw data from structured data that helps the doctors to accelerate studying diagnostics. On the other hand, the study of climate patterns has been useful in taking care of people during floods and natural hazards. Statistics collection in the fields like business has discovered many trends that people really are interested in. Data insights over past two decades helped to pave path to different sectors of society.
Enabling New Discoveries
Enabling New Discoveries
Read more: Data Age 2025.
July 24, 2017
California is called Salad bowl of the world. The very first generation of California tech pioneers haven't worked to develop a technical strategy for the coming generations; they've struggled to "integrate" farming and technology. Salinas is still the place for innovation in agricultural technology - implementing cloud computing, robotics and IoT for farming. The farmers in California use laptops and smartphones to track the progress through wireless communication. This gave the farmers an efficient way to unleash the potency of the land for better productivity. 
Technology in farming
Western Growers is the trade group that represents farmers in California, Arizona and Colorado, which is represented by Hank Giclas. In his opinion, the shift from wired form of communication to that of wireless has held great advantage in the overall production.
One of the most fundamental shifts has been wireless access to the Internet and the cloud. It gives farmers much greater insight into their operations, and they’re able to find efficiency and optimize like never before. I’m really interested in the rapid shifts in sensing technology. There’s a whole new wave of precision farming that’s coming to the fresh produce sector through sensor technology, and we need to sort that out. - Hank.
They are farming with the help of the sensors that measure different parameters affecting the crop. These parameters include precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, sunshine and wind. These parameters help the farmers to provide fertilisers to the crop in accurate quantities, that does not affect the quality of the farm. With the help of IoT, the farmers can estimate other factors or discover new factors that affect the crop. They can design the usage of fertilisers (whether natural fertilisers or chemical fertilisers) over a period of crop for better productivity.
Digital farming
As the climate and the natural resources in California support farming throughout the year, the crop can be yielded all the time. Utilising the drones to monitor the crop, automation for crop extraction and robotics for certain advantages have been a new trend that Western Growers have been following in the recent times.
Ag Solutions for 21st Century:
Ag Tech clusters are working on the challenges faced by farming through technology. The world population is expected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, the entire population needs to be fed. In Israel the Agricultural Research Organisation (ARO) is working on farming from deserts. As of now, ARO is mainly concentrated on water conservation with respect to the climatic changes, sustainability and food safety.
July 23, 2017
Information Security has been under rigorous instability due to the recent security breaches, leaving different sectors into chaos. Suppose that the IT department is capable of simply eliminating the infected sections of the network. The new software and hardware rollout from Cisco features more than this capability. Deploying IoT and handling security threats are the major challenges of traditional networks being answered by the software-driven networking approach Cisco's Digital Network Architecture (DNA).
Cisco DNA
Cisco DNA
The DNA comes with wide range of capabilities - Cloud Service Management, Automation, Analytics, Virtualization, and DNA-ready Physical and Virtual Infrastructure. The features of DNA are:

  1. Automation of network - Provide business transformation and scalability simply by automation across the network.
  2. Lower WAN cost - Lower the cost incurred for WAN applications by consistent performance, security and reliability of a network.
  3. Predictable performance - Increase performance by providing wide range of troubleshooting tools with machine learning to deliver accurate insights.
  4. Detect and mitigate threats - Address security loopholes and breaches in a network including encrypted traffic analytics (ETA).

DNA Software Capabilities
DNA Software Capabilities
The Cisco's new Software Defined Access (SDA) allows the users to restrict the access to unauthorised data, which prevents most of the security breaches. Conventionally, this restriction was held by the management of a firm manually. Scentsy is one of the customers gaining advantage of the Cisco's software-driven DNA and many other firms are on list to collaborate with Cisco in network security.
Once you can do segmentation based on users, not just an IP address, and a user can log in from anywhere on any device- It goes from, ‘I wish, but it will never happen, to we can do that tomorrow. - Kevin Tomkins, network architect at Scentsy.
With DNA, the networks, essentially, has the capability of gaining contextual knowledge, which help the network admins to set security policies and customize them. With DNA, the hardware-driven networks can be converted into software-driven networks, with the added advantages of automation, built-in security and the capability to convert network data into business insights. Cisco is working hard on DNA for further features so that application developers can be provided with the APIs to work with!
Featured products compatible with DNA
Featured products compatible with DNA

July 23, 2017
New hyperlocal air quality monitoring technologies help people find ways to breath fresh.
According to the reports by WHO (World Health Organization), seven millions people are dying due to the health risks caused by air pollution. In the cities where population is polarized, the quality of air has been deteriorating drastically due to unsustainable policies in transportation, energy, industry and waste management.
Smart cities
The quality of air is measured by the factor called Air Quality Index (AQI), which can be figured out at Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) stations. But, the limited number of AQMs are unable to provide necessary statistics about the quality of air at a given place. As the technology is advancing, and so do the methods of acquiring data about the quality of air. 
The new system to measure the AQI is based on the IoT and electrochemical sensors. These technologies monitor the quality of air by analyzing the characteristics like pollution, pollens and toxin contained by the environment in a given region. This accurate information helps in understanding the root cause and preventive measures of several lung disorders in the people. With this system, people can take necessary actions, when they realize that the QAI is not optimum in their locale.
People might say, ‘I’m not going to travel there today and expose myself to that substance. People planning vacations might decide ‘I want to go to Nashville or Louisville but that’s a bad area for my specific condition. Instead, I’ll go somewhere else. - Dr. Catherine Grossman, associate professor of internal medicine and pulmonary disease at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine.
Challenges faced by the current AQMs:
There are several challenges faced by the current AQMs. These systems are neither portable nor scalable. Also, they cannot project real-time data to the authorities. Suppose that the QAI has fallen down at a given location. It takes three to four hours by the time the authorities get updated with the issue. Hence, it results in loss, which is addressed by the new and updates systems.
Pollution-free smart cities
New systems to measure AQI:
The new AQM systems measurements include a new parameter called Particulate Matter (PM) along with the current parameters pollen, chemical pollution and other toxins. These systems measure all of the four parameters in terms of city blocks rather than large regions that the current AQMs do. The new systems have upgraded to measure the pollution in terms of part per billion (ppb) instead of the conventional parts per million (ppm). 
With the new systems connected to the IoT, the data acquisition and analyzing will be very easy. Also, the authorities can be updates with the quality of area over several blocks of a city on real-time basis. The new generation AQI tools are capable of collecting hyperlocal data so that the people can schedule their activities based upon the QAI to be least affected by air pollution.
As a part of erecting smart cities, Bosch has introduced Micro-Climate Monitoring System (MCMS), which is under real-time testing in New Delhi, Oakland and California. With the MCMSs, the builders, city planners, factory owners and other branches related to geographical development of a city can specify the areas where it safe for civilians to reside in order to live a pollution-free life. This is how scientists are reinventing cities as "Smart Cities".
Bosch’s Micro-Climate Monitoring System (MCMS)
Bosch’s Micro-Climate Monitoring System (MCMS)

July 23, 2017
World's first "talkie" film was released almost 90 years ago in October 1927. The talkie part of the movie immersed the audience into a new experience. From then, the audio experiences has undergone many revolutionary advancements and enhancements through analog audio to digital audio, DTS, Dobly ATMOS etc. All these paradigms in acoustic experiences to the audience are restricted to 2D stereoscope. With Dolby ATOMS, the audience the audience can experience the "surroundedness" of a visual experience.
3D Audio
Here comes the new Binaural 3D, through which the audience can experience the relativity dimension in the audio. When compared to the conventional stereo audio, the Binaural 3D audio is more authentic to our ears and more into the audio. With the 3D audio, the acoustics of a scene can be reproduced spatially to, literally, put the audience into the audio. By inserting the 3D audio, the audience can feel the sounds occurring behind them and all around them, with the help of spatial information integrated into the audio.
Comparison with conventional 2D audio and Binaural 3D:
The difference between the conventional 2D stereo audio and the Binaural 3D audio can be clearly understood with an anology. When you are watching a 3D movie, you feel the depth of the video just instead of the flatness of the video. Here, the depths of different objects is different from one another and are "relative" to each other on the time line of their generation. In the same way, the every sound produced in the 3D environment is relative to each other and the new 3D audio differentiates each of these sounds, providing an unbeatable experience to the audience. 
The BINCI Project:
The firms Eurecat, HEAD acoustics GmbH, 3D Sound Labs, Antenna International and Voodoopop have been working on 3D acoustics from years. These five audio firms has formed an association called The BINCI Consortium (BINaural tools for Creative Industries). The efforts of the BINCI project to capture the 3D sounds been difficult and found very expensive. The 3D audio can be captured by equipping a mannequin equipped with microphones, which act as receptors of the sounds in spatial environment. The BINCI Consortium has been working on the tools to capture the 3D audio efficiently using cost effective methods. 
The BINCI Project objectives
The BINCI Project objectives
Once the consortium is able to achieve the goals, the 3D audio will be integrated with Virtual Reality, for a complete new experience to the audience both in visuals and acoustics of a scene. As a beta run of this integrated experience, the BINCI project has planned to unveil this technology in a cultural and heritage sites like Fondació Joan Miró (Barcelona, Spain), Opéra Garnier (Paris, France), and Alte Pinakothek BStGS (Munich, Germany). On these ground, the audience will be the witness to a new era of acoustics. Just in five years from now, the 3D audio is expected to reach out throughout the world, just like flat TVs did in the past. 
July 22, 2017
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