Abhishek Singh, Author at Exhibit Tech

Redeem Vouchers Without Cards & Apps Using e-RUPI

Ache Din Aayenge. Now, I will not get into this foul debate though I hold huge baggage of political knowledge. But you need to appreciate that the way this government is working towards the digitization of financial transactions, it is commendable. There have been a series of attempts – UPI, FASTag, RuPay, etc. And, now the time has come for e-RUPI. With this, India will enhance its financial networking and payment system. On 2nd August, India will get into the e-RUPI mode. What are the features of e-RUPI? Hold on! Wait! Your tech companion – Exhibit will tell you everything from this blog.

Modi Launching e-RUPI

Sometimes I feel as if I can unveil and unleash the poetic quotient in me. So, I thought to start with this heading – Modi launching e-RUPI. Hon’ble PM of India, Narendra Modi, will launch this electronic voucher-based digital payment system. National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) has developed this new payment system in collaboration with the Department of Financial Services, MoH&FW, and the National Health Authority (NHA).

Working Principle of e-RUPI

E-Rupee (shortly, e-RUPI) is a form of the contactless and cashless digital payment system. This e-RUPI will have some sort of SMS string or QR code that mobile beneficiaries will get if they want to redeem vouchers. Remember vouchers? You wait for them to see that you have to pay less for the OTT platforms subscription. Yeah, something like that. But what’s new in it? The best part is that with this new model, you can redeem vouchers without even using your credit or debit card, internet banking, and digital payment app. What? Yes, every word written is true as proclaimed for the compass by Johnny Depp in the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest movie. But how is that possible? Well, to be honest, this platform will directly connect service providers and the sponsor of the services.

Application of E-Rupee

Ever thought about why the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare got linked with this new payment model? It means MoH&FW will tap this system for various health schemes that are running in the country currently. For instance, have a look at the PMJAY scheme or TB eradication scheme. Here some sort of cash transfer is attached. Apart from this, this model of payment can widen its outreach by getting into the private sector, where companies have to work upon the social security end of their employees.

Final Word

E-Rupee can gain a lot of recognition for sure due to its functionality and niche. India has grabbed appreciation for its new form payment models that they have introduced in the past few years. But, it’s just the start, and a lot will depend upon the private sector’s acceptance.

Facebook’s Smart Glass – Another Giant Step

A few days back, we talked about Facebook working upon the virtual reality tool ‘Metaverse.’ But now Facebook is ready to take another giant step. As per the current news, Facebook is going to bring a smart glass in collaboration with Ray-Ban. For many tech geeks, this will be something really amazing. Let’s know more about this news on Facebook’s new smart glasses that they will launch soon with this Exhibit blog.

Zuckerberg On Fire

We always say that when a batsman is hitting some beautiful shots constantly, we say that the batsman is on fire. But, for now, we have to say this for Mark Zuckerberg. The way Zuckerberg is moving is commendable in every aspect. Zuckerberg has announced on Wednesday that they are coming up with a Ray-ban smart glass. For this purpose, Facebook will partner with EssilorLuxottica. However, Zuckerberg has not announced any timeline by when it will release this new product in the market. Facebook has also clearly stated that this smart glass cannot be part of classification under augmented reality. Apart from this, this smart glass may be somewhere between Snapchat’s Spectacles and Amazon’s Echo Frames.

Facebook’s Smart Glass

Facebook’s R&D line is running with a full-fledged series of developments in current times. This smart glass will be part of Facebook Reality Labs’ project. This project will help grab data that will further get used in Facebook’s Aria plan, in which they are thinking of developing their AR smart glasses. This AR smart glass, as per Facebook, is currently in the testing phase.

Smart Glass’s Working Principle

Whatever you see in smart glasses is due to the transmission of light. This transmission of light happens because of the change in voltage, light, or heat when applied. Hence, the glass part changes its character from being transparent to translucent. Smart glass technology allows a wide range of light, including both IR and UV. Smart glasses are categorized under two core categories – active and passive, depending upon the flow of electric charges through them. Both passive and active smart glasses have different functionality depending on this segregation.

Conclusion

Facebook might have found inspiration from WI Cricketer Dwayne Bravo’s ‘Champion.’ As a technology champion, Facebook is partnering with technology like VR and AR. Smart glasses have, as of now, very few stakeholders who are building products in this domain. With Facebook coming into it, it will bolster and give a bigger push on this front.

Snapchat App Crash Issue: An iOS Bug Revolved

Even the wisest scholars have said – Don’t count your chicken before they get hatched. Social media giant Snapchat may have been singing “Top of The World” after witnessing theirs in terms of numbers. Exhibit discussed this Snapchat growth through an article recently. But those numbers are currently screaming for the crashes the Snapchat app is making. Due to this, the Snapchat team had to sit back tight and tried to resolve the issue at the earliest. With this Exhibit blog, we will learn more about the Snapchat app crash issue news that was creating havoc.

Snapchat App Login Issue

On Thursday evening, more than a quarter a million Snapchat users reported the crash issue. This crash was coming every time they tried to open the app on their smartphone. This number of people who registered a complaint triggered an immediate response from the Snapchat team end. They came up with the tweet where they stated they are aware of this issue after users addressed it. The Snapchat app crash issue broke out earlier in June month, especially in the iOS versions. The development team at that moment identified the bug and eliminated it.

Why did the issue of crashing come?

The complaint of the Snapchat app crash issue came out after iPhone and iPad users downloaded the newest update that has arrived. After downloading the latest update, users observed this bug repeatedly every time they tried to open the application on their gadget. Hence, one needs to understand this issue has not come for Android users at all. In Android, the app is working perfectly fine without any tussle. People who are using the beta version of the Snapchat app on their iOS devices have also not faced any issues.

Snapchat Response

The Snapchat support team quickly came with a response and started working on this front. The best part was that the problem got contained within hours to ensure that users have hassle-free usage of this social media application. However, after fixing it, Snapchat doesn’t provide the basic reason behind the crash bug. The reason could be anything. One can say that maybe the application layer was unable to load some essential files at the OS level, due to which the crash was frequently occurring. Whatever issue was there, the most probable grassroots for the bug can be that the latest update was missing something that makes the application compatible with the OS.

Final Word

If you are an iOS gadget lover who was using the Snapchat app and was eager to report the same, you need to know that now you can sing Roy Orbison’s “It’s Over” for sure. Don’t worry, as we are not saying to think about the romantic context, but for your love for the Snapchat app.

Facebook is Building Virtual Reality Tool Metaverse

Om Shanti Om may not be one of the most liked movies by Indians, but some of its dialogues touched hearts, especially those that can motivate people like you. One of them talked about the intent to achieve goals. Intent to move further has helped the world to see new technologies making space in society. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are running at a faster pace at this moment. One of its promoters is Facebook. Facebook is working on the concept of ‘Metaverse’. Let’s know more about this development through this Exhibit blog on Virtual Reality tool ‘Metaverse’.

Buzz Around Virtual Reality Tool – Metaverse

Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has announced that they have set up a different team that will work on Metaverse. Metaverse is the name of the digital space that helps people like you to interact with different gadgets. Hence, you can say that Metaverse is like a virtual environment. Zuckerberg clarified this concept as to where you will feel like you are yourself accessing the internet instead of letting the browser do your work. For Facebook, both VR and AR has been their form of Belt and Road Initiative, in which they are investing heavily for the past few years. Facebook also helped to develop the hardware for Oculus VR headsets and is currently building AR glasses.

More on Virtual Reality tool Metaverse

According to Wikipedia, Metaverse is a virtual space that gets created by converging and bringing virtually enhanced physical reality together. It seems like a user has been immersed in an environment that gets developed by some hardware and software applications. The main idea is that users directly interact with the virtual environment by not feeling that they will approach a software platform. Through this platform, they can directly talk or communicate. It’s as if Dr Brown tried to study the mind of Marty in the movie Back to the Future.

A Basic Example

Let me assume that you are reading this article on your smartphone or tablet. Now, think that some force has taken you inside your gadget. You can see millions of transistors are attached to each one of them through a chip. Now, every time you have to scroll your screen to go down and read this article further. So, you can feel how your electronic gadget is moving the screen down. You will see how some circuits give the view that the screen is moving down to let you read more content.

Final Word

Metaverse has the potential to help the world in many ways. It can surely change the mode of entertainment if it gets integrated with OTT platforms for sure. But, one has to check the timeline it takes or the voyage it makes to come to the surface.

Artificial Intelligence Tool LuminarAI Brings New Update

If you are a selfie geek, you will always like to have the finest smartphone in your pocket that has advanced filters and image editing options to make images glitter more. But, if you ask a professional photographer about these features present in your smartphone, they may call you naive. It’s because a professional photographer has software or application that is like Virat Kohli of image editing in front of your Naseer Jamshed (don’t even hear of it?) Now, please don’t approach a judicial authority as it has undermined your dignity and ego. But now, you must know that these photographers will feel more empowered as one of their favorite platforms, Skylum, is coming up with an update that has inducted an artificial intelligence tool. Through this Exhibit blog, you will get more details related to this news.

Skylum’s Artificial Intelligence Tool – LuminarAI

Skylum has brought the fourth update in their product LuminuminarAIarAI that has a feature named Portrait BokehAI. This new feature will be the biggest attraction point for professional wedding photographers. It is because this feature tried to identify the position of an individual or an entire group. BokehAI can blur the background for the emulation of richness that can come out from the picture to give more focus to such positions. Portrait BokehAI will also help out a photographer like you to add intelligent mask creation to the subjects. Though the boken gets automatically generated or created, the photographer gets full control by editing these pictures using some sliders. Hence, you will have the finest and sophisticated virtual tools to create a masterpiece from the captured snapshots.

How is artificial intelligence helping?

There’s a possibility that developers have added high-end image libraries separately to add these new functionalities to this application. Through these libraries, you can access all the essential values related to the image that you are editing. Now, when you obtain all these parameters, you have the sliders through which you can set a new value or range for the same parameters and attributes. Fetching these values and presenting them to you is possible because of the training of these tools over a dataset. Now the image that you have to edit is like the test data over which the tool performs as per the functionality.

How can you get this update?

Well, if you are already a LuminarAI user, you will get this as a free update. But a lot depends upon the operating system that is loaded in your PC. If it’s macOS, all you need is to launch the LuminarAI application and from the menu bar, select the LuminarAI option and then choose the Check for Updates. It is slightly different in the case for Windows as you can’t see the Check for Updates options from the LuminarAI. For Windows, you will get in the Help window.

Artificial Intelligence Model Will Predict Heatwave Risks

Ahh, AI, then it’s possible. The pace of advancement has rapidly increased after the advent of artificial intelligence. Many tech giants are working with different models to ensure that they bring betterment in that space or domain. Climate disaster has become a burning topic in recent times, considering the way firstly heat waves and then rampant rain came and hit the country. Due to this, there has been a huge loss measured in every front. Every year, you can hear the news that cyclones will hit a specific region or area due to the pressure generated in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian sea. Though a model has been devised for predicting the cyclones, there’s nothing available for heatwave risks. Thankfully, there’s one now! Microsoft has come up with an artificial intelligence model that can do the same. Through this Exhibit blog, you will get finer information.

Artificial Intelligence Model – Sunny Lives

It has been a long time since Little Master and cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar has written “Sunny Days.” But now there’s something new with this word Sunny. Microsoft collaborated with Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society (SEEDS) to develop a new AI model named Sunny Lives. This model will help to predict heatwave risks that may build in the future in India. It is precisely for urban heatwave zones. It was this model which has helped Indians to estimate the arrival of other natural disasters, including floods and cyclones. The team at Microsoft developed this under their flagship program – Artificial Intelligence for Humanitarian Action.

Working Principle of Sunny Lives

This AI model is going to take the help of satellite images and thermal maps of a particular area. Apart from this, the model has accumulated a bulk dataset related to specific urban areas, especially the temperature data. Through this dataset and satellite imagery, the code in the model will work out to find the next estimated period when there will be a huge probability for heatwaves in that dwelling settlement. Accordingly, pre-emptive actions can be taken by the nodal authorities and other concerned organizations to reduce its impact.

Potential of this AI Model

As of now, the administration and weather monitoring agencies in India can use it as a pilot project for the urban areas. Later, one can expand it to the rural areas where climate change has posed severe threats. Crop failure has become a major problem these days. Due to this, there will arise issues related to food security. Food security is no less than a boon for many, considering the current population of this country. Hence, if there is a heatwave prediction, farmers can get assistance in growing drought-resistant crops and other essential measures to deter crop failure. Apart from this, a heat wave prediction can help the administration to work on a water conservation strategy.

Final Word

Admit it or not, but this artificial intelligence model named Sunny Lives is like a blessing that has come to the rescue after seeing the current climate changes in the country. A lot depends on how responsible people will harness and tap it to the fullest to help society.

Tokyo Olympics: Cleaner, Greener & Tech-Rich

Faster. Higher. Stronger. Together. With these golden lines, we witnessed the start of the first Olympics that is getting organized in an odd year, credits to which goes to COVID-19. There’s a lot of expectations attached to the Tokyo Olympics. But, here, Exhibit has come to discuss how technology is influencing this entire Olympics that is going on in the Land of the Rising Sun. Through this article, you will come to know in what domain technology is making its space in the Tokyo Olympics.

Clean Energy Enlightens

After signing the Paris Climate Agreement in the year 2015, many were feeling it as a utopian thought that clean energy can make a huge proportion that too in near times. But, you need to give credit to the Japanese, who have ensured that the Olympics Village in Tokyo gets electricity with the use of solar and wind energy. It means that every stadium is getting whatever power is from the wind that is blowing in the region, in addition to the Sun rays that show the first drop in the country every morning.

Winners Get Old Phones

What? And, will the winners happily accept it? That’s not worth considering the amount of effort they are pouring into every single match to come into the top three positions. Well, all you need is a bit of patience. For the Tokyo Olympics, this time, the medals have been formed by using the old phones. Experts have extracted the essential elements and metals like gold, silver, and copper from old cellular devices to transform them into medals. Through these devices, more than 5000 medals have been created. It depicts the environmental consciousness developed in recent times.

Reduce Reuse & Recycle

The Tokyo Olympics will surely create a legendary benchmark for future generations through which they can learn how to organize events by maintaining sustainable development and judicious use of resources. It’s known for sure that this gala of games will demand a huge number of sporting equipment and other essential gadgets. And, almost 99% of these goods have been made by recycling and reusing.

Driverless Taxis Take Me to the Stadium

Yeah, this will be another technical antique thing present during this Olympics. Many driverless taxis are running at present on the roads of Tokyo that can take you directly to the stadium. All you need is your smartphone, through which you will scan the code present on the doors of these taxis that will open the gate for you and let you get inside.

Hello, Let Me Translate it for You

Many robots installed in the Olympics village will assist in many things like translating the Japanese language into the language that you understand. If you want to bring your grandfather and grandmother to the stadium, who will bring baggage with them, these robots will help them take these bags.

Ohh Drone You Beauty

If you remove the word drone from the heading, you must have heard such statements many times during a cricket match commentary. But this, commentators, will attach such statements with drones. Why? Check the opening ceremony again and see what a bunch of 1800 drones did during the inauguration program. You will surely appreciate it.

Final Word

Technology has formed a perfect blend with the Tokyo Olympics and has clearly indicated what it can do when there is a good intention to serve the society without compromising with sustainable development and mitigating climate change.

Salesforce Acquired Slack: Big News in the CRM Space

Digitization of any business has groomed that particular business. One can observe the same when it comes to day-to-day handling operations 20 years back. Credits for this go to the firms that have developed the ERP & CRM firms. Among them, Salesforce is in the news as it has acquired a firm named Slack at a whopping figure of 27.7 billion USD (2.08 lac Crore). Wow, that’s great. But it becomes important to know why Salesforce took such a step. This Exhibit blog will help you to find out every minute detail and information related to the latest update.

Force that influenced Slack to Become Salesforce

Salesforce announced in the month of December last year that it will acquire Slack for 27.7 billion USD, out of which Slack will receive 26.79 billion USD in cash and the rest as part of Salesforce’s shares. This acquisition finally got completed now in the last few days. This update will surely consolidate both Salesforce and Slack’s position. Many were saying that Slack, which was somewhere losing its importance, has gained its space back again after giving this shock in the slog overs. However, as per some analysts, this deal won’t create a huge tide in the short term as they believe it’s an expensive buy for Salesforce. In addition to this, with this acquisition, Salesforce will gain merely 12 million more customers.

Impact on Rivals

As discussed above, Salesforce has hardly gained 12 million customers of that of Slack; it has to go very far to ensure that bigger giants like Oracle and Microsoft can feel the heat. However, the whopping figure of 27.7 billion $ (2.08 lac Crore) will surely attract some eyes from these competitors. These rivals will also like to see the changes that Salesforce brings soon through their CRM products. Any serious or hi-tech end upgradation can create a dent.

What’s a CRM?

For many, this blog is like a series of bouncers. They might have started complaining that even ODIs and Test Cricket don’t allow more than one or two bouncers in an over. Here’s a basic explanation of CRM. A CRM is like that software that acts as a bridge between industry and a customer like you. Consider that you buy a product from Flipkart. Now, you start getting information related to it from the time of its order. For example, when it is getting packaged, when the courier picks the order, where it has reached, etc. How does it happen? It’s like data getting updated after each process. Flipkart adds every update even when it leaves the warehouse, and accordingly, you get an update about your product.

Final Word

Well, get ready to invest in Salesforce as its stock value is surely going to swell for some time. Start asking your investment manager for their take on this acquisition news.

Nintendo Switch Back With Exciting Deals & Offers

Pandemic and consequent lockdowns have brought many things to a shortage. The dismantling of the supply chain halted many lives. It also happened for the people who turned towards gaming as their alternative during idle time. Nintendo Switch once faced the low-inventory syndrome for a long time during this pandemic period. Now, questions like how it happened and when it happened are out of the debate topics. The good news that is coming out for gamers is that the Nintendo switch will be easily available after primary e-commerce and online retail stores have started keeping this product in bulk. Let’s know more about this latest update through this Exhibit blog.

Nintendo Switch Back into the Market

Many firms like Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, and others have started keeping a bigger stock of Nintendo switch products after a global shortage was witnessed. Hence, you can get wide variants in configurations and colors of this product. Apart from this, you may find lucrative and exciting deals related to the newest version of Nintendo – the Nintendo Switch OLED model.

Where to find these products?

As mentioned above, many online retail and e-commerce websites will help you find your most desired Nintendo console. Among them, the most popular one is Amazon. From Amazon, you can find three memory variants of the Nintendo switch – 64 GB at $314 (INR 23,370/-), 128 GB at $326 (INR 24,263/-), and 512 GB at $344 (INR 25,603/-). There’s hardly any difference in price against the memory upgrade for each variant. If you are thinking of getting the Lite variant of the Nintendo console, all famous platforms can deliver you at a price of $199 (14,811/-). If you think that a concern of quality may arise, you can directly visit the Nintendo website and explore all the products and order them online.

About Nintendo Switch

On UN World Wildlife Day (3rd March) in the year 2017, Nintendo released its new product Nintendo Switch console, worldwide. This wireless console has a Joy-Con controller with standard buttons and analog sticks for directions. This console looks like a highly portable tablet, which means you can connect the same directly to television sets. The best part about this gaming console is that it supports both local and internet connectivity, due to which a supersonic player like you can enjoy online games. In addition to this, Nintendo products are cheaper than PS; many can opt for it and have a power-pack gaming experience for sure.

Snapchat App is Expanding: Fastest Way to Share Moments

Use Signal. This tweet came from Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk when the questions came up to find alternatives to WhatsApp. The Snapchat team must have thought to connect with Elon Musk to know he didn’t take their name. Anyways, let the bygones be bygones. Snapchat has challenged the space of the social media messaging app market through its rapid surge in the past few months. Some reports state that Snapchat now has almost 293 million users. Let’s go through this Exhibit blog to know more on this latest update that has cheered the entire Snapchat app team.

Snapchat App’s Growth in 2020-2021

The news coming out is that Snapchat has added 13 million users in the last quarter, which is quite phenomenal considering the birth of Snapchat in 2017. Through this, Snapchat has registered a growth of almost 23% in its user base from the last year. Snapchat, through this, has surpassed Twitter which has 209 million users as of now. Snapchat has one more surprise for you in terms of its revenue. Yeah, the business of Snapchat is about to touch a billion-mark. Hence, it should raise some concerns for Mark Zuckerburg and Jack Dorsey as with this Snapchat has become a faster-growing business than Facebook and Twitter.

About Snapchat App

The best thing I remember when it comes to Stanford is the power-pack dialogue thrown by Douglas Urbanski in The Social Network movie. Stanford really has the tradition where people come and do something to express their form of innovation. Yeah, three tech nerds from Stanford, Bobby Murphy, Evan Spiegel, and Reggie Brown, developed this messaging charm – Snapchat. The tagline of this app is simply awesome – the fastest way to share a moment. I guess Snapchat was thought to be close to journalism. That’s why they call the messages as snap, somewhere related to a journalist’s scoop. Do you know that by using this social media messaging app, you can become a millionaire? Last year, the Snapchat team announced that they would pay 1 million $ (around 7.4 Crore INR) for posting viral videos.

Conclusion

Maybe this millionaire news has brought so many Snapchat users. But, this growth in the Asian region as Snapchat has more outreach in Europe and America. Snapchat may have accomplished good results, but they are far behind the reputation of other messaging apps. Only time will tell what’s the fate of Snapchat. However, you should think about this a million offer by the Snapchat team.