India Electronics and Semiconductor Association [IESA], the premier trade body, representing the Indian electronic system design and manufacturing space in collaboration with MarketsAndMarkets launched an industry report on – Indian semiconductor fabless startup ecosystemat the this year’s Vision Summit.
The report was launched by Ashwini K Aggarwal, Chairman, IESA; Anilkumar Muniswamy, Director, SLN Technologies Ltd. and Jitendra Chaddah, Chair, Fabless CIG and Senior Director, Strategic Relations and Operations, Intel India on Day 1 of IESA’s annual flagship event – Vision Summit. It has revealed that the Indian semiconductor component market is expected to be worth USD 32.35 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 10.1% between 2018 and 2025.
The inaugural session was presided over by Shri Priyank M Kharge, Honorable Minister for IT, BT and S&T, GoK. Sharing the stage was H.E Ms. Dana Kursh, Consul General of Israel to South India, Sh. Shailendra Tyagi, Director, STPI Bangalore, who addressed the audience on the necessity to refocus on the unbridged talent pool, need for accelerating investment promotions, international alliances, start-up ecosystem and policy implementation to strengthen India’s contributions in Design-led Electronics Manufacturing.
The Vision Summit is a global leadership conclave for the Electronics System Design & Manufacturing [ESDM] industry. This year, the theme is Resurgent India: Electronics, Entrepreneurship and Economy attracted a powerful line-up of industry experts, thought leaders, policy makers, government officials, business and technology experts, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs who shared their views and vision on the future of the ESDM industry as well as the trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the Indian industry.
Ashwini K Aggarwal, Chairman – IESA and Chaddah, Chair – Fabless-CIG-IESA
We are witnessing the rise of a new India with a stable government clearing policy logjams, taking bold decisions and ambitious targets. With digital as the growth hack and aggressive engagement from the government’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, the ESDM industry will benefit and is projected to see investment proposals over $1.5 Bln over next 2 years. We believe that now is the time to build the future of design led manufacturing.
The fabless report clearly highlights the opportunities for the Indian fabless ecosystem. This year’s theme at IESA Vision Summit 2018 is dedicated towards building the industry success by highlighting opportunity areas and addresses the challenges being faced.
Further, during the launch of SFAL and fabless report, Jitendra Chaddah, Chair, Fabless CIG, IESA, and Senior Director, Strategic Relations and Operations, Intel India said
Given the availability of abundant talent and chip design expertise in India, I am very excited about the tremendous opportunity we have to accelerate the semiconductor fabless ecosystem in the country. The SFAL [Semiconductor Fabless Accelerator Lab] announcement by the Govt. of Karnataka in collaboration with IESA and the release of fabless report are going to be key ingredients to enable India in becoming a Design-led Electronics Manufacturing hub in the coming years.
This initiative also reinforces this year’s Vision Summit that is focusing on ‘Resurgent India: Electronics, Entrepreneurship and Economy’, with a vision to tap the opportunities in the ESDM sector.
Highlights from the Indian Semiconductor Fabless Startup report highlights
The key trends identified in the report include; Smart Industrial Automation, Defense and Rural Broadband
It elaborates on the Indian semiconductor design ecosystem; and highlights the various opportunities for major global semiconductor players to consider India as their global R&D destination
It revealed that India is a highly attractive destination for global R&D centers owing to the availability of talent, as well as lower cost [compared with the US and Western Europe]
About India Electronics & Semiconductor Association [IESA]
IESA is the premier trade body representing the Indian Electronics System Design and Manufacturing ESDM industry and has represented it since 2005. It has over 280 members – both domestic and multinational enterprises. IESA is committed towards building global awareness for the Indian ESDM industry and supporting its growth through focused initiatives in developing the ecosystem. This is through publishing credible data, networking events and alliances with other international associations. IESA works closely with the Government as a knowledge partner on the sector, both at the centre and at the state level. For more information, please visit IESA
myGate, a mobile-based security management solution for gated premises, today announced its foray into Hyderabad. In the first 50 days, myGate has already secured 28 gated communities in the city and is rapidly adding many more each week. Hyderabad is the fastest growing market for myGate and the security solution is now present in more than 15,000 flats/villas within various popular gated communities.
The startup has also opened a 15-member strong office in T-HUB, Gachibowli and is looking to secure more than 400 communities in Hyderabad by the end of 2018. Some of the popular communities of Hyderabad where myGate is present are My Home Jewel, Aparna Sarovar, Lodha Bellezea, Rainbow Vistas and many more.
myGate is a mobile-app-based system that offers a simple yet comprehensive solution for gated communities to manage all operations at the entry and exit gates. It does so by digitizing and often automating manual tasks done by the guards. The solution comprises of an Android app for the security guards and an Android or iOS app for residents, with a fallback to a regular voice call for non-smartphone users.
With this system, all visitor entries and exits are approved and logged digitally, with complete visibility and control to the residents. myGate also offers several advanced capabilities such as e-intercom [automatic visitor authentication], child safety alerts, staff attendance, infrastructure-free vehicle management, touchless resident identification, clubhouse access management, management reporting, visitor overstay alerts. The app is easy to use and is hassle free for residents including senior citizens and children.
Hyderabad has been witnessing the rapid development of many apartment/villa complexes with gated communities coming up all over the city. According to the Telangana Social Development report 2017, around 30 per cent of the total urban population in Telangana state resides in the capital city of Hyderabad and most of them prefer living in a gated community. Security at gated communities has long followed conventional ‘man-guarding’, paper and pen system. The process is inefficient and error prone, making the life of security guards difficult.
In addition, authentication of residents, visitors, and support staff is a huge challenge. Despite significant investments in physical infrastructure like access cards, boom barriers, biometrics, landline intercom, and others, residential premises are unable to keep track of domestic helps, visitors, delivery trucks, taxicabs & other vehicle movements.
Apartment complexes in Hyderabad can now deploy the myGate security solution in less than a week without any investment in hardware or any capital expenditure. The security device is provided in a pay as you go pricing model. The startup also provides and manages the training of facility staff, security guards and building association members. The solution can be deployed in a multi-tiered system where there are multiple security checkpoints, viz. at the main gate and at the building gate. myGate also helps manage visitor car parking easily without compromising on the space reserved for other residents.
myGate started its operations in 2016 from Bengaluru and is focussed on securing two million homes across the top 7 cities within the next two years. The startup is backed by a strong founder team comprising of Vijay Arisetty, an ex- IAF pilot [Shaurya Chakra winner], Abhishek Kumar, former VP at Goldman Sachs, Shreyans Daga, an IIT-ISB alumni and Vivaik Bhardwaj, also an ex-IAF Pilot. myGate recently raised a total of INR 16 crore in its first round of funding, led by Prime Venture Partners.
Vijay Arisetty, CEO & Co-founder, myGate, said
The first 50 days in Hyderabad have been extremely exciting for us at myGate. We started operations in Hyderabad in response to a huge inbound demand and it is now growing faster than Bengaluru! Residents here are keen to adopt new technologies and are focused on improving security of their communities.
As per our estimate, there are over 10,000 gated communities in Hyderabad who will immediately benefit from myGate. We pride ourselves in understanding the complexities around gate management and have designed the entire solution for easy adoption by both the security guards and also the residents.
Srinidhi Babu, Association member for Security at Lodha Bellezea, said
We are delighted to have collaborated with myGate for such a seamless security experience. In today’s world security is of utmost importance. The growing urban population prefers to live in an apartment complex for the safety of their loved ones and having a software-based solution at the gates is not only imperative but also logical.
myGate provides an outstanding experience to the residents of gated communities, allowing them to keep a track of visitors and all the relevant developments happening in their community with the help of an app.
About myGate
Founded in 2016, myGate solves security and visitor problems with an intelligent app-based solution in gated premises. The company ensures safety and security of gated premises by deploying BIAA [Behavioral Intelligence Augmented Authentication] that is designed for hassle free experience of residents and their service staff. For more information, please visit myGate
Nokia’s annual Mobile Broadband Index study of mobile broadband performance in India shows that 4G emerged as the key driver of mobile data consumption in 2017, capturing 82% of mobile data traffic and growing 135% YoY with the rapid deployment of 4G networks and affordable devices. 3G grew data grew 286% in 2017, driven by an increased appetite for data consumption and better coverage.
According to the report, data consumption continued to be driven by video, which contributed 65% to 75% of total mobile data traffic. This was powered by the availability of Hindi and regional language content, as well as the proliferation of original OTT-only series. In 2017, Hindi and regional languages comprised more than 90% of popular videos watched online.
On average, an Indian subscriber consumed 7.4 GB of data per user per month on their mobile devices over mobile networks alone, placing India ahead of developed markets like the UK, South Korea and France. The average consumption over both Wi-Fi and mobile networks in India was 8.8 GB data per user per month, at par with other developed markets.
Indian telcos continued to rapidly expand 4G in 2017 and have narrowed the gap with 3G coverage in the country. The 4G network expansion was supported by the dramatic growth of LTE devices in the country, with 9 out of 10 smartphones shipped in 2017 supporting 4G. The LTE-capable device base grew to 218 million in 2017, with 74% being VoLTE capable as well.
Service providers will need to take advantage of technologies such as 3-band carrier aggregation and 4×4 Multiple Input Multiple Output [MIMO] to transform their networks and sate the ever-increasing demand for data consumption without a glitch. The deployment of LTE-A/LTE-Pro and Cloud RAN will further enhance the customer experience.
The year 2017 saw telcos expand 4G networks, and this momentum is likely to continue. The drop in prices of devices, both smartphones and feature phones, is driving data consumption in the country.
We believe that the next wave of growth in the Indian broadband market can come from the untapped base of feature phone users who will potentially move directly from 2G to 4G. As we mentioned in the last MBiT study, Indian telcos will need to explore innovative network technologies, like carrier aggregation and MIMO, to meet the growing data demand. These technologies will also help them prepare networks for the 5G and connected devices era.
Infographic of Nokia MBiT 2018
Other key trends expected in 2018
As the adoption of 4G increases beyond Metros and Tier-1 cities, 4G is expected to drive the bulk of data traffic in 2018.
LTE-A / LTE-Pro and Cloud RAN could help Indian operators enhance the customer experience, reduce churn, increase market share and drive higher ARPU.
5G use cases like Massive Machine-type Communication [mMTC] can support the deployment of smart cities; ultra-reliable and low latency communication [uRLLC] can enable low latency healthcare and digital education.
Driven by operators investing in virtualized networks as part of their 4G rollout, the commercial launch of 5G in India is expected by 2020 in line with other developed markets.
About the Nokia MBiT Index
Nokia MBit Index is a report on mobile broadband performance in India. The primary objective of the MBit Index is to provide reliable time-series based statistics and insights about mobile broadband traffic growth in India, and co-relate those trends with changes in various ecosystem drivers such as subscriber usage patterns, devices, tariffs, coverage etc. The MBit Index analyses mobile broadband traffic trends only at a consolidated level.
VeriSign, Inc., a global leader in domain names and internet security, today announced that approximately 1.7 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in the fourth quarter of 2017, bringing the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 332.4 million across all top-level domains [TLDs].
New .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 9.0 million during the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to 8.8 million for the fourth quarter in 2016.
The increase of approximately 1.7 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 0.5 percent over the third quarter of 2017.
Domain name registrations have grown by 3.1 million, or 0.9 percent, year over year.
The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 146.4 million domain name registrations in the domain name base at the end of the fourth quarter of 2017. This represents a 2.9 percent increase year over year.
As of Dec. 31, 2017, the .com domain name base totaled 131.9 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base totaled 14.5 million domain name registrations.
Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry. The first quarter 2017 Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained here
Reaffirming its commitment towards transforming the education landscape, the government of Tamil Nadu today announced an agreement with Microsoft to improve the integration of technology in teaching and learning in the state. The partnership was announced by Shri K.A. Sengottaiyan, Minister for School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu at an event attended by academia and regulators. It aims to reform education, build tech capacity and enhance digital literacy across all levels.
As a part of the agreement, Microsoft will adopt seven schools identified by the government and train their teachers and students around building 21st century skills which includes critical thinking, creative coding & gaming, app development, robotics, and entrepreneurship. Microsoft will also offer its Microsoft Innovative Educator Program to all educators in primary, secondary, vocational and tertiary education across the state. Additionally, the company will train and provide a digital literacy certification District Education Officers [DEOs] in Tamil Nadu.
Talking of the agreement, Shri K.A. Sengottaiyan, Minister for School Education, Government of Tamil Nadu, said
We are committed to harnessing the power of the technology to reform education in Tamil Nadu and make our youth future-ready with the essential digital skills. We have a longstanding partnership with Microsoft and believe their expertise in this area makes them an ideal partner for our transformational initiatives.
Building educator capacity
Microsoft will provide resources, free tools & software, as well as online professional development specifically tailored for educators through its Partners in Learning Network. The company has so far trained 48,000 teachers in Tamil Nadu on usage of ICT in education. From this skilled ecosystem, the company will now further train a set of 500 school teachers as ‘master trainers’ over next few months.
These master trainers will in turn enable their peers state-wide. In addition to offering a fundamental understanding of computers and productivity software, the comprehensive Microsoft Teaching with Technology [TwT] Curriculum program will empower educators with a deeper knowledge of how technology integration can enhance the teaching and learning experience, equipping students with 21st-century skills. All educators of Tamil Nadu will be eligible to seek certification as Microsoft Certified Educators and apply for the elite Microsoft Expert Educator program.
Building administrator capacity
The company will also impart training to District Education Officers [DEOs] over a the next few few months. The DEOs will further percolate technology usage to the schools and staff in their districts. The Digital Literacy Curriculum will be available both online and offline and provide the officers the opportunity to be internationally certified on various Microsoft Technologies.
Manish Prakash, Country General Manager – Public Sector, Health & Education, Microsoft India, said
At Microsoft we believe that education is the single-most important investment in the future of individuals, and key to the growth of a nation. We are deeply invested in empowering India’s education ecosystem with technology, necessary for success in the 21st century.
The combination of quality content, partnerships, capacity building of teachers and administrators is as essential for this as access to technology We are delighted to continue our collaboration with the state of Tamil Nadu in this journey.
Through the last 12 years, Microsoft has been functioning as a key contributor in the area of education in Tamil Nadu. Over 48,000 teachers have been trained under the Microsoft Shiksha program, which empowers government teachers by integrating computing into their teaching, creating a fun and interactive learning atmosphere for their students. Several of these educators have been recipients of ICT awards at the State and National level as well.
Through Project Saksham the company works with 15 universities in the region, enabling faculty to become ICT Champions who digitize their institutions, build technology-enabled content repositories and schedule online sessions. This is in addition to helping the government set up digital classrooms in the Presidency Girls Higher Secondary School, Egmore, and Govt. Model Girls Higher Secondary School, Triplicane.
In the last 10 years, Microsoft’s education, skill development, entrepreneurship and digital literacy programs have touched over 5 crore people across India. Project Shiksha, has trained over 780,000 teachers and reached over 3.9 million students in India since its launch in 2002, Project Saksham has conducted trainings for over 3,307 educators across 123 universities. 238 educators from India joined the Microsoft Innovative Educator program in FY17.
They are part of the 7600-educator strong global MIE community and work closely with Microsoft to lead innovation in education. Microsoft has invested over INR 670 crore in not-for-profit programs such as YouthSpark, BizSpark, Imagine Cup and Partners in Learning in India in the last decade alone.
The automotive industry has moved towards digitalization and connected mobility, resulting in a significant rise in the use of electronics and technology in vehicles. Vehicle-to-Everything [V2X] is one such technology which is still a nascent market that has managed to offer a wide range of everyday convenience benefits. Today, it has grown to be a critical component in providing vehicles with the ability to communicate with each other and beyond. In fact, the automotive V2X communication market is expected to reach a staggering $26.72 billion by 2025, according to a report by Grand View Research.
Interestingly, some of the key reasons why OEMs today are forced to incorporate V2X communication systems into vehicles are due to the several benefits that the systems provide in terms of advanced route guidance systems, roadway efficiency, driver convenience and traffic optimization. Allowing vehicles to ‘talk’ to each other, V2X systems are geared towards safety and are essential for hundreds of thousands of self-driving cars to operate safely.
Sasken understands the importance of disruption to address the need for autonomous driving. They have achieved a breakthrough in this area and are engaged with a Tier-1 OEM and provide services for the V2X platform to enable actionable insights in the connected automobile. Today, we have a Q&A session with Ashwin Ramachandra, VP and Head – Product Engineering Services, Sasken Technologies, on how players in the automotive industry are re-defining the electronics segment through the advent of advanced communication technologies like Vehicle-to-Everything [V2X]. So, let’s get started with the Q&A…
Can you please talk about yourself, your experience so far with Sasken Technologies ?
I have more than 20 years of experience and am currently the head of the Embedded Practice at Sasken Technologies Pvt. Limited. The Embedded Practice group consists of the following divisions:
Semiconductors and Platform devices
Industrials
Automotive
Digital [Cloud and Analytics]
When it comes to the automotive domain, the amount of software & intelligence in the car is increasing day by day and that intelligence executes on the chips that are manufactured by the semiconductor companies. In order to appreciate what Sasken is doing in the automotive segment, it is very important to deep dive into what Sasken does in the semiconductors segment. The amount of software and intelligence in the car has increased in three different areas:
Software on the cockpit [In-cockpit entertainment]
Autonomous Driving
Telematics
The rise has been majorly seen in the last five years. Silicon vendors are bringing out chipsets that are much more powerful so that customers can enjoy a richer audio experience and exceptional performance for these offerings. Sasken starts working with the semiconductor vendors through the Development and Testing phase. Companies like Qualcomm have chipsets like MSM820 that are meant for richer infotainment experience. On a similar line, there are silicon vendors that are working on powerful chipsets for the autonomous driving sector and in future, we would see many more companies bringing out much richer solutions for that segment.
Telematics would be typically seen in the form of communication modems. In the western world, you would have an LTE Modem connected to the car for a whole bunch of communication. These are the three major areas where semiconductor companies and Sasken are co-working together to revolutionize the overall automotive industry.
Please comment on the rise of the infotainment options in car and where do you see Android in the automotive segment ?
Many years back, we only had the option of FM Radio, which gradually moved to CD Player, and now you have a plethora of playback options on the touchscreen located on the dashboard of your car which provides a whole new world of entertainment. Previously, these systems were based on Vanilla Linux, but now Android is playing a vital role even in the automotive sector. As we all know, Android already has a huge market share in the mobile space and now its share in the auto segment is gradually increasing.
By the year 2020, we expect that Android would be present on more than forty percent of mid-range and high-end cars, which means that Android is at a huge inflection point in the auto segment. Sasken has extensive experience in Android and our team of engineers has been working on Android since the first public release of Android. This experience gives us a huge edge over our competitors since when companies need expertise on Android for the car segment; they need someone like us who have gone through the complete development cycle. The mobile expertise and experience in bringing products to the market would definitely help us in achieving an edge in the auto segment!
Based on the queries and projects that Sasken has been approached for in the auto segment, we believe that Android is very much in line to be the default operating system for cars. This would bring in a major change in the infotainment space for automobiles.
Can you walk us through some of the technical challenges for porting Android on the automotive platform ?
The use-cases that you see on the phone are quite different from the use-cases that you see in the car. For example, you would never plug a music player like an iPod to your phone, but that is a very natural use-case when it comes to a car. You expect that the device and its type is recognized when it is plugged into the dashboard and it should also start the playback. This means that there are a lot of changes that are required to the Android stack in order to accompany such use-cases. From the UI and UX point of view, a lot more changes are required. Also, unlike India, users in the western countries use a lot more voice commands, and those commands vary when used on car vis-a-vis mobile.
You need to have a good amount of Android expertise in order to realize such use-cases and though Androidauto would evolve over a period of time. Expertise does come in very handy since time-to-market is very critical for any product. Also, the time-to-market for an automobile is typically 18~24 months, which in itself speaks for the complexity.
What are some of the cost implications for the car manufacturers in order to realize V2V/V2X/V2I use-cases ?
As far as Android for auto is concerned, it would take a fair amount of time to make its way into the entry-level automobile segment. Just take a case where you do not use Android, even in such a scenario, you need to have the silicon, an in-house R&D team, an operating system like Linux, middleware, etc. i.e. You need a significant number of engineers, hence a good amount of R&D cost is involved. Also, as mentioned earlier the number of features in the car always keeps on increasing. Hence, if you need to have your own in-house infotainment system [in absence of Android], the R&D cost itself would look similar or even lesser with a platform like Android.
Whether it is V2V, V2X, V2I, there is a lot of data that would be used to ensure that the objective is met. How secure are these protocols and how do two vehicles from different manufacturers talk to each other ensuring that there is no breach of important data ?
In case of V2V and V2I scenarios, the information is almost anonymous. For example, if a car is driving ahead of another vehicle [on a freeway], either of the vehicles can transmit information that is generic in nature and is useful for both the parties. It could transmit road-related data, climatic data, etc. There is no personal or confidential information exchanged between the two of them.
The information is completely momentary and the moment you get off the freeway, the information is gone. This data is non-threating in nature and hence, we need not worry when such data is sent over V2V/V2I channels. Also, in order to ensure that the necessary security protocols have adhered, the exchanged data goes through an approved/certified channel and it is almost impossible to fake the information. There has been a significant amount of effort that is spent to ensure that the information [irrespective of its nature] is tamper-proof and all the necessary security measures are taken.
The second part is about ‘Telematics’ i.e. the information that is shared between your car and the cloud infrastructure. This exchange has nothing to do with the co-operative network, but it is more about the route that it takes for transmission of the data. You can poll a lot of peripherals on the car to get data about the health of the car, battery, fuel, etc. This data is completely owned by the car owner but sometimes by accident, you agree to share this information in which case, this data can be used by third-party companies for targeted advertising. For example, in the current scenario, there are many cases where a particular company does not charge the consumer to use their services but instead use their data to push some relevant advertisements, coupons, etc. As a matter of fact, the millennial generation is willing to share such information in lieu of product discounts [only after providing consent].
Can you comment on some of the B2B as well as B2C use cases for the V2V/V2I/V2X technologies ?
Ride-hailing companies are already leveraging these technologies, especially the V2V and V2I to ensure that their vehicle’s health is in-tact so that the riders can enjoy a smooth ride.. They are using onboard telematics to get the necessary information. This also includes details about the driver’s characteristics, which are provided after consent by the car driver e.g. average speed at which the driver drives the car, how many times he over-speeds, angle at which he takes turns, how many times he jumps signals, etc.
This information can be used by all the necessary parties involved in the journey i.e. the car driver to improve his driving skills and average customer ratings. It can be used by the ride-hailing company to ensure that they have the best drivers on-board thereby providing a superior customer experience and it gives an additional parameter to the customer on basis on which they can rate their journey. This is currently under testing by a couple of ride-hailing companies for their premium car segment.
How wireless communications and WLAN technology have evolved over the years to be well-suited for V2X communication, due to its low latency and the ability to communicate instantly. Can you also touch upon DSRC [Dedicated Short Range Communication] ?
This is one of the points that we have discussed earlier about the co-operative network. There are a couple of emerging technologies like DSRC and Cellular V2X [CV2X] and each of them has its pros & cons. As per our understanding, the CV2X is much better-designed technology and has better technology roadmap. DSRC is loosely based on the WLAN/WiFi technology and the base standards remain the same. On the other hand, CV2X is based on the Cellular LTE technology. The US government is gearing towards usage of DSRC for V2V/V2X use cases and with wider adoption, the governments across the world would mandate what technology should be used further down the line.
As expected, both these technologies have very low latency due to nature of the use cases associated with the vehicle. This is the overall landscape of the Intelligent Transport System [ITS], both from the technical and non-technical perspective. As an organization, we are working on both these technologies and are gearing up for testing with some of our automobile clients.
Please walk us through the opportunities in the autonomous driving segment and what are some of the tech and regulatory hurdles being faced by this sector ?
The single most important requirement of this sector is that the information should be kept safe & secure. In the future, governments would also mandate a certain amount of certification and testing to ensure that there is no compromise on quality. Apart from these, standards would evolve as it autonomous driving becomes mainstream.
Technology is evolving at a very rapid pace, where do see the automobile technology 5~10 years down the line and the role that technology would play to make that dream a reality ?
As far as the automobile sector is concerned, the internal combustion engines occupy 99% of the market share, whereas electric engines have a fairly minuscule market share. However, things would take a drastic turn as we move forward. The trend is likely to change as electric engines would play a much larger role in the overall automobile ecosystem.
Sasken, as an embedded company,is looking at this area very closely but our main focus areas are in the ares of In-car infotainment, Autonomous driving and Telematics. These three pillars would change the entire automobile landscape. Some of the use cases in autonomous and assisted driving might not be directly applicable to a country like India due to the nature of traffic, road conditions, etc. but over a period of time, the entire ecosystem in India would also evolve and we would observe wider adoption.
We thank Mr. Ashwin Ramachandra for sharing his insights with our readers. If you have any questions for Ashwin about autonomous driving, opportunities in V2X/V2V/V2I, etc. please email them here or share them via a comment to this article.
On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, Microsoft has announced support for email addresses in 15 Indian languages across its email apps and services, including Office 365, Outlook 2016, Outlook.com, Exchange Online and Exchange Online Protection [EOP]. For the first time, users will be able to use local language email addresses for Outlook accounts on PCs.
It will also allow users to now seamlessly send/receive mails to/from local language email addresses via Outlook client on PCs, outlook.com in addition to Outlook apps for Android and iOS. This initiative is part of the company’s ongoing efforts to support Email Address Internationalization [EAI] across its products and services eco-system and make technology accessible in local languages.
The languages being introduced are those that support Unicode,an international encoding standard for use with different languages and scripts. Local language email addresses are inseparably linked with Internationalized Domain Names [IDNs] and can currently be registered in these 15 languages according to .IN Registry, which is responsible for registering IDNs in India. Microsoft’s products will also support additional Indian languages as and when their IDNs and email addresses become available in the future, making this feature forward compatible.
Speaking of the announcement Meetul Patel, COO – Microsoft India said
Ensuring that language is not a barrier to the adoption of technology is key for digital inclusion and growth. Making email addresses available in 15 languages is an exciting step to making modern communications and collaboration tools more accessible and easier to use for all – something we have been relentlessly working towards. We’re making technology use the language of people, and not requiring people to first learn the traditional language of technology.
Users can register local language email addresses in India from third party EAI address providers such as XgenPlus through a simple online process.Microsoft, a member of Universal Acceptance Steering Group [USAG] along with international partners including XgenPlus, Coremail, CNNIC and SaudiNIC, is working to support email addresses in any Unicode script through its apps and services, including RTL [right to left] languages such as Urdu and Arabic.
Microsoft and Local Language computing :Starting with Project Basha in 1998, Microsoft has been consistently working to provide local language computing in Indian languages.Microsoft supports 22 constitutionally recognized Indian languagesoverall, including11 Indian language scripts for Office and Windows. Moreover, Bing allows users to browse in nine Indian languages. With the help of its AI technologies and Deep Neural Networks, Microsoft is now making translation and speech recognition across several Indian languages, in addition to making Indic computing on the local cloud a reality by launching local cloud services from India data centers.
Fast Company announced its annual ranking of the world’s 50 Most Innovative Companies [MIC] for 2018, honoring leading enterprises and rising newcomers that exemplify the best in business and innovation. Reliance Jio, India’s premiere mobile and digital services provider earned the number 17 spot on the global list, and also ranks at number one for Most Innovative Companies in India.
Reliance Jio has been at the forefront of technology and innovation bringing transformational changes to the Indian digital services space and propelling India into global leadership in the digital economy. With their eco-system comprising of a network, devices, applications and content, Jio has revolutionized the Indian telecom landscape, becoming the highest quality and most affordable data market in the world.
Since the launch of Jio, our mission has been bold yet simple: to make broadband technology affordable and accessible to every person in India. We have sought nothing less than a complete transformation of the Indian telecom sector, fueled by our commitment to bring the best products, services and value to our customers, and continuous innovation plays a major role in delivering on that promise.
Jio joins the list of other leading global companies such as Apple, Netflix, Tencent, Amazon, Spotify and many others. The 50 Most Innovative Companies were curated from Fast Company’s Top 10 lists, which recognize pioneering companies across 36 categories, from artificial intelligence to wellness. More than three dozen Fast Company editors, reporters, and contributors surveyed thousands of companies – many of which were identified by a new MIC submission process – to create these lists.
Most Innovative Companies is Fast Company’s signature franchise and one of its most highly anticipated editorial efforts of the year. It provides both a snapshot and a road map for the future of innovation across the most dynamic sectors of the economy.
Fast Company deputy editor David Lidsky, who oversaw the issue with senior editor Amy Farley, said
This year’s MIC list is an inspiring and insightful window into how many companies have embraced innovation and are working to make meaningful change.
Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies issue [March-April 2018] is now available online here, as well as in app form via iTunes and on newsstands beginning February 27.
