All posts by [x]cube LABS

[x]cube LABS is a leading digital strategy and solution provider specializing in enterprise mobility space. Over the years, we have delivered numerous digital innovations and mobile solutions, creating over $ 2 billion for startups and enterprises. Broad spectrum of services ranging from mobile app development to enterprise digital strategy makes us the partner of choice for leading brands.

Blog, Internet of Things

The Importance of IoT Security and Best Practices for Implementation

June 1, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Nowadays, the Internet of Things (IoT) is growing exponentially, with new devices and applications being added every day. This increase in connectivity has led to a corresponding increase in the potential for security breaches. Just as our traditional computer networks are vulnerable to attack, so are IoT networks.

IoT security issues are often caused by a lack of security awareness by manufacturers and users. Many IoT devices are shipped with little or no security measures, and users are often unaware of the risks involved in using them. As a result, IoT devices are frequently left wide open to attack.

IoT device security is important for two main reasons: first, to protect the device itself from being hacked or taken over by an attacker, and second, to protect the data that the device collects and transmits. If an IoT device is hacked, the attacker may be able to gain access to sensitive data or use the device to launch attacks on other devices on the network.

So, why is it so important to ensure IoT security?

There are several reasons why securing your IoT solutions is important:

To protect your devices from being hacked or taken over by an attacker

It is important to secure your IoT devices to prevent them from being hacked or taken over by an attacker. If an attacker compromises a device’s Internet of Things security, they may be able to use it to launch attacks on other devices on the network or gain access to sensitive data. This could have serious consequences for both your network’s security and your data’s privacy.
To protect the data that your devices collect and transmit

If an IoT device is hacked, the attacker may gain access to the sensitive data that the device collects and transmits. This could include personal data, such as credit card numbers home addresses, or confidential business data. It could also include data that could be used to launch attacks on other devices on the network. The data collected by IoT devices can also be used to create detailed profiles of individuals, which could be used for identity theft or other malicious purposes.
To protect your devices from being used in attacks on other devices

If an attacker gains control of an IoT device, they may be able to use it to launch attacks on other devices on the network. It could include denial of service attacks, which could render a device or service unavailable, or data breaches, in which sensitive data is stolen from a device. Using the stolen data, the attacker could gain access to other devices on the network or commit fraud. This can potentially have a devastating impact on businesses and individuals alike. We will discuss how to go about planning IoT device security shortly.
To protect your devices from being used in attacks on your business

If an attacker gains control of an IoT device, they may be able to use it to launch attacks on your business. This could include denial of service attacks, which could render your website or email unavailable, or data breaches, in which sensitive data is stolen from your devices. Many businesses rely on IoT devices to run their operations, and IoT security issues could significantly impact the industry.
To protect your business from the reputational damage that IoT security breaches can cause

IoT security breaches can cause reputational damage to your business. If sensitive data is stolen from your devices, or if your devices are used to launch attacks on other companies, this could damage your business’s reputation. People may be less likely to do business with you if they perceive your business as insecure and vulnerable to attack. At the same time, you may also be liable for any damages caused by your devices, such as data breaches or denial of service attacks.
To comply with data protection and privacy laws

If your business processes personal data, you will need to comply with data protection and privacy laws. These laws may require you to take steps to secure the personal data that you process, such as encrypting it or ensuring that it is stored securely, which IoT security ensures. It’s crucial that you comply with these laws, as failure to do so could result in fines or other penalties.
To protect your investment in IoT

If you’re investing in the Internet of Things, you’ll want to protect your investment with IoT security. This includes ensuring that your devices are secure and that you’re not exposing yourself to undue risk. By taking steps to secure your IoT solutions, you can help protect your investment and ensure that your business can reap the benefits of IoT.

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons why IoT security should be a priority, let’s look at how you can go about it.

To protect your IoT solutions from these risks, it is important to implement IoT security measures at every stage of the development process, from design to deployment.

When designing your IoT solutions, you should consider the security risks that could impact your devices and data and implement measures to mitigate these risks. For example, you should consider using encryption to protect sensitive data and implementing authentication measures to ensure that only authorized users can access your devices.

When deploying your IoT solutions, you should ensure that your devices are correctly configured and that IoT security measures are in place. You must ensure your devices are correctly configured to use encryption and connected to a secure network.

You should also put in place measures to monitor your solutions for IoT security breaches and respond quickly if a violation is detected. For instance, you should have an IoT security incident response plan to quickly and effectively respond to a violation. Keeping your solutions updated with the latest IoT security patches is also important.

In short, there are several steps that manufacturers and users can take to improve IoT security. These include:

Ensuring that devices are correctly configured and updated with the latest security patches;
Using strong passwords and two-factor authentication;
Using encryption to protect data in transit;
Disabling unnecessary features and ports; and
Regularly monitoring devices for signs of intrusion.

Conclusion

As the IoT continues to grow in popularity, it is important to be aware of the security risks associated with it. Internet of Things security is important for businesses and users alike. By taking steps to secure your IoT solutions, you can help protect your business and your customers from these risks.

Reviewing your security measures occasionally might be a good idea, as the IoT landscape is constantly evolving. As new threats emerge, you must ensure that your IoT security measures are up-to-date and effective.

If you’re not sure where to start, an IoT security solution provider such as [x]cube LABS can help you to assess the security risks that apply to your business and put in place appropriate measures to mitigate these risks.

Blog, Internet of Things

What are IoT devices and how are they used across various industries?

May 26, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
Healthcare
Manufacturing
Retail
Transportation
Agriculture
Smart Homes
Aviation
Energy
Conclusion

Introduction

We live in a world where technology is becoming increasingly intertwined with our daily lives. It’s no longer just our laptops, smartphones, and tablets that are connected to the internet—now, our homes, cars, and even our clothes can be, too. This interconnectedness is made possible by the Internet of Things (IoT), a network of physical objects equipped with sensors and software that allow them to collect and exchange data.

IoT devices have the potential to transform the way we live and work. They can make our lives more convenient and help us be more efficient. They can also help us save money and improve the quality of our lives.

IoT devices are connected to the internet and can collect, send, and receive data. They can be anything from fitness trackers to industrial machines. IoT devices are used across various industries and are becoming more and more commonplace. At [x]cube LABS, we have helped global enterprises deliver great value to their consumers with IoT devices, and in this blog post, we will talk about how IoT devices are used in different industries. We will also give some examples of IoT devices being used in each sector.

Healthcare

IoT devices are being used in healthcare to provide better patient care and improve the efficiency of healthcare organizations. They can monitor patients’ vital signs, track their medication adherence, and collect data about their health. IoT devices can also provide remote patient monitoring, track medical equipment, and support clinical research.

Many different types of IoT devices are being used in healthcare. Some of the most common types include wearable devices, such as fitness trackers and smartwatches; medical devices, such as pacemakers and insulin pumps; and hospital equipment, such as IV pumps and ventilators. All these devices collect data that can be used to improve patient care and make healthcare organizations more efficient.
Manufacturing

IoT devices are being used in manufacturing to improve the efficiency of production lines and reduce waste. They can also track product production, monitor machinery conditions, and control the flow of materials. They can also provide data about product quality and improve worker safety.

The industrial sensor is one of the most common types of IoT devices used in manufacturing. Industrial sensors monitor product production, machinery condition, and material flow. They can also provide data about product quality and improve workers’ safety. The availability of data from industrial sensors helps manufacturers improve the efficiency of production lines and reduce waste.
Retail

IoT devices are being used in retail to improve the customer experience and increase sales. They can track inventory, provide customer loyalty programs, and collect data about customer behavior. They can also provide personalized recommendations, targeted promotions, and real-time customer support.

IoT devices are changing the retail sector in several ways. One of the most important is that they are providing retailers with real-time data about their customers’ behavior. This data allows retailers to provide a more personalized shopping experience. IoT devices are also being used to improve the efficiency of retail operations, such as inventory management and customer loyalty programs.
Transportation

IoT devices are being used in transportation to improve the safety of drivers and reduce traffic congestion. IoT devices can monitor vehicles’ condition, track their location, and control their speed. IoT devices can also be used to provide data about traffic conditions and improve transportation systems’ efficiency.

One of the most common types of IoT devices used in transportation is the GPS tracker. GPS trackers monitor vehicle locations, speed, and movement and can also provide data about traffic conditions and improve transportation systems’ efficiency.
Agriculture

In recent years, agriculture has become increasingly reliant on IoT devices. These devices are being used to improve crop yields and reduce the amount of water and fertilizer used. They can also be utilized to monitor crop conditions, track farm animals’ location, and control irrigation water flow.

These innovations are helping farmers increase their crop yields and reduce the amount of water and fertilizer they use. The data collected by IoT devices is also helping farmers make more informed decisions about planting, irrigation, and crop maintenance.
Smart Homes

Smart homes are becoming increasingly popular, and IoT devices are the backbone of these systems. IoT devices are being used in homes to improve the home’s security, reduce energy consumption, and improve the quality of life. They can be used to monitor the home’s condition, track family members’ location, and control home appliances’ operation. What’s more, IoT devices can also provide data about the air quality, which can be used to improve the efficiency of home security systems. In the future, IoT devices will become an integral part of the smart home, and they will be used to control various home appliances and systems.
Aviation

The aviation industry is using IoT devices extensively. It is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the world, and IoT devices are being used to improve the safety of passengers and crew members.

IoT is changing the aviation industry by providing data that can be used to improve the safety of pilots and passengers. IoT devices can monitor aircraft conditions, track their location, and control their speed. IoT devices can also provide data about weather conditions and improve aviation operations’ efficiency, which can ultimately lead to lower airfare prices.
Energy

The energy sector also utilizes IoT for a variety of applications. One way that IoT is changing the energy sector is by providing data that can improve the efficiency of energy production and consumption.

They are being used to improve the efficiency of power generation and distribution. IoT devices can monitor the condition of power plants, track the location of power lines, and control the flow of electricity. By using IoT devices to monitor and optimize the power grid, energy companies can reduce the amount of power that is wasted and ultimately lower consumers’ energy bills.

Conclusion

IoT devices are changing the world in some ways. They provide data that can be used to improve the efficiency of operations in various industries, from retail to transportation to agriculture. IoT devices will likely become an increasingly important part of our lives due to the efficiency and data they can provide.

Blog, Mobility

Best Practices to Follow While Designing your Mobile Application

May 24, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
Using updated technology
Simplicity
Tutorials
Leveraging device capabilities
Personalization
Conclusion

Introduction

In this ever-evolving world, businesses are growing at an overwhelming rate. Bringing in more customers is one thing, but keeping the existing customers in the loop has also become challenging. Enterprises have now entered the digital space to increase the quality of customer experience (CX) and improve customer satisfaction. One such profound digital space is a mobile application.

Almost every individual now owns a smartphone. It contains many mobile applications; these applications serve as an excellent opportunity for any business to connect with customers and make your firm well renowned. But the user prefers some applications over others, and statistics show that 25% of mobile applications ultimately fail as they are used only once.

While it is true that an excellent mobile application can boost your business, if a mobile application is not designed carefully, it can affect customers. This blog will help you pick up some of the best practices that will help create an efficient mobile application.

Using updated technology

Nobody likes to use an old application if a new and better application is available in the market. Make sure to embed your application with the latest features to have a faster response time, and it takes less time to load new pages. In the digital era, technology changes rapidly, and thus to make the application relevant, it becomes imperative to update the application timely.

There are roughly 15 apps per person on this entire planet; this means the competition in the mobile application industry is also growing. Using cloud services will save the user from internally storing the application content on their mobile phones, providing the option of advanced protection like face ID or fingerprint scanner instead of using the general password settings. These minor upgrades go a long way in engaging customers and keeping you ahead of the competition.

Simplicity

Some applications are complex in their design; users might find it challenging to search for what they are looking for, and thus navigation becomes a hurdle. The thumb rule for the application design is to keep it simple. Organizations should first define their primary goal of creating the app and then focus on achieving it by making the app user-friendly.

Many applications also use the chatbot feature to ease the customer journey. Chatbot serves as an online customer service executive and thus helps the customer if they experience any difficulty while using the application.

Tutorials

The customer is the ultimate user of an application, and not all users know everything about your application. There might come instances where various app features remain unused; the designer should make easy tutorials that will guide the users to operate the app efficiently.

Animations are a great way to make your application interactive; therefore, incorporating animated tutorials will boost user engagement.

Leveraging device capabilities

There are a variety of mobile phones available in the market; some people use android while others prefer the i-phone or tablets. The screen size of smartphones also differs; the designer should consider all these factors before designing the mobile application. The app should be available on the play store and app store; it must work on all screen sizes without distortion.

Take advantage of push notifications to remind the customer about the app’s features and offers. Push notifications are a great way to engage with the customer, but overdoing it may annoy the user, so using it in moderation, i.e., 2-3 push notifications per week, is reasonable.

Applications like Google Maps, Swiggy, and Uber use the location feature of the smartphone to serve the customer better. Maps also use the accelerometer feature to show the speed of your vehicle, and it communicates via voice assistance. The payment application uses the device’s camera to scan QR codes. These features are not app build, but the applications are designed so that it takes advantage of them.

An ideal application should leverage existing smartphone features to stand out from the competition. Customer security should be the top priority for any organization, so asking permission before using an internal mobile feature is the right way.

Personalization

An application is most likely to succeed if it creates a personalized experience for the customer. Some apps use the user name to make that personal connection; some track the user activity on the app to provide individualized offers and predictions. Youtube music and Spotify analyze the listening pattern of the user and suggest the next song accordingly.

Providing customer rewards and asking for feedback is also an integral part of application design.

Conclusion

Keeping the user in the loop is the key for an application to triumph. If the application successfully provides that human touch, it will quickly grow. Another integral aspect of application design is advanced technologies, as mobile apps and specifications change frequently, so keeping up to date with technology is crucial.

To design a high-demand product in these ever-changing circumstances, you must first comprehend the customer wants that your app addresses and the core functionality that it should offer. A business may take help from app designing service providers to save valuable time and cost.

Blog, Internet of Things

What are IoT Sensors and what Types of IoT Sensors are Used Across Industries?

May 18, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Technology pervades every aspect of our lives, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is a big part of that. The IoT connects physical objects to the internet and can collect and exchange data.

IoT sensors play a key role in the IoT by collecting data about the physical object they are attached to. This data is then transmitted to a central location where it can be analyzed and used to make decisions or take action. It’s important to note that IoT sensors are not just limited to the consumer market; they are also used in various industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, automotive, and more.

IoT sensors have enabled us to track and monitor various things, including our health and fitness, the performance of our homes and appliances, and even the vehicles we drive. They have also made it possible for industries to increase efficiency and productivity while reducing costs, which is why IoT sensors are expected to continue to grow in the years to come. But what exactly are IoT sensors, and what types of IoT sensors are used across industries? Let’s take a closer look.

IoT Sensors Defined

An IoT sensor is a physical device that collects data about a physical object and then transmits that data to a central location. IoT sensors are typically small, lightweight, and battery-powered, so they can be easily attached to or embedded in the objects they monitor.

They work by using various sensing technologies to collect data about the object they are attached to. This data is then transmitted wirelessly to a central location, where it can be analyzed and used to make decisions or complete various tasks.

Additionally, IoT sensors often come equipped with various features, such as the ability to transmit data in real time, store data locally, and operate offline. It’s important to note that not all IoT sensors have all of these features; it just depends on the specific sensor and its use.

Types of IoT Sensors

Various types of IoT sensors are used across industries, and every kind of sensor has its unique features and capabilities. They all come equipped with different sensing technologies that allow them to collect other data types. Let’s look at some of the most common types of IoT sensors.

Temperature sensors

These sensors measure temperature and can be found in various applications, including HVAC systems, refrigerators, and ovens. Temperature sensors are typically made of thermistors, which are resistance-based devices that change resistance when exposed to changes in temperature. They help regulate temperature by providing data that can be used to adjust the heating and cooling systems, which can save energy and improve comfort.

Light sensors

These sensors measure light intensity and can be found in various applications, including digital cameras, solar panels, and automated lighting systems. Light sensors are typically made of photocells, devices that change resistance when exposed to changes in light intensity. They help regulate the amount of light present by providing data that can be used to adjust the lighting, which can save energy and improve visibility.

Motion sensors

These sensors detect movement and can be found in a variety of applications, including security systems, fitness trackers, and automated lighting systems. Motion sensors are made of accelerometers, which are devices that measure acceleration. They help detect and track movement by providing data that can be used to make decisions or take action. For example, if a security system is armed and a motion sensor is triggered, the system may send an alert to the homeowner.

Sound sensors

These sensors measure sound intensity and can be found in various applications, including baby monitors, security systems, and noise-canceling headphones. Sound sensors are made of microphones, which convert sound waves into electrical signals. They help detect and track sound by providing data that can be used to make decisions or take action, which can be helpful in various situations. For example, if a baby monitor is turned on and a sound sensor detects crying, the monitor may alert the parent.

IoT Sensor Applications

There is a wide range of IoT sensor applications across industries, and the specific application will dictate the type of sensor used. Let’s look at some of the most common applications for IoT sensors.

Environmental Monitoring

IoT sensors can monitor various environmental factors, such as temperature, humidity, air quality, and light intensity. This data can be used to make decisions about the environment, such as adjusting the temperature in a room or turning on the lights in a dark area. This data can also be used to monitor environmental conditions in real time and take action if there is a problem, such as an air quality sensor that triggers an alarm when the air quality drops below a certain level.

Industrial Monitoring

IoT sensors can monitor industrial processes, such as production line speeds, machinery operation, and inventory levels. This data can be used to make decisions about the operation of the business, such as adjusting the production line speed to match customer demand or reordering inventory when it gets low. Additionally, this data can be used to monitor the status of the business in real time and take action to provide viable solutions if there is a problem, such as a machine that stops working or an inventory level that drops below a certain threshold.

Building Automation

IoT sensors can automate a building’s operation, such as controlling the lights, temperature, and security system. This data can be used to make decisions about the building’s operation, such as turning off the lights when no one is in the room or setting the security system to arm when everyone leaves for the day. It is especially useful in buildings that are open to the public, such as retail stores and office buildings, where it can help to save energy and improve safety.

Smart Cities

IoT sensors can monitor various factors in a smart city, such as traffic levels, air quality, and noise levels. This data can be used to make decisions about the town’s operation, such as routing traffic around an accident or turning on air purifiers when the air quality drops. It can also be used to monitor the city’s status in real-time and take action if there is a problem, such as an emergency vehicle that needs to get through traffic or a power outage that needs to be addressed.

Conclusion

The possibilities for IoT sensor applications are endless, and new applications are always being developed. The type of sensor that is used in an application will be dictated by the specific needs of the application. However, a few general types of sensors are commonly used in IoT applications, such as environmental, industrial, and building automation. Ultimately, the goal of using IoT sensors is to collect data that can be used to make decisions or take action, which can help to improve efficiency, save energy, and improve safety.

Artificial Intelligence, Blog

The Impact of Artificial Intelligence in our Daily Lives

May 13, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Humankind has seen dramatic transformations in recent years as a result of ever-evolving technology. There are immaculate inventions within the digital era that were far beyond our imagination in the past, but they now exist in the real world and are assisting us in making changes in our everyday lives.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is one such innovative notion. The concept of AI has grown over the planet in such a fashion that it now embraces practically every sector, business, or service. In 2021, AI had already become an element of our daily lives. Whether it’s reading emails, getting driving directions, or getting music or movie suggestions, AI can help us in every aspect of our lives. Let me first tell you what AI is.

Artificial Intelligence: It is a computer that has the ability or built-in intelligence to perform the tasks humans usually do, solve problems, and make life easier for everyone. It improves the speed, effectiveness, and precision of performing tasks.

But just now, how far has AI progressed in our lives? What influence does computer science have on our culture, business, economy, and, therefore, the rest of the world? This blog will lift the veil on AI, allowing you to determine how AI will transform the way we live and work and what it’s already accomplished for society.

One of the foremost visible samples of AI is how we entertain ourselves, meet new people, and interact with our relationships online. As intelligent humans, we will always get lots of enjoyment from the books, music, TV series, and flicks we enjoy. And, without considering what lurks behind our daily routines, we depend upon recommendation algorithms to search for entertainment we enjoy. These are only some samples of how computer science is employed in existence. And the likelihood is that you’re aware of these AI-powered examples.

YouTube recommendation engine

YouTube is one of the foremost popular venues for sharing video material worldwide, and Google owns it. You will discover anything you want, from beauty and food instructions to music videos, vlogs, and breaking news. YouTube has touched daily users to 120+ million and monthly active users to around billions, continuously increasing. It tracks the likes and views of users tracks their activities and keeps on recommending the videos thereon.

Despite an oversized number of watchers, the platform uses computing to indicate to people the videos they need to determine while blocking those who are, for instance, terrorism-related or violent. YouTube is continuously working to tackle all the fake news and misinformation being spread on the platform with the help of AI.

Netflix recommendation engine

Why is Netflix so popular? It recognizes what you want and may like to watch. The company is at the forefront as the leading content creator in the entertainment industry. Its recommendation engine provides TV show and movie suggestions based on your viewing history. Netflix also keeps track of how many times you’ve watched a film or television series, how many times you’ve rewound or fast-forwarded it, and how you rated it.

Netflix’s AI technology automatically adjusts video quality based on users’ network quality. It tracks the video quality of the videos the user prefers to watch and automatically sets the video quality whenever the user goes to watch any videos.

Google Translate

It would be remiss not to include Google, notably Google Translate, which uses machine learning to translate text from one language to another. The organization contains a sizable number of contributors worldwide, which suggests that anybody may help Google Translate by inputting phrases like synonyms or the rest relevant to languages. An ML model changes and updates itself daily, supporting these contributions and growing more adept.

Recently, Google started using Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT) to tackle the problems faced for years in handling the translation of Chinese and English language pairs. Google managed to get the translation to the human level by including bilingual people to train the system. Then Google planned to use this GNMT for all 103 languages. That meant data needed to be fed for 103^2 language pairs, and AI would have to handle 10609 models. Google tackled this problem by allowing a single system to translate multiple languages. Google Translate’s AI built its language to improve its translation of other languages.

Social Media content search

AI is popularly used in all the social media platforms we use daily. Be it on Facebook, which suggests the pages you must follow based on your likes, or on Instagram, where you can identify the visuals and recommend the posts or pages based on your likes. LinkedIn uses AI to suggest jobs that will be suitable for us based on our profile, suggesting that we make connections with people.

These are just a few examples of how AI is powerfully working and helping us on all our social media platforms. Furthermore, an AI algorithm or machine learning system controls how the content you make and the advertising you buy are positioned in front of consumers across each social media site and each social media post.

All these are several examples we use in our daily personal lives. Now, moving on to how it can affect us in our professional lives, we can understand more about the importance and effect AI has created in our lives. Here are a number of the cases or examples:

How Artificial Intelligence helps in:

Email Communication

Gmail’s Smart Replies

While writing emails, we constantly get suggestions for improvements if required or add appropriate words, or auto-generated replies. These will be regularly seen in emails.

AI can help you better understand what subject lines your clients respond to by analyzing your email open rates. This eliminates a lot of guesswork, and as a consequence, AI email technology can determine the most successful content and text.

AI also helps to determine the ideal time of day or week to send an email. It helps to know at what time of day the customer focuses on work-related emails and at what time they will disregard such emails.

The identical is employed in other platforms, too, other than Gmails. This is because of AI and how it can suggest comments supporting the content received and proper errors, if any.

Business

Among the various applications of computing in everyday life, the business realm is one where AI may provide a slew of benefits. With a huge amount of information and data available today, business units have continuous access to the changes in client requirements. Organizations no longer rely on traditional business practices to drive growth. These drastic developments have opened up a new realm of possible outcomes, allowing AI to drive corporate growth through memorable experiences produced from client data.

The combination of the human brain with an intelligent computer using AI helps a lot in improving clients’ experiences and the profitability of business units and drives business changes and developments.

Our vision for artificial intelligence in the future

The solution to the age-old question of how AI will affect your life in the future will remain a mystery. Without an issue, AI will start a replacement age of human growth and relationships. This era will substantially change each aspect of human action by displacing people from low-paying regular professions, allowing us to make better judgments and focus our attention on what counts.

The transition procedure isn’t rapid and takes time. Technology may even appear threatening as if it threatens mankind, thanks to its limitless potential.

However, once we study how AI helps us in daily life, we see that this fear is unfounded; people are always frightened of anything they do not understand and anything that causes significant changes in their lives. It’s likely that humans may reap the advantages of AI in the not-too-distant future. AI will become an important aspect of our lives, governing our healthcare, entertainment, education, and security sectors.

Experts anticipate networked artificial intelligence would boost human productivity while potentially jeopardizing human autonomy, agency, and capacities.

Conclusion

The development of computing has been a protracted and winding road. Every day, computer science makes our lives easier. Many applications and services that assist us with daily tasks, like interacting with friends, utilizing an email program, or employing a ride-share service, are powered by AI. If you’re worried about computing, it would help to appreciate that almost all folks are utilizing it on a usual basis for an extended time. However, due to its advancement, we now have useful AI daily. The long run of AI looks good, but it’s still up in the air. As a result, please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a fresh idea for applying such technology in your organization or just want to share your ideas on the topic. Let’s take a peek at the intense way forward for AI together!

Blog, Internet of Things

Top IoT Trends We Can Look Forward to in 2022 and Beyond

May 9, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Since witnessing the dreadful impacts of COVID-19, the human race has adapted intelligence connectivity to the fullest. This increasing utilization of such elements, which include their intelligence, demanded the market to deliver the best to sustain this usage for the upcoming years. This dependency on intelligence connectivity covers 73% of global business growth.

We are 4 months into 2022, and there has been a significant amount of IoT-based innovation for the industrial sector to grow businesses worldwide and create an IoT-based working environment. In this article, we will be looking at the top IoT trends that came out this year to revolutionize our world and what lies beyond these innovations for the human race.

What are the top upcoming IoT trends?

The Dominance of 5G

5G was introduced as a power only for a specific audience. However, this is now changing in 2022, and this year, we saw that 5G is now being targeted to a more generic audience rather than a targeted one. This will also be a trend in the upcoming years, and this innovation will surely stay for a long time.

5G will be integrated into the IoT-based devices for a mass machine communication approach so that these devices can communicate and handle data without the dependencies on humans alone. This might at first take a slow flight, but will eventually end up as one of the top IoT trends.
Smart Security Devices for All

We all have heard multiple times that consumers can hold IoT-based smart devices, and it is now possible to say that this happened in 2022. Smart security devices are being inaugurated by offering or launching smart home appliances such as security cameras and video doorbells.

This IoT trend will be beneficial in the upcoming years, especially from the security perspective. These devices include intelligent voice recognition to better understand their owners.
Interoperability with Ease

It is important for us to connect our devices anywhere at any time, all the devices in your house will have the advantage of smart operative settings. This will make up a digital house that will have its own equipment intelligence.

This technology is related to people who try to bring something unique and pact with intelligence. This IoT trend is helpful for those who prefer to work from home, making it easier for them to be more productive.
Advanced Sensor Techniques for Medical Services

It will be great to see that medical equipment can detect chronic diseases and easily suggest a diagnosis procedure. However, it has one disadvantage of having extensive user data, which can create a mess for multiple other medical mediums.

One of the tiniest examples is a newly launched bathtub that automatically heats at the suggested temperature regularly. This IoT trend needs time to catch on, and it is estimated that 2025, we could reap its full benefits.
No More Cloud Data Dependencies

We are currently dependent on cloud-based intelligence that stores and protects our data and helps us access it wherever and whenever we need it. However, this technology is being improved to suit a massive audience so that we won’t have to rely on the cloud alone.

Enterprises will be able to implement real-time applications. You will not have to rely on the cloud for your house or office chores. You can simply opt for more fluent AI-based solutions linked with IoT innovation for better results.

At [x]cube LABS, we have leveraged this IoT trend to create a suite of services that help reduce your cloud expenses and optimize cloud services.
Massive Adaption

Due to their popularity, multi-national companies are curating these intelligence devices. This creates a market for better IoT innovations, frameworks, and AI advancements. Now, AI is being used, linking it with IoT to deduce sensory data and send signals to other machines.

In this IoT trend, multiple language barriers can be eliminated, resulting in better learning and productivity. Massive adaption also means an intelligence wave of IoT-based users. They will be able to notice the voice modes of different human behaviors and mimic them.

Conclusion

The future of IoT innovation linked with AI is bright and requires little time to realize its implications. However, several companies have offered some revolutionary IoT-related devices that are surely better than other less efficient ones. The question is, what is beyond 2022? With the progress of multiple IoT trends, we will surely see more innovation across industries, leading to radical breakthroughs.

Blog, Internet of Things

The Impact of IoT Applications in Everyday Lives

April 29, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
Traffic and Vehicles
Energy and Appliances
Wearables
Health
Corporate Sector
Closing Remarks

Introduction:

The innovative and revolutionary concept of the Internet of Things or IoT is now all-pervasive. You may not realize it, but IoT applications are now a strong part of our day-to-day lives. We cannot deny all the possible ways IoT is helping us achieve our desired results in everyday chores.

Humans have many options, and each passing day is getting better and better. The physical world can change, and that credit goes to the Internet of Things and the opportunities it creates for the human race. But have you ever wondered how IoT applications work? The technology simply connects all the devices under a network, sends alerts from one device to another, and follows the users’ demands.

To further elaborate on some of the top IoT applications and how they are embedded in our day-to-day lives, here are some of the applications of IoT that are benefitting us like no other.

Traffic and Driving Vehicles

It might sound cliché but it is one of the efficient fields where IoT applications have facilitated the human race beyond perfection. The Internet of Things has revolutionized how we used to drive our vehicles and now move in general. It is now safer and less stressful for people due to the smart adjustments of traffic lights and flexible traffic conditions. For special vehicles like ambulances, the Internet of Things started to generate real-time patterns for other drivers to have the signals of an ambulance approaching from behind.

In addition to this traffic, sensors are a great addition to the technology IoT applications bring. Now, we can change our speed and adjust our speed limits based on the weather we are driving in. Also, it guides us on how to avoid previous accidents from happening again and allows us to select the best option while we are moving. In the future, cars will be increasingly connected to this technology to avoid further unpleasant incidents for the drivers.
Energy and Other Appliances

As we progress, we are leaving footprints that are damaging our environment, but recently, the Internet of Things has reduced this to some extent. We previously consumed high energy in our day-to-day chores, but with IoT applications, the process has been simplified and made safer for the environment.

IoT applications are now adjusting for more effective bills that do not harm anyone’s pocket. Thermostats are now adjustable according to our modes and habits to switch to the perfect temperature. Considering the far-reaching impact of such applications, we can surmise that their impact on the energy sector constitutes some of the best IoT application examples.
Wearables

Who doesn’t love the attractive yet advanced wearable technology that IoT has introduced to us?. Multiple wearable products are now making waves due to their adjustable and optimized features for their users. They not only offer better designs but also offer tons of facilities and intelligence to their wearers. They are now efficient in monitoring sleep patterns and help provide hearing aids.

From tracking activities to connecting you to your socials, these wearables and IoT applications are continuously improving. It is only a matter of time before these wearable products will replace major items and potions on which we rely to perform our daily chores.
Health Sector

If there is a sector that was revolutionized the most by IoT applications, it is the healthcare sector and all the other fields connected to it. IoT applications offer solutions to maximize health and safety for people worldwide. It improves patient care by facilitating the medical sector with reduced costs and efficient products.

IoT applications can make appointments happen quickly and notify your doctor whenever they sense any disturbance in the temperature or your habits. Patients can detect their sugar levels and take precautionary measures, and their blood levels can be detected and monitored at any time.
Corporate Sector

We cannot deny the process that happened because of IoT applications in the business and industrial sectors. IoT has become an essential part of the industry, and business owners rely heavily on IoT applications and their services in the sector. At [x]cube LABS, we empower global enterprises to leverage IoT to drive great results.

It covers the initial stages of industries and offices and continues until the customer’s door. It is now easier to optimize logistic operations with IoT applications, which help automate the process for workers and owners quickly. This saves a lot of labor costs and gas bills for multiple factories, especially small businesses that rely a lot on sales.

From reducing waste to improving service deliveries, IoT is covering many portions of the industrial sector. It is now less expensive to manufacture items and products for customers. IoT applications allow consumers and owners to have transparency and effective delivery in no time.

Closing Remarks on IoT Applications:

Going forward, we can expect IoT to increasingly become an integral part of our daily lives and transform our daily tasks. We will gradually become accustomed to smart homes, smart cities, and smart workplaces, which will enhance security, productivity, and ease of use. It will certainly be interesting to see what each innovation brings, and we will continue the coverage of novel IoT applications as more of them surface.

Blog, Internet of Things

Top Companies for Your IoT Innovation Needs

April 22, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
[x]cube LABS
Aristocrat Leisure Limited
Yext
Bevi
Mason
Twin Health
Samsara
Flowcode

Introduction:

This is the technological revolution and hyper-connectivity age, where the Internet of Things (IoT) plays a vital role in connecting humanity with advancement. According to research, the IoT will likely boom in the upcoming years due to the stellar work being done by several IoT companies across industries, and we can see that happening around 2025. The sector has provided us with countless facilities, ranging from intelligent wearable products to optimized vehicles and homes.

The Internet of Things industry has a remarkable revenue rate of 1 trillion to 3 trillion every year, and this is likely to multiply in the coming years as more companies and private firms seek the assistance of IoT to run their operations. Around us, we can see multiple IoT-based appliances that IoT-based companies are manufacturing. To understand more about such IoT companies, we have handpicked the top IoT companies to accelerate your innovation needs.

[x]cube LABS

If you are seeking digital innovation and don’t know where to look, [x]cube LABS is a leading IoT company that operates globally and offers IoT-based services to its clients. The firm is highly efficient in providing solutions and assistance in digital transformation, perfectly planning strategies and executing them to gain the best results.

[x]cube LABS is known for its services in digital business transformation and long-term strategies to boost business for its clients. They offer technological executions for small businesses and firms and help them achieve a smooth digital transformation quickly.

Aristocrat Leisure Limited

Ever wondered about IoT companies in the gaming industry? Well, Aristocrat is that one brand that is a leading company for providing gaming solutions globally. Because the gaming sector is also booming, just like the Internet of Things sector, there is a lot of scope for an IoT company like Aristocrat to target clients looking for polished and effective gaming solutions.

Licensed in 300+ jurisdictions, Aristocrat is a platform for all gaming sectors to avail themselves of gaming solutions and to fuse IoT and creativity in 90 countries. Aristocrat offers solutions, operating strategies, and advanced maps for gaming designs.

Yext

Projecting itself as the best way to search, the IoT company Yext implements superior AI algorithms in its innovative online search solution. The firm provides better hyperlinks to its clients so they can monitor their data online. It scans keywords and important sites and, with the help of AI, designs patterns to help you search for the right services.

Yext is a merger of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. It offers its clients a wide range of online services covering all aspects of online data and hyperlink patterns.

Bevi

Think about an IoT company that combines the Internet of Things with supply chain management. Well, IoT has made waves in supply chain management before, but Bervi is one IoT company that is focusing on innovative measures to take this fusion to a whole new level.

The company smartly replaces single-use water bottles with water machines optimized with intelligence. It enables IoT-based beverage machines and has reduced tons of waste, which was a problem before IoT took over.

Mason

Mason is an IoT company that manufactures IoT-based products from scratch. It offers its clients a wide variety of products, single and bulk, at a cost-effective scale.

This innovative IoT company is known for its smart device platforms, which fully manage the development and delivery of products infused with AI and IoT.

Twin Health

We have always heard and seen with our own eyes how IoT has transformed the healthcare sector within no time, and the Twin Health company is an example of that same innovation IoT caused. The IoT company utilizes machine learning and the Internet of Things to resist and reverse chronic diseases. It also suggests patterns that improve overall human metabolic health and guts.

These groundbreaking results are achieved by utilizing the IoT on patients and their patterns and habits to understand what causes such health issues to prevail.

Samsara

We all know how IoT works well with sensors, and Samsara is an IoT company that builds IoT-based sensors for its clients. It is also a cloud and IoT company that offers sensors, software, and solutions along with cloud services to its customers.

The company is known for its leading position in offering safety, efficiency, and sustainability in all IoT-based operations that boost economies worldwide.

Flowcode

As its name suggests, Flowcode is an IoT company focusing on offline and online markets by building connections between consumers and companies. The company is known for its contactless connection, which offers speed, security, and protection from all consumer threats.

It uses the latest QR technology and merges it with data-driven designs, enabling ultra-fast scanning and services to its users.

Blog, Internet of Things

What are “IoT Platforms” and how do they Benefit IoT Implementation for Enterprises?

April 14, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
What is an IoT platform?
What IoT platforms are available to you?
Conclusion

Introduction:

Before getting into IoT platforms, let’s look at the struggles with IoT adoption itself. As a business leader looking to leverage technology to solve problems, I find it easy to put IoT, or the Internet of Things, forward as a critical piece of the puzzle. However, when a deep dive is required on how to build the product right, what information it should gather, how to test if it’s working, and whether it will justify the investment, decision-makers often struggle to convince others and themselves even. So, how do you bridge the digital divide where you want to give technology a shot and yet are unsure of the benefits everyone keeps talking about?

One thing is sure: if you wait for your theories to be 100% confirmed before putting even a fraction of them into practice, you’ll be waiting forever. The best approach here is to understand your target audience, know the kind of experience they would love to get from your product, build a PoC with a few features, get it out, and see how it is received. If the signs are encouraging, keep building, and if they are not, it’s back to the drawing board.

Since we are talking specifically about IoT here, let’s look at how you can build that PoC quickly and, if it clicks, continue building it at a good pace and scale. Some ways enable you to minimize your initial investment when you are yet to be sure. Do what you need to be sure quickly, and if things don’t work out, you’re not left looking at a vast failed expense. We are discussing using an IoT platform instead of building everything from the ground up.

What is an IoT platform?

Essentially, one of the most significant advantages of building an IoT solution is the amount of data it will collect, the insights you will get about your device’s performance, and how users interact with it. To do this, a range of sensors and APIs must be built for communication between the interface and your back-end. IoT platforms make it easy for you as they are pre-built mediators between physical objects and actionable insights. They enable developers to distribute their applications, gather data remotely, ensure secure connectivity, and facilitate sensor management.

Building security measures for your IoT solution alone is arduous, so you can imagine how easily IoT platforms can make things for you. Additionally, the ability of IoT platforms to make sense of vast volumes of data and present them on an intuitive dashboard means that you learn what you need to learn quickly and take the following steps with increased conviction.

What IoT platforms are available to you?

If you are confused in your search for the best IoT platform, let us simplify things for you. With our extensive experience developing IoT solutions for global enterprises for over a decade, we have come across multiple versatile IoT platforms and even built one of our own! So here’s our take on some of the very best:

Mobius Loop: Call us biased, but we must mention our IoT platform, which has worked wonders for many customers. With a team of over 100 IoT experts who’ve built over 85 IoT solutions across industries, it’s no wonder IoT innovation is one of our core areas of expertise. We started the blog emphasizing that in a fast-paced environment, it’s best if you know what you need to do quickly, and that’s what Mobius Loop enables you to do. You build fast yet robust, and security is built in from the first step.

The Mobius Loop Platform is a high-speed and highly efficient IoT platform that can easily be used to build IoT software and applications. Our IoT platform architecture features visuals and a model-driven system UI templates approach that enables technical developers to consume IoT services and make real-time monitoring & tracking of devices with efficient processes & more intelligent operations.

Through this platform-agnostic strategy, Mobius Loop enables organizations and their developers to build rich experiences on top of connected devices to transform their operations, products, and business models with a low-code platform.

Google Cloud IoT: The company released its IoT development platform based on the Google Cloud infrastructure, which quickly became popular. The IoT platform integrates Google’s valuable features, making building connected solutions more straightforward. These features include “cloud IoT core,” which helps in capturing and handling data; “cloud pub/sub,” which analyses data; “Google BigQuery,” which generates analytics in real-time, an AI platform to run machine learning algorithms; “Google Data Studio” which presents the data in an easy-to-read format, and “Google Maps” which helps with locating connected devices.

Cisco IoT Cloud Connect: This IoT platform was tailor-made for mobile operators and combines Cisco’s stellar IoT hardware offerings with its powerful software suite. Key features of the Cisco IoT platform include an IoT control center that ensures seamless cellular connectivity among the devices, “Extended Enterprise Solution” to develop IoT business applications at the edge, “Edge Intelligence” that makes data processing a breeze, “Industrial Asset Vision” which makes use of sensors to monitor assets and continuously collect relevant data, and “Cisco IoT Threat Defense” that secures the entire platform.

Particle: One of the great benefits of technological advancements is that we can increasingly talk about creating technology with little technical knowledge and, in other words, flattening the learning curve as much as possible for people who want to get into leveraging technology for great results, enabling them to achieve more in less time. While creating the IoT platform needs deep technical knowledge, there’s no reason to make it accessible only to those who share that knowledge, right? Well, Particle is one such IoT platform. It’s edge-to-cloud with excellent connectivity and device management features. Additionally, it integrates with 3rd party services through REST API, is incredibly secure, and can work with data from Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

IBM Watson IoT: Prioritizing security, it features several functional elements to accelerate development and ensure seamless connectivity between devices in its IoT monitoring platform. It uses MQTT to absorb data from all sources, provides direct access to updated data in the Cloudant NoSQL DB solution, provides intuitive dashboards to monitor and control assets, robust analytics services to make sense of large volumes of data, and cloud object storage solution to preserve data over a long time.

Conclusion:

Now that you have learned about some of the best IoT platforms you can leverage for your business, you must choose one. Honestly, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution among these, and your choice will depend on your unique requirements and use cases. Selecting services from Amazon and Google can seem the right way to go, but they are also the most expensive, and lesser-known alternatives may just give you the right balance between cost and performance. While choosing, consider the technical specifications, ecosystem, and organizations that have built their solutions upon them. Ask for case studies, and verify for yourself the results being delivered. If you have any questions about IoT platforms in general or how you can get started on your IoT initiative, reach out to us at [x]cube LABS, and we’ll be happy to talk.

Blog, Internet of Things

Everything You Need to Know about the Internet of Things

April 7, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What is IoT or the Internet of Things?
Defining IoT Systems: the [x]cube Way
Why Does IoT Matter to Your Business?
What are the Advantages of IoT
The Future of IoT According to [x]cube LABS
Conclusion

Speaking about the Internet of Things, have you ever wondered how your devices communicate with you on multiple levels? From schools to offices and healthcare centers to industries, tons of devices operate on the same system that interconnects them.

In this, we will offer a guide to the Internet of Things and how it operates on many levels in our daily lives. To understand the system, we must first know IoT’s actual meaning and what it makes of.

What is IoT or the Internet of Things?

IoT, or the Internet of Things, is a system of multiple interconnected physical devices communicating through the Internet daily lives. Their primary task is to collect data and transfer it to other applications and devices that function on the same system.

This data can somewhat communicate with us to offer services or answer our queries. These devices can also communicate with their other counterparts and transfer data from one device to another in no time.

The devices that operate in the IoT system are called IoT devices, and they can generate sensory data, biotelemetry data, and various other forms of data to transfer or receive information. These devices have mini processors like in standard computers. These processors act based on machine learning and collect further data due to their sensory abilities.

Defining IoT Systems: the [x]cube Way

The Internet of Things system is based on its four main pillars, which are commonly used in our day-to-day lives and perform various operations on the Internet. Internet our integrated parts are,

Devices or sensors help transfer data to the cloud.
Connectivity, along with wit Data Collection, acts primarily to transfer data to the cloud; methods are HTTP/S, Bluetooth, RFID readers, and FTPs. These methods require a host to collect the data.
Machine Learning is a stage where all the devices process the collected data and then perform actions according to the data they collected. All of this happens based on preferences.
The user interface is a medium through which users can decide on their actions using the traditional user interface.

Why Does IoT Matter to Your Business?

As the world grows, its need for technology also increases to prominence levels. We can see that almost 50 million people use devices that function solely on IoT. These devices are interconnected and strongly perform their tasks of generating and communicating data with each other.

This helps both consumers and business owners completely trust IoT and its IoT-centric devices with their functionality and operations. It also helps humans understand the possible strategies and ideas one can have while using an IoT-based system, allowing for better and more precise decision-making.

IoT has many benefits in our daily lives that we can experience multiple times a day. There was a time when only consumers used IoT for their entertainment and daily activities; however, things have changed now, and businesses are also moving towards this system.

What are the Advantages of IoT

As mentioned above, there are multiple cases where IoT is currently performing in a revolutionary and innovative way that might not have been possible a decade ago. Continuous advancements are making the world of IoT more stable for the upcoming times.

Here are some of the benefits that IoT offers us in multiple sectors,

Automation in the Industrial Sector

Multiple industries use the Internet of Things to increase reliability and sustainability in production and growth. This is more common in automated sectors where numerous robots are building or manufacturing things, not humans.

If such industries adopt any traditional medium, such as manufacturing through humans, it will slow down production and increase multiple requirements, such as labor wages for the company. Manufacturers want to gain as much as possible, so they use devices that communicate through the Internet For multiple tasks.

Companies contain data on the sensory motions of these robots so that they can be utilized on their own. Furthermore, this also opens the door for scientists working on data to modify these machines with features that the industrial sector can detect when the so-called IoT-based robots or infrastructure has reached its limit.

This will reduce the risk of sudden expense on repair and management and require fewer management efforts by the company. It will increase the production level and efficiency of the product and build a trustable reputation for the company. Manufacturers also have the advantage of checking the health points of their devices and predicting the maintenance time.

Collection of Data

It is no surprise that humans now have a lot of data scattered around them. There was nothing like this some 20 years ago, but as we move from platform to platform, exposing ourselves to the never-ending realm of the Internet, the Internet is now more exposed to tons of data that never stops flowing. The speed of this data is also increasing daily without ever stopping.

Undoubtedly, the future of the human race will be enriched with data. The puzzling factor related to data is that humans cannot decide and analyze the data they are exposed to now and then. So, the answer to processing it was the Internet of Things, along with analyzing and processing it for humans to utilize for their betterment and growth.

IoT has a unique approach to collecting data and transferring it to its integrated devices. It collects the data from several places and then processes it to perform multiple tasks on various mediums wherever these devices perform.

Personalized Customer Experience

Since it is a system based on multiple integrated devices that communicate and share data, it offers humans a personalized customer experience. Customers receive a level of support and trust from these devices and can communicate with them without any hindrances.

Customers have the perks to enjoy these services on air, sea, and land. These devices provide continuous improvements to users as they collect data based on what their consumers or clients prefer. This strengthens their link with their clients or consumers while fulfilling their needs.

Greater Revenue

The better the experience, the better the revenue. Whether in the industrial sector or health, if consumers are getting personalized experiences and are happy to be offered services by IoT devices, it will automatically turn the Internet of Things into a profitable and great revenue-based system for multiple sectors.

It is a great alternative for small businesses struggling to reach specific business heights and trying to elevate their reputations in challenging market conditions.

Stable Public Sector

Whether in the public or private sector, IoT-based devices offer notifications related to water, energy, and many other essentials and utility-related elements. They collect data on the area where their clients or consumers live and notify the government based on their consumers’ needs to enhance living standards.

This means that IoT devices massively improve the conditions of their consumers both in the private and public sectors.

Progress in Healthcare

Last but not least, IoT devices are strongly embedded in the healthcare sector. We see many machines and labs that operate on such devices and perform pretty well for their consumers. From sensors to trackers, the Internet of Things in healthcare is resolving many issues that were a massive pain in the early technological years.

Furthermore, they also help improve these healthcare centers’ financial systems to avoid consumer outrage.

Concerns Regarding IoT

It doesn’t mean that if IoT is progressing in multiple fields, there won’t be any reservations or concerns related to it. Everything has its flip side, and so does IoT. There are two major concerns related to IoT that we usually witness on a massive level. Both of these concerns are elaborated below.

Security

If there is progress, then that means there will be some challenges parallel to the progress that the world is experiencing, and this is the case with IoT. With the Internet of Things, cybersecurity implementation has to be beefed up, and uncertainties around this have resulted in many business leaders delaying their implementations.

The alarming increase in the number of devices is a threat to security and can lead to possible security breaches in the future. Hackers can access consumer data on multiple levels. On the other hand, we might collectively experience security or software glitches that can occur due to any malware in the IoT system.

Standards of IoT

With increasing growth, consumers tend to demand more modification. The current demand from consumers is to define a set of uniform standards for both industries and for consumers who regularly use IoT devices for daily tasks.

This will expose companies that can alter consumer data for their benefit and use that data to create consumer traps. In the future, manufacturers may have to provide liability and security to their consumers so that their consumers can enjoy a safe IoT-based sphere.

The Future of IoT According to [x]cube LABS

It is no surprise that the future belongs to technology and advancements. The Internet of Things is a powerful system that is slowly and continuously building its reputation for a more digital future for the human race. Companies such as Tesla are now recognizing the potential of IoT and are working to introduce IoT-based projects for their consumers. This means we can witness more tech-based companies adopting the same approach.

However, like any other growing technology, risks and threats are inevitable and can have drawbacks in the future. Currently, IoT-based devices are working and offering three main services to their consumers: maintenance, integration, and data processing.

After performing all three services, they can communicate it to multiple mediums, making it easy for the consumers. Perhaps this might include more revolutionary consumer features in the future and lead to efficient outcomes for all sectors in general.

Conclusion

We can safely say that currently, IoT is serving multiple sectors with ease. There is a possible drawback to the system, but without IoT, it is almost practically impossible to meet the communication conditions and challenges. However, there is always room for improvements and better features that can be installed to make the realm of IoT more convenient and effective for its consumers.

Multiple enterprises are also curating ideas and projects that can eliminate IoT devices’ security and safety threats and are moving towards uniform standards for their consumers.

Blockchain, Blog, NFT

How can Small Businesses Benefit from NFTs?

March 30, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
What are NFTs?
What is the process by which NFTs are manufactured?
Ways NFTs can be used to assist in the growth of your small business.
Conclusion

Introduction:

Many people are talking about non-fungible tokens (NFTs). During the first three months of 2021, sales totaled $2.5 billion. Major corporations like Coca-Cola and the National Basketball Association (NBA) have become members. Businesses love NFTs because they help create fresh and intriguing content, promote the brand, and discover different ways to make money. In light of these ideas, small firms should take leverage of the NFT phenomenon.

What are NFTs?

NFTs are digital assets that can be used to create realistic-looking art, music, in-game goods, and videos. A cryptocurrency is typically used for online transactions such as purchasing or selling it. In most cases, it’s created using the same tools as other cryptographic protocols. Despite being around since 2014, NFTs have recently gained attention due to their growing popularity as a way for consumers to purchase and sell digital artwork.

NFTs have cost $174 million since November 2017. Aside from being one of a kind, NFTs also feature unique codes that can be used to locate and identify them. This is a dramatic contrast to most digital productions, which are usually always accessible at any one moment.

If a product is in high demand, cutting off its supply should make it more valuable, at least theoretically. In the early days of NFTs, some digital creations already existed in some form elsewhere, such as legendary NBA game footage or securitized versions of digital art that are already on Instagram.

What is the process by which NFTs are manufactured?

NFTs are made possible by a technology known as blockchain. If we had the time and resources, we could write an entire article about blockchain technology. In a nutshell, it’s a network of computers that stores digital records of information. Because no one controls it, it’s nearly complicated for someone to intentionally alter or infiltrate the information it contains.

Ways NFTs can be used to assist in the growth of your small business.

For this reason, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are in high demand. People aspire to own works of art and sentimental mementos. Those in the market for long-term investments seek to invest in assets they believe will appreciate in value.

Make Promotional Tools That Can’t Be Reached:

Hackers can use one-time promotional tools like coupon codes and promotional discounts to get money from you. Fraudsters can create the codes using “brute force.” People often use brute-force attacks to hack into passwords, encryption keys, and log-in credentials. If successful, they can do much damage to small businesses.

Loyalty programs for customers should be set up:

Suppose you have a digital Near Field Communication (NFC) card. After they sign up, customers download the app to their mobile phones. Customers who visit your company scan the reward NFT code to earn loyalty points. Push in-store prizes, discounts, or blockchain tokens when they reach a certain amount.

Check out the Metaverse:

Metaverses, called the “new internet,” are places that can be seen through VR headsets or other immersive technology. In each Metaverse, there are things called NFTs that can be used to buy virtual clothes for your avatar, estate development, or tickets to events that take place there. As a small business, you can start advertising your brand in a place like Decentraland by hosting activities in your field and setting up shop there.

Sell Non-Fungible Transactions to People on the Internet:

People can buy virtual real estate and dress their avatars in inexpensive clothes in the Metaverse. If you’re an innovative business, you could use this to order branded NFT things to sell in virtual worlds like Decentraland.

Nike has filed patents for virtual sneakers for people who play games and live in virtual worlds. This is Nike’s second time being ahead of the game in this area. Coca-Cola also made a virtual NFT bubble jacket to celebrate its 200th anniversary. This is another excellent example of how NFTs can be used in business.

Gamification is a way to make exciting promotions:

Gamification of NFTs can be used to attract more clients. For example, a chamber of commerce could organize an NFT scavenger hunt that would direct customers to stores owned by small businesses participating in the hunt. If you run a big company, you should use this marketing method because it is expensive. For small businesses, partnering with a well-known brand and running a campaign that both benefit from is the best way to go.

Increase the effectiveness of supply chain management:

It is one of the best enterprise applications for NFTs. Supply chain management is among the best. To make it easier for businesses to keep track of products through the supply chain, they can put NFT-enabled tags on physical goods.

For example, product-related NFTs on the blockchain might include information about raw materials and how they are made. Businesses can immediately see when a defective product is added to the supply chain. Because blockchain data is available to the public, customers can check the manufacturing details of a piece of goods.

Engage in charitable activities if possible:

You may learn more about non-financial transactions (NFTs) and how you might use them to achieve success. Charitable organizations began using non-fungible tokens to solicit donations when they first started up. For example, BookBlocks.io has generated 2,200 NFTs to support Afghan women’s education since the Taliban seized control of the country in 2011.

Conclusion:

Using NFTs to build brand awareness and customer loyalty, create unique consumer experiences, and monitor your supply chain could help your business. Given their enormous commercial potential, every responsible firm would do well to include them in its overall business strategy and operations.

Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Robotics

How AI-powered Robots are Changing Our Lives

March 24, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Did You Know?
Smart Homes
Robots in Medicine
Robots in Education
Self-Driving Cars
Autonomous Transportation
Conclusion

Robotics is a field that deals with creating humanoid machines that can act like humans and perform activities just like human beings. AI allows robots to work intelligently in a variety of situations. Robotics today has reached a stage where the robotic arm can now detect what material an object is created of and then estimate the force required to manipulate it.

For instance, the robot can load the dishwasher, pick up laundry, reach higher objects, and navigate.

Did You Know?

A game-changing stage into the future of cooking, Moley brings is the world’s first fully robotic kitchen. Everything is adjusted for optimal robotics work based on established industrial manipulators in the robotic kitchen. The robots can now break eggs, use a blender or turn on the water tap. The entire cooking is fully automated. The robots are trained with the help of a camera recording of the cooking process and its verbal description. Isn’t this amazing?

Today, we are already surrounded by several applications of robotics but are often unaware of them.. Given beneath are some of the notable examples of robotics in our day-to-day lives:

Smart Homes

As the growing technological advances, we are being provided with numerous completely automated and easy-to-use devices and appliances. Robots are now deployed for personal uses to decrease human efforts. These robots are ready to help us with all the household chores.

Also, The household robots market is anticipated to grow from $3.3 billion from 2019 to $9.1 billion by 2024 with a CAGR of 22.4% during the forecast period.

Some of the examples of home robots that help in household activities are:

Home robots can look after pet animals in your absence.
Robots can help with laundry kitchen cleaning.
Home robots can monitor your household activities every day and make a few things ready for you. For example, robots can help you prepare meals.
Some robots will assist you in assembling things like furniture, and help you lift, place, and replace heavy objects.
Robots can guard your home and notify you in case of any disturbances.
Robots can answer your phone call and continue in the basic formal conversation just how you do.

There are numerous other activities that robots can help with in households, powered by artificial intelligence (AI). There aren’t many robots available yet, but hopefully, soon they will be.

People currently utilize multiple home appliances that perform their chores, like robot vacuum cleaners or intelligent coffee machines. Personal assistants like Siri and Alexa help search for information, make orders, and control devices in smart homes. The development of such assistants will keep increasing, as consumer demand is growing

Robots in Medicine

The impact of robotics is absolute in the domain of medicine. Recently, engineers have successfully discovered surgical robots. This success has drawn significant financial investment for robots in medical science.

Recently, Google and Johnson & Johnson have been working together to create a next-generation medical robot system. Though it is not likely yet, the day is not too far when robots will replace surgeons in surgical procedures. In the recent past, robots were only employed like assistants, but now, they are part and parcel of the clinical system.

For drug delivery methods, robots can locally focus on therapeutic payload around pathological areas to lower the dose of drug administration and side effects caused by them.

The effect of robotics is undeniable in the field of healthcare services. Lately, medical engineers have successfully invented surgical robots. This innovation has gained a lot of traction in the financial sector for more investments in medical science.

Now robotics engineers are working hard to build micro and nanorobots as these robots can perform incredibly perfectly. One instrument, da Vinci, approved by the FDA in 2000, is said to have been used to perform over 6 million surgeries worldwide.

AI-based chatbot developments and consulting applications enable the area of telemedicine. Other intelligent programs can perform precise diagnostics by analyzing patients’ medical records.

The potential of intelligent software and machines in healthcare is immense due to their ability to make medical assistance more accurate and available.

Robots in Education

Robotics has now become a general-purpose technology because it has the potential to transform and impact organizations’ economic and social systems. Hence, it is now natural to discuss robotics in the education sector.

Many students have to go through diverse conditions, which means a few cannot physically attend courses and miss a class. Engineers have now created robots that help students attend classes from any world. These robots act as a person in the classroom, which the students control themselves. The cameras work as eyes and use the body for conveying messages to others. This helps the students to see and do everything just like they are present in the class from the comfort of their home.

Another compelling application of robotics in education is humanoid robots. As we all know, autistic students usually find it frustrating and confusing to express themselves with other individuals. The humanoid robots that typically look like humans make the job easy to share with them, creating a human delusion. These robots help autistic students by providing educational lessons and teaching social cues. The success level is immense in this field.

LuxAI is an Autism Robot Tutor for Improving Child’s Learning Outcome at the comfort of your home!

Self-Driving Cars

AI technology is quickly thrusting itself for the advancement of self-driving cars. According to a study concentrating on fifty Google vehicles that drove about 1.3 million road miles overall, AI-powered cars have already surpassed human operators in terms of safety. AI allows self-driving vehicles to adapt immediately to changing conditions and learn from new situations. Most critical car brands are currently looking to integrate this technology with their fleet.

For instance, Tesla Autopilot AI drives the future of autonomy of current and new generations of vehicles.

Autonomous Transportation

Imagine the opportunities that self-driving cars offer people who are disabled. The possibilities appear to be boundless, where people can transport themselves without assistance to a specific location and become more independent. Such opportunities can be extended into homes, where automation of simple tasks like making a bed and cleaning your house via robots or home devices is made simpler.

Robotic Friend

You might think of robots as machinery, but robots will soon act as friends with advancements in technology. With artificial intelligence, robots will function like humans, monitor, and understand human emotions, thus becoming just like us.

For example, Boomer, a bomb disposal robot, was offered a military funeral with 21-gun salutes. It saved many of its human friends’ lives on several occasions.

Now, these Robotic friends are acting as explorers and are performing many dangerous jobs in outer-space. NASA recently sent a robot named “Curiosity” to explore Mars.

In a few countries, people are choosing robots as their life partners as now they have emotions configured in them with the support of artificial intelligence.

Conclusion

It may not appear like you’re dealing with a robot in the coming days. Robots are making great changes and innovations in technology, penetrating every industry and social sphere. Robotics, therefore, will have a powerful impact on your everyday life. For example, with the help of robotics you can use the self-checkout lane at the supermarket or purchase tickets from movies or shows.

Blog, Virtual Reality

Future of VR in ‘Virtualized’ Workplaces

March 15, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction

For many, virtual reality (VR) likely summons images of game-obsessed teenagers wearing goggles and admiring the feeling of riding a rollercoaster or gliding through space from the comfort of their couch. However, the most potent future virtual reality applications will go beyond pure entertainment, drastically changing how people think about their work and workplace.

It started with Zoom/Oculus, then came Webex, and then Microsoft began their Microsoft Mesh, and now; Slack. Four giants collaborated to join the Metaverse, a newly-coined phrase used to represent the concept of a forthcoming variant of the internet.

Facebook changed the direction of the virtual reality industry in 2014 through a $2 billion acquisition deal with Oculus VR. Before this deal, the notion was that virtual reality would only fit in the world of video games. The value showed Facebook’s confidence in the technology and established that the future of VR is promising: Within two years, the total amount invested and the number of venture capital contracts tripled. While the widespread adoption of virtual reality is still distant, many companies have already incorporated the technology into their business practices to create innovative, sustainable workplaces.

According to a report by PWC, Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) can strengthen the global economy by nearly $2 trillion by 2030. These technologies will soon be familiar in the workplace.

Even with the onset of remote work due to the pandemic, the workplace has transformed as new technologies have pervaded work. One of the technologies that stood out was X-Reality.

Extended Reality (X-Reality) defines the merge of digital technologies with the real world.

The “X” in X-Reality consists of four technologies:

Augmented, Virtual, Mixed and Assisted Reality.

VR in X-Reality helps make a user’s interaction with the digital world more intuitive and seamless. The new human-technology interaction can add value for companies while gaining a competitive advantage. We can use VR for work meetings, training, and customer service experience in the workplace.

A report by PWC predicts that by 2030, nearly 23 million jobs will use AR and VR. According to ARtillery Intelligence, VR usage in businesses is expected to grow to $4.26 billion by 2023.

In 2021, Facebook’s VR headset brand Horizon, an Oculus for business platform, was released. This platform will assist workers in interacting digitally in a more immersive form without the need to go to any location, thus supporting the hybrid work model. Facebook Horizon will let its users share and build collaborative online worlds to work on projects, hang out, or play games.

Increased Connection and Collaboration Virtual reality allows individuals to unite regardless of physical distance. However, VR users can feel like they are inhibiting the same space, which results in good collaboration. VR provides a medium for users to view and manipulate data together in real-time. While some companies prefer installing mixed-reality rooms to execute VR meetings and collaborative work sessions, others distribute VR headsets that can be used in the office or remotely. This technology is readily available and intuitive, helping people collaborate and connect.

Four ways in which VR has the potential to impact the workplace:

New HR Practices

Human resources will transform drastically with the effortless global connectivity that VR provides. Corporates can use VR in a variety of interactive HR workshops. With access to workers worldwide, hiring techniques will grow to recruit top talent. As part of the interview process, forthcoming employees will have the opportunity to virtually shadow their potential standing to understand the day-to-day responsibilities better.

Upgraded Training Methods

Putting individuals into a fully immersive real-life scenario forms the perfect training tool. VR training is beneficial in high-risk situations, allowing employees to gain experience safely. The armed forces and NASA use VR training to minimize risk and costs. Walmart has also taken advantage of the technology, using simulations to train employees for the Black Friday rush. Regardless of the industry, VR offers an engaging, educational experience.

More Efficient Product Development

Within a computer-generated environment, product development will evolve more efficiently than ever. Organizations can use Virtual reality to test products in different scenarios, eliminating the necessity for expensive physical prototypes. Modifications can be made virtually and immediately during trials, allowing the final product to be refined faster. From spacecraft to cars, large-scale manufacturers are already using VR to test everything:

Ford uses the Oculus Rift, a popular VR headset, to create and refine virtual prototypes generally used for gaming.

Creative Marketing Practices

Virtual reality will redefine the old-fashioned test drive. From cars to vacations, VR allows customers to test every product and experience before purchasing. When customers are keen to make a purchase, they can do it virtually. VR’s immersive experience is impactful, creating a personal connection between consumers and brands and influencing purchasing decisions.

For most, virtual reality (VR) is an alien concept, a technology perhaps limited to gaming. However, the industry is about to grow from $27.9 billion in 2025, and due to the pandemic, there is a rise in VR products and services.

Could VR move from a futuristic concept to reality for remote employees? Yes, it will, as Experts anticipate that nearly 23.5 million jobs worldwide will be utilizing augmented or virtual reality by 2030.

Facebook disclosed its plans to invest over ten billion in funds to help create significant progress toward an unexplored (iteration) of the internet.

It will consist of constantly shared, 3D virtual spaces connected into a (perceived) virtual universe-like (metaverse) technological improvements that could soon remove worker hurdles. It will also unfold many benefits related to training learning that boosts safety awareness, employee engagement, and mitigating expenses related to workplace training.

Examples of Future in VR

Check out Zukerburg’s vision for the Metaverse.

With Metaverse, future employees will likely have more immersive work experiences for remote workers. Companies should adopt VR technologies that help in viable future-leaning workplace collaboration. The existing Metaverse is finite, but it looks like it will transform the internet. Facebook has invested a massive amount of funds into the future of the internet space, where you can interact with coworkers, collaborate, and co-create.

Zoom-Oculus Workplace AR/VR

Zoom and Oculus, a Facebook/Meta company, joined Zoomtopia in 2021. The duo squad revealed the launch of the new app, which expands virtual collaboration by incorporating VR users and video chat participants, leading to a collaboration market.

The duo aims to let users access Zoom meetings and Zoom whiteboards within virtual workroom environments, leveraging Horizon Workrooms, available on Facebook’s Oculus Quest headset. It is set for availability in early 2022.

Webex Hologram

Comprehending the power of augmented reality (AR), Cisco wants to bridge the gap between virtual and in-person collaboration. Cisco showed the world its new forward-thinking AR/VR tech application, the Webex Hologram.

The platform integrates the rich features of Webex meetings and calling with the functionality of immersive 3D holograms.

It plans to tackle the problem with its photorealistic, real-time, holographic experience for any method that includes remote or many remote employees. Taking a cue from its research, which suggests in Cisco’s Hybrid Work Index – 64% of employees said that they would resign their job if they did not have the option to work remotely.

Conclusion

With technological origins in the early 20th century, Virtual reality is not new, yet its applications are still in infancy. We are only at the surface of virtual reality, and its most significant applications have likely not been developed yet. While 64% have stated that there is a sort of technological contest between AR and VR, implying only one will emerge as dominant, it appears probably that both will play roles in navigating the future of enterprise and entertainment.

Historically, virtual reality has always wedded entertainment with practical use. Today’s virtual reality applications and future ones will continue to lead the trend. The gaming industry will undoubtedly profit from the advancement of VR. Still, it will come as a bit of a surprise to see virtual reality play a game-changing role in how businesses – and industries – work.

Blog, Woocommerce

WooCommerce vs Magento- Which Should You Choose for Your Retail Business?

March 7, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

WooCommerce vs Magento: Features
WooCommerce vs Magento: Ease of Use
WooCommerce vs Magento: Customizations
WooCommerce vs Magento: Plugins
WooCommerce vs Magento – SEO and Marketing capabilities
Conclusion

If you want to build a web store, chances are you’re looking at one of the two best solutions- Magento- Woocommerce. Over 200,000 of the internet’s leading sites have a web store, WooCommerce and Magento.

Together, these platforms account for more than half of leading e-commerce stores. WooCommerce has a quarter of all e-commerce.

Let us compare Magento to WooCommerce, contrasting their strengths and weaknesses and the differences you need to know.

Magento and WooCommerce are web commerce platforms that fully support online sales. Each can be scaled to power massive sales operations. These need not be confined only to the web, but we can extend this to both platforms and integrate it into brick-and-mortar stores and combined inventory management. Both platforms are open-source and have been around for almost a decade, and their underlying code makes it easy for anyone to inspect or modify. Both platforms have corporate owners, Adobe and Automattic.

Adobe offers Magento Commerce as a paid version of the platform, while Automattic produces paid plugins that we can use with WooCommerce.

Source- Magento

Magento and WooCommerce follow fundamentally distinct patterns. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that fits neatly into the thriving WordPress open-source content ecosystem, connecting you to the WordPress environment.

On the other hand, Magento is a stand-alone solution, similar to Shopify in this regard.

Magento Open Source is a free platform primarily used in smaller stores and start-ups. Adobe hopes that as stores increase, they’ll pay for the more comprehensive Magento Commerce (also known as Adobe Commerce). But Magento Open Source is only available as a self-hosted package.

Source- WooCommerce

Magento/Adobe Commerce can run on your server, or you can choose Magento Hosted Cloud to have Adobe host it for you. It gives you more flexibility, but it is more complicated than WooCommerce and has more strict requirements – just one reason why Magento has a prominent notion of being harder to deploy.

WooCommerce can be launched on a 2GB server because it is lighter than the Magento eCommerce platform. Also, most hosting providers allow us to install it with a single click. On the other hand, Magento requires many more resources and SSH integration to install the system.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Ease of Use

Most eCommerce store owners are not programmers, so they are looking for accessible eCommerce platforms that are effortless to set up and low-cost options to handle these specialties. Let’s see which of the two platforms, WooCommerce and Magento, offers more accessibility.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is more comfortable to use than Magento. The installation is uncomplicated, and you can install it with a single click.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, so we have to install WordPress first and then WooCommerce. Everything is easy and self-explanatory.

We can install WooCommerce by going to Dashboard>Plugins>WooCommerce.

WooCommerce comes with a setup wizard, and if you are using the best WooCommerce hosting, such as Cloudways, you can install it within a few seconds.

Magento

Magento, used by many e-commerce platforms, is a compelling platform. It helps you manage and create multiple store views and multi-sites for free. It has many highly sought-after features to improve the customer experience.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Customizations

Store owners frequently want to customize their eCommerce store’s front. They may want to change the layout, add a slider, or remove a category field. Both WooCommerce and Magento offer this capability. But which one provides it best?

Let’s find out

WooCommerce

WooCommerce can easily modify the theme format from the ‘Editor’ tab. All you need to do is, open the Dashboard and click Advanced > Editor.

This way, store owners can easily modify the front layout of their website. Another fantastic feature of WooCommerce is that it lets users build their store the way they want, with the help of the page builder feature.

Using Divi to Build WooCommerce e-store

Magento

Modifying Magento can be challenging as it isn’t as easy as WooCommerce. In Magento, you should first declare your theme in the Magento folder.

Once the theme is set, we must enable it by going to Content> Design > Theme.

WooCommerce vs Magento: Plugins

The development teams of all e-commerce sites understand that no eCommerce platform is perfect and why third-party developers create plugins and extensions for them. Let’s see which one has better plugins than WooCommerce and Magento.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce has many plugins available that help resolve basic and complex issues. Whether to optimize images, add product rules, or optimize shipping, WooCommerce plugins will let you do it all.

Many WooCommerce extensions are free to install on your eCommerce store, but you can also download paid plugins if you want premium features.

Magento

Magento also offers multiple extensions that we can install on the eCommerce site to help tackle tasks quickly. These extensions are available as free and paid extensions. As of the writing of this article, there are around 4,800 Magento extensions available. Community developers build these for sales, marketing, and even Content and customizations.

WooCommerce vs Magento – SEO and Marketing capabilities

WooCommerce

Magento has many built-in SEO capabilities. It helps avoid content duplication with canonical URLs and other techniques. Using Magento, we can customize the home category and cart pages’ titles and anchor text for navigation links.

Features like rich snippets, Page Builder, rich XML sitemap makes it easy for store owners to build an excellent frontend experience, earn high visibility and search engine rankings and map site contents to search engines.

Magento’s PWA Studio helps build a mobile website with an app-like interface. Progressive web apps or PWAs will help you achieve mobile loading time in under 2 seconds and enable fast checkout experiences.

Conclusion

Perfect For Small Businesses: Woocommerce

We chose WooCommerce over Magento because

WooCommerce has a simple GUI that any non-techie can understand and learn.
Because of the availability of the builder plugin, there is a need for customization from the source code because
It has a variety of free plugins available.
It takes fewer resources to manage than Magento.

Ideal for Medium to Large Enterprise Businesses: Magento

Magento is a highly secure platform with advanced built-in cache features.
It has many built-in features, so it does not need as many extensions as WooCommerce.
We can build our own Magento themes from scratch
It has a broad range of free extensions and themes available
It offers a robust framework for order management and is highly reliable

Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Travel

How AI is Transforming the Transport Industry

February 25, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What is AI?
Conclusion

Transportation, the industry that deals with the motion of passengers and commodities from one location to another, has gone through several examinations, analyses, tests, and polishes to reach where it is now. Today, the transportation sector has developed to navigate and move without human assistance. Technical improvements have enabled the transportation sector to progress in its journey of creation and development. One new-age technology that has made it prominent in the industry is AI. Leveraging AI in transportation enables the sector to increase passenger safety, lessen traffic congestion and accidents, decrease carbon emissions, and minimize financial expenses.

Before we proceed further, let us understand

What is AI?

Artificial Intelligence is a technology that strengthens machines with human intelligence. Machines with AI abilities can mimic humans, automate manual jobs, and learn like humans.

With automation, repetitive and time-consuming tasks go into the plate of AI. Realizing this unique potential of AI, enterprises in the transportation industry are making considerable investments to enhance revenue generation and stay ahead of their competitors. According to studies, the global market for AI in transportation will reach 3.5 billion dollars by 2023.

Artificial intelligence(AI) is transforming the transport sector. It is applied in different transport fields, from helping cars, trains, ships, and airplanes function autonomously to smoother traffic flows. Beyond making our lives easier, AI helps to make all transport methods more intelligent, safer, and more efficient. For instance, AI-led autonomous transport will assist in reducing human errors in many traffic accidents. However, with these opportunities come real challenges like unintended consequences and misuses like cyber-attacks.

Now that we have understood AI let’s dive in to comprehend the use cases.

1) AI in Road Transportation

Road transport is one of the areas where AI is successfully implemented, opening up exceptional levels of collaboration between various road users. Technology firms, Automotive manufacturers, and research groups are researching AI technologies to develop and design automated vehicles for commercial and personal transportation. – Cars are based on sensors (such as GPS, cameras, and radar) combined with actuators, control units, and software. Technologies like these can only take over specific driving actions (like parking); others will soon replace the human driver entirely. In general, it is complex to try automated vehicles in urban areas, as there are many factors, including complicated road systems and infrastructure, where the car needs to predict unpredictable signs of movement. AI technologies are also being used in road traffic management, allowing the analysis of traffic patterns, volumes, and other aspects. These can provide drivers with data on the shortest route to relieve traffic congestion. AI technologies also help keep traffic flowing via traffic signals and lights that rotate in real-time to meet on-the-ground traffic flow demands.

A report by Stanford University states that self-driving cars will reduce traffic-related deaths and injuries.

The graph below shows that Autonomous Car Sales will Surge by 2035

AI will be mainstream in a few years because it will eliminate the prospect of an error on the road and make traveling a delightful experience. Elon Musk’s Tesla introduced driverless cars on the market, and many other companies are currently engaged with the same technology.

2)Artificial Intelligence in Aviation

The aviation industry is not unknown to AI; they have been using it for decades in various operations and across the value chain. Yet, we are moving into a new era where AI abilities reach heights and will significantly impact the industry. AI in air traffic operations is in its infancy. Advancements in automation and computing power, utilizing technologies related to machine learning and data analytics models, are being used to improve growing air traffic volumes.

What we understand as advanced business intelligence can substantially alter how airlines run their business in distribution, marketing, sales, distribution, pricing, and fleet management.

Another place where AI can make a difference with regard to speed or processes is ground handling. Some instances of high potential use cases include aircraft movement operations (pushback and towing), safety checks, aircraft turnaround operations that provide for loading, fuelling, catering, unloading, anti-icing, and de-icing, and ground transportation on the ramp like passengers, baggage, cargo, and mail.

3) Artificial Intelligence in Railway Transport

Railways were among the most innovative and prominent aspects of the Industrial Revolution. With the rapid growth of road and air transport, rail lost its leading role in innovation. The extensive data generated by digital technologies will be a helpful tool, allowing rail corporations to modify their organizational systems, enhance their performance, and design new added value. To reap the full advantages of digitalization, railways can rely on AI. AI will improve operations, manufacturing, and maintenance for rail operators and infrastructure managers.

Therefore, it can be sensed as a lever to enhance management, lower costs, and improve competitiveness. Intelligent train automation is one of the most indicative examples of uses of AI in rail technology and its contribution to the Automation of Train operation (ATO).

ATO transfers responsibility for overseeing operations from the driver to the train control system, with varying autonomy. Today, AI can use the potency of data powered by sensors positioned on trains or infrastructure components to pull information at the right time and recommend actions for safety and maintenance.

The French operator SNCF says it will forecast 80 % of incidents on catenaries, supplying electrical power to the trains to display AI applications. According to their research report, predictive maintenance reduced incidents involving train switches by 30%, and this technology is applied in numerous train systems and subsystems today. One of its ongoing AI projects is developing the possibility for a train to share its ‘health diagnostic’ with a fleet manager, who can then remotely supervise maintenance using voice recognition software.

4) Artificial Intelligence in Navigation, Shipping and Ports

Over the past few years, sea and inland waterway transport has significantly developed. traffic has grown more rampant, raising the stakes of marine protection and calling for advances in maritime surveillance. The further growth of container traffic has called for adaptations to port terminals and better connections with their hinterland. Ever-growing vessel sizes have amplified ships’ pressure on ports and cities.

Digital technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, and automation are game-changers in this industry. Building on that data, AI is making it possible to analyze the information and gain insights that facilitate decision-making and help improve safety, power efficiency, and logistics. The different AI applications used or tested prove the sector’s focus on introducing such enabling technologies.

Detection of oddities in marine procedures can enhance safety at sea. Automatic identification systems (AIS) help transfer data like a ship’s identification number, position, course, speed, and destination. With recorded ship movements and advanced image recognition, vessels can be identified even if they turn their AIS transmitters off. Insights gained from analyzing such data can be utilized to carry out maintenance and technical functions, thus making a ship more energy-efficient and helping it meet emission control standards.

The Autonomous Ships Market size will reach $165.61 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 6.8% from 2020 to 2030.

Conclusion

The AI Market in Transportation (AITS) is estimated to grow from USD 1.21 billion in 2017 to USD 10.30 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 17.87% during the forecast period. Artificial intelligence is changing the transport sector. It is applied in multiple transport domains, from helping cars, trains, ships, and airplanes to function autonomously to making traffic flow smoother. Further, making our lives easier can help make all transport modes more intelligent, secure, hygienic, and efficient. Artificial intelligence-led autonomous transport could help reduce human errors in many traffic accidents.

Banking, Blog, Mobility

Mobile Banking- How Legacy Banks are Transforming for the New Era

February 18, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What is Mobile Banking?
Using Biometrics in Mobile Banking
Chatbots
Adoption of Big Data to Prevent Frauds
Blockchain
Legacy Banks and the Digitization Surge
Conclusion

Innovation is the law of tomorrow. Disruption has occurred in all industries and is also transforming the financial sector. Banks, which maintained their predominant position due to highly regulated environments, are witnessing the emergence of new competitors that jeopardize stealing a substantial market share.

Perhaps the most astonishing and worrying phenomenon for traditional banking is that these new financial competitors are innovating and expanding.

Transferring Cash from one account to another with a tap of a button and depositing a cheque by clicking just a picture of it are two of the standard mobile banking features banks provide customers. Before we dive further in, let us understand,

What is Mobile Banking?

Financial organizations are taking cues to adopt more sophisticated technologies like big data, blockchain, and machine learning end-products to retain customers. Most competitive banks offer mobile banking to complete financial transactions via smartphone or tablet. To meet the growing market needs of digitally-savvy millennials and Gen Zers, digital and legacy banks will continue to adapt to mobile banking market trends to stay relevant. According to a study, The global mobile banking industry will reach $1,824.7 million by 2026.

Alt Tag for Image 1- Digital Banking Solutions

Let us understand the Trends of Mobile Banking in 2022

Using Biometrics in Mobile Banking

A robust mobile banking infrastructure rides on the wave of the highest forms of digital security, and using biometric technology has only quickened the pace of this. Embracing critical points of biometric identification systems like facial recognition, voice recognition, fingerprint scans, and iris scans are becoming the go-to security standards globally.

Biometrics will replace PINs completely and render them obsolete shortly. Research states that 56% of consumers trust biometric techniques to authenticate transactions, and the expected market size will reach $24.59 billion by 2023. It would be fair to say that biometric technology will be the next significant thing to be embraced across all verticals of the financial landscape.

Chatbots

Chatbots are conversational AI-powered methods that have become a benchmark model in the banking sector. Three significant requirements are needed for adopting chatbots –

the need for speed.
The need for data.
The need for personalization.

By delving into personalized consumer data and conversations that help solve their pain points, the financial industry uses chatbots to boost operational efficiencies and deliver a holistic customer experience.

Chatbots will reduce business costs by $8 billion by 2022.
75-chatbots will handle 90% of healthcare and banking queries.

Sectors that manage vast volumes of human interaction, like banking, are deploying chatbots into their products. This is greatly decreasing dependency on physical customer service teams and forwarding queries to chat agents.

Adoption of Big Data to Prevent Frauds

Big Data has contributed tremendously towards allowing banks and other financial institutions to collate customer-centric data from traditional and digital sources and provide a personalized banking experience.

Other than this, another critical use case of big data is stopping fraudulent activities using AI-based algorithms. Furthermore, by identifying their customers’ transaction patterns and banking history, important information assists banks in pointing out deviations and detecting suspicious activities.

For example, we can immediately freeze a customer’s credit card if transactions occur simultaneously in separate parts of one country.

A card provider can predict general trends with big data by analyzing customers’ information and identifying fraudulent behavior before the card or account is compromised.

Blockchain

Mobile banking can succeed on the idea of the absence of physical branches altogether and adopting a cloud-based system of banking experience that will do all the work.

Blockchain has been around for a while now, and the financial sector is keen on adopting it to improve its speed, efficiency, accuracy, and security. The adoption of blockchain has helped this by diverting the focus from digital-only banking. The Financial Industry is trying to experiment with blockchain by replicating existing asset transactions on the blockchain. While this allows for the efficiency of a blockchain solution, what gets missed out is the ecosystem implications of a blockchain solution.

In infrastructure terms, a blockchain is open-source software built to support the real-time transfer of digital assets amongst market participants. Using any selected blockchain’s APIs, we can see a surprising reduction in asset transfer costs and timelines. Most bank implementations today are focused on the same aspect. However, while scaling proof of this concept into a real-world scenario, financial institutions implement the same application layer with all the current checks and balances.

The pandemic hit the reset button for the industry. Swathes of statistics emphasize the success gained and the ground covered by industry entrants during the last decade. Before 2020, incumbent banks were somewhat away from new, more agile competitors.

According to PWC, The global challenger bank market was worth 18.6 billion dollars and will grow to 394.6 billion by 2026.

Legacy Banks and the Digitization Surge

Legacy banks and their ilk have taken a massive hit since the pandemic’s beginning. Reports suggest that customers are more risk-averse during difficult times. Even though traditional banks are not skyrocketing in terms of gaining trust from end consumers, they are preferred and stable choices for more than a few.

It is a given that the legacy banks should have been on the frontline of a digital revolution. Still, the impact of COVID-19 demanded more digital banking services and bandwidth than ever before. However, customers stuck with the traditional industry players rather than flocking to new digital-only banks during the pandemic.

Despite this sudden surge, traditional banks may not have progressed in market demand. A deeper look at some figures around the current state of legacy banks’ digital transformations makes for a somewhat grim reading.

Approximately 40 percent of banks who state they’re more than halfway through their digital transformation strategies haven’t deployed cloud computing or APIs
Only a quarter of these banks have implemented chatbot technology.
Just 14 percent have deployed machine learning tools.

It may seem that legacy banks have not made as many inroads into the digital future as they need to compare to progressive digital players. Legacy banks will have to change this because customer expectations are becoming increasingly digital-focused, reflected in their banking attitude.

A report by EY states that many customers say that their banking practices varied over the long term because of COVID-19.

Lack of progress is an evident lack of awareness from some banks where they must be on the digital roadmap. According to the Cornerstone Advisors study that cites the developments above, over a third of banks believe they’re more than halfway through their digital transformation.

Conclusion

Legacy banks have made many digital strides during the pandemic, edging closer towards digitization. Suddenly, they no longer play catchup and face imminent disintermediation. However, the job is not done here; one could even argue that the job will not be done because of the ever-evolving digital technology; instead, digital transformation is constantly changing and adapting. For now, traditional banks can reflect on how far they’ve come since the pandemic’s beginning and pause on what could be regarded as a sector reset.

But it’s an action that should be taken quickly. Any complacency will quickly see legacy banks lose ground to a new wave of resurgent digital players.

Technologies will continue to evolve, existing challenger banks will regroup, and new ones to challenge the current status quo.

Blog, Robotics

The Future of Robotics Over The Next Few Years

February 10, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What is Robotics?
How Will Robotics Change the Future?
Robots are Game-Changers in the Medical Field.
Robots could make farming much more effortless.
Robots will possess the ability to learn.
Semi Autonomous machines will manage tasks in pre-mapped conditions.
The Military will use Robots.
Conclusion

When we think of robots, we usually imagine sci-fi-inspired, human-like automatons. While these types of machines are popular now, there are many other kinds of robots operating in the world today.

But let us understand

What are Robots? And How will they Change the World?

Let’s begin with some definitions. Most of us are acquainted with the notion of robots but may stumble to depict them as different entities from other machines.

‘Robotic systems are defined as cognitive, interconnected, interactive and physical tools that can sense the environment with the help of sensors, understand events, make plans using algorithms executed in computer programs, and perform actions enabled by actuators’.

Robots are tools that can autonomously sense, plan, act, and respond like humans. They can perform tasks independently, extend human capabilities, and mimic human actions.

What is Robotics?

Robotics is the area of creating robots. It’s a multidisciplinary specialization where technology, computer science, and engineering assemble to make a human-like machine. Robotics focuses more on the design, construction, operation, and use of robots in various environments.

Industrial Robots are anticipated to grow significantly over the coming years. A report estimates that the Robotics sector will be worth $260 billion by 2030. Much of this evolution will come from professional assistance robots that will perform practical tasks for humans, such as cleaning, delivering, transporting, making an appointment, and many more.

The previous few years have introduced remarkable developments and innovations that make our lives more comfortable and beneficial. There is no refuting that the 21st century has brought phenomenal innovations and breakthroughs, from the proliferation and rise of smartphones to the unprecedented development of machine learning, AI, robotics, and autonomous technology. Robotics has gone from fictional movies to real-world scenarios, performing intricate tasks and changing the world we live in.

Robotic adoption is and will likely become a critical determinant of business productivity. Robots can reshape how businesses are accomplished and are intended to bring more automation capabilities to the enterprise. Recent innovations in robotics have delivered several methods to integrate robots into human life.

Robots are already transforming our lives: cleaning robots patrol our living rooms; interactive robots attend to our children; industrial robots help assemble vehicles; medical robots help perform surgeries in hospitals; rescue robots search and save lives in disasters. Top tech firms are in a continued race to transform how robotics are executed in people’s day-to-day lives, leading us to an exciting future.

The line between individual learning and classroom setting is already beginning to blur; cloud-connected home robots are becoming part of our everyday lives. A recent report from Interact Analysis predicts that the annual cobot revenues will reach $1.94 billion in 2028, accounting for 15.7% of the collaborative robot market. These stats show how robots will profoundly affect the future workplace and become capable of taking on multiple organizational roles.

Robots will Create More Jobs.

People have been worried about the power of efficient automation, as they presume that robots will steal their jobs. A report by the PwC estimates that between 2017 and 2037, artificial intelligence and robotics will displace up to 7 million jobs. However, the decrease in expenses caused by AI and robots will generate 7.2 million new jobs, giving a net increase of 200,000 jobs. Robots will always create jobs because change is coming, and some industries will flourish with Robots.

How Will Robotics Change the Future?

Robotics is an industry that has more than 500 companies making developments that can adequately break down into four types:

Conventional industrial robots and cobots, chatbots.

Stationary professional services (like medical and agricultural applications),

Mobile professional services (like professional cleaning, construction, and underwater activities),

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are used to transport large and small loads in logistics or assembly lines.

Robots are Game-Changers in the Medical Field.

One area that is blooming is robotic applications in medicine or healthcare. Robots can impact many healthcare practices, including surgery, rehabilitation, therapy, and mental health. Nevertheless, this industry is heavily dependent on efficiency, precision, and advances in robotics.

The industry is evolving to support this. An International Federation of Robotics report states that the total sales of robotics in healthcare were around $1.9 billion, accounting for 29 percent. A report by Markets and Markets says that the medical robots market is about to reach $16.74 billion by 2023. The most critical applications in Healthcare are in robot-assisted surgery, therapy, and rehabilitation robots- which aid people with a disability or provide physical or cognitive therapy.

Robotic surgery will have massive potential. Organizations like Microbot, Intuitive Surgical, and Mazor are top industry players in robotic surgery technology. Robot-assisted surgeries are already being utilized in significant procedures by the British National Health Service (NHS). Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts operated alongside doctors to fix a child’s heart valve.

Robots could make farming much more effortless.

An array of new technologies are transforming the Agriculture Industry. Artificial intelligence, drone technology, 5G, and robotics are helping usher in a new age of farming. Internet of Things technology is becoming more affordable and accessible, speeding up this change. Developments in autonomous technologies assist farmers with driverless tractors, milking robots, automated harvesting systems, and many more.

According to Markets and Markets, the agricultural robot market will increase from $7.4 billion to $20.6 billion by 2025. Different areas within the industry that are likely to experience growth are planting, crop seeding, crop monitoring, fertilization, and irrigation. Robotics will also assist in agricultural areas that lack workers, such as crop harvesting, or hazardous areas, such as pesticide administration. The future of Farming looks promising.

Robots will possess the ability to learn.

Today, Simulation tools will help us teach robots how to resolve difficulties in the real world. However, this brute force method isn’t adequate because situational complexity often makes it impossible to train robots to respond to unpredictable events flexibly and intelligibly. Nevertheless, new research from OpenAI states that focusing on guiding neural networks to navigate progressively more difficult and randomized environments appears to produce solid results. The first application involves a human-like robotic hand that can solve a Rubik’s Cube without human intervention. This training requires 50 hours of tremendous computing power, using the cloud and distributed computing. Propelled by improvements in computer science, this approach needed to automation will transition from rule-based to goal-based. The robotic capacities that emerge from this shift will be adored in custom production processes.

Semi Autonomous machines will manage tasks in pre-mapped conditions.

By 2030, it is estimated that Level 3 autonomous vehicles will account for about 8% of new car sales. Level 3 mobile robots will autonomously navigate efficiently in predefined settings, like a warehouse, signaling or discontinuing when support is needed from a human. At Level 3, the car temporarily drives on relatively unencumbered roads and in clear weather conditions. It cautions the driver to take over when faced with a situation it cannot handle.

Level 4 self-navigation is fully autonomous, with a backup system that can turn the machine off in unexpected situations without human intervention. The capabilities will be perfected around 2030. We can experience self-driving mobile devices in limited environments, like room service robots in hotels or last-mile delivery robots.

The Military will use Robots.

The ever-changing geopolitical landscape has motivated more governments to expand their use of robots in warfare. According to Research and Markets, the increase in terrorist activities has been a significant factor in developing robots on the battlefield.

The possibilities of robotics in the military and defense are vast. Robots will not only knock off snipers but also rescue people. We can expect more uses of Robots to help the military with surveillance, intelligence, reconnaissance, search and rescue, combat support, mine clearance, explosive ordnance, and firefighting. Change is coming- 5G technology, more responsive artificial intelligence, and the emergence of smart cities are all likely to accelerate these changes.

Conclusion

A report from McKinsey states that automation and machines will transform our work. The report predicts that activities that require physical and manual skills will drop by 18% by 2030, while those jobs that need primary cognitive skills will decrease by 28%. Ultimately, robots can enhance our lives and shoulder the burden of physically challenging or repetitive jobs. They will help improve Healthcare, make transport more efficient, and give us more freedom to pursue creative endeavors.

5G Network, Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Internet of Things, Mobility

Mobile App Development 2022: Technology and Strategic Aspects to Look At

February 5, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

The Mobile App Development Scenario So Far
Top Technology Trends Defining Mobile App Development in 2022
Extensive Technology Expertise Needs a Robust Strategy to Succeed

The Mobile App Development Scenario So Far

Did you know? Publishers released 2 million new apps and games in 2021, bringing the total number of apps and games ever released to over 21 million. Not just that, over 4,35,000 apps were downloaded every minute in 2021! With more smartphone adoption and deeper internet penetration, a significant rise in the publishing and downloading new apps and games went as expected. However, the still prevalent pandemic further added to this rise as more people stayed home and switched to remote working systems and applications that kept them engaged. Over the last year or two, we also observed how the adoption of mobile apps has cut across the barriers of skeptical use cases and penetrated the industries where it initially seemed less promising.

As the wide-scale adoption of mobile applications continues, it is needless to say that every business, regardless of size and industry, must switch to mobile apps for internal or external stakeholders’ engagement and operations. We have already seen how the digital transformation wave disrupted businesses that failed to identify opportunities in time. As a subset of digital transformation, mobile app development for enterprises is another opportunity that enterprises are already making the best of. Those who haven’t leveraged mobile apps yet also consider it, which applies to every industry. But there’s one important thing enterprises using mobile apps for business or thinking of adopting must know. Mobile app adoption isn’t a one-time thing. Like a business initiative, a mobile app must be gradually scaled, upgraded, and kept up-to-date with the latest trends that define how end consumers use apps. This includes not just the technical side but also the strategic side.

Top Technology Trends Defining Mobile App Development in 2022

Mobile apps for businesses initially intend to connect better with consumers, engage them, or serve as a point of contact that is preferable to customers. Internally, it helps to streamline operations and improve efficiency. But even then, there’s always scope for improvement and enhancement. And with advancing technology, the chances of a mobile app becoming less efficient, losing to competitor apps, and becoming obsolete are quite high. At [x]cube LABS, we work with multiple technologies, and here are the top technologies we identified that will complement the power of mobile apps.

5G

5G has been a buzzword for quite some time now. A report by Trendforce states that in 2022, 47.5% of devices will have 5G. As 5G connections globally continue to grow, it’ll impact how and what mobile apps can offer to end-users. For instance, the improved speed, expected to be around a hundred times faster than 4G, would reduce the latency significantly. This means that video streaming apps will get smoother, the integration and performance of integrated AR/VR will be faster, and developers can explore more features to add without worrying about the negative impact of slower networks.
Apps for foldable devices

According to Statista, foldable phones shipments globally are forecast to grow to 50.1 million units by 2022, from the projected 3.2 million units in 2019. As an app developer, one must remember that they can provide a better immersive experience with a larger screen size if they plan to implement AR/VR, a video streaming feature, or games that can provide a better experience when provided with larger screen space. Not just that, a larger screen size in foldable phones also means the scope for multitasking parallelly. This opens up many opportunities for engineers to make their apps stand out innovatively.
AI and ML

AI and ML have been noteworthy trends in mobile app development, and there’s a lot more happening in the space. Just last year, many AI-based fun apps that gave moving effects to photos and face morphing on movie clips witnessed a lot of engagement. Besides new innovative ways of engaging users, existing apps can enhance user experience using AI and ML capabilities. Google Maps, for instance, introduced a live indoor navigation feature last year. Apple took ML applications to an all-new level by allowing developers to load pre-existing features and create new ones using deep learning. This year, using AI and ML to improve existing apps and the overall user experience would play a major role and, hence, should be the top priority of developers who are ready to scale their apps.
Mobile app security

With the hype around mobile app security and data, even users who didn’t bother about their data have become more conscious about sharing it and how it will be used. Data, privacy, and security are now becoming selling propositions for many companies. Take Apple’s advertisement, for example, where they tell users they can now choose who tracks their information.

With growing awareness of data and security, consumers want to have the assurance that their data is protected. This doesn’t mean that the phone or app will not share its data with unwanted parties; it also means that the data is secure and protected by the parties with whom they have shared it. Therefore, Privacy and security measures are becoming more crucial from an enterprise security point of view and a consumer’s perspective. Some businesses are taking security to the next level by exploring and implementing artificial intelligence in cybersecurity in addition to best practices for enterprise security in general.
Blockchain

Blockchain, a hot topic in technology for another year now, is not slowing down any time soon either. The security that comes with blockchain is well-known. Mobile app development companies plan to create mobiles and apps supporting blockchain use cases and applications. HTC and Samsung already released devices that support blockchain technology- the HTC exodus 1 and Galaxy S10, respectively. It is only a matter of time before cryptocurrency-enabled payments catch up, and hence, developers must anticipate this as a thing of the very near future, if not today, when considering new technologies and trends in mobile app development.
Predictive analytics

By leveraging the power of predictive analytics, developers can create apps that are futuristic, high-performing, and exceed customer expectations. We’ve seen customer-centricity as a key factor that decides the success or failures of an app. As the ways of achieving customer-centricity continue to evolve, an essential tool that comes into play is predictive analytics. Developers can use historic data on customer behavior and analytics to not just provide them what they like but to reduce pain points as well, as early as in the UX wireframing stage, if not later. This can significantly reduce cost in the development cycle as well as the one arising from user attrition.
IoT

The Internet of Things is definitely not a new concept but its seamless integration with mobile devices is an obvious expectation from mobile app users worldwide. Given the penetration of both IoT devices and mobile internet worldwide, the scope for apps and devices that support IoT integration is large. According to a report, the Internet of Things market is expected to reachGalaxy S10, out of which, $190 billion is expected to come from mobile apps. At [x]cube LABS we have already worked on solutions that integrate IoT and mobile apps- from wearable devices and IoT-enabled wallets to connect lighting systems, and more.

Extensive Technology Expertise Needs a Robust Strategy to Succeed

We’re at a point in the technology ecosystem where acquiring expertise over new technologies might appear easier, but the success would depend on how effectively and strategically it fits where it is being implemented. We mentioned in our e-book titled Creating a Mobile App Development Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide for Enterprises how we have seen many enterprises fail because they simply decide to go after loaded features or copy what the competitors are doing when, in reality, the success boils down to how effectively and conveniently can your solution solve a real problem and ease customer pain points. This requires a 360-degree approach to mobile app development where the latest technologies complement your mobile app strategy. You must examine market research, customer-centricity, analytics objectively, and much more before you zero down on your choice of technologies and start its implementation. And that’s where an enterprise like [x]cube can help.

We have listed seven critical parameters that strengthen your mobile app strategy.

Product-market fit: Identify the product-market fit by defining your target audience, doing industry and competitor analysis, identifying the market size, and more
Customer centricity: Accentuate your value offering and ensure that the end product provides value to your customers by solving critical pain points
U/UX: Develop seamless customer journeys, eliminate points of friction, and take your UI/UX to the next level

Performance: Keep a tab on the technical issues that hinder the performance of your app or are likely to create problems when the load increases
Strategy analysis: Something that goes without saying, you need to assess the operational and financial viability of your app and include it as a part of your overall plan
Value proposition: Position your app effectively among your customers and pitch it effectively against competitors; refer to Apple’s ad on privacy example above!
Outreach: Reach your target audience to gain initial traction, but also monitor reviews and ratings to improve your app further.

As a reader looking to start this year with mobile app development, you can contact us for a free consultation on your existing or new mobile app development initiatives.

Blockchain, Blog, Healthcare

How Blockchain will benefit the Healthcare Industry in 2022 and Beyond

January 28, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What is Blockchain?
Why should Blockchain be incorporated in healthcare?
Benefits of Blockchain in Healthcare
Conclusion

Blockchain is currently a trending topic in the corporate world. Multiple analyses have revealed that blockchain implementation can save money, increase efficiency, and raise overall industry performance. According to a report by Investopedia, industrial blockchain investment will reach $11.7 billion in 2022.

Before we dive into the specific industry in question, let’s take a closer look at the technology and its capabilities.

What is Blockchain?

Blockchains are shared, immutable logs of peer-to-peer transactions built from linked transaction blocks stored in a digital ledger. Blockchain depends on established cryptographic methods that let each participant in a network interact without any preexisting confidence between the parties. Blockchain has no central authority; transaction records are stored and distributed across all network participants. Interactions with the Blockchain will be known to all participants and require verification by the network before any information is added, enabling collaboration between network participants while recording an immutable audit trail of all interactions.

How does Blockchain work?

Blockchain consists of three major elements:

Distributed network: The decentralized P2P network architecture consists of nodes of network participants. Each participant stores an exact copy of the Blockchain and is authorized to validate and authenticate digital transactions for the network.
Shared ledger: The fellows in the network log the ongoing digital transactions into a shared ledger. They run algorithms and verify the offered transaction, and once a majority of associates validate it, it is added to the shared ledger.
Digital transaction: Digital transaction: Any digital asset stored in a blockchain can be allowed as a digital transaction. Each transaction will be structured into a ‘block,’ each block will consist of a cryptographic hash to add the transactions in chronological order.

Envisioning Blockchain in healthcare

Critical healthcare information is spread across multiple healthcare systems, and occasionally, it may not be available when needed the most. The current healthcare infrastructure often consists of inadequate information that is difficult to handle and requires specific tweaks. According to Gartner Hype Cycle, Blockchain has moved beyond the “innovation trigger” and is just at the “pinnacle of inflated expectations” and could transform how we view healthcare and data together.

Why should Blockchain be incorporated in healthcare?

One of the most important things that make blockchain technology services in healthcare is the lack of a central administrator. Why? Because a database is tangible, consisting of bits and bytes. If the database contents are stored in the physical memory of a system, anyone who can access the system could corrupt the data within.

As Healthcare Digital services trade with confidential patient information and need fast access to information, Blockchain can streamline these medical records and securely enable their sharing. Blockchain offers access security, scalability, and data privacy in a single go. The idea of Blockchain in healthcare today is disruptive, but it won’t be an elixir to soak down data management issues. Instead, it would be an evolutionary journey where Blockchain is implemented step by step.

Large corporations like Google, Visa, and Deloitte are investing substantially in blockchain technology. Several multinational organizations, including Spotify, are developing blockchain-based services to manage copyrights and IBM to offer monitoring systems for shipping and retail chains. Other areas, like healthcare, transportation, banking, and more, might significantly assist new technologies.

Blockchain’s rise will ultimately lead to a revolution that fundamentally alters how we witness the world.

Cryptocurrency investors worldwide are enjoying the advantages of blockchain technology’s rise. Over 50 million blockchain wallets and ten thousand cryptocurrencies are now used worldwide. Various businesses have reaped the benefits of these new kinds of global currency. As technology advances, companies worldwide will conduct transactions without worrying about currency fluctuations.

Artificial Intelligence, AR & VR, Blockchain, and Robotics are the leading healthcare technologies. Technological advancements have enabled healthcare app developers and investors to open new doors to better service and a healthier society.

A recent survey revealed that 53% of healthcare executives see Blockchain as one of the five priorities. According to BIS Research, the global healthcare market investment in technology will reach $5.61 billion by 2025. An IDC report states that 55% of all healthcare applications will have employed Blockchain for commercial purposes by 2025..

So, without any further ado, let us glance at some of the best benefits of Blockchain in healthcare technology that can revolutionize the healthcare industry for the greater good

Benefits of Blockchain in Healthcare

1)Patient-centric electronic health records

Research published by Johns Hopkins University states that the third primary reason for death in the US was medical errors resulting from poorly coordinated care. Healthcare systems in every country are stumbling with the problem of data silos, indicating that patients and their healthcare providers have a vague idea of medical histories. One potential solution is creating a blockchain-based system for medical records connected to existing electronic medical record software that acts as an overarching, single view of a patient’s record. It is paramount to emphasize patient data that does not go on the Blockchain. Every new record appended to the Blockchain, whether a prescription, a medic’s note, or a lab result, is decrypted into a unique hash function: a small string of letters and numbers. Every hash function is unique and can only be decoded by the person who owns the data.

2) Supply Chain Transparency

A primary challenge across the healthcare sector is ensuring the origin of medical goods to guarantee authenticity. With the help of a blockchain-based system, we can track items from manufacturing to every stage of the supply chain. This method gives customers complete visibility and transparency of the goods they buy.

Supply chain translucency is a top preference, particularly in developing markets where fake prescription medicines cause tens of thousands of deaths annually. It is increasingly necessary for medical appliances, which are increasing quickly with the adoption of more remote health monitoring, and therefore also attracting the interest of bad actors.

Pivotal uses of the Blockchain when paired with AI:

Customer confidence: Customer confidence: The ability to track each package’s end-to-end provenance, integrating with manufacturers, wholesale, shipping, etc.
Supply chain optimization: Once all the data is in one place, companies apply AI to predict demand better and optimize supply accordingly.

3)Patient Data Management and Sharing

The Health and Human Services office received notifications of over 350 data breaches, disclosing 13,020,821 healthcare records.

HIPAA has strict restrictions on the privacy of patient records. Those records cannot be isolated, as several parties other than the patient and their physician may have to assess their well-being. At the same time, handling patient data using a traditional approach can be a complex task since this data is dispersed over different healthcare databases.

Blockchain resolves these issues by delivering a unified platform for storing and managing all relevant data in one location while preserving security and access control. We can store patient data as blockchain blocks that are identifiable through the patient’s unique ID. This method authorizes sharing health information (blocks) without revealing the ID if the patient wishes to remain anonymous.

Blockchain is a trustworthy solution for population health data management as well. With the standard approach, information about every patient is distributed over multiple systems that are not interoperable- This makes aggregating health data for a particular population cluster challenging. Blockchain thus becomes a secure medium for individuals to participate in population health studies and monetize the outcome of these studies.

4)Drug traceability

Blockchain is a dependable solution to assure drug authenticity, enabling tracking of every drug to its roots. We can use Blockchain to encapsulate data about the drug at every phase of its lifecycle. Every block containing drug data will have a hash linked to another block and a timestamp that we cannot alter.

The transactions in the Blockchain will be visible to all authorized parties, and the drug’s movement from one party to another can be tracked in real time. Medicine buyers will also ensure the authenticity of purchased products by scanning the QR code and looking up the data about the manufacturer and other relevant supply chain parties. Distributing a fake drug will be next to impossible in such a setup.

5)Cryptocurrency payments

There are blockchain use cases in healthcare related to payment. For instance, Blockchain makes it possible to receive medical assistance and pay for it with cryptocurrency. One such example is Aveon Health, A technology-centred medical group. Aveon Health acknowledges the advantages of using Bitcoin as a virtual currency. Users can send and receive Bitcoins electronically using wallet software.

Micropayments are another idea enabled via Blockchain. They are unique value-based models that reward patients for following their doctors’ instructions and adhering to prescribed lifestyles. Operating only on a specific blockchain, this micropayment model records every detail about the patient’s activities related to the treatment reexamination.

Conclusion

According to IBM, 70 % of healthcare leaders anticipate that the most significant effect of Blockchain within the health sector is the advancement of clinical trial management, providing a decentralized framework and regulatory compliance for sharing electronic health records (EHR). The healthcare sector is a problem-driven, data- and personnel-intensive domain. Accessing, editing, and trusting the data emerging from its activities is critical for the sector’s operations.

If we divide the operations within the healthcare sector into triage, health problem-solving, clinical decision-making, realization, and assessment of knowledge-based care, achieving the desired health outcomes hinges on engaging a multidisciplinary group of health personnel that apply the most pertinent knowledge of technologies and skills when dealing with the patient.

A blockchain-powered health information system has the potential to unlock the actual value of interoperability. Blockchain-based systems can reduce or eliminate the friction and costs of current intermediaries.

Cloud Computing Technology Trends in 2022

Blog, Cloud Computing

New Cloud Computing Trends to Watch out for in 2022.

January 21, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Kubernetes facilitating Blockchain:
AI in Cloud Computing
Boom in Cloud gaming, VR, and AR
Cloud Security
Hybrid and Multi-cloud infrastructure
Conclusion

Cloud computing boomed in 2020 as the entire workforce turned virtual. How did businesses react to the pandemic? By concentrating on the supply of digital services. A Gartner report foretells that in 2022, global cloud revenue is estimated to total $474 billion. Also, Cisco considers that cloud data centres now process as much as 94% of the total workloads.

Cloud computing trends depict how new technology alters firms’ functioning and IT expenditures. Cloud computing is increasingly adopting cloud services. It has become critical for many firms seeking to work smarter and accomplish more quickly. With access to on-demand processing capability, highly scalable platforms, and a more suitable and flexible approach to IT expenditure, the cloud has advanced from cutting-edge technology to an indispensable IT resource.

Throughout 2020-21, every industry, sector, and market worldwide endured the cloud computing revolution. This shift towards cloud platforms and remote working will only rise in 2022 as companies adopt remote working as a full-time model.

The three significant public cloud providers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure – achieved substantial revenue growth in 2021, thanks to the growing demand for cloud services. According to the Synergy Research Group Q3, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services passed the $45 billion mark. Infrastructure investments by cloud service providers enabled them to generate over $150 billion in revenues from cloud infrastructure services. Amazon, Microsoft, and Google continue to attract half of the worldwide cloud spending, with market shares of 33%, 20%, and 10%, respectively.

A report by Gartner states that the adoption rate of cloud storage increased by 23% in 2021, totaling $332 billion, and is expected to reach over $400 billion by 2022. This upgrade in adoption supports the changing work scenarios as organizations seek business continuity, cost efficiency, and improved future scalability. Thus, it has become paramount for businesses to acclimate the existing cloud technologies in their organizations, bolster their grip on the trends that define the future, and embrace the benefits of cloud computing.

Enhancing cloud platform capabilities through various technologies and tools will be the most significant trend 2022. Multiple new cloud technology applications will also be possible. Here are a few cloud computing trends for the coming year.

1) Kubernetes facilitating Blockchain:

Blockchain Development is a revolutionary technology that delivers a tamper-evident, shared digital ledger that registers data in a private or public network. Blockchain Development Services help organizations maintain accurate records of transactions without depending on any central authority. Kubernetes is an open-source container orchestration medium that automatically lets organizations scale, deploy, and manage containerized infrastructure. Public blockchain infrastructure does not support ample data storage and management, merging blockchain systems for big data applications. However, Kubernetes for Blockchain enables rapidly scale environments and assures high availability by consistently running multiple containers for critical services.

Deploying blockchain networks via Kubernetes clusters will be the adoption standard in the coming years. They solve Blockchain’s two significant issues: inherent complexity and integration into the existing infrastructure. Blockchain on Kubernetes allows service interoperability between organizations that are structured differently. The additional benefits of Blockchain on Kubernetes are simplified deployments and upgradeability.

2)AI in Cloud Computing

As technology evolves, Artificial Intelligence will be one of the most valuable technologies with cloud computing. Technology alliances explore new ways to incorporate AI for Big Data processing, improving business functions and output.

Using AI solutions and infrastructure, cloud platforms aim to improve efficiency. AI supports organizations in managing and automating internal processes smartly. This framework helps organizations adapt and scale to their evolving business needs more efficiently. In other words, the collaboration between AI and cloud computing will soon become a leading trend. A study by IBM states that 65% of businesses agree that AI is critical for business success and strategy.

Machine learning platforms demand massive processing power and colossal bandwidth for training and processing data; cloud data centers make this available to anyone. Most of the “everyday” AI we see – from Google Search to Instagram filters – live in the cloud. Technology that directs traffic from data centers to our devices and also the one that handles storage infrastructure is created on machine learning. The growth and evolution of cloud and AI are indistinguishably interwoven, which will only become more true during 2022 and beyond.

3)Boom in Cloud gaming, VR and AR

We will witness a massive outbreak of cloud gaming in the coming years. Platforms like Google’s Stadia and Amazon Luna will determine the direction of the cloud gaming realm in 2022. The coming of Cloud Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) has made headsets more inexpensive and fostered the growth of cloud gaming across various industries.

The increasing adoption of online games will positively impact the value of the cloud gaming market in the coming years. As more organizations today understand the growth in processing power, flexibility, and scalability that cloud-based systems provide, cloud adoption is expected to grow. The Worldwide cloud gaming market is anticipated to reach USD 56.57 billion by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 15.7%.

An increase in cloud computing adoption and the finding of new methods to leverage cloud-based systems to create insights and efficiency are up to be seen in 2022. The route to adoption and the timeframe for accomplishing the cloud may differ for each organization, but one thing stands sure: there will not be going back to the old methods.

4)Cloud Security

Cloud Security is a major concern. Companies and clients are concerned about IT security and data compliance. Today’s cloud solutions are designed to fix these concerns, thus creating a massive demand for Secure Access Service Edge(SASE) and Cloud-based disaster recovery practices.

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)- Corporations are reviewing their security and risk management approach as they have to access services and data from personal devices outside their corps’ IT networks. This SASE is an approach to IT security that permits organizations to undertake new cloud services swiftly and ensure that their systems are protected.
Cloud-based disaster recovery– Cloud-based disaster recovery helps organizations back up their data on an external cloud server. It is less expensive and time-efficient, benefiting from an outside source’s handling. Businesses frequently use cloud-based disaster recovery for critical servers and applications like massive databases and ERP systems.

5)Hybrid and Multi-cloud infrastructure

Companies today understand that cloud data management isn’t about having one distinct cloud platform or infrastructure. It’s about choosing the right solution for the job at hand. In some cases, this isn’t about the cloud at all;

In 2021, the emerging cloud trend was that corporations are becoming less apprehensive about sticking with one vendor and thus embracing a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud that offers the best out of each solution.

A report by Flexera states that 92 percent of enterprises have a multi-cloud strategy, and 80 percent have a hybrid cloud strategy.

Hybrid services combine the strengths of different approaches. Data that need quick and frequent access can be kept on public servers, and sensitive data can be kept on private servers with a monitored permit. A well-integrated and balanced hybrid approach gives firms the best of both worlds.

The multi-cloud model helps companies choose cloud offerings best suited to their application environments, business requirements, and availability requirements.

Although a considerable number of adoptions of hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud strategies exist, 2022 will witness more enterprises and business leaders on the edges of these models and embrace them to appreciate elasticity and agility in the cloud.

According to a report, “Gartner estimates that in 2022, global cloud market share will increase to $474 billion. By 2025, Gartner estimates that over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms, up from 30% in 2021.

Conclusion-

Gartner predicts that more than 85% of enterprises will embrace a cloud-first principle by 2025. Companies will not be able to fully execute their digital strategies without using cloud-native architectures and technologies. Cloud computing infrastructure is now the spine of every delivery pipeline and digital service, including social media, streaming entertainment, connected cars, and Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure.

New or forthcoming ultra-fast networks like 5G and Wi-Fi 6E indicate that more data will be streamed from the cloud, and they are also welcoming new types of data streaming.

Cloud computing technology effectively makes every other technology lighter, faster, and more accessible from a customer’s point of view. It will be a crucial driver in migrating more services to cloud platforms.

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence in the Energy Sector

Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Technology

Applications of AI in the energy sector

January 12, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Preventive Maintenance
AI in Grid Management
Intelligent Resource Management
AI-powered “Smart Power.” Consumption
Logistics Network Optimizations
Conclusion

AI is the engineering and science of developing intelligent machines and brilliant computer programs. In this context, AI is a series of techniques, processes, and technologies that exhibit intelligent behavior by analyzing the environments around them and taking necessary actions.

Artificial intelligence is gaining a lot of applicability now, faster than ever before, because we’ve learned that the human workforce cannot always be there. The pandemic has increased the number of companies interested in AI technologies, thus making them modify, change, and accelerate their adoption strategies.

The energy sector is not falling behind in adopting and leveraging artificial intelligence’s benefits. Many AI applications aim to optimize processes, predict issues and opportunities, and help save money. According to a report by BNEF estimates, the Economic Transition Scenario will need a $15.1 trillion investment in solar, wind, and batteries and a $14 trillion investment in power grids by 2050.

AI is starting to show some of its most potent effects in the utility and power industries. Power companies are increasingly counting on artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the energy supply. The global energy industry faces a problem because of the increased demand, supply, efficiency, and demand patterns. Still, the issue concerns the absence of analytics required for optimum management. These difficulties are aggravated in a lot of developing countries. Here’s where AI. It plays a significant role.

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the power sector is increasingly reaching emerging economies. It has a significant impact because these emerging economies understand that clean, inexpensive, and dependable electricity is essential for growth.

According to statistics by Harvard, by 2040, world energy consumption is expected to increase by 15.3%.

AI is the technology of the century. It might seem that the combination of the energy sector and artificial intelligence is too complicated to be efficient. But take a glance at the top applications of AI in the energy sector and understand how we can incorporate AI in energy firms.

Preventive Maintenance

Predictive maintenance plays a crucial role in the energy industry as the resources have to be managed carefully and efficiently. Otherwise, it can be hazardous. Faulty equipment or defects in pipes/wiring/machines or fault-susceptible process lines pose a considerable threat, and humans cannot predict every breakdown. Here’s where AI comes into play: artificial intelligence helps identify defects like corrosion, cracks, and inadequate insulation and helps prevent failures.

Predictive maintenance lets organizations maximize the utilization of equipment or machine components while maintaining all safety standards. AI. Helps to validate production quality and provide deep insights into defects with the help of analytics. AI-powered Fault Detection solutions are pretty economical and also cost-effective. Predictive analytics help the operators evaluate the equipment’s health, enabling proactive measures to prevent a catastrophe. Schneider Electric uses Microsoft’s machine learning capabilities to remotely monitor and configure pumps in the oil and gas field. Early detection of a pump failure can save up to $1 million in repair costs.
AI in Grid Management

With the increase in decentralization and digitalization of the power grid, managing many grid participants and balancing the grid is challenging; this requires evaluating and analyzing an overflow of data. Artificial Intelligence helps process this data quickly and efficiently.

Smart grids are another area of application where AI. Plays a key role. Especially with an upsurge in the number of volatile power generation plants like solar and wind, it has become essential for power generation industries to respond intelligently to energy consumption. These intelligent Grids transport not only electricity but also data. AI. It helps to analyze, evaluate, and control this data from different consumers, producers, and storage facilities connected with the help of the grid.

It helps stabilize the power grid by detecting irregular consumption, generation, and transmission in real time and developing appropriate solutions.

The adoption of electric vehicles and electrification of heating systems in the next 10-15 years will add complexity to global energy grids. Dependency on a central utility to produce and transmit electricity will reduce as other sources start making energy through solar panels, storing it in batteries and electric vehicles, and feeding it back to the grid.
Intelligent Resource Management.

Resource management is the next phase after AI. Forecasting and preventive maintenance for the energy sector. With intelligent AI-powered predictive mechanisms, energy suppliers can dispatch their resources better, prepare for demand in advance, predict issues, and save resources whenever possible. Proper resource management helps increase efficiency and lower costs. Power-saving with AI. Will help lower utility bills and customize services for end clients, one of the meaningful benefits of artificial intelligence in the energy market. Applying AI in resource management can cut business and end-customer costs. How? Energy providers can get accurate forecasts that improve energy scheduling and power plant dispatch thanks to predictive mechanisms. Corporations can better prepare for demand, predict issues, increase grid stability, and save resources when they have the appropriate information.
AI-powered Consumption (Smart Power)

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US report states that nearly half of U.S. energy users have smart electrical meters installed at their houses. These meters provide data about personal energy consumption, and that data can be used to make better forecasts about upcoming energy usage levels, thus helping customers regulate their consumption better.

According to the EIA, intelligent power consumption through AI-driven intelligent home solutions through companies like Google and Amazon are being adopted at a large scale. These smart devices communicate with other household devices to identify energy waste. For instance, consumers can figure out the cheapest time to charge their electronic vehicles or run their air conditioners, thus helping the energy industry optimize their energy storage.
Logistics Network Optimizations

The supply chain in a particular energy sector, like the oil & gas industry, involves complex operations involving decision-making for environmental recycling companies and gas producers/distributors for LPG. These organizations must make tough decisions like purchase, purchase price, petroleum refining operations, gantry operations, and transportation. In this business, AI helps coordinate the operations team with the warehouse to ensure the availability of crucial products like refill tanks.

In a nutshell, AI. Aids Energy & utility companies in predicting the market price of electricity/gas. AI can support proper planning and implementation in these LPG businesses, optimal route selection, etc. It helps refiners predict the optimal demand blending, evaluate the prices, and improvise customer relationships, usually in the downstream oil & gas business. Also, AI. Helps in proper planning and scheduling, enabling optimization of the energy price, creating an intelligent warehouse, maintaining inventories, handling shipping operations for replacing assets, risk hedging, and improvising the delivery times & thus reducing the overall expenses.

The above graph shows the Past and projected U.S. energy consumption in quadrillions. It shows that by 2040, world energy consumption is expected to increase by 15.3%. The Data was retrieved from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Conclusion

With the global energy industry not resistant to the COVID-19 pandemic, renewed focus has been placed on upping economic efficiency. To that end, market players use machine learning to improve predictive capabilities, increase transparency in energy trading, integrate renewable energy sources, manage intelligent grids and storage, and give life to unmanned drones. AI in numerous domains proves its value to the energy transition, causing measurable improvements in renewable energy forecasting, grid operations and optimization, distributed energy assets, demand-side management, and materials discovery and innovation.

AI holds far more significant potential to accelerate the global energy transition. While AI Applications in the energy sector have been innovative and promising, adoption remains limited. AI gives an incredible opportunity to accelerate the growth towards the highly efficient, zero-emission, and interconnected energy system we need for a better tomorrow.

As time passes, We will only realize more incredible AI. Adoption, innovation, and collaboration across the energy industries. This is one of the reasons why the World Economic Forum has released a report called Harnessing AI to Accelerate the Energy Transition, which defines and catalyzes the needed actions.

For those looking to change the energy industry’s future, the interface between AI and energy is a beautiful place to start. Technological innovation has drastically changed how we assume these two industries and their integration. Their synergy may transform the world like we never comprehended, and they are primed for innovative thinkers to make their mark.

Banking, Blog

Top Technology Trends Transforming the BFSI Industry

January 5, 2022 [x]cube LABS

Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI):
Blockchain Technology
RPA
Big Data Analytics
Conclusion

Introduction

A well-operating financial system drives a well-functioning economy. Technology is one of the most powerful driving forces for the current economy and the modern economic systems. Banks have grown from being a safe place for keeping valuables to a one-stop solution for all transactional operations. Today, the (BFSI) Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance industries operate on smart devices, making online transactions the new norm. As we move more in-depth into the digital age, we can anticipate seeing technology-driven, more groundbreaking, innovative digital transformations in banking with strategic solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic was an arm-twisting of unprecedented proportions for banks, placing their technology architecture, strategy, and workforces under tremendous pressure. For most, the crisis was a sobering affair that dispelled all illusions about how far they had progressed regarding digital transformations and cloud migrations. According to research, 62% of customers consider more comfortable and more secured banking one of the best technological developments of the decade, and 56% of the banks are now considering digital disruption as the crux of their strategy.

Yet, silver linings could be found in how fast banks could acclimate to a new reality amidst many pandemic challenges. Most of them quickly rebuilt their business with a digital core that supports a more adaptable workforce and a more useful agile operating model with ever-changing customer needs, making the future of banking more secure.

Technological advancements and changing customer expectations continually drive the financial service industry to innovate and accustom. Technology is aiding the financial sector in filling the gap between conventional and revolutionary banking systems by improving customer experience, operational efficiency, and data security. The digital approach is applied to payments, retail banking, finance management, insurance, commercial banking, and finances management.

Banks with a clear-sighted perspective persist in expediting their digital transformations, reimagining their people and data to their architectures and ecosystems. New banking competition is dawning where architecture is given the topmost priority, and leaders are also deciding on the ingenuity of their technology choices.

The popularity of FINTECH has made banks exclusively automate their processes; New banks are launching NEO banks that are launched digitally without Physical branches. Numerous Technology Trends have emerged and have sped their way into every bank’s system.

Want to know what the Top 5 Future technology trends are shaping the future of digital banking? Have a look:

Artificial Intelligence (AI):

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is now developing as a part of the business environment and is reinventing the whole BFSI ecosystem by enhancing automation and dynamic systems. AI supports decision-making, enhances customer service with virtual assistants, and improves operational efficiency. Also, advanced machine learning algorithms help process data quickly, thus helping in compliance management, profile credit risk, and detecting fraud even before it happens. AI and machine learning saves time by personalizing client experience, crunching reams of data, and increasing revenue growth. A recent study states that machines will perform 10 to 25% of all banking functions across all banks in the next few years. A large group of consumers assume that the gap-fill in the financial market is by applying self-serving technology platforms that help customers conduct all their banking operations remotely. A study by McKinsey states that the value of AI and ML could be worth as much as USD 1 trillion annually.

Blockchain Technology:

Blockchain, an emerging technology trend, is already creating transformation ripples in the BFSI sector. According to the global bank Santander, Blockchain-based systems will enable banks to save US$15-20 billion by 2022.

The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) believes Blockchain technology holds enormous potential for disrupting the banking and financial markets. Organizations across the globe are already establishing blockchain in a wide variety of banking and investment applications, like solving challenges met by investment banks to assist customers in making safer payment transactions. According to a report by MarketWatch, the investment of blockchain in the (BFSI) banking and financial sector will reach $17.47 billion by the end of 2025.

RPA:

With Robotic Process Automation (RPA), the banking industry demands intelligent automation to drive efficiency, remove repetitions, and improve customer satisfaction by providing fast and efficient services. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) mimics human actions to extract more data and navigate digital systems, and this level of automation is invaluable to the BFSI sector as it automates workflow, reduces errors, and speeds up digital transformation. RPA has diverse functions and can streamline customer service and operations across various industries from end to end. A report by KPMG states that RPM could preserve financial associations as much as 75% in cost savings.

CyberSecurity:

Cyber threats can emerge from anywhere at any time; the most dangerous part about cyber risks is their ever-changing and evolving nature. 69% of CEOs from various financial institutions reported in a PwC survey that they are highly concerned about cyber threats. Also, 65% of the companies said that they adopted cloud-based security measures in their organization as

Cyber risks demand a proactive approach as part of BFSI enterprises. They need first to assess, evaluate, and understand the present security status of their organization and identify their cyber-risk appetite. They should develop a cybersecurity roadmap that will help them gauge the vulnerable areas and seal those gaps early. This is why organizations should hire and train cybersecurity teams to mitigate threats and vulnerabilities effectively in advance. An IBM report estimated that the cost of a data breach in the financial sector was US$5.85 million in 2020.

Big Data Analytics:

Big data in finance has led to meaningful technological innovations. Financial firms can deliver personalized customer recommendations, create more efficient processes to strengthen security, provide better customer service, and drive competitive advantage. They can identify revenue opportunities by analyzing customers’ spending patterns, financial situations, credit information, and social media activities.

A recent study states that 71% of banking and financial firms utilize big data analytics to gain a competitive advantage over their peers. Big Data improves trust equity by assuring cyber security measures and managing voluminous and unstructured data. Predictive analytics enable institutions to deliver customers personalized insights into their investments.

Conclusion

Banking and other financial sectors have been more advanced in their digital transformation processes than any other industry, and future technology trends transforming the banking industry into a business offer plenty of advantages to satisfy customer needs. Forward-thinking banks are embracing these thrilling new technologies to decrease costs, become efficient, and boost customer satisfaction, assuring a place in the digital future. Thus, adopting and enforcing these technology trends will accelerate the digital transformation in the banking industry.

App Marketing, Augmented Reality, Blog

Extended Reality Business Apps for Industries in 2022

December 27, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Extended Reality Business Applications for Industries in 2022
Introduction to Extended Reality
Three Remarkable Components of Extended Reality(XR)
5 Powerful Real Time Business Applications
Real time Examples
Challenges
Conclusion

Extended Reality Business Applications for Industries in 2022

Introduction to Extended Reality

Extended Reality(XR) is an umbrella phrase that consists of all real and virtual environments generated by computer technology. It comprises Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) and Mixed Reality(MR). All immersive technologies grow the reality we experience by creating a fully immersive experience by blending the real and virtual world.

Research reveals that more than 60% of respondents believe XR will become mainstream in the coming five years. The Extended Reality(XR) market will grow from 33 billion dollars to 125.2 billion dollars by 2026. Visualize yourself walking on the moon or diving into the deep sea, all while you are sitting on your couch at home. Just as we spoke, Extended Reality(XR) makes all of this possible.

To know more about Extended Reality, we need to understand the three components of Extended Reality, which are Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) and Mixed Reality(MR).

Let us have a look at the three remarkable components;

Three Remarkable Components of Extended Reality(XR)

Augmented Reality(AR)

As the word suggests, Augmented Reality(AR) takes the existing reality and overlays it with different types of information, thus enhancing the digital experience. It can be classified as marker-based, marker-less and location-based.

To experience AR, we have to use glasses or screens using tablets or smartphones.

Examples of AR are ‘Pokemon Go’ games where digital structures are created and placed in the real world and a Snapchat filter that lets you put on the hat or glasses.

Virtual Reality(VR)

In contrast to Augmented Reality(AR), Virtual Reality(VR) fully immerses users in a simulated digital environment. Individuals must put on a VR headset or a head-mounted display to get a 360 -degree picture of a synthetic world. This artificial world tricks the brain into believing they are swimming under the ocean or walking on the moon, letting them step into a new world created by the Virtual Reality developers. The entertainment and gaming industries were the early adopters of this technology; however, companies in engineering, Digital Healthcare, construction, and more are researching their way of implementing it.

An example of Virtual Reality use case implementation is Volvo. Volvo introduced VolvoReality that lets customers experience a complete VR test drive with their phone.

Mixed Reality(MR)

Mixed Reality(MR) is the latest immersive technology, often referred to as hybrid reality. In mixed Reality, real and digital-world objects co-exist and interact in real-time. It needs more processing power than VR or AR to avoid speed problems and latency. We can experience Mixed Reality with an MR headset or glasses.

5 Powerful Real Time Business Applications

Healthcare

Imagine exploring human anatomy virtually. What if there is a life-size 3D model right in front of you where you can walk and interact with it- that’s what XR can do- it creates a virtual experience. Extended Reality in Healthcare is paving the way for new opportunities for medical practitioners. Extended Reality solutions own the potential to assist surgeons in the operation theatre. To understand it in detail, let us have a lookup into the best 3 uses of XR in Health Care :

1)Building surgery simulator to train medical practitioners

Immersive technologies help doctors conduct surgery simulations. We can create a surgery simulator with the support of extended Reality. We can also use it for training medical practitioners.

2)Helps Surgeons Prepare before actual surgeries

With the help of Extended Reality(XR), we can generate 3D replicas based on patient scans that let surgeons study and collaborate with the team on surgical tactics. An XR immersive headset is used to showcase the draw, cut measure tools, and develop an actual operation procedure.

3)Better Diagnosis of Health Conditions

What if doctors can scan a patient’s body and point out health problems straight away? As fascinating as it sounds, it is now possible with an XR application. Immersive technologies are brought together with the help of 3D models to help detect patients’ illnesses.

By 2025, Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR) market value is forecasted to be $10.82 billion.

Retail

One of the most thrilling areas where XR is set to make a mark is retail/eCommerce. The line is clouding between online and in-store shopping experiences; like today, more brands are experimenting with Virtual Reality(VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) to build innovative customer experiences.

But why should we imagine a virtual shopping experience when you see it in person in the store? All of this was true until customers couldn’t go to the store anymore due to pandemic restrictions.

In January 2020, 8% of retailers stated they were interested in AR/VR. Six months later, that number increased to 20%. Today, retailers see the opportunity of Extended Reality in a different light.

Top 3 Examples of VR and AR bring used in the Retail Sector

1)Nike– Nike used Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in their physical stores so that Customers can scan items like clothes or shoes to view information.

2) IKEA developed The Place App, which lets shoppers use augmented Reality with their smartphone camera to position furniture items in their houses to visualize exactly how the thing will look.

3) BMW’s augmented reality experiences let car shoppers head into showrooms and customize cars with various colours or styles using their phones or tablets. They can even put on virtual reality goggles and experience driving cars to understand their options better.

Gaming and Entertainment

Gaming

With its share in the XR market being 34%, the video games industry has been XR’s early and foremost user. Many game designers are now creating interactive 3D experiences, using different devices and frameworks to build Extended Reality games that let them feel like they are playing in a real environment. Like being in a Star Wars environment where Darth Vader is present? Vader Immortal is a VR game that gives an immersive experience of how it truly feels to be in the Star Wars world. You can play this VR game using the Oculus Quest headset.

Research emphasizes that the VR market for gaming was worth $5.12 billion by 2019 alone. Further forecasts state that the numbers will grow at a CAGR of 31.8% by 2027, by which the VR market size is about to reach a net of $45.20 billion.

Entertainment

Virtual Reality plays a dominant part in the entertainment industry. It focuses mainly on producing and improving video-based immersive media like TV shows, movies and numerous other forms of video content. Virtual rides are designed for Theme parks which are usually difficult to simulate in Reality.Beyond this, Virtual Reality is also being executed in art galleries and museums to make it interactive with a contextual background and to provide a rich user experience. Other AR entertainment mobile apps like PokemonGo have transformed the real world with a simulated overlay attracting and engaging audiences.

While Virtual Reality(VR) is liable for gathering a lot of traction due to its highly immersive characteristics, Augmented Reality(AR) is now becoming a game-changer. It is a lucrative immersive technology that will benefit the Gaming and Entertainment sector in the long run. AR technology is used daily in smartphones via camera filters on social media platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook. The filter utilizes computer vision technology that relies on an active shape model categorizing features and a human face-recognizing feature; filters are applied accordingly through the camera. The VR and AR media entertainment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 48.8% from the year 2018 to 2023.

Marketing

Extended Reality(XR) empowers marketers to give their customers a shot before purchasing the product. It lets customers immerse themselves into that environment and convince them to discover it. For instance, Cathay Pacific used a 360 video to help clients understand the brand.; This raised customer consciousness by 29% and brand favorability by 25%.

From a marketing point of view, let us understand what XR brings to the table?

Product Showcasing With XR, consumers can experience new developments in new ways like never before. Imagine trying out a shoe or a smartwatch before you even pay for it! That’s the pulse that the marketing strategists want to target.
Interactive campaigns XR is all about building an immersive experience for the consumer. Thanks to digital transformation, the calibre of hardware available to the average customer have improved vastly. Every smartphone is capable of processing AR tech, which empowers marketing strategists.

Education & Training

XR holds great potential to change how we get education and training. XR will help get trained and educated in low-risk, virtual environments to master the skills fast and without spending a significant amount. Employees can efficiently focus on the task in a simulated environment built using XR. Remote learning is another vital aspect of XR that will solve the problem of distance barriers.

Benefits most from using XR solutions in Education & Training

- NASA is vigorously experimenting with XR to train its repair and maintenance workers in the space station.
- The electrical technicians at Boeing aeroplanes use AR-headsets to check maintenance checklists, which are reducing their inspection time by 25%.
- The US Marines have used an “Augmented Immersive Team Trainer” system that trains soldiers virtually by adding different fire effects and enemies that has enhanced their performance in real-world scenarios.

Real time Examples

Walmart training with AR

Walmart uses Oculus VR headsets to augment employee training. Positioning staff through training with VR boosts the confidence and retention of the team, enhancing test scores by 10 and 15%.

Coca Cola AR

The Coca Cola Augmented Reality(AR) app allows users to point their camera phone at any Coca Cola can and make one of the twelve stories come to life.

Ford’s

Ford’s new technology, HoloLens, lets designers wear wireless headsets and see digital designs and parts as already incorporated into the physical vehicle.

Jaguar Vehicle VR

Jaguar generated 3D models of every car part, letting them picture every element of the vehicle and fit it all together. The model will simulate the performance of components and systems.

Extended Reality Challenges

Screen Door Effect- This visual effect allows fine spaces between pixels to be seen due to a large image scale. However, this can be solved with advances in both lenses and screens.

Motion to photon latency– It is a delay between the user’s head movement and the change in the display of the XR device imitating its movement. This can cause motion sickness. Researchers have designed a freedom model for user movement prediction, lowering positional rendering error.

Safety Concerns– If the app uses an Extended Reality controller, then the user may clash with other objects provoking harm at both ends. Moreover, the user may trip over an obstacle while moving around, causing them to lose their balance. Intel has put together guidelines on creating a safe, comfortable, and immersive VR experience.

Conclusion

Extended Reality (XR) is creating breakthroughs in finding unique ways to interact with clients. XR solutions are augmenting and increasing the productivity of many industries, including real estate, retail & eCommerce, education & training, entertainment, and more. We may see a world where virtual interaction prevails over real-life experiences in a more distant future.

Agriculture, Blog

Creating an Effective Agritech Ecosystem: The Role of Each Stakeholder

December 15, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Role of Each Stakeholder in Creating an Effective Agritech Ecosystem
To get agritech right, thoughtful collaboration is key

Every year, nearly one-third of the food produced for human consumption gets lost or wasted. The huge losses, especially at a time when meeting global food demand is a challenge amidst resource scarcity and climate change, are unaffordable. This is why global leaders and agriculture stakeholders are leveraging digital farming with emerging technologies. But it is a known fact that the agriculture industry is a complex and vast ecosystem and it will take a lot more than independent and fragmented digital solutions to achieve food security and sustainability goals on a global scale.

In our earlier article titled Transforming the Agriculture Value Chain with Digital Technologies, we mentioned that independently digital technologies can improve efficiency and profitability but to create value, a collective approach is needed. In this article, we’ll talk about how different stakeholders can collectively work to create value that can result in a truly sustainable agriculture ecosystem.

Role of Each Stakeholder in Creating an Effective Agritech Ecosystem

Government:

One of the key stakeholders in the agriculture sector across different countries, governments are responsible for framing policies that define the state of agriculture. Through better policies and reforms, governments can encourage as well as push practices and technologies that can transform the future of agriculture. To create more effective policies and reforms, Governments need to work closely with agribusinesses, startups, research institutions, and the farming community to identify underfunded segments with growth potential and implement policies that propel their growth. Another area which governments should be looking at is R&D. This will encourage research that can lead to more breakthroughs in agriculture.

Agribusinesses:

Agribusinesses, primarily the established ones, play an important role in the value that can be derived from the overall value chain. They include companies related to cultivating and processing agricultural produce. They may or may not be involved directly in food production. Deere & Company, for example, doesn’t grow food but most farmers in the US own a tractor or other equipment owned by them. These agribusinesses need to work on two important things. First, improve focus on data security. With rising concerns around data security, they need to keep the process of data collection. Second, to gain farmer trust, particularly in the case of data that comes directly from farmers, they need to maintain transparency, and clearly communicate why it is collected and how it will be used. This will give them access to critical information that can be used to improve the processes and eventually contribute to sector improvements.

Startups:

Startups have been at the forefront of leveraging technology and innovation in business models to overcome critical challenges and improve the agriculture sector globally. As startups continue to unleash the power of innovation and technology, they face challenges of their own. This is where encouragement of venture capitalists, policies by governments can help them overcome the initial impedance so that they continue to innovate across the value chain by continuously identifying challenges and opportunities and finding relevant digital solutions for them. At the same time, startups would need to be sensitive to disruptions in the traditional model and its impact on growers and on the environment.

Growers:

In a lot of countries, digital adoption may face resistance from grower’s side for reasons such as lack of digital literacy, cost of adopting digital technologies, or lack of clarity on how digital solutions can bring better results i.e. projected results or ROI. This is where close collaboration is needed between growers, governments, cooperatives, and agribusinesses to improve their digital literacy and address other challenges that cause resistance to adoption. They should be provided with opportunities to partner with food and ag companies directly which in turn will encourage both growers and their partners to create collective value and improve product quality. We see that especially when it comes to demand-supply planning or meeting consumer expectations of food transparency, stakeholders can’t meet certain goals without the contribution of growers- digitally and otherwise.

Tech companies:

Digitization in the agriculture industry is slightly more complex than in other industries. It goes beyond just adding new technology. It often translates into a cultural shift and typically brings about fundamental changes to how a business operates. However, given the scale and the complexity of the changes involved, the task of envisioning a clear roadmap that aligns with overall business objectives is often riddled with complexity and uncertainty. This is where the need for a strategic innovation partner comes in. Agribusinesses that partner with specialized digital technology and innovation service providers at a fundamental, strategic level typically see benefits in terms of rapid technology adoption as well as a highly flexible approach to innovation that adapts to changing market conditions by refining the strategy and orchestrating a mix of digital technologies to deliver optimum innovation.

Research Institutions:

The research area will be greatly impacted by digital adoption and vice-versa. While research institutions continue to do phenomenal work, they need to have a closer connection with the industry and the various stakeholders across the value chain in order to deliver greater impact. Modern technologies combined with the exponential increase in computing capacities, availability of large datasets, and strong modeling platforms are leading to the creation of new niche areas in research. At the same time, the research is helping improve the quality of crops, create more resilient seeds, devise efficient farming practices, help farmers get more value out of their crops, analyze complexities, and project scenarios.

To get agritech right, thoughtful collaboration is key.

In our report titled “The State of Digital Agriculture 2021”, we highlighted how the lack of a collaborative approach is preventing stakeholders from adopting digital technologies and agritech effectively. Undoubtedly, agritech is gaining pace globally as many stakeholders are venturing into the domain in some form or the other. The efforts are however scattered and independent. The lack of a collaborative approach between key stakeholders often leads to dilution of effective impact if we see from the view of overall benefit to the agriculture sector. Independent initiatives, especially within the value chain, often need an integrated approach that covers the needs of related stakeholders and fits within the ecosystem without significant disruption.

Every stakeholder, therefore, must be open to collaborating with the right partners in relevant domains and experiment with taking help from a variety of sources. They should adopt a more experimental, open approach and cast wide to adopt key technologies effectively. In that sense, the old templates for who to collaborate with no longer apply, and organizations need to have a more open outlook towards bringing in expert help.

Blog, Digital Transformation & Innovation, Healthcare

Digital Transformation of Healthcare in India

December 8, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
Industry Overview
Top Digital Transformation Trends
Conclusion

Introduction:

To state that the global pandemic has helped digital adoption across industries since 2020 would be an understatement. It has actually made business leaders scramble to adopt digital solutions or risk obsolescence. A development which allowed for no advance planning and improvisation as millions of professionals worldwide were suddenly forced to manage and sustain their business remotely could only be combated by emerging technology, and those who were still on the fence, weighing the pros and cons were faced with an evolve or die situation.

Of all the industries which had to make the transition, the case for healthcare was the most critical. Apart from patients diagnosed with COVID-19, medical facilities had to make all their healthcare and counseling services accessible online, or lose customers. Where before 2020 only 7% of care seekers used to consult with facilities virtually, the percentage jumped to 32% by the end of 2020 per an Accenture research in the USA. In India, a similar research by Katar and Medix global has revealed that 90% of the people who were surveyed are willing to use digital health apps and teleconsultations for their healthcare needs. These were people who were staunch believers of in-person visits to facilities before.

Industry Overview:

In terms of size, the Indian healthcare industry is one of its largest, generating major revenues and employment for the nation. The industry has an international appeal as quality healthcare is available at a fraction of the costs of other Asian and Western countries. It is projected to become a INR 8.6 trillion (USD 133.44 billion) market by the end of 2022. At times when in-person visits have become risky, such growth can only be fueled by digital adoption. The Katar and Medix global survey also asked the respondents on must-have features for digital healthcare apps, to which, the top 3 features requested were the ability to consult with doctors/nurses over video calls, assessing blood test results, and the provision to upload, share and manage medical records.

Top Digital Transformation Trends Impacting the Healthcare Industry:

Here are the top digital transformation trends driving adoption and giving us a glimpse of the future of healthcare in India

Electronic Medical Records: In recent times, the Government of India has introduced a bunch of new regulations and standards such as amendments to the Clinical Establishment Act for ensuring data compliance, the National Digital Health blueprint, and personal data protection bill. These initiatives have ensured that digital copies of a patient’s medical history, investigation findings, medication, diagnosis, and treatment are now easily accessible online or through authorized mobile applications. This has resulted in quicker information sharing among multiple healthcare facilities, transparent and fast communication between facilities and patients, and the ability to carry important documents with ease.
Diagnostic Information Management Solutions: Cloud technology has facilitated collaboration between diagnostic centers as well as center-to-customer communication by alerting customers on their mobile devices when their reports are ready, appointments are due, and follow-up procedures are to be done. This has resulted in improved customer experiences as they are no longer kept guessing when their reports would arrive and when they should be going for the next round of checkups. If the process involves collaboration between multiple centers, the reports can be readily accessed by all of them instead of customers having to carry them around.
At [x]cube LABS, we have helped one of the largest pathology labs in India, Dr. Lal Pathlabs, to achieve amazing customer satisfaction by deploying an intelligent digital interface that provided accurate timelines of when reports would be delivered, the ability to see how long each test would take and a comprehensive report at the end. The solution also helped the organization to keep customers updated in case there are delays caused by unforeseen situations. Overall, the communication between the company and customers reached a new level of promptness and transparency which greatly improved retention and loyalty.
Application of AI in Imaging: Radiologists are increasingly taking advantage of the advanced algorithms brought about by AI-based imaging technology. In combination with PACS (picture archiving and communication system), which transforms the paper workflow of radiology images into digital, AI is enabling practitioners and facilities to evolve to a more efficient style of working. Additionally, images analyzed by AI have high accuracy, and even small abnormalities do not go unnoticed, helping radiologists diagnose health conditions early and avoid complications.
Telemedicine: This facility exploded in popularity soon after the lockdowns imposed by the pandemic came into effect and continues to be a game changer for various health institutions. Not only has the ability to remotely consult specialists been beneficial to existing customers, but it has also enabled new customers to connect with specialists of their choice irrespective of location. Hence, facilities which used to have only a local clientele are now able to reach out to a much wider audience. Aggregators have also brought various specialists from multiple locations under one platform, giving patients a wider choice than they had pre-pandemic where only local health facilities were accessible to them.
Remote Monitoring of Patients: Tools that enable medical facilities and professionals to remotely supervise their patients, have their readings sent to them from time to time, and facilitate two-way communication have also become popular. More companies are entering the market with upgraded offerings as such tools solve two major problems. They enable professionals to monitor and diagnose patients remotely at a time when getting beds in hospitals could be difficult, and they also improve patient experience as they don’t have to visit the facilities in person for every checkup.
Online Training: Prior to the pandemic and the rise in popularity of digital solutions, medical training would mostly be imparted in person and aspirants who did not have training facilities near their location would have to travel to faraway cities and towns. Today, more and more institutes are starting online programs to help those interested in a career in the healthcare industry to learn the trade from anywhere in India. With e-learning platforms and simulators equipped with haptic feedback to make learning more immersive, several relevant training modules have now become more conveniently accessible to a wider range of the population, giving facilities more options to hire quality talent, expand and provide better care.

Conclusion:

Digital healthcare in India, like most other countries, has received a much needed shot in the arm and is maturing by the day. Organizations within the industry as well as enterprises enabling the industry to transition are thinking of novel ideas to further improve patient care, coordination between employees and facilities, and create smarter medical devices that make diagnosis faster and more accurate. The continuing transformation will ensure that more patients from Tier-II and Tier-III cities in India get the same high quality consultation and attention as those in big cities, and a stronger workforce will be built thanks to remote learning. Overall, we can be optimistic about the future of one of the largest industries of the nation and look forward to new and exciting developments in 2022 and beyond.

Blog, Enterprise Mobility

CISA’s Mobile Device Cybersecurity Checklist for Organizations

December 3, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

CISA’s Mobile Device Cybersecurity Checklist for Organizations
About CISA
Conclusion

With increasing digitization, the number of threats faced by enterprises and consumers is also increasing, and they are becoming more grave and malicious every day. Last year, we shared 8 best practices you must adopt for your enterprise to strengthen cybersecurity. As the attacks advanced, so did the security measures, and a few days back we shared how you can use artificial intelligence in cybersecurity to secure your enterprise. The process of securing your enterprise against cyberattacks isn’t a one-time thing. You need to continuously keep yourself updated in terms of the threats out there as well as your own capabilities to defend yourself.

This is an area where even governments around the world are putting in efforts, in collaboration with cyber security organizations to protect enterprises and consumers globally.

To that end, just last week, The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) created an Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) system checklist for enterprises to mitigate vulnerabilities and to help them secure themselves against cyber threats.

CISA’s Mobile Device Cybersecurity Checklist for Organizations

The guide lists some easy-to-implement steps that organizations can take across six areas: security-focused device management, user authentication, mobile app security, network protection, device protection as well as protecting enterprise systems from the device. Let’s take a look at what CISA recommended in their checklist:

Security-focused device management

Enterprises should be careful about supply chain risks while selecting devices and enable automatic updates on each device so that the latest updates are applied to each device instantly
Enterprises should make sure that only trusted devices are allowed. To qualify as a “trusted device,” a device must:
- Have the latest platform patch level
- Be configured as per enterprise standards of EMM.
- Not be rooted or jailbroken.
- Undergo continuous monitoring

If any device doesn’t meet the above criteria, it is considered an untrusted device and should be denied access to any of the enterprise resources.

Strong Authentication

Use strong passwords and PINS for devices and the passwords should be at least six digits.
Enable the use of biometric authentication such as fingerprint or face recognition
Two-factor authentication should be enabled for accessing enterprise networks

App Security

Use only curated app stores and disable all third-party app stores. Third-party app stores can spread malware
Enterprise apps should be isolated from personal apps. This should be done to avoid exfiltration between enterprise and personal apps. To isolate enterprise data, security container technology should be used
Minimize personal identifiable information that is stored in apps. This will make it difficult for attackers to steal data.
By default, disable sensitive permissions when you install new apps.
Restrict the backing up of enterprise data by disabling OS/app synchronization

Network Communication

Disable the network radios such as Bluetooth, Wifi, GPs, etc that are not in use or required. Each network connection is a potential entry point for attackers that can be used to steal data or control a device.
Attackers can use user certificates to hide malware and facilitate attacks. To avoid this, user certificated should be disabled and considered untrustworthy
Secure your communication apps and protocols because often, network attacks allow attackers to tamper with data in transit, resulting in data leak, credentials thrift, user tracing, and more

Device Protection

Implement a Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) system. The system can protect devices from malicious software that can pose a threat to apps and operating systems and can also access sensitive data. MTD systems are also capable of detecting improper configurations.
Use only trusted chargers and cables with the device. Malware can also be introduced through chargers or PCs and enable attackers to take control of the device.
Configure organization devices to function in a USB restricted mode that disables data transfer between devices
Configure the settings to automatically delete a device’s data if there have been a certain number of incorrect login attempts

Protecting Enterprise Systems from Device

Disable mobile device connectivity to critical enterprise systems as mobile devices can carry malware and create problems from business-critical applications, servers, and systems

Discourage users to establish connectivity between mobile devices and critical systems using USB or wireless mode

About CISA

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), USA, leads the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the country’s cyber and physical infrastructure. They connect their stakeholders in industry and government to each other and to resources, analysis, and tools to help them build their own cyber, communications, and physical security and resilience, in turn helping to ensure a secure and resilient infrastructure for the American people. They are the Operational Lead for Federal Cybersecurity or the Federal “dot gov” as well as the National Coordinator for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience.

Source: CISA

Conclusion

As enterprises worldwide undergo digital transformation and adopt digital solutions, the need for securing those digital efforts becomes as critical as the solution itself. Without securing your digital ecosystem, you not only put your enterprise at risk but also your customers by making their data and privacy vulnerable to attacks and easily accessible by attackers. Other than the need for obvious security, another reason why you should level up your cybersecurity measures is that customers today not only look into customer experience as a parameter to choose you but also the level of privacy and data security that you offer. As an enterprise leader, if you’re thinking about how you can begin or fortify your existing cybersecurity measures, feel free to get in touch with us.

Blog, Digital Transformation & Innovation

10 Factors Defining Digital Transformation in 2022

November 30, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Factors defining digital transformation in 2022
2022- Another year of more technical advancements

Given the circumstances, many organizations undecided about digital transformation had to take the step in 2020, and the trend continued in 2021. The transformation was fast-paced due to COVID-19, a black swan event. But as we step into 2022, what does digital transformation mean for these as well as new businesses? What will continue and what new things can we expect? In this article, we talk about the factors that will play an important role in defining digital transformation across industries in the years to come.

Factors defining digital transformation in 2022

We already talked about Top 10 Technology Innovations we can Expect in 2022. But as we know, digital transformation strategy and execution is not only about technology but also about people (industry and organization culture) and processes. And of course, other factors that are associated with intermediary industries and markets also play a role in overall digital transformation. These include macro trends, global policies, new innovations and breakthroughs, speculations around upcoming trends and their impact on work in progress, and a lot more. Let’s take a look at some of the prominent ones that are likely to have the biggest impact.

Deployment of more complex 5G millimeter waves on the way

5G adoption in 2021 remained on track, as expected, but the deployment happened in the sub-6GHz bands. We can now expect the deployment and growth of more complex 5G millimeter waves. The low band 5G frequencies often feel only slightly faster than LTE despite being about twice as fast. This made some consumers unsatisfied as they felt that the promised speeds were not delivered. 5G millimeter bands will change that. mmWave has an edge over the existing 5G as it increases network capacity and efficiency, offers low latency, and delivers faster speed. So we can fairly say that even the trend of 5G is moving towards advancement. The deployment of mmWave will encourage consumers to not just adopt faster networks but also the devices that support them. A lot of companies such as Qualcomm, Samsung, Ericsson, and more are already developing network infrastructure that supports 5G mmWave.
Semiconductors to see more investments

As the 2020 pandemic drove a tech explosion, we saw more adoption of technologies that enabled businesses to function without disruption, effective communication, and productivity tools, and many more. This unseen growth or unprecedented demand for enabling technologies also caused a semiconductor chip shortage, as was evident from 2021 where we saw delays in production times of almost everything from a cell phone to automobiles. This is why we now see large investments in semiconductors to avoid similar situations in the future. Companies like Intel and Samsung, for example, have announced huge investments to build fabrication plants around the globe. While the impact of these investments may not be felt immediately, we can still expect these investments and developments to play a crucial role gradually down the line.
Hybrid advancements to accommodate the mega shift in the future of work

As expected, and as can be seen globally, remote work continues even at places where the pandemic has nearly waned. Companies across every industry are offering permanent, flexible, and hybrid working modes. And because such modes of working come with their own set of challenges such as ineffective communication and collaboration, we can expect more advancements in the tech space that cater to these challenges. These advancements apply to both hardware and software and enable superior quality collaboration for people connecting from different places. Microsoft Teams, Zoho One platform are examples of it. We can expect more in this space in terms of better collaboration and innovation.
More scrutiny and regulations for tech giants

Tech giants can expect intense scrutiny from governments across the world. The infamous monopolistic practices of major companies such as Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc, have created a lot of noise and raised an alarm among the users as well as legislators and governments. However, to expect a major antitrust reform is highly unlikely, at least in the near future. Even then, the need for regulating how these companies collect data and use it to have more control over users’ lives is clearly visible and we can see some progress gradually over the next decade, if not sooner. For others venturing into similar businesses, they can learn and establish themselves as brands that protect consumer data and offer better privacy to avoid similar challenges.
Privacy first approach for the next wave of tech regulation

Customers today are used to enhanced customer experiences. At the same time, with so much buzz around privacy concerns, they have become cautious about the data they volunteer to share with different apps. Taking note of that, some companies position themselves as “privacy companies.” Apple is a fine example of that. Now the challenges right in the face of businesses around the world are how do they strengthen their customer experience strategy and stay ahead of the competition with limited data or with thoughtful data practices. They also need to be transparent about how they collect data, how they use it, and how they will respond in case of data breaches, and how capable they are when it comes to cybersecurity. Simply put, they need to look for new sources of data and learn about how they will use it while maintaining the same level of customer experience.
The synergy of hybrid and multi-cloud

A major enabler, cloud technology, is set for an upgrade to how it is deployed. Hybrid cloud is the next big thing. Hybrid cloud refers to a cloud environment that is made up of on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and a public cloud, with orchestration among the various platforms. By leveraging an optimal mix of public and private clouds, companies aim to resolve challenges around computing and storage, including security and data access. Google Anthos, VMware, AWS Outposts, IBM Red Hat are some of the offerings by leading companies to help enterprises benefit from the power of hybrid cloud. 2022 will also witness the adoption of the multi-cloud model where companies will be seen using more than one public cloud to solve their business challenges, and it is going to get mainstream eventually due to the necessity of implementing it.
Everything-as-a-Service

We have witnessed how capital expenditures for software and infrastructures have been replaced with the OpEx model where technologies are procured based on a consumption basis. Whether it is enterprises or consumers in general, users want to pay for services as they use them and when they want them. With the growing popularity of this much more convenient and affordable model (in most cases), everything-as-a-service can be expected to reach its peak in 2022. SaaS companies for enterprises will benefit greatly from this shift. This shift has and will continue to enable digital transformation at a faster pace as enterprises can conveniently adopt new technologies without worrying about high one-time capital costs or the investment getting drowned in the event of the technology becoming obsolete.
The Metaverse

In our earlier blog post titled Facebook’s Transition to Meta: Metaverse, Controversies, and the Future, we mentioned how the metaverse will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together and the company is really optimistic about its growth in the near future. While one thing is for sure that we won’t be living in an envisioned metaverse anytime soon, we can still expect other companies to follow the trend. Microsoft, for example, recently launched “Mesh for Teams,” a metaverse-like product that allows people to create powerful 3D avatars of themselves for meetings where they don’t want to be on camera. We can expect more metaverse-positioning by companies over the decade, starting this year.
NFTs

This year we saw the rise of NFTs. We witnessed a lot of investments as well as noteworthy developments in the NFT space- the sale of NFT for $69 million by digital artist Beeple, to say the least. While from a distance we may say that NFT applications have been limited to, or the ones that caught mainstream media’s attention were limited to arts and game tokens, in the coming year, we’ll see more NFT use cases in business, given its desirable characteristics such as tradeability, security, indivisibility, and standardization, in addition to scarcity.
Elevated need for talent

To catch up with the advancements in technologies and new innovations as well as to reap the maximum benefits by getting an early advantage, tech companies and digitally transforming enterprises in general need talent that can help them quickly. The time spent in setting up in-house teams and training can often cost them opportunities. This is something we have seen in the past and we will continue to see in the future as well. The coming year will drive the need for skilled talent and would require companies to attract, nurture and retain talent in smart ways. This is where enterprises can leverage the services of companies like [x]cube LABS that help organizations that do not have teams to help them build digital solutions quickly. Instead of recruiting and training teams, you can work with a partner like [x]cube LABS and achieve results sooner.

2022- Another year of more technical advancements

Undoubtedly, the momentum given by the pandemic to digital adoption will go a long way. Companies that were earlier resistant to adoption for various reasons were compelled to take the step to stay in business. As of today and in the near future, digital transformation isn’t just about survival but also about staying profitable, efficient, relevant, competitive, and customer-centric. While on one side we see enterprises transforming rapidly, we also see innovation and new technologies being explored with equal pace. We are yet to see how each of the factors impacts the overall digital transformation landscape in general and how successful the emerging and new technologies will be. But one thing is certain, it will be more than 2020 and 2021.

Blog, Technology

Top 10 Technology Innovations we can Expect in 2022

November 24, 2021 [x]cube LABS

In today’s fast-moving digitalized world, technological innovations are taking place in the blink of an eye. With advanced technologies, such as IoT, AI, blockchain, AR and more being a part of the core strategy of organizations, innovations are driving industries to revolutionize and accelerate the digital transformation. Since Covid-19, the need for digitalization and tech innovations has fastened up and established its importance in today’s world. 2020 and 2021 have seen major developments in blockchain adoption, smart manufacturing, AR augmented retail applications and more. Thus, 2022 also shall bring in a wave of newer trends and applications of such technologies and it is exciting to see what lies ahead of us in terms of tech innovation offerings. Here are some trends we can expect in 2022 and beyond:

AI-enabled automation/ Hyperautomation

AI is known to power automation in various fields of business. Hyperautomation facilitates automation of most processes, reduces human intervention, fastens the pace of operations, and thus is highly beneficial for businesses. Ever since Covid-19 hit the world, the need for automating processes has been on the rise. To catalyze productivity and reduce costs, hyperautomation seems to be highly efficient. 2022 and beyond shall see increased adoption of hyperautomation across industries worldwide. Gartner predicts that the worldwide hyper automation-enabling software market will likely reach nearly $600 billion by 2022. In this digital-first world, hyperautomation has become a necessity in order to fasten up the digital transformation/acceleration process.

Decision Intelligence (DI) on the rise

Decision-making powered by technologies such as Artificial intelligence, machine learning, etc., allows for businesses to make data-driven, insightful, and faster decisions. These decisions are backed with significant data, and allow for problem-solving as well. Banking and finance giants, Morgan Stanley and Lloyds group use DI for their wealth management platform and other business processes, which gives them the opportunity to analyze customer behavior, attend to their needs better and give a personalized touch. Gartner predicts that by 2023, a third of organizations will be using DI for structured decision-making.

Smart city adoption

Forbes too talks about how smart city technologies will emerge to be a rising software trend in 2022 and beyond as the urban population demands more efficient and smarter cities. The global smart city market size is expected to grow from USD 457.0 billion in 2021 to USD 873.7 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 13.8% during the forecast period. IoT, sensor technology, blockchain, and more play integral roles in smart city development. These digital technologies enable better decision-making, facilitate improved traffic management, energy conservation, climate control, and better quality of life.

5G

A wide range of industries from computing, manufacturing, healthcare, entertainment, and more have increased their adoption of 5G to enable a more connected and digitized world. 5G has the capability to address and work with technologies such as 3D robotic control, virtual reality monitoring, and more. It enables connectivity among objects, devices, machines, and more. 5G technology is the next advanced evolution of 4G and aims to enable a much faster pace of activities when compared to 4G. The 5G subscriptions worldwide are expected to cross 1 billion in 2022 (Statista). According to a Mckinsey report, in the B2B sphere, the total revenue for 5G IoT modules is expected to increase from USD 180 million in 2022 to USD 10 billion by 2030. This signifies the high growth rate 5G is expected to rise at. Also, by 2025, 5G networks are expected to cover one-third of the world’s population (GSMA). Qualcomm, Ericsson, Samsung, Huawei, are some of the main 5G players in the market.

Everything blockchain

IDC reports that in 2021, nearly $6.6billion will be spent on blockchain solutions this year, which is 50% higher than 2020 and will also face a 75% increase in 2022 amounting to $11.7 billion. It also reports that blockchain spending will see an increased growth (2020-2024) at a CAGR of 48%. It is also said that blockchain services will be utilized to track the distribution and delivery of vaccines in 2022. This application is also being increasingly adopted by retailers to track the delivery of products to customers more efficiently than ever. NFTs powered by blockchain technology are gaining relevance to claim one’s right over a digital asset. In 2022, it is also expected that blockchain-as-a-service shall be offered by major companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, etc. leading to the accessibility of blockchain in the marketplace. Acceptance of cryptocurrency in retail and other sectors is also considered as a possible change coming up in 2022 which brings us to the next trend below.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency has been the talk for a while now. In 2022 too, it is expected to grow to be a more relevant and adopted form of investment. Since Covid-19 cryptocurrencies have been through a roller coaster but this has not stopped the entry of newer cryptocurrencies into the cryptocurrency market apart from the well-known Bitcoin, Ethereum, and so on. Currently, the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum may take over Bitcoin’s first position in 2022 (Yahoo News). The acceptance of cryptocurrency as a legal method of payment may also increase in 2022 which will tackle its major obstacle and make room for newer cryptocurrencies and innovations within them. To tackle the unregulated nature of cryptocurrency and make it a viable payment method/currency, many countries such as China plan to launch their own digital currency. This will also reduce the misuse of cryptocurrencies. The retail industry too can expect major changes if retailers start accepting crypto as a method of payment, for which buzz was already created by Amazon in 2021 when it considered Bitcoin for product payments. Innovations to reduce the carbon footprint while mining such currencies can also be expected as the world urges us to take further careful steps and decisions keeping a greener environment in mind. Thus possibilities with innovations in terms of cryptocurrencies seem endless in 2022 and beyond.

Generative AI

Yet another application of AI, generative AI is set to raise the standards of AI use cases and provide reasons for organizations around the world to adopt it. It works on an algorithm that has the capability to use data in form of text, audio, images, and so on and generate similar content. This self-learning algorithm allows for higher-quality outputs. This application of AI comes with its set of limitations, and thus provides room for innovations and opportunities to come up with technologies/ways to tackle them. Healthcare can be majorly benefitted from generative AI, and IBM has already begun to leverage it by researching Antimicrobial peptides to find drugs for Covid-19. Gartner predicts that by 2025, generative AI may account for 10% of all data produced, which currently lies at 1% today.

Technologies running Smart Devices

From smart cars to wearables such as smartwatches, to TVs, smartphones, and more, various technologies have resulted in making our lives more convenient and tech-driven. IoT is one of the major driving technologies behind this connectedness of smart devices. The number of wearable connected devices is forecasted to reach more than 1 billion by 2022 as per Statista. With many more brands entering this segment, we can expect newer and interesting features added to the list. The wearables market, though dominated by smartwatches, is seeing many new products such as hearables, smart patches, and more. Applications of smart wearables in today’s Covid-19 era, to track Covid symptoms was a relevant and much-needed innovation and will continue to be as we fight to get rid of Covid-19 in 2022 too. Presently 4G, but 5G soon too will help with the connectivity of such devices. As per Statista, the number of wearable devices linked to 4G will increase by 89 million in 2022, connecting over 900 million people. Newer innovations such as smart helmets are also about to experience growth as they come with interesting features such as tracking speed, stamina, listening to music, GPS services, and more.

Cloud-Native Platforms (CNPs)

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 95% of all new digital initiatives will have CNP as their foundation, up from the current 40% in 2021. In the current times, the need to adopt cloud-native application/approach rather than the traditional on premises approach of infrastructure is more evident than ever. Mckinsey reports that by 2022, more than 70% of enterprises will depend on some form of cloud management tool for various business purposes. Taking cloud computing up a notch, CNPs aim to make infrastructure management effortless. Speed of service, reduced costs, auto scalability and more are some benefits of CNP. The global cloud revenue is $474 billion in 2022, as it becomes the core of business operations in this ever-so digitized world.

AR/VR powered “Virtual try on”

Revolutionizing the retail industry, this AR/VR trend is making heads turn with its innovative and catchy virtual try-on capability. In-store- AR mirrors/Smart mirrors provide a delightful experience to customers as they allow them to virtually try on clothes which also saves their time and effort to a great extent. According to Businesswire, the application of VR and AR in the retail market is projected to reach US$ 17864.86 million by 2028 from US$ 3790.94 million in 2021 at a CAGR of 24.8% for the forecasted period. This depicts the scope of innovation and adoption that is about to happen in this field. As of now, only major brands such as Ikea, Loreal, Nike, and so on are leveraging the potential of AR/VR applications in retail and hopefully, 2022 will see further increased adoption. Read more about applications of AR/VR we can see in the retail sector in 2022 and beyond here.

Conclusion

While these are just some of the tech trends we can expect in 2022, the actual number is quite high as organizations around the world are moving towards a digitally transformed space to operate in. With recent changes and situations, we have been subjected to, these technological innovations have proved to be our helping hand and continue to do so with their enormous capabilities. With every year passing by we are seeing increased adoption of technologies to deal with problem-solving, enhanced customer experience, reduced costs, and finally provide a competitive advantage in this ever so competitive world.

Automation, Blog, Virtual Reality

5 applications of AR/VR we can see in the retail sector in 2022 and beyond

November 18, 2021 [x]cube LABS

The retail industry is subjected to continuous innovations and changing trends that require the latest technologies to back up these innovations and to also keep up with the ever-rising competition and consumer demand. Customer experience is key here, in the retail industry and it has to constantly evolve in order to enhance and make the experience richer every day. With everything from groceries, to fashion to home decor products, now being available and sold online via the internet, the opportunities to experiment and bring in newer technologies has been on the rise. Like many other technologies, AR/VR is helping revolutionize the retail sector. According to Businesswire, the application of VR and AR in the retail market is projected to reach US$ 17864.86 million by 2028 from US$ 3790.94 million in 2021 at a CAGR of 24.8% for the forecasted period. Popular brands such as Loreal, Ikea, Burberry are already creating headlines and offering delightful experiences to their customers with the adoption of these technologies. The idea of exploring a store from anywhere in the world is definitely amusing to most out there, isn’t it? Also, with uncertain situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic, digital shopping has been on an all-time rise and thus the demand for AR/VR. Here are some AR/VR trends in retail to look forward to in 2022 and beyond.

Virtual try-before-you-buy

Even though this trend has been around for a while now, and has gained much-needed attention, it is still quite sparingly adopted(majorly by big established brands only) and needs a further push. Virtual shopping has taken the online shopping experience to a whole new level. This allows you to have an entire look at the collection and the store virtually, eliminating the need to do it physically. Convenience and eliminating the hassle of shopping are the key advantages of VR shopping. The big advantage for the furniture industry is allowing customers to be able to create an entire room or space according to their wish, and also be able to actually see how each item of furniture looks. Furniture giants like Ikea are already doing so, emphasizing the need for others to join in and get further more creative with it. Even among the makeup/cosmetic brands, only a few companies have adopted AR/VR by giving customers the option to choose the shade of lipstick majorly, and thus more innovation with other products can be something to look forward to. It will be interesting to see how different sectors in retail adopt these technologies to make the shopping experience furthermore delightful.

Enhancing in-store experience

In-store- AR mirrors/Smart mirrors help customers try on clothes virtually which leads to saving time and effort of trying them on and also makes it an experience to remember. This feature also helped deal with pandemic-related issues such as social distancing and stepping out of home unless essential, and thus can be helpful if any such uncertain situation ever arises in the future as well. Having unique features around the store and innovations that bring comfort to customers can also catch their attention. For example, Hyundai came up with an AR-based user manual. This eliminated the need to go through the boring, thick user guide and turned it interesting with this advanced AR version of it. According to Grand View Research, the virtual fitting room market size is expected to grow up to USD 15.43 billion by 2028 at a CAGR of 25.2% (2021-2028).

AR-Enabled Smart Navigation

Often happens that in physical stores, it takes us quite long to search for the desired product if the store is huge in terms of square feet, or other possible reasons. This AR-powered mobile app helps us navigate through the store to our desired location/product. It also gives a complete map of the store. This also reduces the need for human intervention in terms of people working at the store to just guide customers to the whereabouts of the products. The same app also helps display details of each product that is i.e. product information which is very useful for customers.

Enhancing marketing capabilities

What better than being able to give potential customers the feel of the product with a virtual experience? Exciting and delightful experiences shape the way for better brand recognition, word of mouth, and eventually sales. Customer engagement is the main driver for sales and customer satisfaction. Sephora is known for its amazing AR/VR solutions and innovation and has gained the kind of brand name it has due to it. Filters are a new way of promoting branded content. Instagram’s new feature allows companies to promote brand logos and events with AR filters. This is a way to keep millennials and other social media users to get their attention towards the brand. One plus also provided an innovative unboxing feature to their users to get an actual feel of the product. Pepsi, for their famous “Live for now” campaign had used AR technology at the London bus stops along with digital signage that almost brought the experience to life for the people passing by. Thus, possibilities with experimenting with AR/VR solutions are endless and have immense potential to enhance one’s marketing strategy online and offline.

Product Customizations

AR solutions allow customers to view products from all angles, change layouts, size and color modifications, and more to be able to figure out their best choice and ask the retailer to customize the product for them accordingly. Customers nowadays love the personalized feel of the product and wish to have their own touch to designs whether it be furniture or shoes or more. This feature allows for no wastage of products as they can be designed once for all post the requirements of the customer and need not be made in a variety of colors and sizes to try and suit the choice of everyone. Nike’s famous experience at the “Nike by you studio”, used AR to the best capacity and allowed you to create a shoe of your choice that would be ready within an hour.

Conclusion

Brands are benefitting from the adoption of AR/VR solutions and one example can be the 400% increase in inbound interest for companies such as Tommy Hilfiger and Charlotte Tilbury post implementing VR shopping solutions (Vogue). The apparel brand GAP has created its own app called the Dressingroom that allows you to try clothes through a virtual mirror. Luxury brands like Gucci to affordable furniture giants like IKEA are all immersed in AR/VR solutions now! AR/VR solutions are bringing in brand name, loyalty, and recognition and thus make it an integral part of brand strategy. Asian paints leveraged VR for enhanced learning and internal operations. This VR application provided interactive learning sessions for their sales representatives and also delivered learning to the dealers involved in the distribution chain of Asian Paints. With advanced and exciting technologies such as AR and VR, newer innovations are always on the rise and push the boundaries of what’s possible in the retail sector.

Augmented Reality, Blog, Virtual Reality

Facebook’s Transition to Meta: Metaverse, Controversies, and the Future

November 9, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Metaverse- what is it?
When did Facebook’s ambition to become a metaverse company start?
What is the possible reason behind this major shift from the earlier core vision?
Introducing Meta- the new social technology company
What are the implications of this rebranding?
Will others follow the trend?
Trouble for Facebook, again? Meta company sues Facebook for stealing its name
What does the future for Meta look like?

June 2021, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed his new ambitious initiative to his employees. He disclosed how the future of the company would go a lot beyond connected social applications and supporting hardware. The future of the company would be defined by an all-out, interconnected set of experiences that look like they’re coming straight out of a sci-fi movie- something known as the metaverse. Fast forward three months later, On October 28th, Facebook changed its corporate branding to Meta. In this article, we’ll take a look at the timeline of all the events leading up to this major rebranding event and what it could mean for the future of the company and its users.

Announcing @Meta — the Facebook company’s new name. Meta is helping to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D. Welcome to the next chapter of social connection. pic.twitter.com/ywSJPLsCoD

— Meta (@Meta) October 28, 2021

Metaverse- what is it?

The term metaverse was coined in Snow Crash, a 1992 sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson. The term was used to refer to a shared online space formed by the convergence of physical, virtual, and augmented reality. A lot of companies and products have already used metaverse-like elements. Fortnite and Roblox, for example.

Last year, venture capitalist Matthew Ball wrote an article on what is metaverse, where to find it, and who will build it. If we summarize the key takeaways from his article, the core aspects of metaverse will boil down to spanning the physical and virtual worlds, containing a full-fledged economy, and interoperability. It will not be run by any single company but will be operated by many of them in a decentralized arrangement.

When did Facebook’s ambition to become a metaverse company start?

Facebook marked its first presence in the VR space in 2019 when it launched Facebook Horizon, an immersive environment that people can experience using the Oculus headset.

Facebook’s large investments in virtual reality hardware and products are widely known, so are the short-lived failures that followed in that space. Despite that, Zuckerberg announced in July this year that Facebook intends to bet it all on metaverse. In August, Facebook made headlines for showcasing and promoting a VR app that lets people take meetings in virtual reality.

In September, Facebook also announced a $50 million fund for research in building metaverse products responsibly. This was followed by the announcement of a $10 million creator fund for their developers in their Horizon Worlds platform. Eventually, in October, Mark Zuckerberg announced the change of Facebook’s name at the company’s Connect event, which is focused on AR/VR, and shared that the new title, Meta, does more justice to the company’s core ambition which is to build the metaverse.

“I wanted to discuss this now so that you can see the future that we’re working towards and how our major initiatives across the company are going to map to that,” Zuckerberg said at the event. “What is the metaverse? It’s a virtual environment where you can be present with people in digital spaces. You can kind of think of this as an embodied internet that you’re inside of rather than just looking at.”

What is the possible reason behind this major shift from the earlier core vision?

It may come as a surprise to a lot of you but Facebook was, in fact, quite late in leveraging the mobile apps revolution. What we had back then were painful HTML5 experiences that were nowhere close to native apps that were fast becoming mainstream. It was not until 2012 when Zuckerberg realized that apps will define the future. Needless to say, he left no stone unturned in creating seamless mobile experiences for users. And since then, the company hasn’t overlooked any potential emerging technology to avoid repeating the same mistake again. This is evident from Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus in 2014 which marked their entry into the VR market. Becoming a metaverse company can be seen as an evolution of their venture into the virtual reality space.

Another reason, for this major rebranding, could be to distance themselves from the growing negative branding which Facebook has been through over the years. Despite the increasing business, Facebook has been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons, too. From the 2016 Russian elections disinformation and privacy lapse incidents such as the Cambridge Analytica scandal to the very recent revelations from a whistleblower who was a part of Facebook’s civic integrity team, Facebook is one of the most infamous tech companies when it comes to being under greater scrutiny than any other tech company. So it’s only fair to draw a line before venturing into something new and trying to rebrand themselves.

Introducing Meta- the new social technology company

Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta at the Connect 2021 event on October 28th, 2021. Meta will be the parent company that brings together all the apps and products under one brand. Meta, as a company, will focus on bringing metaverse to life, and help people connect, find communities, and grow business.

Enter a world of imagination with Meta and explore endless possibilities in 3D. ? ? pic.twitter.com/I7AYtzei78

— Meta (@Meta) November 4, 2021

Speaking about his vision for Meta, Mark Zuckerberg said, “The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world. It’s the next evolution in a long line of social technologies, and it’s ushering in a new chapter for our company.” You can read more about his vision for the company in Founder’s Letter, 2021.

What are the implications of this rebranding?

This isn’t the first time a tech giant has rebranded itself. Back in 2015, Google created a new parent company called Alphabet, as a part of their new corporate structure. Today,

Google is a subsidiary of its parent company Alphabet but colloquially, people still refer to the company or its products as “Google.” We shouldn’t be surprised if Facebook receives the same response. The only difference that we can expect is that metaverse would offer experiences that are way beyond connected social apps and therefore it may achieve a differentiating factor for itself when it comes to being recognized as a new brand in itself.

Will others follow the trend?

“Metaverse” has become a hot topic in the tech industry. According to a report by IG, Google searches for “metaverse stocks” have increased by a whopping 17900 percent ove the past one year! The rise comes from an existing market where companies, especially gaming companies, were already working around metaverse- Nvidia Corp and Unity, for example. The expansion is now set to go beyond gaming, and even social media, which we can say is the second most potential facet of tech for the adoption of the metaverse.

We are living in an age where the competition is cut-throat, whether direct or indirect. Especially when it comes to advancements in technology, no one, particularly the tech giants, wants to be categorized as laggards. To that end, Microsoft also recently launched “Mesh for Teams,” a metaverse-like product that allows people to create powerful 3D avatars of themselves for meetings where they don’t want to be on camera. We can expect more companies to follow the trend and explore more innovative use cases in the near future.

Trouble for Facebook, again? Meta company sues Facebook for stealing its name

A Chicago-based tech company, Meta, recently filed against Facebook for trademark infringement. The company has alleged that Facebook has “stolen” their name. Nate Skulic, the founder of the company, said that Facebook lawyers have been “hounding” them to sell their name. When Facebook failed to buy them, it aimed to “bury” the company by media force, stated the company.

“They couldn’t buy us, so they tried to bury us by force of media. We shouldn’t be surprised by these actions – from a company that continually says one thing and does another,” he said.

Facebook has not responded to the allegations and what happens is yet to be seen.

What does the future for Meta look like?

Distancing the company’s upcoming core business from a product that is becoming widely infamous seems like a wise move but rebranding entirely might require a lot more effort than expected. The core brand needs to be realigned with a product that is nowhere close to being mainstream yet, or not as relevant right now, to say the least. This doesn’t mean that it does not have potential, it certainly does, but it may take years for it to achieve mainstream success. Facebook as a social media platform has close to 2.5 billion users but their metaverse products, right now, have only a few thousand users. It has become quite clear that users aren’t aggressively demanding early headsets even when certain gaming platforms are driving their growth. Facebook claimed that their Quest 2 headsets sold much better than their other devices but the uncertainty still remains- would people be willing to embrace a world full of Facebook headsets strapped on them to embrace the metaverse?

Agriculture, Artificial Intelligence, Blog, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things

Top 7 Digital Technologies Defining the Digital Agriculture Landscape

October 19, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Top 7 technologies transforming the agriculture sector
Robotics and automation in agriculture for improved efficiency
Big data, AI, and ML in agriculture for data-driven decision making
Drones in agriculture for improved efficiency and increased automation
IoT and Sensors in agriculture to optimize processes, collect information, and enable strategic decisions
Cloud computing in agriculture to enable fast and real-time access to data from anywhere
Blockchain in agriculture to improve transparency and trust along the supply chain
Mobile apps in agriculture to Improve coordination and communication along the value chain
Conclusion

Climate change, disrupted supply chains, geopolitical conflicts, pests, resource scarcity, and many other factors have increasingly become a threat to global food security and meeting the rising demand for food. As the global objective of the agriculture industry moved to produce more with less, the need for efficiency, productivity, and profitability became more prominent. These objectives go hand-in-hand with sustainability goals. This is where digital technologies have played a key role and provided a ray of hope. Even though the agriculture industry has been comparatively late in adopting digital technologies, it is catching up with other industries and witnessing the benefits as expected. Our report, The State of Digital Agriculture 2021 talks about it extensively and highlights how global leaders in the industry are navigating various challenges with digital technologies. The report also features interviews of prominent leaders in agriculture as well as results from an annual survey that we conduct to understand the sentiments of agriculture stakeholders on agritech. In this article, we’ll talk about an important insight from our research- the key technologies that are transforming the agriculture sector today and seem quite promising in the near future too.

Top 7 technologies transforming the agriculture sector

A robust, resilient, and highly efficient agriculture ecosystem is what global agriculture businesses and stakeholders are looking for. Digital technologies are at the forefront of making it happen. While there are many independent and innovative digital initiatives happening on small and large scales across the world, and the value of none of them can be undermined, there are some technologies that have had a greater adoption and a higher impact. Here are the top 7 from the list:

Robotics & Automation
Big Data, AI & ML
Drones & Satellites
IoT & Sensors
Blockchain
Cloud Computing
Mobile apps

Let’s take a look at the scope, aim, and impact of each one of them.

Robotics and automation in agriculture for improved efficiency

Last year, one of the biggest impacts that we saw due to disrupted supply chain and movement restrictions was manpower shortage. With limited farm labor availability, farm operations took a hit. Farms that were early to adopt automation technologies were able to overcome this challenge quickly. Whether it’s remote monitoring of crops and livestock, automated harvesting of crops, or smart automated irrigation with IoT or drones, robotics and automation significantly reduce manual intervention and boost productivity. Additionally, high-precision robots can be used for precision sowing and picking of crops especially where maintaining grade quality is essential. The processes that deploy robotics and automation improve efficiency not just in terms of time but precision as well.

The agricultural robots market is projected to grow from USD 7.4 billion in 2020 to USD 20.6 billion by 2025; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.8% during the forecast period

Source: Markets and Markets

ST Robotics’ agricobot is an example where robots are used to harvest asparagus. The challenge of tedious spear work involved and rarely available labor on short notice is overcome with the deployment of agricobot. As the robot runs alongside the asparagus bed, an operator sees the crops through a camera installed on the robot and selects asparagus to be cut.

Big data, AI, and ML in agriculture for data-driven decision making

As stakeholders deploy multiple technologies across the agriculture ecosystem such as sensors, engagement tools, and so on, there’s plenty of data that is getting captured. The usefulness of this data, however, depends on how effectively it is leveraged to derive meaningful insights. That’s where Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning come into the picture. Advanced AI and ML algorithms are capable of working with structured as well as unstructured data. This data identify patterns such as which methodology or combination of parameters works best. It also provides insights that help to anticipate problems, optimize resource usage, and reduce the number of decisions to be made. From farmers to retailers, everyone along the supply chain is empowered with data-driven decision-making capabilities.

The overall AI in agriculture market is projected to grow from an estimated USD 1.0 billion in 2020 to USD 4.0 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 25.5% between 2020 and 2026.

Source: Markets and Markets

Trace Genomics, a California based company, leverages ML to derive actionable insights by combining advanced soil science, genomics and ML to provide soil analysis services to farmers. Using their solution, farmers have access to data related to soil health and defects, and can make better decisions in time to produce healthier crops.

Drones in agriculture for improved efficiency and increased automation

An area where agriculture is likely to lead in terms of technology adoption as compared to other industries is the use of drones. We are yet to see drone-enabled delivery in eCommerce but we’re already seeing drones being implemented across agriculture fields for a variety of purposes. A quick soil health scan, large farm monitoring, applying fertilizers, spraying, collecting field data for further analysis, are just a few of the many applications of drones in agriculture that have made farm management easy and more efficient.

The agriculture drones market is expected to grow from USD 1.2 billion by 2019 to USD 4.8 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 31.4%

Source: Global News Wire

Agremo’s drone software-based waterlogging analysis helped farmers to identify the areas on farms that were affected by waterlogging to save crops. performed automatic analytics of the aerial imagery using spectral data to identify differences in plant health. Then these areas were classified and quantified, and the insights were provided in a report along with the analyzed map and sent to the farmer within two days.

IoT and Sensors in agriculture to optimize processes, collect information, and enable strategic decisions

The Internet of Things and sensors have found a wide variety of applications in agriculture. From smart irrigation where sensors optimize water usage by measuring soil moisture level to remote farm monitoring and providing information in real-time, IoT has empowered agriculture supply chain stakeholders by increasing cost efficiency, reducing losses, and enabling everyone to make more informed decisions. Even the wide variety of data generation that we mentioned, is attributed to the capabilities of IoT and sensors to capture data which is later used in analytics to make strategic decisions.

The IoT in agriculture market size was valued at $ 16,330 million in 2017 and is projected to reach $48,714 million by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 14.7% from 2018 to 2025.

Source: Allied Market Research

Davis Instruments, a recognized leader in developing and manufacturing weather monitoring systems, wanted to build a connected weather monitoring system that can deliver better and accurate forecasts to farmers and enable them to be better prepared. [x]cube LABS delivered a farmer-centric agriculture app that provided a seven-day forecast and also allowed farmers to browse sensor data related to weather, irrigation, growth cycle and more.

Cloud computing in agriculture to enable fast and real-time access to data from anywhere

Cloud computing has been a driving force in realizing the extreme capabilities of other technologies. With cloud computing, the need to arrange for expensive hardware infrastructure, the cost of maintaining it, and the requirement to be technically skilled to manage it is eliminated. In fact, as we talk about the importance of real-time information available from anywhere in the world, the role of Cloud computing can’t be overlooked. The computing capabilities of the Cloud make data processing more efficient. All the processed data in the form of consumable insights can be made readily available to farmers, suppliers, retailers, and everyone else in the agriculture supply chain.

At [x]cube LABS, we helped a leading agri-inputs company by providing a Cloud-powered mobile app for their sales representatives who faced difficulties in handling demand requests from dealers within as well as from outside their own sales territory. We delivered an app that allowed sales representatives to monitor stock levels across various retailers and raise transfer requests whenever required. The Cloud capability allowed them to create and update requests as well as monitor the transits in real-time.

Blockchain in agriculture to improve transparency and trust along the supply chain

Blockchain, known for unmatched security and transparency is helping overcome some of the biggest challenges in the agriculture supply chain. These include tracking and tracing of agri inputs as well as produce throughout the supply chain, tracing the origin of food, as well as securing vast amounts of data, among others. Agri supply chains are often plagued with a lack of trust- given the challenges such as entry of counterfeit products, unethical sources of origin, tampered data, and a lot more. Similar to its application across other industries, blockchain helps to resolve this challenge in agriculture supply chains as well.

The global blockchain in agriculture and food supply chain market size is estimated at USD 133 million in 2020; it is projected to grow at a CAGR of 48.1% to reach USD 948 million by 2025.

Source: Markets and Markets

In one of our blockchain development projects for an agriculture company, we built a platform that facilitated donations from a global community of citizens and distributed those donations in a transparent and efficient way to community-based regenerative forestry projects. To ensure the transparency and efficiency intended, the currency used for this project was blockchain-based and similar to “green credits” for funding organizations.

Mobile apps in agriculture to Improve coordination and communication along the value chain

Communication and coordination have been one of the biggest challenges in the agriculture supply chain. The latest insights, updates, and communication in real-time can be brought to all the stakeholders in the supply chain with the help of mobile apps. Whether it is for inventory management and demand-supply planning, or for farmers to order inputs from suppliers, mobile applications can make the communication between supply chain actors seamless and quick, thereby improving overall efficiency. Not only this, mobile apps are now being leveraged as a knowledge repository for farmers too. Many companies, governments, and NGOs are using mobile apps as a medium to educate farmers on the use of agri inputs, best practices, and more, thereby serving as a convenient medium of communication.

At [x]cube, we have delivered mobile applications for various stakeholders. We developed a mobile app for sales team engagement of a leading agri-inputs company. The app focused on getting the core elements right, such as the ability to manage leads and contacts, collaborate with peers, provide learning and training content, employee engagement mechanism, and much more. We used [x]cube LABS’ proprietary engagement platform, Upshot.ai to achieve the desired adoption and engagement.

We created another solution for farmers to improve their access to markets and products. The solution facilitated on-demand delivery of agri-Inputs for farmers. Equipped with state of the art digital kiosks, touch screen, front camera, aadhar-enabled fingerprint scanner, and other features, the solution provided information on market intelligence, market prices, information on procurement centers, weather forecasts, and other services, apart from ensuring timely supply of agri-inputs to the farmers in their villages within 48 hours of ordering.

Conclusion

The current agriculture revolution marked by the implementation of emerging technologies is equivalent to the Industrial revolution 4.0. The technologies combined are creating an ecosystem that is not just resilient and robust but also serves the needs of individual stakeholders, gradually scaling the impact to meet the overall agriculture goals. It is to be noted here that for solving some problems, a single technology might suffice but for solving others, an orchestration of multiple technologies might be required- as we saw how IoT, mobile apps, and cloud come together to solve one specific problem. Even though each technology implementation comes with its own set of challenges or might appear difficult to implement at first, the potential and benefits are worth taking the first step towards overcoming resistance. The agriculture ecosystem is transitioning into a digital ecosystem that supports agriculture and the earlier one rides this wave of opportunities, the more it’ll benefit them in the long run.

Agriculture, Blog, Digital Strategy, Technology

Transforming the Agriculture Value Chain with Digital Technologies

October 7, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

What does value chain in agriculture mean?
What does an agriculture value chain look like?
What are the challenges faced by actors in the agriculture value chain?
How can digital technologies help in overcoming value chain challenges?
Independently, digital technologies improve efficiency and profit. Collectively, they create value.

The global agriculture industry has evolved to become an extensive and complex ecosystem comprising numerous primary and ancillary segments that collectively facilitate the sourcing of inputs, growing of crops, product distribution, and a lot more. We’ve already talked about agriculture supply chain in one of our earlier posts where we mentioned how supply chain optimization can be effectively achieved with digital technologies. In this post, we’ll look at the production process starting from procurement to retail and consumer, not from a supply chain , but from a value chain perspective.

What does value chain in agriculture mean?

Globally, there is no standard definition of agriculture value chain. But going by how the value chain has been defined over the years, we can say that the agriculture value chain is the set of activities and actors responsible for producing crops and leading up to its final delivery to the consumers while adding value at each stage.

Now creating value is a tricky process in itself, especially in agriculture where different operations run independently. In our report titled The State of Digital Agriculture 2021, we’ve mentioned how various stakeholders, value chain segments, and businesses operate in silos which result in a lot of losses of produce, profits, information, and more. Basically everything that adds to creating the final value. We’ve also talked about how this has created the need for an integrated and holistic approach to how we see the value chain in agriculture. That’s where digital technologies come into the picture. But before we get into the digital side of things, let’s have a look at what an agriculture value chain looks like.

What does an agriculture value chain look like?

A typical agriculture value chain comprises of six stages:

Farm inputs: This is where a lot of decisions related to the selection of fertilizers and chemicals, seeds and planting materials, machinery, and equipment are made. The key stakeholders in this segment include farmers and suppliers
Farming, cultivation, and harvesting: This stage requires decisions related to crop selection, field layouts and designs, irrigation frequency, interventions needed to maintain expected growth, proper time, frequency, and method for plowing, weeding, and harvesting. Farmers are the key decision-makers here but they also work with suppliers, NGOs, Governments, and research organizations at this stage
Post-production processing and handling: This is the stage where farmers make decisions related to harvesting, precooling after harvest, cleaning or disinfecting, sorting and grading, packaging, storage
Distribution and transportation: Here, farmers, distributors, and transport companies collectively work to make many decisions. Some of these include decisions related to transportation to harvest fields, choosing threshing or drying site, farmer’s storehouses, or collection-center warehouses. How the crops are transported at various stages leading up to final retailers or wholesalers.
Retailing: At this stage, Retailers and intermediaries work on market linkage, pricing strategy, product marketing. It can also include intervention from the Government to ensure certain compliances
Consumer: Contrary to the popular understanding, consumers also form an important part of the agriculture value chain. The dynamic and changing consumer demands and preferences play an important role in influencing retailers’ and farmers’ decisions when it comes to the choice of crops, method of growing, and so on

Having understood the agriculture value chain, let’s now take a look at what are the challenges faced by the actors involved in each of these segments.

What are the challenges faced by the agriculture value chain?

The challenges faced across the agriculture value chain remain the same as the supply chain. An important thing to note here is that supply chain is the set of activities from product creation to end delivery and value chain is the set of activities that maximizes value during the process of product creation and delivery. Therefore, there’s not much difference between the challenges and the terms can be used interchangeably here. A well-integrated digital supply chain can ultimately lead to an enhanced agriculture value chain.

Challenges in sourcing farm inputs
Farmers often lack access to market information and transparent pricing and if they switch to a new product, they also lack awareness about the right quantity of chemicals and fertilizers to purchase. There’s a significant need for access to market and product information and guidance on best practices.
Challenges in farming, cultivation, and harvesting:
The lack of guidance and information on best practices along with less information on product usage puts farmers at a tough spot where they feel unsure about the right quantity of resources to use, choosing the right crop to grow, information on the nutritional content of the soil, and more. In some areas, resource scarcity and labor availability also pose a challenge in growing crops.
Challenges in post-production processing and handling
Post-harvest, there’s a lot of losses in terms of quantity and quality. This reduces the value of produced crops significantly. These losses are attributed to lack of advanced infrastructure, poor storage facilities, timeliness and efficiency of operations, and more
Challenges in distribution and transportation
The challenges of poor storage and handling of crops also extend to the transportation of crops, resulting in damaged or poor quality. Additionally, this is the phase where theft and the introduction of counterfeits are quite common. This means that the end consumer is likely to receive products that are not original or high in quality as expected.
Challenges in retail
Retailers, even if equipped with modern solutions, might fail to be as efficient in their demand-supply planning if the previous segments of the value chain are not in sync with them. So a lack of integrated supply chain management is a challenge for retailers. They also have to rely on intermediaries and due to a lack of direct buying and selling platforms or restricting government policies, fail to achieve high-profit margins. A lack of information on product sourcing, nutritional content, and more also results in limited branding and promotions of products
Challenges in understanding the consumer
With consumers at the center of value delivery, it has become increasingly important to consider their preferences. However, the mechanism to track consumer preferences, collect information on their behavior, and access to insights is inadequate. This limits the ability of farmers to improve the value of the crops.

How can digital technologies help in overcoming value chain challenges?

As we can see, a lot of losses happen at each stage- be it the poor quality of inputs used to grow crops, compromised quality of crops harvested, crops damaged during processing, storage, and transportation, and a lot more. The cumulative impact on value is tremendous. This is where digital technologies are improving the way how value is preserved and created at each stage. Here are some ways digital technologies are helping to overcome challenges in the value chain:

Farm Inputs	Using precision farming, soil and crop health parameters can be determined accurately and these insights can be used to make more informed decisions such as resource utilization, the number of inputs purchased, etc. Autonomous tractors can replace the need for manual labor during the sowing and harvesting process Market intelligence platforms can bridge the gap between farmers and agri input companies and they can get access to products directly and be aware of market price
Farming, cultivation, and harvesting	Using topsoil mapping and soil testing, soil health can be determined. This enables precise estimation if the right quantity of fertilizers to be used AI-based crop monitoring and imaging can help farmers identify crop diseases at an early stage Drones can be used to monitor and spray fertilizers over large farms Smart irrigation systems that maintain soil moisture levels by preventing it from falling below the optimal level required Controlled-environment farming practices such as vertical farming can allow farmers to create favorable environmental conditions for crop growth despite unfavorable external climate
Post-production processing and handling	Automated harvesting and picking can improve precision Waxing or protective coating for fruits and vegetables for prolonged storage life Cold storage to store fruits and vegetables for a long period Controlled atmosphere storage that maintains an artificial atmosphere in the storage room Robotics for precise picking of harvests
Distribution and transportation	IoT and blockchain-based traceability solutions can help track the source of crops and identify counterfeit products Mobile apps and cloud solutions can provide real-time updates on the status of crops in transit
Retail	Information sharing apps for farmers for market insights to get them fair prices Direct selling platforms for farmers Availability of real-time information for better inventory management
Consumer	Blockchain in agriculture is also gaining importance quickly. Blockchain-based solutions can help track food source and origin Nutritional values can be maintained using precision farming techniques while growing crops Consumer analytics platforms can help understand consumer preferences better

Independently, digital technologies improve efficiency and profit. Collectively, they create value.

The scope of digital technologies in agriculture is widely known. With a wide range of use cases and proven results throughout the agriculture ecosystem already in place, it is only a matter of time before we start looking at the agriculture industry as an industry primarily supported, or enhanced by digital technologies. Initially, when agritech or the trend of using digital solutions to solve specific problems in agriculture set in, it started with the purpose of improving efficiency, maximizing productivity or output, and improving profitability. But like any other industry, the focus can’t remain separated from consumer-centricity for too long. Given the changing preferences and increasing consciousness of consumers towards their food, the agriculture industry has one more challenge to address- keeping up with consumer expectations and delivering value, while competing with others in the same industry. This is where digital technologies, when applied in an integrated and holistic manner, serve to create unprecedented value, as we saw in the examples above. Without a doubt, digital agriculture solutions will lead to overcoming the challenge of value delivery just as they have addressed other challenges already.

Blockchain, Blog, Cloud Computing

5 Ways in Which Blockchain is Improving Cloud Computing

October 1, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Cloud has now been integrated deep into all our business processes and functions. Right from watching Netflix to our everyday email exchanges have cloud computing as a base. AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Salesforce, and many more are among the top cloud service providers, used by everyone around the world. Revolutionary steps are being taken already for the future of cloud computing, such as Windows 365 that helps set up a virtual cloud computer anywhere in the world. The global cloud computing market is forecasted to grow to USD 832.1 billion by 2025 from USD 371.4 billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 17.5% during the given period (marketsandmarkets). Blockchain is another innovative, evolving technology that is being adopted by millions of enterprises worldwide. Do you know how these two technologies leverage each other? Is blockchain in cloud computing further revolutionizing industries and bringing in innovative possibilities?

The fundamental benefit of integrating blockchain in cloud computing technology is to increase the security of data. Combining blockchain technology and cloud computing is like enjoying the best of both worlds in one unit.

Challenges of cloud computing

There is no denying that there are a lot of benefits to cloud computing. However, it also faces some challenges. Data security is crucial as the cloud stores also sorts of data that can be very confidential as well. In 2017, a security breach left exposed the personal data of almost 200 million voters in the US that were hosted on Amazon web services. Alibaba’s shopping website Taobao was also prey to a cloud breach that resulted in exposing 1.1billion user data. Hotel giant, Marriot’s division, Starwood’s data too fell apart after an invasion and the company had to face reputational consequences. Thus, data security breaches can not only cause a hole in the pocket for companies but also lead to loss of customers, reputational damage, and more. Along with advancements in cloud data security, blockchain also comes to the rescue, as it brings along its security enhancement benefit with it.

Cloud computing works in a centralized format and has huge servers that store the information and make it available to us with help of software. These centralized-based models often make organizations compromise on authorization, privacy, and security. Cloud computing often lacks trust as the information stored can be accessed by anyone, especially illegally by hackers and malware, and often leads to data leakage of extremely confidential data as well.

Blockchain in cloud computing

Applications of blockchain on their own, as well as when coupled with other technologies, provide a plethora of advantages.

The major challenge of cloud computing, which is security and privacy, is catered to when cloud computing is coupled with blockchain technology. According to Statista, in 2021, 64% of the respondents feel that the biggest cloud security concern is data loss/leakage. Encryption of data accounts for the security and protected databases that blockchain provides.
According to the same Statista report, 44% of the respondents also treat visibility/transparency as a major threat to cloud security as well. Blockchain helps construct a decentralized and distributed trust model that allows more transparency. Public blockchain allows every action to be visible and eliminates the hampering of data. Data once stored on the blockchain cannot be just changed by any person.
Erasing/misusing data from anyone’s computer on a blockchain network does not affect the data stored on other devices in the network thus guarantees no loss of data and authenticity.
It facilitates the user ownership of data which is the need of the hour. The data stored on a blockchain is permanently there. It allows for easy traceability of data, as to where, when, and how it is being used and by who. This proof of history for all transactions and changes made acts as an audit and authentication benefit.
Cloud computing involves third-party providers, and a crash/downfall of the third-party providers can lead to a huge loss of data for enterprises. Blockchains on the other hand are governed by codes and do not involve third-party provisions, and thus can be a safer option to move forward with.

Blockchain is revolutionizing industries for the better, including major industries such as healthcare, agriculture, finance, banking, and more. Our blockchain landscape report provides a detailed outlook on everything blockchain right from understanding how this technology operates, the impact it is having on industries, the regulations for it in different parts of the world, what the market for it looks like, and how [x]cube is providing such services to help you get started on your journey in building the right blockchain solutions for your enterprise.

Future of blockchain in cloud computing

According to a 2018 Gartner research on top emerging business risks, cloud computing tops the list. Cloud has become such an integral part of today’s business world, that the heavy reliance on it and the associated risks that come with it can be harmful and risky to work with. Majorly the security, compliance, and centralized-based model of cloud can pose a major business risk. Also, the panic that covid-19 brought in, made enterprises rush to cloud solutions and cloud computing companies, and not checking in with the right legal and compliance requirements, eventually risking their data security. Blockchain is positively impacting and making storage, transactions, and business processes safer, faster, and more reliable to work with. Thus, combining blockchain and cloud to enjoy more security and decentralization that brings in better authorization, privacy and efficiency is the way to go and look forward to. However, the challenges that blockchain itself faces such as the storage of data at every node, further security, and so on need to be worked on in the future. Further research on how to leverage this combination can help organizations combat issues that have been posing a threat to data, which is the crux of functioning and making decisions in today’s ever so competitive world.

Artificial Intelligence, Blog

Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity: AI Cyberattacks, Securing Your Ecosystem with AI, and More

September 23, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Recent AI-assisted cyberattacks
What is driving AI-powered cyber attacks?
The flip side of AI in cybersecurity and why you should implement AI in cybersecurity
Some early adopters of Artificial Intelligence in cybersecurity
Challenges in implementing AI in cybersecurity
Conclusion

On April 29th, 2021, hackers breached the networks of Colonial Pipeline Company through a virtual private network account. About a week later, the hackers sent a ransomware note that demanded cryptocurrency. What followed was a complete shutdown of the entire gas pipeline system in its 57-year history. The Colonial pipeline supplies nearly half of the East Coast’s gasoline and because of the shut down it had for several days, there was gas panic-buying, shortages, and price spikes. The attack happened due to a breach through a leaked password to an old account that had access to the virtual private network (VPN) used to remotely access the company’s servers. It was undoubtedly one of the largest cyberattacks ever on an American energy system and definitely brought to light how vulnerable the world is when it comes to cybersecurity. Businesses, governments, and individuals are taking measures to become more resilient to such attacks in the future and adopting various smart solutions as well. But guess what? Cyberattacks are getting smarter, too.

Recent AI-assisted cyberattacks

AI-assisted cyberattacks are becoming a rising security concern for everyone around the world. While cyberattacks are quite known, one may feel that AI cyberattacks are not as common. But the fact is that Artificial Intelligence cyberattacks have happened in the past and continue to happen. Hackers are leveraging machine learning algorithms and botnets and launching them across the web.

Taskrabbit, IKEA’s Gig-Economy Home Service Marketplace, Gets Hit By Hackers
Social security numbers and bank account details of nearly 3.75 million people were extracted by hackers in the attack on TaskRabbit in April 2018. The hackers used an AI-powered botnet that performed a DDoS attack on TaskRabbit’s servers. The consequences? The entire site was disabled until security was restored and an additional 141 million users were affected.
A botnet of over 20,000 WordPress sites is attacking other WordPress sites
Not long ago, around 20,000 WordPress sites were infected with a botnet which was feared to have granted the hackers access to critical personal information of users as well as their credit card numbers.
New Instagram Bug Raises Security Questions
In 2019, many Instagram users reported that they were locked out of their accounts. Instagram didn’t release detailed information or confirm the root cause but it was speculated that hackers used AI to scan potential vulnerabilities and carry out the attack.

These are just a few of the many incidents that have taken place over the past. And there’s no stopping yet. Just in case if you believe that having the basics of security checks such as firewalls, malware scanners, and secure CMS covered will guard you against cyberattacks successfully, think again. AI-assisted cyber attacks will only get worse.

What is driving AI-powered cyber attacks?

AI-powered cyberattacks are known to “supercharge” cyber attacks. Over time, they learn what types of attacks are more successful. The notorious Emotet Trojan is a fine example of that. Once considered rare, AI attacks are increasing every day. The reason behind this increase is simple- the same reason why AI is preferred over human efforts when it comes to solving problems. AI can reach (read: attack) far more computers than humans in the same amount of time. If one is using machine language, the cyber-attacks become more unpredictable, efficient and can surpass planned security efforts as well by learning on their own. AI cyberattacks are so fast that they don’t give cyber security teams the time to respond to incidents timely and can go on with repeated attacks without getting tired, unlike humans. As for the cost involved, AI bots are less costly as they don’t need to get paid. Another key reason is that it allows hackers to remain hidden and operate remotely, keeping them safe from getting caught. All these reasons are driving the use of AI in cyber attacks.

The flip side of AI in cybersecurity and why you should implement AI in cybersecurity

According to a report by meticulous research, Artificial Intelligence in cybersecurity is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23.6% to reach $46.3 billion by 2027. Implementing AI security measures help in taking preventive measures, proactively, making cyber security efforts more effective, and reducing the time taken to respond to incidents. Artificial intelligence is already changing how cybersecurity is addressed across all major industries by providing solutions that can analyze and respond to attacks in real-time, thereby improving the overall security. Here are more reasons why you should consider implementing artificial intelligence in your cybersecurity efforts:

Automation: AI can learn and be proactive. It can automate repeatable tasks and eliminate the element of fatigue which may arise in security personnel
Up-to-date arsenal: AI is an effective tool that continually learns and updates itself. This makes it a very useful security tool in your technology arsenal
Deeper investigations: One of the biggest advantages of AI is that it can read both unstructured and structured data, thereby giving more information you need to reduce time to detect and time to respond to incidents
Thorough investigations in less time: AI allows thorough and consistent investigations through automated data mining quickly and allows analysts to focus on strategic threat investigations
Alert prioritization: AI enables quick discovery of false negatives and false positives which helps analysts attend to alerts effectively by focusing on the most critical ones first and also reduces the chances of missing out on critical incidents
Better Vulnerability Management: AI quickly identifies vulnerable points in business networks and helps businesses take preventive measures by focusing on important security tasks
High data center uptimes: AI has the capability to alert before there is any major software or hardware fault so that it can be taken care of before any damage is done. This ensures a high uptime of network and security systems linked with it

In one of our reports titled The Secrets to Building a $100 Million IoT Business within 5 Years, and More!, we have extensively covered how smart digital solutions can be secured against various risks. We have also highlighted potential security weaknesses and targets and how you can start securing your solutions right from the development stage. Know all about how you can adopt top-notch security measures in this free report.

Some early adopters of Artificial Intelligence in cybersecurity

We’ve been seeing how Artificial Intelligence is leveraged across various industries to overcome many challenges, what we are yet to see with the same intensity is its application in cybersecurity. A lot of leading companies have already implemented AI to secure their ecosystem from threats and vulnerabilities. While it hints at their far-sightedness, it also creates an example and a proven model for other businesses to follow without giving thoughts on how it could benefit them. Here are few examples of early adopters of AI in cybersecurity:

Google: We have already seen how Google puts suspicious emails in the spam folder and alerts you if it finds anything suspicious in terms of login or data access. Not so surprisingly, Google has been using machine learning to filter suspicious emails ever since it was launched. Since then, deep learning technology has allowed it to evolve and get better
Balbix: Balbix is an AI-powered solution that delivers continuous and real-time predictions and analysis and alerts for vulnerabilities making it easier and more effective in controlling breaches. This also makes cybersecurity teams more efficient and potent by taking care of repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on other critical tasks
Darktrace: A leading AI company, Darktrace, provides cybersecurity software powered by ML to analyze network traffic information and understand the behavior of each user and device. Based on the inputs and other training datasets, their software detects even a vital deviation from normal baseline user behavior and alerts the company

Challenges in implementing AI in cybersecurity

Even though it is ideal to implement Artificial intelligence in cybersecurity, it can sometimes get a bit challenging to do so especially if some common constraints are not considered initially.

Cost considerations: In the long term, the RoI from a robust AI-powered security system will be quite high. However, deploying and maintaining AI cyber security systems might require a lot of investment, depending on the size of your organization
Lack of available data sets: AI cyber security models rely heavily on different data sets to evolve and be more effective. If you do not have an initial data set available, you might need to buy different types of data sets which would be an additional cost
AI works both ways: Just like you, hackers are also making their algorithms more advanced by using AI. that can successfully breach your AI secured systems. Chances are that their AI-driven attacks might become resistant to your security algorithms
Can’t be completely relied on: Even though AI increases cybersecurity a lot more than human monitoring alone, they are still advanced enough to operate independently and require some level of human intervention

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, business leaders and cybersecurity professionals are acknowledging the scope of Artificial Intelligence in cybersecurity. But as of today, the solution can’t address all the problems and threats posed by hackers. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are improving cybersecurity but at the same time, they are also being leveraged by hackers to commit cybercrimes to an extent that may no longer require human intervention from their side at all. The ideal thing to do would be a mix of both AI-powered cybersecurity as well as a human intervention that can synergize the intelligence to operate not just on a technology level but a strategic level as well.

Blog, Cloud Computing

Windows 365 Cloud PC: Leveraging the Cloud for Accessible Personal Computing

September 13, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

Introduction
How is Cloud PC helpful for an organization?
How secure is a Cloud PC?
Opportunities and Seasonal Access
Conclusion

Introduction:

Windows from Microsoft has been with us for as long as we can remember operating with computers. Through all the shifts and transformations in the technological sector, Microsoft’s Windows has been a savior. Given the recent shift to the hybrid work scenario, Microsoft has come up with Windows 365 that will run on Microsoft Cloud and will allow customers to set Cloud PC with much comfort. The cloud environment has become a much-needed part of any organization or sector. With most of the data and operations transitioning to cloud, this step from Microsoft is very much applauded. With Windows 365, one can experience Windows 10 or Windows 11 in a virtual environment on any device. Windows 365 is highly compatible with any device and it brings out the best fusion of the cloud and the machine itself.

Microsoft has stated that they have launched this product service keeping in mind the state of the art of personal computing. Hence the name Cloud PC. Cloud PC works in a way that the capabilities of the device that it is being run on are fully utilized to provide a powerful experience of Windows 10 or 11. It uses an instant on-boot procedure that enables users to access all applications, tools, data, and settings in a personalized fashion from any device ranging from iPad to Android. The experience remains the same irrespective of the device it is being used on. One can begin from where they left off if they have been using a Cloud PC.

How is Cloud PC helpful for an organization?

Windows 365 supports all business-related applications including Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. The most important feature that Cloud PC flaunts is the ability to customize in a very simplistic manner. One can choose the size of the Cloud PC as per their suitabilities while paying the charges monthly. Microsoft has offered two significant options for organizations with several Cloud PC configurations based on analysis of performance needs:

Windows 365 Business
Windows 365 Enterprise

Windows 365 allows you to manage the security and management policies of all your physical devices. Microsoft Endpoint Manager is consistent in providing the best way for you to manage all the physical endpoints of your Cloud PC.

It is important to understand that Azure Virtual Desktop makes up the majority of Windows 365. You can configure the processing power and the performance of the Cloud PC as per your needs. Through the use of powerful analytics, one can check their connection health across various networks thereby maximizing productivity. It is easy to identify when the performance needs of a user are not being met through the Endpoint Analytics dashboard and it also provides recommendations for upgradation processes which can be immediately applied in a beat. There is also a new service that is beneficial for diagnostic checks and monitoring connections’ running time and failures, known as Watchdog Service. It makes the system highly self-sufficient as it not only alerts you with the issue but also provides solutions for it.

How secure is a Cloud PC?

Cloud PC runs on the Zero Trust Architecture. The criticalities in security are usually addressed by design, storing, and securing the information on the cloud and not on the device. The login security and the process of identification are done through Multi-Factor Authentication along with the integration of Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). Imagining how you can check login risks and access policies, simple – the answer is Microsoft Endpoint Manager. Through Microsoft Endpoint Manager one can delegate MFA with conditional access policies of Windows 365 and pair them.

One can also assign specific permissions to device management, licensing, and Cloud PC management through the feature of least privileged access. Even to assign specific roles and delegations, one need not require the rights of the global administrator. A high level of encryption is also done to keep access data, network points, and disk space secure while the traffic moves to and from your Cloud PC without causing a jiff of worry.

Opportunities and Seasonal Access

Through the introduction of Windows 365, a whole new arena of opportunities has opened for independent vendors and software developers to build Windows apps and sell them on the cloud to reach a broad spectrum of customers. Windows 365 has made the leveraging of APIs accessible giving a huge scope of new innovations and solutions for partners to develop.

Some of the services offered through Netrix, Content, and Cloud, Atos, etc can be used for system integrations while for midsize organizations partners like Nitec Solutions, MachineLogic LLC can support with additional services.

When it comes to seasonal access, temporary workers and interns can be authorized to use certain apps and services as per the needs of the organization through Cloud PC. This especially helps to manage large-scale operations and reduce the logistical and security challenges during the tenures of busy work waves.

Conclusion:

Cloud computing is here to stay in the world and with increased cloud security, its proper customization to fit personal needs is only a natural demand. Cloud PC is a huge step in this direction. It amalgamates Microsoft cloud and personal devices, inviting all sorts and sizes of companies and customers to up-step their technological aspects. Rethinking and moving in the new scenarios of hybrid work culture is the latest step and Windows is all set for it.

Augmented Reality, Blog, iOS App Update

Apple’s iPhone 13 could Feature Satellite Connectivity

August 31, 2021 [x]cube LABS

Table of contents

The iPhone 13 might feature hardware that can allow it to tap satellite communications
How does the Apple iPhone 13 satellite connectivity work?
Who can benefit from Apple’s mobile satellite communication?
What are the possible hindrances in the adoption of satellite communication-enabled iPhones?
iPhone 13 release date, price, and expected features
The Apple iPhone 13 satellite connectivity will pave new way for everything tech

It’s almost September. We’re at that time of the year where Apple fans wait for the launch of new Apple products, anticipating exciting features, guessing the specifications, predicting costs, and a lot more. And Apple, as always, doesn’t fail to build up the hype until the new products are unveiled. Last year, the iPhone 12 series came equipped with 5G connectivity, an A14 bionic chip, and claimed to be the “toughest” and “brightest” iPhones yet- with the ceramic shield technology, living up to the excitement by Apple enthusiasts. But if rumors are to be believed, then Apple is planning a major leap in innovation with their upcoming iPhone 13 series, outdoing themselves yet again.

The iPhone 13 might feature hardware that can allow it to tap satellite communications

Reports predict that the new iPhone 13 will feature satellite connectivity. This means that you can make calls and send texts in areas that lack cellular coverage. Yes, you heard that right. The hardware of the new lineup is ready to support communication via low earth orbit (LEO) satellites even in areas where 4G or 5G network isn’t available. This news comes from iPhone noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Speaking to investors, Kuo also mentioned that the LEO satellite connection might also arrive on Apple’s other products, including AR/VR headsets.

How does the Apple iPhone 13 satellite connectivity work?

Apple is reportedly working with Globalstar, an American satellite company, to enable satellite communication on the new iPhone 13. Qualcomm reportedly works with Globalstar to provide satellite connectivity over the n53 band on mobile devices using their X65 chip. However, the iPhone 13 series might get the same experience through the X60 modem. The new iPhone models may come with the availability of LEO satellite communications alongside mmWave and sub-6GHz 5G connectivity.

What can’t be confirmed at this stage is whether the satellite communication feature will support regular voice calls and messaging or be limited to Apple services such as FaceTime and iMessage. This appears dicey because to support regular voice calls and messaging, individual telecommunication operators would need to work with satellite companies as well to enable satellite communications.

Who can benefit from Apple’s mobile satellite communication?

If we look at the global network coverage statistics, we can see that many regions globally do not have network access. Many regions, especially the “remote areas,” have little or no access to mobile networks. A solution like the iPhone’s reported satellite connectivity can help resolve this problem.

Besides, many industries that work in remote areas of the US could benefit from satellite connectivity due to a lack of access to proper cellular network coverage. Enterprises that seek private communication systems off the public grid can also benefit from this advancement.

If satellite communication is actually introduced with the iPhone 13, as we expect, it would definitely create many opportunities in existing markets that are exploring technology and those that plan to do so in the future.

What are the possible hindrances in the adoption of satellite communication-enabled iPhones?

Primarily the cost. The innovative feature may not attract urban users who never face network accessibility issues. Still, it would be great to have for users and enterprises that work in remote areas with limited connectivity. However, the price of the iPhone 13 is likely to shoot up, given the costs involved in the hardware that enables this feature. Experts predict that if this feature is launched, the price of the higher-end model might go up to $2400. And let’s face it, not many users will be willing to spend that much money only to send messages and make calls when in a limited connectivity zone, given the fact that there is a usage cost, too- Globalstar plans cost about $8.95 per month for a single text message per day and $199.99 per month for unlimited calls.

iPhone 13 release date, price, and expected features

The Apple iPhone 13 series is expected to debut on September 14th, 2021, but Apple has yet to officially confirm the date. Similar to the iPhone 12 series, the iPhone 13 series is expected to come in four variants: a lower-end iPhone 13 mini, a basic iPhone 13, a higher-end iPhone 13 Pro, and the most advanced iPhone 13 Pro Max.

iPhone 13 specs could include an A15 Bionic chipset, up to triple cameras, 25W fast charging, and 256GB storage. Other significant upgrades the iPhone 13 series is expected to bring are the “Always-On display” feature and high refresh rate displays. The feature can surface notifications, time, date, and more when the iPhone is shut. Extended battery life and a face unlock feature with a mask on are also some interesting upgrades that we can expect.

While Apple is expected to keep prices largely the same as last year, the satellite connectivity feature, if implemented, could escalate costs and, consequently, prices.

The Apple iPhone 13 satellite connectivity will pave a new way for everything tech

As we mentioned, this feature from Apple would definitely be of interest to enterprises that seek private communication systems or to deploy satellite communications across their international workstations. So that’s one major benefit that we can foresee from this innovation. But the advantages would go a lot beyond that. This connectivity feature will also become a bridge that supports IoT deployments on a global scale, overcoming challenges of limited connectivity. This would extend to cars and AR/VR glasses, and so on. Successful implementation of this feature would also mark a turning point in mobile advancements as well as the mobile app development landscape. This move from Apple that is intended to develop “innovative user experiences that can be integrated with new products’ seems exciting, but we’re yet to see how this pans out.

To protect your devices from being hacked or taken over by an attacker

To protect the data that your devices collect and transmit

To protect your devices from being used in attacks on other devices

To protect your devices from being used in attacks on your business

To protect your business from the reputational damage that IoT security breaches can cause

To comply with data protection and privacy laws

To protect your investment in IoT

Conclusion

Introduction

Introduction

Using updated technology

Simplicity

Tutorials

Leveraging device capabilities

Personalization

Conclusion

IoT Sensors Defined

Types of IoT Sensors

Temperature sensors

Light sensors

Motion sensors

Sound sensors

IoT Sensor Applications

Environmental Monitoring

Industrial Monitoring

Building Automation

Smart Cities

Conclusion

The Dominance of 5G

Smart Security Devices for All

Interoperability with Ease

Advanced Sensor Techniques for Medical Services

No More Cloud Data Dependencies

Massive Adaption

Conclusion

Introduction:

Traffic and Driving Vehicles

Energy and Other Appliances

Wearables

Health Sector

Corporate Sector

Closing Remarks on IoT Applications:

Introduction:

[x]cube LABS

Aristocrat Leisure Limited

Yext

Bevi

Mason

Twin Health

Samsara

Flowcode

Introduction:

What is an IoT platform?

What IoT platforms are available to you?

Conclusion:

What is IoT or the Internet of Things?

Defining IoT Systems: the [x]cube Way

Why Does IoT Matter to Your Business?

What are the Advantages of IoT

The Future of IoT According to [x]cube LABS

Conclusion

Introduction:

What are NFTs?

What is the process by which NFTs are manufactured?

Ways NFTs can be used to assist in the growth of your small business.

Conclusion:

Did You Know?

Smart Homes

Robots in Medicine

Robots in Education

Self-Driving Cars

Autonomous Transportation

Conclusion

Introduction

Four ways in which VR has the potential to impact the workplace:

Examples of Future in VR

Conclusion

WooCommerce vs Magento: Ease of Use

WooCommerce vs Magento: Customizations

WooCommerce vs Magento: Plugins