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AR and VR

Restructuring the Manufacturing Segment by Encompassing AR and VR

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Mass manufacturing is one area that comprises highly automated operations, eliminating the manual labour from all the phases of a process. Building the parts of a finished product and putting them together by modernizing the supply chain helps the businesses reach the pinnacle of AR and VR development.

Yet, many manufacturing businesses lack in thoroughly preparing themselves to implement and integrate their full potential in their processes. The manufacturing sector is an area where each step of any process matters. Even the slightest of the errors in an operation can lead to a massive setback for the businesses. However, the remarkable abilities of augmented reality app development can simulate anything and everything valuable for industries.

Also Read: Virtual reality, experiencing a parallel world altogether

Essential Areas Where AR and VR are Transforming the Manufacturing Sector

AR and VR hold the managers accountable for simulating the production process by assembling the line configurations and figuring out possible threatening situations. These technologies can also be used to embed employees in a workstation to capture their movements and evaluate proficiencies. Here are some key areas where AR and VR can transform the manufacturing processes:

Addressing Labor Shortage

AR/VR technology can bring employees together in a simulated holographic environment and teach them the same level of professionalism. AR and VR can transform how employees consume information with internal training programs to attract and develop the talent manufacturers need. By overlaying digital content and analytics onto the real world, they can also provide procedural guidance, set-ups, instructions, and workflows. They can also eliminate the need to send employees on the site by creating fully immersive simulated environment experiences and virtually visit a remote plant, gas platforms, even if they are under construction.

Training for Emergencies

Operators and control engineers must always prepare themselves and employees for any type of emergencies. It includes chemical reactions, leaks, explosion, shutdown/restarts, equipment upgrades, or sudden product changeovers. AR and VR can prepare them for such emergencies in the manufacturing industry, where one needs quick action to reduce risks. It can bring immense value to all processes by providing virtual environments for practising. Features like immersive digital twins can help them practice emergency response situations and learn the nature of different responses on various operations. Also, workers can practice even if the facility is under construction or if they are in any remote location.

AR and VR can enhance and augment existing product and service designs to enable entirely new techniques. Such processes that involve rapid prototyping and collaboration can quicken and enrich the pace of a creative process. This also reduces the time taken for building physical prototypes and then translating them. It can also eliminate the processes dramatically by bringing ideas to life and products to market quicker than before. With VR, product designers can interact with a holographic model of the product in various ways. They can virtually touch parts, simulate ways of using it, create best and worst-case scenarios, and identify potential design flaws.

Also Read: Ready, Player One: How MSI Defined the Gaming Industry

Assembly and Quality Maintenance

Manufacturing companies often use paper manuals for assembly instructions for building tools while designing a product. These assembly instructions are bound to create errors while putting together the intricate designs and can also increase the cost of reassembling it. AR and VR can be of great assistance to the employees in assembling the product with the utmost accuracy with head-mounted AR headsets or tablets. It can also change the entire dynamics of the development process that takes several hours on figuring out the exact location of a part. AR and VR can also reduce the time a product takes to reach the store shelves and make the inspection procedure more efficient and productive.

Sales and Marketing

With the help of AR and VR, we get to see small and large products, how they will fit in a customer’s space, and their external & internal working. Marketing is the most integral part of designing VR and AR solutions that can make or break the experience. Users can perform better in an AR/VR simulated environment as gamification increases their memorability. However, creating a well-designed experience out of gamification involves both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and reward schedules for effective user engagement.

Also Read: WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS ESSENTIAL IN 2020?

Concluding Words

AR and VR technology will be doubling in pixels for better image rendering, widening its field of view, and developing better virtual sound amplification. For manufacturers already in this realm, these improvements will help drive efficiencies, increase productivity, and save both lives and money. For others, not yet engaging with VR technology, the good news is that 9series is an emerging AR/VR app development company providing the very best versions of immersive experiences. AR and VR are full of potential and enthusiasm that can undoubtedly lead to enhancement in safety, design functions, and bringing humans and machines closer.

Also Read: Oren Harnevo : The Founder of Eyeview, a Digital Marketing Company

trello

Joel Spolsky- How he made it possible from a blog ‘Joel on Software’ to setting up Trello

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Trello is an online collaboration tool launched in 2001 to help in managing and organizing projects. A software engineer and technical writer Joel Spolsky is the founder of this amazing platform. He introduced feasible and flexible project management or task organization in an easy manner with the help of Trello. However, Joel is also known for his blog Joel on Software where he used to teach how to develop software.

Apart from this, he has a great contribution to the establishment of several hit companies like Fog Creek Software. Most importantly, he assists in launching the Stack Overflow programmer for his question/answer sites. For this, he used Stack Exchange software products. This method powers the stack overflow and many followed the steps of Joel. Presently, more than 170 Questions and answers are hosts with this programmer.

Person behind Trello- Joel Spolsky

He is a software engineer, developer, blogger, and author. Joel wrote five books among which few are related to interface design. In fact, his books are very useful for the newly enter programmer and the software developer. If you are from the software development field, you may have heard about The Joel Test. Well, it is also created by Joel Spolsky. As well, he is the first person to talk about fixing it twice for the process improvement method. Let’s see the personal and professional life journey of Joel Spolsky.

Early life

He was born in 1965 in a Jewish family. However, he spent the childhood days in Albuquerque in New Mexico, but then the family moved and set up in Israel. Thus, Spolsky completed his basic education as well as the military service in Israel.

To complete the graduation, Joel chose to return to the USA and in 1987, he did it so. Thereafter, he attended the University of Pennsylvania and shortly transferred to Yale University. In 1991, Joel graduated in Computer science.

Career

After graduation, Joel became part of the Microsoft team and started working as a Program Manager. Many people don’t know that Joel helped to design the Excel Basic during his early career. As well, he worked for Microsoft’s visual basic for application strategy. In 1995, he switched the location as well as switched the job. He started working for Viacom and Juno online services.

Towards the own business

It will be nothing wrong to say that Joel became a master in his field in a very short time. One after one, he was showing his excellence in software development. This excellence continued with his very own Software firm Fog Creek Software, established in 2000. Shortly after that, he started the blog known worldwide as Joel of Software. Spolsky became one of the first bloggers who also run the business.

Stack overflow

Later on, he changed the history of question and answers sites by co-founding Stack Overflow. In fact, this site turned out useful for software developers who are in the learning phase. Also, the large software developer community has been shaped by this initiative. Till 2019, Joel served as the CEO of stack overflow. Last year, he expressed about chairmanship of HASH, an open-source simulation start-up.

Also Read: Stack Overflow : A Programming Hotspot Created for the Coding Enthusiasts

The backstory of founding Trello

During 2010, Fog Creek software started using for potential products and some basic regular creek weeks. But for high-level management, there were few limitations that could not be ignored. For that, a prototype called Trellis is developed. Soon, to convert the prototype in the real product, J. Spolsky launched Trello back in 2011. While developing the tool, Joel also considered the Kanban methodology.

New experiments of Trello

In 2011, it launched the web and iPhone apps for consumers. Year a later, Joel’s dog name Taco introduced as official Trello spokes-husky. More than 50 lakhs customers showed faith in Trello, and the firm shortly launches Android app for the users.

Later success

Trello preferred to handle their own business from 2014, and separated from Fog Creek. Shortly, Trello raised the investment in A-series and continue exploring the business. In 2015, the firm entered in international competition. Now it has more than 5 million users. However, to explore the region more and to mark the new beginning, Trello preferred to become part of the leading firm Atlassian. From 2017, Trello is an integral part of Atlassian.

37signals

37Signals: Jason Fried’s Web Design Company that launched the first commercial product Basecamp!

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37Signals is a remote software firm, which is, later on, changed its name as a Basecamp. Earlier, it worked in the field of web design. However, Basecamp shifted its focus towards web application development since 2004. Ruby on Rails, Basecamp, Campfire are the best-known products of the company. It is based in Chicago, Illinois and three web designers set up the firm back in 1999.

Jason Fried is one of the founders, presently serving as the CEO of 37Signals (Basecamp). Under his policies, the firm continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era. Let’s see the journey of 37Signals, from web design company to web application development firm.

The Backstory of Foundation

It was a web design firm set up in 1999 by E. Kim, Jason Fried, and C. Segura. As a matter of fact, they named it after 37 radio telescope signals. Earlier, the firm worked for other several organizations to build and re-design their websites. The business was also running great and the company acquired lots of projects in a few months. But keeping track of all things got complicated as well, the team was somewhat disorganized. As a result, taken projects dragged on too long, miscommunication between team members increased, and things began to fall out of the track.

That time, Email was only medium for handling work, but it had limitations for long-running projects taken by the company. And so, founders realized that a better project supervision tool is a must to keep the track of all things. They searched several tools which can help them to organize the work to be done, communicate ideas as well as to share work with clients. Well, they found few, but those were complicated and hard to use.

Basecamp was born

After using several project management apps, the needs of owners didn’t fulfill. Thus, they opted to build a simple app on their platform. Soon, they started to use the tool for project administration with the clients. However, this tool showed results; projects ran better. As well, their clients appreciated the organization and improve communication. In fact, 37signals’ clients started asking about the software they were using for project managing.

That’s how the product of a 37Signals called Basecamp was born. Founders priced the software fairly and launched it in the market in 2004. 37signals adopted a new strategy in 2014, the company entirely focused on the flagship product. Also, renamed the company’s name from 37signals to Basecamp.

Basecamp boomed

37Signals’ first commercial product was Basecamp. After its launch, the Basecamp software used by many for project management. Churches, schools, consulting firms, publishers as well as governments started using Basecamp for its better project supervision. Thereafter, the firm launched several other applications in the market. Includes, Backpack, Campfire, Highrise, etc. Also, the web application Ruby on Rails, which was created for internal use of the company made public in 2004.

In 2014, Basecamp first hit the market, 15,000,000+ people have worked on a project with Basecamp. Since then every week, thousands of firms sign up to use Basecamp. As everything runs smoother with Basecamp, people like to use Basecamp for their project management. Basecamp enabled better handle on the business, in return, the teams become more self-sufficient. Also, Basecamp apps are available on various platforms including, iOS, Android, Mac, and PC, integrations.

Other Products of 37Signals

Apart from Basecamp, the company launched several other products in the market. In 2006, it launched an online chat platform called Campfire. However, it then merged into Basecamp 3. Thereafter, a free web application framework known as Ruby on Rails made open source in 2004.

Glimpse to Founder Life- Jason Fried

Jason shared a great contribution to set up 37signals in 1999. Also, he is the makes of Basecamp and other web-based tools of the company. He attended the University of Arizona to study Finance. Apart from that, he is Rework’s co-author. In addition, he is also a columnist at Inc. Magazine known as Getting Real. Where he published his articles monthly.

Presently, he is serving as the president of Basecamp, earlier known as 37Signals. Under his guidance, the company continued to build miscellaneous web-based productivity tools that match the requirements of the present era.

Bottom Line

The first commercial product of 37Signals, Basecamp is becoming popular amongst several firms that needed a better project management platform. In 2004, only about 45 clients were using Basecamp, which increased every year. Presently, more than 3.3 million peoples are using Basecamp for better project management. In fact, the number is rising day by day!

Dunzo

Dunzo: The product of Kabeer Biswas’s idea of earning money by saving people’s time

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In this busy world, people always prefer time-saving strategies to spend quality time with loved ones. Sometimes, it is hectic to go outside and stuck into the traffic to buying groceries and other items on holiday. So, here’s an option to leave these tasks to Dunzo. With Dunzo, many things are possible. Like starting from the ordering grocery to delivering food, taking your clothes to laundry or getting your watch repaired. Basically, it is a hyperlocal delivery start-up that saves people’s time by doing their task as mentioned above. However, the company offers some charges per order. But still, Dunzo acquired the trusted customer. Though there are many options for free delivery services. In 2015, Kabeer Biswas founded it. Last year, Google-funded 12 Million dollars to the company. Also, it marked the first internet giant’s first-ever direct investment start-up which is homegrown. 

What is Dunzo?

Dunzo is a Bengaluru based delivery start-up. Kabeer Biswas, a young entrepreneur, and engineer establish it in 2015. Due to its horizontal delivery platform, it became favorable amongst working plus non-working residents in the city. With minimal charges, the delivery persons at Dunzo are helping to save people’s time by performing their tasks. 

Glimpse to founder life

Kabeer Biswas, an entrepreneur, and mastermind behind makes living by saving time of people. He is the founder of Dunzo, a Bengaluru based delivery start-up company. Let’s see the Biswas’s journey to set up Dunzo.

Education and Career

Kabeer is a Mumbai University graduate in the field of engineering. After that, he went to Mumbai’s Narsee Monjee Institute of Management. Thereafter, he worked at Airtel for three years. Next, he focused on his deal’s discovery company Hopper from 2011-2014. Sooner or later, Hike messenger acquired this start-up. 

The backstory of Dunzo foundation

This whole story starts after Kabeer had shifted to Bengaluru. That time, he explored the city for about six months. During this period, the idea of a hyperlocal delivery start-up pop into his mind. In January 2015, he set up Dunzo. Soon, he started the execution by delivering food, picking up groceries, and getting clock repaired. Earlier, he managed to do it himself, but as demands increased, he hired few delivery boys. In a very short period, Dunzo gain trust in the market. In fact, by the 2015 end, they have completed over 75 tasks/day. 

Evolution in Dunzo

Previously, Dunzo was a WhatsApp-based service. After rising demand, the company successfully launched a Dunzo app in February 2016. Also, it attained the AI-based concierge platform Wingman to bolster technology. Plus, Dunzo made a partnership with neighborhood stores to scale up delivery. Which also helped to set up a piece of robust local commerce machinery.

Services offered

The company offered quality service but there are no free deliveries at Dunzo. Still, many customers preferred Dunzo over free delivery services. Presently, it offers three types of services. Includes, purchase, pick up and drop, and repair and transactions. Basically, provides a horizontal platform for hyperlocal deliveries. Also, the company will enter the bike taxi business soon. 

Currently, it provides delivery services in cities like Bengaluru, Delhi, and Gurgaon. Also, in Noida, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai as well as Hyderabad.

Successes of Dunzo  

As mentioned earlier, the company not offered free delivery services. But still, it made its place among the list of rising hyperlocal delivery start-ups. In fact, it successfully generates a monthly revenue of about 1 crore. Also, the company’s per customer repeat purchases has been increased. Also, the company successfully scaled-up its delivery time. It has dropped to about 45 minutes which was more than 75 minutes earlier. In addition, the company also started a Bike Taxi service in Gurgaon.

Recently, Google the internet search giant company helped in fundraised to the company. Which can be considered as one more step to explore the business in the country

Oodle

Oodle Defined A New Way Of Digital Advertising

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Anyone who has started a new company or is planning to pursue advertising as a career has heard about Oodle. We all know how crucial advertisement has become in today’s marketplace. With competitors crawling in every field, advertisement plays a key role.

Now, from the perspective of an owner of a start-up or a famous businessman they think about unique ideas. They tend to hire people who can brilliantly tackle customers with the skill of digital marketing. But, who thinks about the other side of the coin? People think about establishing their own company in various domains. But, creating a business that is exclusively for advertisement is pretty exceptional.

Oodle, an American company is the world’s largest classifieds aggregator to date. Many of you might don’t know what that means but it’s surely not rocket science. It defines a simple idea of advertising which previously used to be only in newspapers. But, with the advent of the digital era, classifieds advertising has channeled the power of the internet.

The founders of Oodle are Craig Donato, Faith Sedlin and Scott Kister.

Craig Donato

Craig acquired a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He pursued his MBA from Stanford GSB. He started his career by working for Excite as Vice President of Product. After working in this position for five years he became the SVP Search and Community of Excite@Home.

Craig Donato
Image Source – Google Images

In 2001, Craig became the CEO of Grand Central and after a couple of years, he founded Oodle and became the CEO. He resigned from the company in 2012 and in 2013 he joined QVC as the VP of Social. In 2015, Craig joined Nextdoor.com and currently, he serves as the Chief Business Officer of ROBLOX.

Faith Sedlin

Faith went to Wellesley College followed by Harvard Business School. In her career world, she has played the role of product marketing manager, business developer, product manager, and founding start-up. She had seven jobs in total.

Scott Kister

Scott has a BS degree from the California Institute of Technology. He acquired his Master’s in Computer Science from Stanford University. After completing his Bachelor’s degree he joined Oracle in 1992. He also has work experience at Excite for more than five years after which he joined Danger as Senior Director, Service Engineering.

In July 2004, Scott founded Oodle along with Faith and Craig. He is currently the CEO of Oodle.

Founding Oodle

Though the company was founded in 2004, Oodle was launched publicly in 2005. The company started rolling since 2009 when Oodle added a new feature on its user interface. The feature allowed the users to directly publish listings on their social media like Facebook.

After launching this feature, users were able to post any update anytime to Facebook, MySpaceID through Oodle. In 2010, the company announced that the feature will also be available for LinkedIn, eBay, Trulia and Zillow.

In 2009, Oodle raised $5.6 million from investors like Greylock Partners, JAFCO Ventures and Redpoint Ventures. This year, the total fund Oodle invested in the company summed up to $21.6 million.

Expansion and Success of Oodle

People often tend to sell their old belongings to someone they know. And, Oodle spotted out this and turned it to their advantage. People in America also use Craigslist to sell and buy things but research has shown users are more comfortable when the deal is between someone they know, family or friends.

This is the prime reason Oodle tied up with the biggest social networking site, that is, Facebook and eventually other social platforms. The users easily put up the advertisement for something they want to sell. And, the potential buyer just might be from his or her social media.

In 2010, Oodle witnessed 15 million unique monthly visitors in its site giving strong competition to Craigslist. In this year, Oodle also acquired Grouply.

Acquisition of Oodle

From the beginning till the end, Oodle has focused only and only in expanding its social network. Because according to research 49 percent of Americans prefer selling their goods to their acquaintances. The company was making a good profit. In 2012, QVC acquired Oodle which again came under the acquisition of Oodle Holdings in 2015.

The company currently has 75,000 partner listings and serves as one of the best platforms for advertisement. Because apart from the rich source of heavy networking it establishes trust among the users.

IBM

The Father of Trusts: How Charles Flint’s IBM Changed Computing

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If you ever owned a desktop, used an ATM or Hard disk, chances are you used an IBM technology. The International Business Machines Corporation or IBM has been in the business for over a century with connections in over 170 countries. This American giant is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of computer hardware. So how did the company grow to become one of the biggest employers in the world? Here’s a look at the growth of IBM, and how the company changed the world.

Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and employs over 350,000 employees. The company is a research giant with employees having won Nobel Prizes, Turing Awards, and National Medals. All of this came to be thanks to a serial investor who had great business sense.

About the Founder

Charles Ranlett Flint was born in 1850 in Maine. The family soon moved to New York, where his father worked as the manager of a firm called Chapman & Flint. The family was business was set up in 1837, and served as a mercantile firm dealing in loans and fiscal help. Flint finished his graduation from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1868, and two years later entered the shipping business. His first venture was as a partner in the firm Gilchrest, Flint & Co., which later became W.R. Grace & Co.
Between the years 1876 and 1879, he also served as the head Chilean consul at New York, and as a consul general for Nicaragua.

Image Source: Google

He brought several companies together via a merger and formed U.S. Rubber in 1892. A year later, he helped manufacture naval ships for the Brazilian Republic. He also helped Japan in the First Sino-Japanese War by getting them ships. His business acumen kept growing as he learned the ways of the trade. In 1899, he established American Chicle by merging Chiclets, Beemans, Dentyne and Adams Chewing Gum. He also played a part in the forming of American Woolen in the same year. But his greatest invention came a decade or so later.

Beginnings of IBM

Flint changed the way the world worked by forming the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1911. The company came to be via the merger of four different companies. This Goliath would later grow to become IBM, the company that revolutionized the field of personal computing! A decade later, CTR would rename itself International Business Machines, and the rest is history. Flint continued to work as a part of the board of directors at IBM until 1930.

Growth of IBM

Initially, the company made machinery like time recorders, slicers, and tabulators. After Thomas J. Watson, Sr became the President, the company went huge, bringing in $9 million, which is worth $130 million today every year.

The company also expanded to Europe, Asia, and Australia. Watson was also responsible for re-christening the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company to International Business Machines. By 1937 IBM’s equipment was helping companies deal with massive amounts of data. They helped the US Government maintain employee records, and the names of Nazi sympathizers, during the 1940s.

Thomas Watson, Sr., stepped down in 1952, after 40 glorious years, and his son took over. By 1956 the company started working on artificial intelligence through IBM 704 and within a year, they developed FORTRAN. IBM was also responsible for the development of the highly successful Selectric typewriter. During the 1960’s IBM helped NASA with their logistics and was a part of the Gemini and Saturn flights.

Computer Revolution

They came out with the first PC in 1964, called the IBM System/360, following it up with the IBM System/370 in 1970. Both these models were responsible for making the concept of mainframe computing popular around the world. In 1993 IBM posted a US$8 billion loss which was the highest loss by an American company at the time. But the company turned its fortunes around through smart decision making.

In 2005 Lenovo acquired rights to IBM’s PC business and switched over to software development by acquiring SPSS Inc. The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011, and bought SoftLayer Technologies, for $2 billion. They are now working in partnerships with several companies such as Apple Inc., Twitter, Cisco, and Facebook.

Flint’s fluency with handling financial dealings, earned him the nickname Father of Trusts. Honestly, if not for Flint, the world would still be decades behind with respect to computing technology. The company he formed changed the way people looked at personal computing. In many ways, Flint was responsible for starting the Digital Age, which we all cherish and celebrate!

In 2005 Lenovo acquired rights to IBM’s PC business and switched over to software development by acquiring SPSS Inc. The company celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2011, and bought SoftLayer Technologies, for $2 billion. They are now working in partnerships with several companies such as Apple Inc., Twitter, Cisco, and Facebook.

Flint’s fluency with handling financial dealings, earned him the nickname Father of Trusts. Honestly, if not for Flint, the world would still be decades behind with respect to computing technology. The company he formed changed the way people looked at personal computing. In many ways, Flint was responsible for starting the Digital Age, which we all cherish and celebrate!