L&T Technology Services Emerges Leader in Overall ER&D Services: Zinnov Report

L&T Technology Services Limited consolidated its position as the country’s leading pure-play engineering services company after being rated as a leader across 10 major industries in the Zinnov Zones 2017 Product Engineering Services report. The Zinnov report cited LTTS’ well diversified digital solutions portfolio, focus on critical futuristic technologies and transformational deal wins with customers as major factors driving the momentum.

Zinnov rated L&T Technology Services as a leader across verticals such as Automotive, Aerospace, Telecom, Semiconductors, Consumer Electronics, Energy & Utilities, Industrial Automation, Transport, Construction & Heavy Machinery and Medical Devices.

The Zinnov Zones 2017 Product Engineering Services ratings also highlighted a significant leap in LTTS’ Embedded Technology capabilities underpinned by an exhaustive portfolio of proprietary solutions that has made LTTS an ideal design partner in the embedded systems space.

Zinnov rated LTTS as the leader in its Industrial Automation and Construction & Heavy Machinery practices based on its capabilities. Zinnov rated LTTS’ capabilities based on its practice maturity, domain expertise, infrastructure capabilities, strategic innovation, breadth of services across the PDLC and leverage of ecosystem connects. This is the seventh consecutive and fifth consecutive year in which L&T Technology Services has been distinguished as a leading player by Zinnov in Industrial Automation and construction & heavy machinery respectively.

“L&T Technology Services continues to dominate the Engineering services space due to its new age proprietary solutions, 38 R&D Labs spread across its delivery centers, focus on futuristic technologies such as perceptual engineering and neural systems and a client centric ethos that has seen some large deal wins driving the company’s topline,” said Sidhant Rastogi, Partner & Practice Head, Zinnov

“We are also encouraged by the traction in LTTS’ digital business led by the company’s Intellectual Property and platform solutions. A diversified digital services portfolio & strategic focus on top customers augurs well for the company’s prospects as a leader in ER&D,” Rastogi added.

“LTTS’ ability to win Large & Strategic Transformation deals using the technology pillars of digital engineering, perceptual engineering, pervasive technologies and smart manufacturing have enabled LTTS to be a leader in Zinnov’s annual ratings.  This reaffirms the confidence our customers have placed in us and we will continue to invest in Embedded, IIoT and Hi-Tech capabilities that will consolidate our position as the global leader in pure play engineering services,” said Ashish Khushu, Chief Technology Officer, L&T Technology Services Limited.

"Zinnov Zones 2017 – Product Engineering Services” rates 40+ service providers on their product engineering prowess. Service providers are assessed based on multiple dimensions such as spread and maturity of delivery and services capabilities, scalability, growth rate, financials, innovation & IP, ecosystem linkages and feedback from enterprise buyers. 

Neill Blomkamp, OATS Studios Release ‘ADAM: Episode 3,’ Short Film Created in Unity Tech

Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s most popular creation engine that has reached more than 3 billion devices, announced that ‘ADAM: Episode 3’ is now available to watch on YouTube. ‘ADAM: Episode 3’ was created by Academy Award-nominated director Neill Blomkamp and OATS Studios using Unity 2017. This is the third installment in the ‘ADAM’ franchise, a visually-stunning series that explores a world where human prisoners have had their consciousness transferred into the bodies of mechanical cyborgs.

“I have had the privilege of leading VFX on blockbusters like ‘Fast and Furious 6’ as well as story-driven sagas such as ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ In my years, I’ve never had a more powerful and instantly responsive toolkit than Unity,” said Chris Harvey, VFX Supervisor, OATS Studios. “Working in real-time in Unity 2017 gives the team the flexibility to make important creative changes without having to suffer the consequences of reshoots, saving us time and money.”

The original ‘ADAM,’ created by Veselin Efremov, was released in 2016 as a short film to demonstrate technical innovations of Unity. It won a Webby Award and was screened at several film festivals including the Annecy Film Festival and the Nashville Film Festival. ‘ADAM: The Mirror’ picks up after the end of the events of ‘ADAM’ where the cyborg hero discovers a clue about what and who he is. ‘ADAM: Episode 3’ gives viewers their first glimpse of one of the villains in the ‘ADAM’ universe.

OATS was founded as an indie film studio that experiments with the latest filmmaking technologies, and their work on the ‘ADAM’ franchise is the first time they have worked in a real-time creation engine like Unity 2017. Harnessing the power of real-time rendering, OATS used Unity 2017 to create photorealistic graphics and lifelike digital humans. This was achieved through a combination of Unity’s advanced high-end graphics power, new materials that utilize the Custom Render Texture feature, advanced photogrammetry techniques,  Alembic-streamed animations for facial and cloth movement, and Unity’s Timeline feature.

“More and more of the world’s boldest filmmakers are choosing Unity to help bring their creative vision to life,” said Isabelle Riva, Head of Made with Unity, Unity Technologies. “By shooting and rendering in real-time, Blomkamp and his team at OATS were able to achieve breakthrough visuals that stand as a monument to the level of graphics achievable on Unity. We can’t wait to see what the next wave of game developers and filmmakers create.”

‘ADAM: The Mirror’ and ‘ADAM: Episode 3’ were created back-to-back by a team of 25 people over the course of six months, and they demonstrate the latest technologies Unity 2017 has to offer. Innovations in these short films include:  

·  Lifelike Digital Humans in Real-Time: OATS created the best-looking human ever in Unity using custom sub-surface-scattering shaders for skin, eyes, and hair

·  World’s First Alembic-Based Facial Performance Capture for Real-Time Using Unity: OATS has created a new facial performance capture technique that streams 30 scanned heads per second for lifelike animation, all without the use of morph targets or rigs

·  Virtual World Comes to Life Through Photogrammetry: Staying true to their live-action background, OATS shot more than 35,000 photos of environments and props and after the initial photogrammetry solve, imported these into Unity using the delighting tool. This allowed them to quickly create rich, complex environments and materials without the need to spend time to model high-resolution models

·  Rapid Streamlined Iteration in Real-Time Unleashes the Power of Creativity: The power of real-time rendering lets artists and designers “shoot” the story as if on a set, with a live responsiveness that allows room to experiment and make creative decisions anywhere in the process

·  Unity’s Timeline Backbone for Collaboration: Unity’s Timeline feature, a visual sequencing tool that allows artists to orchestrate scenes without additional programming, combined with multi-scene authoring to allow a team of 20 artists to collaborate on the same shot simultaneously

Unity exists to democratize development, solve hard problems and enable success -- three core values that are the driving forces of Unity’s adoption by millions of creators. Games and experiences made with Unity have reached more than 3 billion devices worldwide this year and were installed more than 20 billion times in 2017 alone.

PCloudy’s Certifaya – AI Powered App Testing BOT to Speed Up Software Testing

pCloudy.com, the key product of STTS Inc. and one of the largest cloud platforms to test mobile apps on real devices, today announced the launch of Certifaya - an AI Powered App Testing Bot, to keep pace with the ever changing technology. Certifaya automatically tests the mobile applications over hundreds of real mobile devices and gives its users real time insights into the app behavior and performance. The app implements artificial intelligence driven technologies and lets the users run a test for the applications from anywhere across the world through the cloud based Real mobile Device farm.

Along with detecting the issues in apps, Certifaya also provides the users with detailed logs, screen shots and videos of the sessions. It also provides recommendations to quickly fix the issues. Certifaya's analytics driven testing engine uses deep machine learning algorithms to navigate through the app and monitors the applications for issues. The platform finds out problems and presents reports with critical issues such as crashes, memory leaks, high CPU, slow response time, battery drain and other key parameters.

Commenting on this development, Avinash Tiwari, the Co-Founder of SSTS Inc. said “To build an All-In-One platform for Mobile app and IoT app Testing, we at pCloudy have always been using automation and artificial intelligence to disrupt the lifecycle of a mobile application. The creation of Certifaya is one such step which will ensure that our users have the best of the experiences using the apps over hundreds of different mobile devices with varying screen sizes, OS versions and under different user conditions. As Bots help in making software testing faster, Certifaya has been developed to help the testers test more efficiently and competently.”

Along with Certifaya, pCloudy also provides a wide range of solutions for the mobile testing needs including Device Cloud and Crowd Test. Device Cloud is the cloud based Real mobile Device farm that allows users to remotely access 500+ real android and IOS devices across 4 geographies while crowd test is where real expert testers across the world test the application finding bugs in the app in real world conditions.

ThoughtWorks’ Bi-Annual Tech Radar Identifies Blockchain Gaining in the Enterprise

The technology underpinning the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is increasingly being adopted in the enterprise, with companies finding ways to leverage blockchain solutions for distributed ledgers and smart contracts. This trend has been highlighted in the 17th edition of Technology Radar from global software consultancy, ThoughtWorks. The bi-annual report provides an assessment of the emerging trends shaping the future of software development and business strategy.

“Blockchain technology is increasingly becoming a popular choice for enterprises to find new ways to interact with their customers. Adaption of Blockchain technology clearly indicates the trust India’s industry leaders are placing in the technology. The transfer of power and control from large entities to the many, enabling safe, fast, cheaper transactions in a completely transparent manner is the future of every sector transformed by technology,” said, Sudhir Tiwari and Sameer Soman, Managing Directors, ThoughtWorks India.

"Docker is the new process, and Kubernetes is the new operating system," says Bharani Subramaniam, Market Technology Principal, ThoughtWorks. “While there has been wide adoption of containers due to the success of Dockers, Kubernetes is emerging as a clear leader when it comes to container orchestration, with far-ranging support from the tech community.

The Technology Radar, based on ThoughtWorks’ observations, conversations and frontline experiences solving its clients’ toughest business challenges, includes both existing and nascent technologies.  The report uses a visual approach to divide trends into four groups covering Techniques, Platforms, Tools and Languages & Frameworks, with each area further broken down into a recommendation to Hold, Assess, Trial or Adopt.

In addition to blockchain-based solutions gaining traction, the notable themes in this edition include open source on the rise in China, organizations embracing a polycloud strategy and Kubernetes fast emerging as the de facto choice for managing the deployment of containerized applications.

CASHe Launches Smart Contract Tokens At Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017, Hyderabad

Aeries Financial Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a fintech company promoted by serial entrepreneur and private equity investor V. Raman Kumar, today announced that it has built a Smart Contract-based Distributed Ledger Technology on its app based lending platform, CASHe. The formal announcement of the revolutionary platform was made this morning at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit India 2017 being held in Hyderabad. The Distributed Ledger Technology allows the platform to record transactions in a secure and transparent manner by creating an immutable audit trail. The platform has been designed to function as a shared infrastructure across customers, multiple external stakeholders, including regulators, credit bureaus and potentially other parties interested in participating in the distributed infrastructure.

Smart Contract based Distributed Ledger records all lending transactions in an open and transparent manner, thus allowing CASHe and the borrower to execute a trusted lending transaction that is transparent and tamper proof. The key innovation also involves tokenising the loan amounts borrowed by the customers into Smart Contract Digital Tokens which are stored on the Ledger and accessible by the customer in the app. This means every rupee that is disbursed is automatically tokenized into a digital token. The user can now utilize the tokens in the following ways. 

1.       Monetize the digital tokens by transferring it to his bank account - This happens almost immediately

2.       Transfer the digital tokens to another CASHe customer or even a non CASHe customer who can, at their end, monetize the tokens with their respective banks 

All transactions are securely and accurately stored on the distributed ledger using advanced cryptography and can be accessed only by password protected crypto keys. 

Speaking during the launch at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, chairman of Aeries Financial Technology, V. Raman Kumar said, "We have created a disruptive and transformative blockchain based technology which will revolutionise our digital lending business by providing a compelling value to our customers. CASHe is uniquely positioned to offer its customers the ability to borrow, transfer and repay money by using the Smart Contract Enabled Tokens in a completely secure, safe and auditable way. This also makes CASHe India’s first full service lending company that has successfully harnessed three big emerging technologies - Big Data, AI and Blockchain. We expect this technology to enable our lending application to grow virally in the coming months”, he added.

Accenture Invests In and Forms Strategic Alliance with Leading Quantum Computing Firm 1QBit

Accenture has made a minority investment in 1QBit, a leading quantum computing firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia, through Accenture Ventures. The move will help Accenture expand its capabilities in quantum computing analytics, heralding a new era of intelligence for businesses and organizations. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

In addition, the two companies have formed a strategic alliance under which Accenture will be 1QBit’s preferred systems integrator. Accenture has also been granted a license to use the 1QBit platform for demonstration, training, and the development and testing of Accenture tools and assets. Accenture will leverage its alliance with 1QBit to develop a quantum-inspired analytics capability through Accenture Analytics and scale pilot opportunities identified through the Accenture Labs.

Quantum-inspired analytics harnesses the power and properties of quantum computing to tackle business problems by orders of magnitude faster than traditional computing. 1QBit builds quantum and quantum-inspired software to help organizations solve their most demanding computational challenges. Its interdisciplinary team comprises mathematicians, physicists, chemists, software developers and quantum computing experts who develop novel solutions to problems, from research through to commercial application development.

“By strengthening our relationship with 1QBit, Accenture has a significant opportunity to extend our first-mover advantage in applying quantum computing to create breakthrough innovations that help clients solve their most complex business challenges,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology & innovation officer. “The potential applications and benefits of quantum-inspired analytics is generating strong interest across numerous industries including financial services, life sciences, and oil & gas.”

Andrew Fursman, 1QBit’s CEO and co-founder, said, “Establishing a strategic relationship with Accenture enables us to tap their vast capabilities, and bring 1QBit’s expertise in quantum computing to a much broader base of clients. We are incredibly excited about the opportunities that our new relationship provides to help organizations take advantage of the benefits created by quantum-inspired analytics.”

“Quantum computing is a turbocharger for analytics and the creation of new intelligence,” said Narendra Mulani, chief analytics officer, Accenture Analytics. “We see massive potential for using the 1QBit platform on behalf of our clients to pursue quantum-inspired analytics, which will help us unlock even more value trapped in their data and find new opportunities to transform their businesses.”

Earlier this year, Accenture and 1QBit announced that they collaborated with Biogen to develop a first-of-its-kind quantum-enabled molecular-comparison application that could speed up drug discovery for complex neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Striving to be an innovator in the development of quantum-inspired enterprise solutions and applications, Accenture has already filed multiple patent applications. Examples include a multi-state quantum optimization engine that solves complex optimization problems by using nested calls to multiple quantum computing devices, and quantum computing methods to improve transportation systems, for example, to optimize the flight path of a drone system.

Top Five Smartphone Vendors Achieved Growth in the Third Quarter of 2017: Gartner

Global sales of smartphones to end users totaled 383 million units in the third quarter of 2017, a 3 percent increase over the same period in 2016, according to Gartner, Inc. All of the top five smartphone vendors achieved double-digit growth apart from Apple, which achieved a 5.7 percent increase.

"Despite market weakness in China, sales of smartphones rose in the third quarter of 2017 (see Table 1)," said Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner. “Emerging Asia/Pacific (15 percent increase) and North America (11.2 percent increase) drove the smartphone growth in the quarter.”

"In emerging Asia Pacific, both Samsung and Huawei saw healthy demand as along with Xiaomi and Vivo, which were able to grow their footprint outside their home markets," added Gupta. "In North America, Samsung was the driving force in the quarter due to its new flagship products."

Samsung’s smartphone sales recorded a double-digit increase (19.3 percent) in the third quarter of 2017."Renewed pushes of the newly designed Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 smartphones have brought back growing demand for Samsung smartphones, which helped it compete against Chinese manufacturers and deliver a solid performance in the quarter," said Gupta. "“The last time Samsung achieved a double-digit growth was in the fourth quarter of 2015."

Apple's sales grew 5.7 percent year over year. Apple returned to growth in China and also saw strong sales in many of the emerging markets, including India. This is due to the continued sales of legacy iPhones, including the iPhone 5S which retails at around $240 street price in most markets.

Table 1

Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Vendor in 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)

Vendor	3Q17 Units	3Q17 Market Share (%)	3Q16 Units	3Q16 Market Share (%)
Samsung	85,605.3	22.3	71,733.5	19.3
Apple	45,441.9	11.9	43,000.7	11.6
Huawei	36,501.8	9.5	32,489.5	8.7
OPPO	29,449.2	7.7	24,590.8	6.6
Xiaomi	26,853.2	7.0	14,926.1	4.0
Others	159,552.1	41.6	185,501.5	49.8
Total	383,403.5	100.0	372,242.0	100.0

Xiaomi achieved the strongest growth, exhibiting an 80 percent increase in the third quarter of 2017. Xiaomi's growth came more from international markets than from China, where it faces strong competition from Huawei, Oppo and Vivo. India continues to be the biggest and highest-growth market for Xiaomi outside China, but growing sales from Latin America and Russia are also boosting its sales.

Greater China exhibited a decline of 11 percent in the third quarter due to consolidation around local and lesser-known brands (see Table 2). Buyers are preferring known and high-priced smartphones, which is cannibalizing demand of budget smartphones from local brands. In Western Europe and North America, demand for premium smartphones from top brands led to smartphone sales growth in the third quarter.

Top-Five Regions for Smartphone Sales to End Users in 3Q17 (Thousands of Units)

Vendor	3Q17 Units	3Q17 Market Share (%)	3Q16 Units	3Q16 Market Share (%)
Greater China	107,129.0	27.9	120,343.9	32.3
Emerging APAC	81,549.0	21.3	70,927.8	19.1
North America	47,511.3	12.4	42,722.9	11.5
Western Europe	36,019.8	9.4	32,900.7	8.8
Latin America	33,553.5	8.8	31,162.0	8.4
Others	77,640.9	20.2	74184.7	19.9
Total	383,403.5	100.0	372,242.0	100.0

Source: Gartner (November 2017)

Leading Chinese manufacturers Oppo, Huawei, Vivo and Xiaomi continued to drive sales across emerging markets, led by their midprice and budget smartphones with a focus on 4G connectivity and better cameras.

"The arrival of Apple's new flagship iPhones at the end of the third quarter of 2017 has delayed smartphone purchases into the fourth quarter of 2017," said Gupta. "Following compelling offers on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the holiday season will likely boost sales of smartphones before the end of the year. We estimate the fourth quarter’s smartphone sales will boost total sales for the full year. We expect smartphone sales will reach 1.57 billion units in 2017," concluded Gupta.

Skill India, Arvind Ltd Partner to train 20,000 Candidates Under PMKVY Scheme

Committed to empower the youth with employable skills, Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) through its implementation agency, National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in collaboration with Arvind Limited, will provide training to 20,000 youth (till 2020) under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY). The first batch has commenced training in Bangalore. 

Under this collaboration, Arvind Limited (aka Arvind Mills), a leading exporter, supplier and manufacturer of ready-made garments will be the training provider and will offer its infrastructure, space, training facilities and machinery for the skill training. The admissions would be open to all skill seekers, especially the unemployed youth in the age group of 18 to 35 years.  An integrated skill development program under PMKVY, the association entails skill training and further placements being facilitated by Arvind Limited through its nine training centres in Karnataka.

The skill trainings to be provided in Apparel, Made-ups and Home Furnishing sector include six job roles, namely Specialised Sewing Machine Operator, Sewing Machine Operator, Quality Check Executive– Sewing Line, Packer, Pressman and Washing Machine Operator.  The second largest employment generator in the country, the sector has immense demand for the skilled candidates.  The job roles, aligned to the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF), encompass training of candidates for three to six months.

Stressing upon the role of corporate houses in aiding skill development initiatives,  Anantkumar Hegde, Minister of State, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship said, “Corporate India can be a major contributor to this nation-building exercise.  The industry can promulgate their expertise and provide industry relevant training to the candidates in accordance with the demands. Such trainings not only enhance productivity and employability opportunities for the youth, also provide a ready talent pool to the industry.  I congratulate Arvind Limited for their pioneering collaboration to accelerate the Skill India Mission.” 

Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC commented, “Inclusive approach is paramount for sustainable skill development.  Corporates are major stakeholders in this progressive journey and can play pivotal role in narrowing the existing gap between the demand and supply of skilled workforce.  This two-fold approach benefits both the stakeholders – the skill seekers and the employers.”

Vikram N., Senior HR Manager, Arvind Limited said, “Skilled manpower is the need of the hour and we shall provide employment opportunities for every eligible youth who successfully completes their training program. It is a pleasure to associate with Skill India Mission and we thank the Ministry for providing us an opportunity to work in this noble endeavour.”

Adding impetus to the skill training, the Apparel, Made-ups & Home Furnishing Sector Skill Council under the guidance of NSDC has provided for skill training to nearly 2,14,000 candidates in 8 job roles across the country.