Signify Unveils Interact Internet of Things Platform in India

Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting), the world leader in lighting, has launched its new Internet of Things (IoT) platform, called Interact in India, which will enable its professional customers to unlock the full potential of connected lighting for the IoT. The platform delivers new insights to help customers drive operational efficiencies and take more effective decisions. It also supports the company’s strategy to deliver new data-enabled services as value expands from lighting products and systems to services.

Signify has already installed 29 million connected light points worldwide and plans for every new LED product it produces to be connectable by 2020. This growing number of connected light points, sensors and devices, as well as systems, can collect large volumes of data for which Interact was designed to handle. The highly secure, scalable cloud-based Interact platform uses sophisticated and modern data management and data processing capabilities, including machine learning, to bring sense to all manner of data – creating data-enabled services for customers that will deliver benefits beyond illumination. It also offers a growing suite of licensed open application program interfaces (APIs) which will foster innovation from third-party developers, development partners and customers, enabling various data enabled services to be developed.

A typical example of such a service is occupancy data from different buildings, combined and analyzed to help managers to understand and predict how people use office space. Such insights can help deliver savings by optimizing the use of existing office space and support better designed, more efficient buildings.

In addition, data from authorized third-parties can also be analyzed by Interact. For example, for a municipal authority, news articles and social media posts, reacting to a new lighting installation on a bridge, can be analyzed and data sent to a social impact app dashboard that summarizes the public sentiment.

Launching the platform in India, Sumit Padmakar Joshi, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Signify’s operations in India said, “First, we led the way in energy efficient LED lighting, then in connecting lighting to deliver operational benefits for our customers. Now that light points are smart enough to collect data on their performance and the environment around them, we are tapping into that intelligence. By analyzing the data from our connected lights, devices and systems, our goal is to create safer cities, energy efficient buildings and industries and smarter retail stores in the country. We are confident that this platform will deliver immense value for our professional lighting customers in India”.

Interact connected lighting systems

These connected lighting systems, offering a unified user experience, feature applications that address industry-specific verticals. Available now are:

·   Interact Office – enables you to turn your office into a smart sustainable workspace with software that allows you to increase building efficiency and employee productivity.

·  Interact City – helps improve street lighting, safety, reduce energy consumption, improve efficiency and support your sustainability goals and beautify the urban landscape across roads.

·  Interact Retail - enables customers to group, zone and schedule connected lighting to create stopping power in stores. It also supports in-store location-based marketing services to increase shopper engagement and indoor navigation to improve staff productivity.

·  Interact Landmark – aids in managing and triggering light shows with dynamic architectural lighting to help increase tourism, regenerate downtown areas, and stimulate commerce.

·   Interact Sports – aids in monitoring, managing and coordinating across all lighting infrastructure from a single dashboard from pitch lighting, entertainment light shows, hospitality areas and exterior architectural lighting.

·  Interact Pro - an intuitive cloud-based software for small and medium enterprises that automates lighting and allows management via the Interact Pro dashboard.

Signify became the new company name of Philips Lighting as of May 16, 2018. The legal name of Signify will be adapted in India in the beginning of 2019.

Zava Electronics Wins India’s Most Admirable Brands 2018 by The Brand Story

ZAVA Electronics is committed to provide superb quality LED TV's at market leading rates. The wide range include 24 Inch LED TV's, 32 Inch LED TV's, 32 Inch Smart LED TV’s, HD Ready TV’s, Smart TV, UHD LED TV's, ZAVA Air Conditioner, ZAVA Washing Machine and more. For delighting our customers, we are delivering the entire gamut in different sizes, designs, models, resolution etc.

While commenting on receiving the award, Ashwin Bharti, Director of Zava Electronics said, “Life is not just about having latest electronics but to experience advance technology that prepares you for enjoying the greatest moments of your life”. We want to create a revolution in electronic products by our innovative thinking and unique ideas. Other key leaders of the company are Vandana Puri and Mr Lalji Bharti, who have 30 years’ experience in sales and marketing. 

The organization’s client-centric approach enables us to provide maximum satisfaction to all the valuable clients. All products are manufactured under the strict supervision of professionals following the industrial standards. The company aims to meet its customers' requirements by offering them these products in numerous sizes and styles as per the specifications of the patrons.

Further, the state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities installed with advanced machinery enables the organization to deliver quality products to patrons. Company’s smart and intellectual personnel ensure that only flawless range of product line is provided to clients within the agreed time-frame. Moreover, the company owe the huge client base to its responsible personnel and smart business plans.

Abhay Kaushik, Director, The Brand Story said “India's Most Admirable Brands" is an Exclusive Story Board for your brand. The underlying credo of this initiative is to provide an ideal platform to the brands of corporate India and ensure the most exclusive, interesting and effective storyboard for their achievements over the years.

India's Most Admirable Brands are selected on the basis of Image, Impact and Innovation in their respective industry category and the selected brands will be seen by millions across the country with special Television series on national news channel to be launched soon along with print and digital campaign.

Western Digital Hosts ‘Data Innovation Bazaar’ in Association with ‘Startup India’ and ‘Invest India’

Western Digital, a leading data infrastructure provider, has announced that it hosted the Data Innovation Bazaar in collaboration with Startup India and Invest India. The initiative offered a unique platform to recognize the best innovative minds from across India, and showcase their ideas and concepts to leverage the power of data. The Data Innovation Bazaar was launched with a focus on identifying data-driven solutions to priority challenges in the five identified sectors: Education, Renewable Energy, Healthcare, Transportation and Mobility, and Cleantech.

Western Digital teamed up with Startup India, a flagship initiative of the government of India and Invest India, to support development of an ecosystem for emerging entrepreneurs and startups. Data Innovation Bazaar acts as an aggregator that brings together government alliances, businesses and innovators on a unique platform.

“From the world’s first helium-filled hard drive to the latest advancements in 3D NAND technology, we at Western Digital continue to drive innovation to shape the future of data. Data Innovation Bazaar is a way of harnessing technology to inspire the next generation of game-changing and innovative thinking, by realizing the possibilities of data. This is a significant milestone in our partnership with the government of India and its strategic initiatives, including Invest India and Startup India, and is a testament to our commitment of fueling innovation for a better and a newer India. I congratulate the teams for their enthusiastic response to the Data Innovation Bazaar challenge and wish them the very best,” said Dr. Siva Sivaram, executive vice president of silicon technology and manufacturing, Western Digital.

“We are excited to host this unique, nationwide Innovation Challenge in collaboration with ‘Invest India’ & ‘Startup India’. Through Data Innovation Bazaar, we showcase how data-driven innovations are having a profound impact on India and the world. This initiative is aligned to Western Digital India’s strategic imperatives of Investing in India as a market, social transformation, academic collaboration and inspiring innovation in the startup community. Congratulations to the winners of the Data Innovation Bazaar,” said Supria Dhanda, vice president and India country manager, Western Digital.

Deepak Bagla, managing director and CEO, Invest India said, “I am delighted that Invest India and Startup India are partnering with Western Digital on Data Innovation Bazaar, an innovation challenge aimed at providing a platform for young entrepreneurs and the youth of India to innovate and provide solutions to transform and build a New India.”

The challenge, which commenced on September 19th, encouraged the creation of solutions and products that use the power of data to address the issues identified by the following problem statements:

Create initiatives that seek to provide affordable, sustainable enrolment and access to educational programs at scale
Develop new models of improving air quality in urban areas
Establish affordable, effective systems of access to scalable, quality healthcare and healthcare records
Create solutions that seek to provide safe and smart mobility in the transportation sector
Develop effective and affordable uses of clean and renewable energy in everyday use and applications

Winners were unveiled on 12 December 2018 at Data Innovation Bazaar event, which was held at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi. Members of Western Digital India executive leadership, academia, and government, including Ramesh Abhishek, IAS and Secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, attended the event.

Approximately 520 applications were received, with 40 outstanding teams shortlisted for final judging. A2P Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd., whose submission focused on the Renewable Energy sector, was awarded first place and earned a prize of INR 10 lakhs. The second-place prize of INR 7 lakhs was awarded to SM Learning Skills Academy for Special Needs Pvt. Ltd. and their innovative healthcare-related idea. Third-place prize of INR 5 lakhs, was awarded to BlinkEYELABS Electronics Pvt. Ltd. for their submission focused on the Transportation and Mobility sector.

Other outstanding submissions in the top 10 included Castle Advanced Technologies and Systems Pvt. Ltd., Gigacure Healthcare Analytics Pvt. Ltd., mBreath Technologies, Monosha Biotech, Phase Laboratories Pvt. Ltd., Skincurate Research Pvt. Ltd., and YuTu Electronics Pvt. Ltd.

The top 10 recognized teams are invited to be a part of Western Digital’s Innovation Boot Camp to be held at the company’s Data Innovation Centre in Bangalore in February 2019. The boot camp will serve as a platform for the winning teams to network with investors and industry leaders to further develop and refine their ideas. The teams will also have the opportunity to engage with the company’s leaders for three days of learning, development and concept refinement.

Need for CISOs and Solution Architects to Build Threat Modelling in Evolving Cloud Applications

By Tejas Sheth, Cloud Security Architect, Trend Micro

“What is my security responsibility in the cloud when I am using IaaS, PaaS and/or Serverless application?” This is one of the most common questions we get asked by companies that are considering moving to the cloud and/or modernize their application with micro service architecture. This is because, today the application uses multiple services from single/multiple cloud service provider and each service in cloud has different shared security responsibility.

Shared security responsibility in the cloud environment change based on application architecture and type of cloud services it integrates to.

Generally speaking, the cloud service provider, such as AWS or Azure, takes care of the infrastructure and security of the cloud. The customer, on the other hand, is responsible for securing everything in the cloud.

This shared responsibility model gives businesses the ownership and control of their data, applications, and operating system, just like in the on-premise environment. But not all cloud services provide same type of controls on operating system platform. It means that companies that are using PaaS, and containerized application have different security responsibility than companies using pure IaaS and/or Serverless applications.

The companies may find themselves confronted by different security challenges as they move through different stages of cloud adoption. Therefore, it is important for CISOs and solution architects to create threat modelling for the evolving application architecture in the cloud.

The three stages of cloud adoption and application evolution include:

Stage one: Threat vector in monolithic applications in the cloud

For the longest time ever, the monolithic architecture had been the default application development pattern. Its single codebase approach brings about ease of development, deployment, and testing. On top of that, developers are familiar with the architecture.

Application code in the cloud isn’t just written by the company. As with all modern web applications, developers use third party - mostly open-source – components, typically including web frameworks and libraries. These third-party components have security vulnerabilities of their own.

Security for monolithic applications revolves around authentication, authorization, and encryption. As a result, by using vulnerability-laden third-party components, hackers can launch attacks at the security processes, thereby rendering them invalid, compromising the security for the whole architecture.

Stage two: Threat vector in containerized applications and PaaS

When the cloud journey evolves, applications start to become loosely coupled and stateless in nature. Applications also begin to integrate with other cloud services like object storage, caching services, and NoSQL databases. From these evolutions sprang the micro services architecture, where modules become small, individual application entities in containers, and they communicate over RESTful API. The APIs add another layer that needs to be secured with run-time application self-protection.

While developers follow the Agile methodology and release new application updates every day, DevOps team uses containers to achieve continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD). This process can hinder security team’s visibility, as many moving components are used by developers and/or the DevOps team inside containers.

If companies don’t have visibility into the threats, they can’t apply security controls to the system. Since containerized micro service applications remove visibility for the teams who follow traditional security methods, it’s important to integrate security into the DevOps process.

Stage three: Threat vector in serverless applications

In the serverless model, companies who own the systems don’t have to purchase or rent servers or virtual machines to run the code. Serverless architecture is heavily dependent on third-party services. The best-known vendor host currently is AWS Lambda and Azure/GCP Functions.

The shared responsibility model in serverless application becomes more complex from a security compliance standpoint. The threat vector is different in a serverless application, from monolithic or micro service application architecture. This requires the company think about security from an application design perspective.

In order to access other cloud services, serverless function needs to be configured with identity roles and the permission, be provided by the cloud provider. Such infrastructure privilege access to function code can become a new threat vector if access to function trigger (external APIs) is not hardened.

Serverless functions on different cloud platforms are configured differently. For Example, While AWS Lambda and GCP functions provides serverless functions with basic library and default language support, Azure’s function requires different configuration for each language version and libraries from KUDU shell access. These variations can change the threat vector for different cloud service providers.

Such new type of security risk is causing new type of attack e.g. Denial of wallet and attacks on application code and library. Securing serverless application requires protection run-time application self-protection (RASP) and another API security configuration.

In summary, although security needs vary at different stages of the cloud adoption lifecycle, when it comes to different types of applications, basic principles for security remain the same. Visibility is the key to applying security controls on any threat vector. Integrity monitoring of file system and log analytics can help to provide visibility on threat vectors.

Vulnerability scanning and applying patch and virtual patch are mandatory steps throughout the cloud journey. Intrusion prevention system and intrusion detection system (IPS/IDS), monitoring possible control and command (C&C) connection, and firewall can be used to identify and mitigate threats at the initial phase of the intrusion kill chain.

Eminent Technocrats Converged at NXP India TechConnect to Address Challenges in Automotive and IoT Applications

NXP India, a world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications organized the TechConnect Industry TechSummit on ‘Next Generation Product Development Challenges and Opportunities in Automotive, IoT and Networking Applications’ at Manayata Tech Park in Bangalore. The event featured panelists from leading organizations, such as HCL, LDRA, NVIDIA and Synopsys, academic institutions, such as IIT-Delhi and startups, such as Orxca Energies, among others.

The summit included two panel discussions - ‘Next Generation Product development’ and ‘Verification and Validation’. While the first discussion focused on challenges and opportunities emerging from Connected Infotainment, Autonomous Vehicles, Industrial IoT, e-bike battery innovations, security for IoT, Networking & Automotive applications and Industry-academia partnerships for training newer generations of students in associated technologies; the second panel plunged into the technical challenges associated with security in verification and validation. Some of India’s most valued dignitaries attended the discussions and debated on various product development challenges that have been exponentially increasing, particularly with shrinking geometries.

The panel discussion also brought out the emphasis on addressing security aspects of the new applications at all levels of Hardware and Software abstraction with the paced emergence of autonomous cars, IoT and 5G wireless connectivity. The discussion further highlighted the increasing need to address specific technical challenges on emerging applications, such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

The day-long event witnessed participation from industry experts, such as Magesh Srinivasan, Global Head, Connected Car & AI, HCL; Preeti Ranjan Panda, Head of Department of IT & Engineering, IIT Delhi; Ganesh Shankar, Founder and CEO, FluxGen Technologies; Prajwal Sabnis, Co-Founder, Orxa Energies Pvt. Ltd.; Shinto Joseph, Director, South East Asia Operations, LDRA; Manoharan CP, Director, Systems Engineering & Field Sales Support, Spirent; Anand  Muthaiah, VP Engineering, Tessolve Semiconductors; Puneet Ahuja, Sr. Design Engineering Manager, Cadence; Amit Sharma, Director, Corporate Applications Engineering, Synopsys; Yogesh Mittal, Director, Functional Verification & Emulation, NXP and Amit Agarwal, Senior Engineering Manager, NVIDIA. The panels were moderated by Kumaran Venkatesh, President & Partner, AXLerateNOW and Vijay Chachra, Director of Engineering, NXP Semiconductors.

Speaking of the initiative, Sanjay Gupta, Vice President & India Country Manager, NXP India said, “India has huge technological talent and NXP India has constantly worked towards uniting this talent with related skills and expertise. TechConnect is one such initiative that has helped expand NXP India’s horizons of industry knowledge and synergize with fierce thoughts and minds to emerge as a driver of next generation innovation in the secure connected vehicle, end-to-end security and smart connected solutions.”

Kicking off the discussion, the moderator Kumaran Venkatesh, President & Partner, AXLerateNOW said “The future of Next generation product development would revolve around Artificial intelligence and Machine learning. The challenge for product developers is designing futuristic connected devices with IOT and security in mind.”

Adding to the discussion on challenges faced by Autonomous Vehicles, Gupta said, “Autonomous vehicles need safety-related functionality that can sense and react to hazardous situations. It’s an engineering process as critical as engineering the product itself. Think of all the hazardous contingencies that an autonomous vehicle has to contend with—particularly in an urban environment. This need to anticipate a wide range of possible interactions between the vehicle and its environment is one of the biggest challenges in developing safety for autonomous vehicles. To comply with FS standards, an engineer must anticipate what can go wrong when a product interacts with its environment (including us unpredictable humans), then conceive of a safety-related system and place the system into an appropriate safe state. Add to this, further consideration of whether that safe state will itself result in a hazard.”

Speaking on the note of trends and challenges of the connected cars and AI, Magesh Srinivasan, Global Head- Connected car & AI, HCL says “Today, infotainment is on the brink of major evolution with the next global megatrend being seamless connectivity between smartphones and automobiles. Connectivity to cloud and other types of Internet-based computing that help users improve their driving pattern and vehicle health, by predictive analysis of driving patterns, vehicle health and maintenance, will be the key differentiators eventually. And that’s not it. Manufacturers across the globe have already started adopting intelligent infotainment systems, such as Android Automotive, which enhance safety on the move by providing safe connectivity, navigation and media experience.”

NXP’s TechConnect is a comprehensive platform dedicated to sharing knowledge, tools & best practices, and initiating dialogues on innovation and disruptive technologies, through events, such as the TechTalk, TechSymposium, TechTutorial, and TechSummit. In its essence, TechConnect aims to promote the spirit of innovation and empower employees to connect and learn from industry veterans.

Atos and Indian Government Sign Major HPC Agreement to Support India’s National Supercomputing Mission

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, today signed a HPC agreement with the C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing), an organization within the MeitY (Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology of India), in the presence of the French Minister for External Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, and the Secretary of the Minister of Electronics and IT India, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, in New Delhi. This agreement is part of India’s NSM (National Supercomputing Mission).

“We’re delighted to officially become today the technology partner of C-DAC for HPC-related platforms and to participate in India’s prestigious NSM (National Supercomputing Mission) program.  We are honoured that our BullSequana supercomputers, will be empowering Indian academic and R&D institutions across the country to accelerate their research and at the same time support India’s ambition to be a leader in HPC.” said Pierre Barnabé, Chief Operating Officer, Big Data & Security at Atos.

“This new agreement illustrates the strategic relationship and partnership between France and India and will enable India to leapfrog to the league of world-class supercomputing power nations.” said Dr. Herman Darbari, Director General of C-DAC.

This project will see Atos deploy its BullSequana supercomputers, including the recently announced BullSequana XH2000 in various academic and research institutions, making Atos a leading supercomputing provider in India.

JetEscapes Holidays Announces Attractive Packages for Dubai Shopping Festival Starting Rs 28,740 Onwards

Jet Airways’ JetEscapes Holidays today introduced exciting, new all-inclusive Dubai holiday packages for guests planning to travel to Dubai to indulge in retail therapy at the world’s biggest shopping festival - ‘The Dubai Shopping Festival’.

Attractively priced and highly popular, JetEscapes’ Dubai Holidays packages aim to offer an enhanced shopping experience at the annual festival and are inclusive of return Economy air fares, airport transfers, hotel accommodation with breakfast, city tours, travel insurance and the chance to earn 5 JPMiles on every Rs.100 spent. The incredible 6-week sale extravaganza is scheduled from 26th December, 2018 to 2nd February, 2019.

An annual pilgrimage for shoppers’, the Dubai Shopping Festival is replete with fashion shows, fireworks and mega sales, which completely transform the entire city of Dubai. This year, JetEscapes Holidays has announced two nights/ three days and four nights/ five days’ holiday options. The two nights/ three days package starts from Rs 28, 740/-* and four nights/ five days package starts from INR 51, 850/-*respectively. The four attractive holiday packages, ‘Dubai Free & Easy’, ‘Magic Dubai’, ‘Mania Dubai’ and ‘Fascinating Dubai’ have been especially created in response to the needs of travellers keen to experience this special global extravaganza.

With these tailor-made packages, guests can get a glimpse of the culture, traditions and history of Dubai. Guests choosing the ‘Magic Dubai’, ‘Mania Dubai’ and ‘Fascinating Dubai’ packages will also be able to experience the Dhow Cruise and Desert Safari along with dinner and enjoy a free entrance to the Global Village. Guests opting for ‘Mania Dubai’, in addition to the above, will also get access to the architectural landmark, Dubai Frame which has also been described as "the biggest picture frame on the planet". There are special add-on delights for guests availing ‘Mania Dubai’ and ‘Fascinating Dubai’ packages with Abu Dhabi city tour, visit to Ferrari World and free entrance to Warner Bros Studio included in the packages.

And while in Dubai, guests will also be able to join the live showing of the grand Mughal-E-Azam show from 10th – 12th January, 2019. Mughal-e-Azam – an absolute must watch, is the first large-scale Indian Broadway-style musical which pays a stunning homage to K. Asif’s classic film of the same name. The musical swept the Broadway World Awards and won seven trophies, including Best Play & Best Director in 2017.

Guests travelling for the Dubai Shopping Festival can now enjoy even more convenient flight options from Mumbai and Delhi with Jet Airways. Effective 5th December, 2018, Jet Airways has added a 7th daily non-stop frequency between Mumbai and Dubai. Effective 24th October, 2018, the airline added a 4th daily frequency on the Delhi-Dubai route, giving its guests added convenience of travelling at their chosen time and make the most of their holidays.

Belson Coutinho, Sr. Vice President – Marketing, eCommerce & Innovations, Jet Airways said, “The Dubai Shopping Festival is a shopaholic’s dream. As the world’s largest shopping festival clubbed with top-of-the-line entertainment, the annual showcase gives this Gulf hot spot a whole new platform replete with jovial and vibrant vibes. Tourists including families, will be spoilt for choice with the presence of every major global retail and lifestyle brand at the 23rd Dubai Shopping Festival not only offering unbeatable shopping deals to travellers, but also an exhaustive and equally impressive culinary options from the choicest restaurants. JetEscapes Holidays’ all-inclusive Dubai Shopping Festival packages are designed to offer a unique and memorable holiday experience for the entire family, while taking care of our guests’ every travel need. Providing guests with lasting experiences is one of the core strengths of Jet Airways.”