LAVA Launches Z71 with a Dedicated Google Assistant Key Priced at Rs 6,299 and Available on Flipkart

LAVA International Limited has announced the launch of its new smartphone, LAVA Z71. Catering to the ever increasing data consumption needs of today’s millennial; the handset is being launched with a special JIO offer, where the buyer gets Rs. 1200 instant cash back and an additional 50GB of 4G data.

LAVA Z71 equipped with a dedicated Google Assistant key enables users to access a variety of apps and features, using voice command. The smartphone’s 5.7”HD+ Dot Notch display with an aspect ratio of 19:9 provides an immersive viewing experience to the users.

Coming to the camera, LAVA Z71 is coupled with 13MP+2MP Dual Rear Camera with an LED Flash and a 5MP selfie camera with soft flash that captures stunning pictures, even in low light. The smart phone’s camera is packed with premium features like professional mode and an AI studio Mode which enables users to click pictures using 6 level portraits.

The LAVA Z71 runs on latest Android 9 Pie OS and also has a face-unlock feature and a fingerprint scanner.

The smartphone offers 2GB RAM and a storage capacity of 32GB, expandable up to 256 GB to ensure enough space to store your favourite music, videos, pictures and apps.

Packed with a powerful 3200 mAh AI battery, the LAVA Z71 runs for 1.5 days in a single charge. The smartphone is powered by a 2GHz quad-core MediaTek Helio A22 16nm processor and offers dual SIM with 4G as well as VoLTE support.

“We are happy to add LAVA Z71 to our bouquet of smartphones. The data consumption of the budget smartphone users has increased exponentially and they want to upgrade to the latest smartphone with attractive features. LAVA Z71 caters to this requirement with its great collective of features, comprising notch display, dual camera, face-unlock and fingerprint scanner at a pocket-friendly price. This launch is yet another endeavour from LAVA to fulfil its commitment of making advance smartphone technology available and affordable for all,” said Tejinder Singh, Head- Product, LAVA International Limited.

The smartphone comes in two attractive colour variants - Steel Blue and Ruby Red with mirror finish design. Priced at Rs 6,299, LAVA Z71 is currently available on Flipkart.

Jaguar Land Rover's New Shape-Shifting Seat of the Future Makes you Think You're Walking

Highlights

* Pioneering technology could help reduce the health risks caused by sitting down too long
* ‘Morphable’ seat system continually adjusts to optimise customer wellbeing on long journeys
* Micro-adjustments made by series of actuators in seat foam simulate the rhythm of walking
* Research forms part of Jaguar Land Rover’s commitment to make societies safer and healthier

Jaguar Land Rover is developing the seat of the future - a pioneering shape-shifting system designed to improve customer wellbeing by tackling the health risks of sitting down for too long.

The ‘morphable’ seat, being trialled by Jaguar Land Rover’s Body Interiors Research division, uses a series of actuators in the seat foam to create constant micro-adjustments that make your brain think you’re walking, and could be individually tailored to each driver and passenger.

More than a quarter of people worldwide – 1.4 billion – are living increasingly sedentary lifestyles*, which can shorten muscles in the legs, hips and gluteals causing back pain. The weakened muscles also mean you are more likely to injure yourself from falls or strains.

By simulating the rhythm of walking, a movement known as pelvic oscillation, the technology can help mitigate against the health risks of sitting down for too long on extended journeys with UK drivers covering an average of 234 km every week**.

Dr Steve Iley, Jaguar Land Rover Chief Medical Officer, said: “The wellbeing of our customers and employees is at the heart of all our technological research projects. We are using our engineering expertise to develop the seat of the future using innovative technologies not seen before in the automotive industry to help tackle an issue that affects people across the globe.”

Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles already feature the latest in ergonomic seat design, with multi-directional adjustments, massage functions and climate control fitted across the range. Dr Iley has also issued advice on how to adjust your seat to ensure the perfect driving position, from removing bulky items in your pocket, to shoulder positioning and from ensuring your spine and pelvis are straight to supporting your thighs to reduce pressure points. View the video here.

The research is part of Jaguar Land Rover’s commitment to continually improving customer wellbeing through technological innovation. Previous projects have included research to reduce the effects of motion sickness and the implementation of ultraviolet light technology to stop the spread of colds and flu.

Together, these efforts are driving towards Destination Zero; Jaguar Land Rover’s ambition to make societies safer and healthier, and the environment cleaner – a responsible future for our workers, customers and communities around us. Through relentless innovation, Jaguar Land Rover is adapting product and services to meet the rapidly-changing world.

New Study Finds AI as a Viable Tool to Detect Changes in Patients’ Mental Health

The USC Signal Analysis and Interpretation Lab (SAIL), a center that focuses on analyzing signals by people, from people and for people, in new collaboration with UCLA, has found that AI can accurately detect changes in clinical states from speech as well as physicians. The study appears in PLOS One.

SAIL, which has long applied AI and machine learning to identify and classify video, audio and physiological data, partnered with researchers at UCLA to analyze voice data from patients being treated for serious mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and major depressive disorders. These individuals and their treating clinicians used the MyCoachConnect interactive voice and mobile tool, created and hosted on the Chorus platform at UCLA, to provide voice diaries related to their mental health states. SAIL then collaborated with UCLA researchers to apply AI to listen to hundreds of voicemails using custom software to detect changes in patients’ clinical states.  The SAIL AI was able to match clinicians’ ratings of their patients.

“Machine learning allowed us to illuminate the various clinically-meaningful dimensions of language use and vocal patterns of the patients over time and personalized at each individual level,” said senior author Dr. Shri Narayanan, Niki and Max Nikias Chair in Engineering and Director of SAIL at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Tracking changes in clinical states is important, say the researchers, to detect if there is a change that shows that condition has improved or worsened that would warrant the need for changing treatment.

“Listening to people has always been at the core of psychiatry.  Our approach builds on that fundamental technique to hear what people are saying using modern AI. We hope this will help us better understand how our patients are doing and transform mental health care to be more personalized and proactive to what an individual needs,” said lead author of the study Dr. Armen Arevian, Director of the Jane and Terry Semel Institute Innovation Lab which focuses on the interdisciplinary intersection of mental health, neuroscience and technology.

This project builds on SAIL’s body of work in behavioral machine intelligence to analyze psychotherapy sessions to detect empathy of addiction counselors-in- training in order to improve their chances of better outcomes, in addition to the Lab’s work analyzing language for cognitive diagnoses and legal processes.

The next step in this joint research is to scale up this individualized approach to a larger population over longer time periods of observation.

NuTy’s Proprietary HPP Preservation Technology Keeps Food Fresh, Healthier & Safer

NuTy became India’s first company to launch extended shelf-life, ready-to-eat curries, and meals using non-thermal cold pasteurization through its proprietary cooking process aided by HPP (High-Pressure Processing) technology. NuTy is also India’s first omnichannel Food-As-A-Service company using modern food technologies, processes and logistics to offer gratifying, healthy meal options affordably. NuTy’s multi-pronged vision is to help satiate every appetite through authentically curated regional cuisines, reducing waste and also enhancing livelihood by creating micro food-entrepreneurs. NuTy, a venture of Tulita Ahara Pvt Ltd., has its high-tech HPP meal factory in Hosur with a meal processing capacity of 5 tons-per-day. The company has invested US$ 5million in building the facilities and building its network so far.

Ray Nathan, Co-founder, NuTy, a serial entrepreneur with successful exits from his earlier ventures, said, "Food is among the most basic of human needs, and most often working urban millennial’s have to make compromises of taste, health or money every day due to non-availability of any existing options. A balanced diet is a primary human need and therefore we have focused on ready-to-eat meals that are affordable, nutritious, tasty, hygienic food with a long shelf-life. We source produce from farmers to ensure quality and cost, we are careful to ensure genuine regional recipes, and give our meals shelf-life of up to 60 days through our proprietary HPP technology without any artificial additives added."

Adding to this Naveen Chander, Co-founder, NuTy, said, "Our new curries range with 30 options allows any individual or food-entrepreneur to increase food variety, with least trouble and minimal investment. We aim to be India’s kitchen and will have a reach in 500 cities and towns by 2023 and would have created 200,000 micro food-entrepreneurs by then. Food habits of new India are changing rapidly, kitchen time is reducing and work-led migration leads to the non-availability of the foods we love most. NuTy has truly brought together the combination that was hitherto thought impossible in Ready-To-Eat meals."

“We are scaling rapidly and we expect to cover the top 50 cities in India by the end of 2020. By 2023 we expect to be within a two-kilometer reach of any customer, with large cities have over 1000 points-of-sale (POS), medium-size cities having 300 to 500 POS and small cities having 100 POS. We will be available through grocery delivery apps like Big Basket and Amazon by the middle of next month and other hyper-local delivery apps by the middle of 2020. Soon everyone can enjoy a healthy, nutritious and tasty NuTy meal on-demand,” said Nitin Bhatt Group VP Sales & Marketing NuTy. 

About NuTy:

NuTy is India’s first Food-as-a-service brand offering Home-style ready-meals based on regional recipes. Founded by Ray Nathan and Naveen Chander, NuTy is one of the first food brands in Asia to use HPP technology in fresh curries resulting in superior taste, quality, and nutrition at the same time. NuTy Ready-Meals are available as take-away at hundreds of retail stores and on food-delivery platforms like Swiggy, Zomato, and UberEats.

9stacks.com’s Poker Players Bag Multiple Prizes at IPC Awards 2020

9stacks.com, the best online poker platform for the Indian poker players, has always proved its mettle. This time also it has won the hearts of poker enthusiasts with six of its players winning awards at the Indian Poker Championship(IPC) 2020 in Goa. The IPC kicked off on January 14 and will continue till 19th of this month.

Players from 9stacks bagged Awards in various categories:

Amresh Kumar - PLO (Pot Limit Omaha) Grinder of the year.
Radhika Mahalingaiah - Recreational Player of the year.
Sagar Patnaik - Texas Hold ’em Grinder of the year
Gitanshu Mehta – Midstakes Tournament Player of the year
Anuj Manocha - High stakes Tournament Player of the year
Bhavye Mittal - 9stacks All-Rounder of the year.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sudhir Kamath, CEO & Co-Founder, 9stacks, said, “It is wonderful that so many of our players have been recognized for their success at poker. I extend my heartfelt congratulations to all the young achievers who have performed well in the IPC and want to wish them a great future in poker. 9stacks, with its innovative ideas, has always provided a user-friendly platform to its players and is determined to become the India’s most preferred online poker destination.”

Ever since its inception in 2017, 9stacks.com has been offering emerging professional poker players a chance to compete with the best at live events around the world. This year, 9stacks Team India is participating at the Goa IPC and has previously sent players to Vegas, Manila, Czech Republic and Thailand. In particular, 9stacks has sent dominant teams to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker - in 2018, 25 players represented 9stacks Team India in Vegas, and two of them finished in the top 100 of the 8000-entrant Main Event there. In 2019, as many as 65 players qualified for Vegas, and this year’s LFGVegas3 promotion kicked off next week with a target to enable even more players to chase their Vegas dreams.

As the poker industry continues to grow in India, awards functions like IPC recognize current success stories and encourage more players to play poker, and the ever-increasing numbers for the IPC are proof of this. Live as well as online poker has seen phenomenal growth in India in the last three years.

Herman Miller Unveils Atlas Office Landscape and Cosm Chair for Indian Corporate Market

Herman Miller, Inc., a globally recognized provider of furnishings and related technologies and services, has launched its Atlas Office Landscape workstation and Cosm chair in India. Uniting human-centered design with Herman Miller’s leadership in innovative technology and materials, the company has unveiled these products as a testimony of being at the forefront of modern design, including the evolution of flexible workstations.  The company has already bagged customers for its new range of Atlas Office Landscape like Apple India, Manguard Plus, one of Ireland's leading private security service providers, offering clients professional solutions to their security needs in the Indian market.

This comes at the back of Herman Miller opening a new 2500 sq. ft. state-of-the-art office facility in the heart of Bangalore, supporting India and various other geographies across the world in terms of design, IT, R&D, finance and others.

Atlas Office Landscape designed by internationally acclaimed designer Tim Wallace, is an exceptional demonstration of responding to the new culture of workplace design for the 21st century desking requirements. It brings together height-adjustability and collaborative working, while offering flexibility without being constrained by structures. It also provides ergonomic support and is built to fit in almost all workspaces.

Cosm chair uses a revolutionary technology Auto-Harmonic Tilt that instantly responds to the user's body movement when seated and provides optimal support and a more neutral balance. This tilt mechanism is a culmination of two decades of design, research and engineering that is further deepened with Herman Miller’s understanding of how people sit and work. Designed by Studio 7.5, Cosm chair offers unparalleled comfort and performance. TIME Magazine has named Cosm to its list of the 100 Best Inventions of 2019, calling it the ‘pinnacle of personalization’. It has also received the prestigious Red Dot Best of the Best Product Design Award in the ‘Office Chairs’ category.

Jeremy Hocking, President, Herman Miller International said, “With the introduction of Atlas Office Landscape and Cosm chair in India, Herman Miller reinforces the company’s worldwide leadership in workplace innovation and high-performance seating. With our collection of leading brands, a global multi-channel distribution capability and a clear set of strategic priorities, we remain well-positioned to drive sustainable long-term growth.”

The company commenced its operation in 2005 in India and has witnessed a 60% Year-on -Year (YoY) growth in the premium office furniture category and is poised to grow at a pace of 25% in FY 19-20. While the company continues to focus on key global accounts, it has plans to tap on homegrown business within India.

Speaking on the company’s long-term commitment to the India and APAC market, Kartik Shethia, Vice President, Herman Miller Asia Pacific said, “India has always been and will continue to be one of the most promising and dynamic markets for Herman Miller. We are focused and committed in terms of further investments, channel development, new product introductions and strengthening the team in India. With height adjustable workspace picking up pace here, we felt the necessity to launch Atlas Office Landscape workstation and Cosm Chair in India. We also plan to expand our retail offering and make high-quality products accessible across markets in India and APAC.”

"Over the years, several leading IT players including Amazon India, Adobe, Google, Microsoft and Reliance Jio are all customers of HermanMiller's wide range of office furniture's in India spread across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai," remarks Shethia.

Herman Miller inaugurated its production facility at Bidadi in October 2015 to specifically serve India and neighbouring markets. It has witnessed a growth of 83% in FY 18-19 and is set to achieve a 100% growth in FY 19-20. Many international products have been localised and the company plans to offer new products lines from the India plant soon. The plant now serves more than 70% of the local demand. The company also plans to expand in the retail market with a focus on appointing channel partners in tier II cities. It has already opened an online store and listed few products on Amazon and Flipkart to cater to the digital market.

The Herman Miller Group, with a 100-plus-year history is a family of individually vibrant brands. The family of brands includes Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Design Within Reach, Geiger, HAY, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, naughtone and Nemschoff.

About Herman Miller

Herman Miller is a globally recognized provider of furnishings and related technologies and services.  Since its inception in 1905, the company has relied on innovative design to help people do great things. The global design leader has evolved into Herman Miller Group, a family of brands that collectively offers a variety of products for environments where people live, learn, work, and heal. The family of brands includes Colebrook Bosson Saunders, Design Within Reach, Geiger, HAY, Maars Living Walls, Maharam, naughtone, Nemschoff, and Herman Miller. 

Five Tech Platforms that Help in Reducing Teacher Workload in India

As we move into 2020, the issue of overworked teachers continues to loom large, and answers are proving to be elusive as ever. What may come as a surprise is that teachers have always worked hard; in fact, the median working week has not changed significantly over the last twenty years. With the introduction of EdTech in schools and automating admin can reduce teachers’ workload by and significantly improve teachers’ day-to-day experience. Let’s take a look at some of the leading platforms, which are truly making a difference in reducing the teacher workload.

1. Launched in 2015, Byju's - The Learning App, is a learning app for students across age groups with programmes in English and Hindi that make learning and understanding concepts easier not only for school kids but also saves the time and effort of the teachers. The subject focus of the platform is math and science, and the concepts are explained using 12-20 minute digital animated videos, helping the teachers to express themselves in a better way and at the same time also reduces their workload.

2. TeachNext@Home, the award-winning multimedia content, integrated with world-class tools, lesson plans and assessments, helps students clarify doubts, revise concepts, develop their analytical skills and customise their learning needs at home, ensuring the best possible learning outcomes for students. The quality of the content has been validated through a testing tool, the Learning Objective Evaluation (LOBE) Instrument, developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Meant to enhance the home-learning experience, it helps 21st-century learners to be the architects of their own knowledge anytime, anywhere; helping to reduce teacher workload.

3. With mass adoption of technology Shemford Group of Futuristic Schools, India's most innovative school chain has also taken several steps to reduce teacher workload.  With technology based classroom solutions and standardising the base level of education along with ensuring all students have access to high level of high quality education with the help of AI enabled classrooms, Shemford Group of schools have taken a major to solve specific problems that teachers and schools actually deal with day to day.

4. Poland-based Brainly is designed to help students boost their inquisitiveness with a continuous flow of questions and radical solutions. The startup not just focuses on cracking puzzling questions but also on sharing ideas, deepening insights, and exploring knowledge.Founded in 2009, Brainly is the modern education company uniting students and experts in a fun, interactive world that celebrates understanding. Being the shortcut-free solution for fast-tracked learning it also reduces the workload for teachers. With over 150 million monthly users hailing from more than 35 countries accessing the platform, Brainly is the world’s most trusted, teacher-approved online learning resource.

5. Shiksha knowledge solutions, A highly experienced Lucknow based K-12 solution provider proffering turnkey solutions, has introduced diverse technologies like school management app, principal desk and a digital platform that caters to all stakeholders of the school along with full cycle services, starting from product conceptualization to implementation and support to the teachers and help them resolving as many workload bottlenecks as possible.

All these platforms are effectively eliminating unnecessary workload of teachers by streamlining data management. Research shows, that in school, the teacher is the most important factor on student achievement. It is critical therefore that they should only use technology if it frees and supports them to teach as well as they can.