IBM Comes Up With First Responder App Contest

IBM initiates the Responder Application Challenge to deal with disasters.

The world has been condemning the ISIS terror attacks that took place in Paris. So many companies belonging to the tech world are now skeptical where most of them are gearing up to prepare for worst scenarios. Some companies are now particularly focusing on disaster recovery where others have had eyes on disaster management since a fairly long span of time. The International Business Machines Corp. recently came up with a contest that will allow the developers to get access to their cloud computing platform so that they can motivate developers to come up with “disaster response-related app”

The attacks on the Parisians occurred on Friday evening where more than 129 people lost their lives whereas hundreds of individuals were reported injured. So to deal with the situation, IBM for the first time since its inception has come up with a Responder Application Challenge that will be running till December, 14, 2015.

A spokesperson belonging to the company has cleared that despite the contest was revealed three days after the Paris attack took place, but the idea was being improved by the company since the past couple of months but the launch date of the venture was decided to be November, 17, 2015.

Responder Application Challenge is in collaboration with Vencore which is an information solutions platform that offers services in analytics and engineering. The latter firm currently caters to the United States government.

It has also been reported that Vencore and IBM are also in talks with the officials belonging to Association of Public-Safety Communications and United States Geospatial and Intelligence Foundation. The idea behind this collaboration is to come up with an app ecosystem that makes way for mobile apps and predictive analytics so that the responders get the opportunity to show better efficiency.

The applications will be devised and built on the cloud platform of IBM where the aim is to leverage data so that the first responder hindrances can get solved with ease.

According to Anne Altman, IBM U.S. Federal and Government Industries’ General Manage mentioned in a statement, “The best innovation takes place when you drive toward a common goal.” She further added, “And it’s no different in government, where an ecosystem of developers, academia, technologists and others come together to address challenges.”

So now IBM is giving a platform to developers so that situations like the Paris attacks have some mercy in the form of disaster management. It is high time other tech giants do the same.

iPad Pro Launch Improves Apple Inc. Shares During The 6S Launch Event

The smartphone giant, Apple Inc.’s new release affected the share price of the company, reached the height, and showed improvement.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock eventually followed a different trend during its release event on Wednesday. Chief Executive Officer of Sarhan Capital, Adam Sarhan, acknowledged that if the smartphone company did not put forward a charming innovation, people might observe the slide in the company’s share in the short-term period. With respect to the event, the shares fell somewhere around 2% with the closing rate of $ 110.15.

The smartphone company started its highly expected launch event on Wednesday in San Francisco and as the ceremony started, Apple shares showed an incline by 1.5% reaching the height of $114.02 during the afternoon trading session, after the release of advance and supersized iPad Pro.

According to an update from sources, the marketing executive officer, Phil Schiller, introduced a strategy, named as “iPhone Upgrade Program”, which follows the trend to provide new mobiles with advance configurations every year to the users to attract their attention for a monthly fee of $32.

Apple stock eased some of its losses during the afternoon session later. The price tag of the advance iPhone 6S would lay in between the range of $199 to $399, and the price range of iPhone 6S Plus would be $299 to $499. The cellphone company acknowledged that the pre-ordering for the latest iPhone would start from September 12, and these smartphones would be in a reach of customers by September 25, all over the world.

For the time being, iOS will be there across other devices on September 16. Mr. Schiller affirmed that previous versions of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be priced low. The company’s shares showed a downward steep by 0.5% and traded at $111.70 per share.

Apple stated that the new version of the iPhone would be launched with the 12-megapixel camera equipped in it and improved touch ID finger print sensor, which is much faster than the old version.

According to Phil Schiller, the mobile producer traded around 1% low after CEO Tim Cook revealed its new versions, iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. Moreover, CEO of the Apple Inc. stated in order to promote its new releases, "While the may look familiar, we have changed everything about these new iPhones."

The improved multi-touch in new phones is known as the “3D Touch.” The company claimed to have taken the touch feature to a new level by introducing 3D Touch. Loyalists are impatient to experience the innovation first-hand. Only time would tell the fate of the innovation.

Bidness Tech - Apple Maps Might Be Useful In Apple Cars

The iPhone makers have been lately working on Apple Maps which might turn out to be for the upcoming car that the firm is working on.

Three years back in 2012, when Apple launched its Apple Maps, the venture was seen as a clumsy step to be taken by a company that has always been praised for its excellent choice of products and software. There were reportedly many shortcomings of the map that took the attention of the analysts as it had many issues regarding reaching out to place out of its reach. However, the criticism was taken well by the iPhone 6 makers and they have reportedly worked on their mapping app to make it a better one and competitive enough to compete with Google maps. Since the past several quarter, the difference has been seen to be quite eminent in the smartphones released by the Californian Company.

Even though many analysts believe that Apple Maps was introduced in the first place to compete with software rival Google Inc, but some analysts are of the believe that for a company which is famous for earning most of its revenue from the sales of the hardware products it produces, like the iPhone, iPad and Mac, it does not make sense for the firm to come up with a minor mobile app to compete with the giant that has already established itself in the field. Keeping in mind that the Californian firm is capable of making such decisions as spending on new ventures is not a problem for it, considering the $194 billion cash it has in hand, the analysts refuse to believe that this act is just being carried out to satisfy the need complete.

According to recent news, Apple has been working more towards making its mapping app work in a more refined way. As per a report by Motley Fool, it was seen that the software firm bought Coherent Navigation recently and made arrangements to renew its TomTom license, which is responsible to provide assets to the iPhone makers which are essential for the working of the mapping app.

The reason why analysts believe Apple is working more on its mapping app than before shows that the firm is looking at it in a broader perspective than the mere competition. With the help of Apple maps, even though people will increase their demand for iPhones, it is expected that this will come in handy in the Apple Watch which might help the users more.

On the other hand, analysts think that this will turn out to be the most useful in the upcoming car that Apple is reportedly working on and for the firm to spend so much time and focus on the app lately shows that the iPod makers might be thinking the same.