Google Self Driven Cars Finally Seen On Roads Reports The Verge

Google's autonomous car prototypes seen in California.

Google Inc. the search engine giant recently announced that it is working on a prototype of its self-driven cars. These prototypes were expected to hit the Californian roads soon. In accordance to a report published by the tech based website The Verge such prototypes have now been spotted at the Grand State.

Ironically, things are not as they were shown the previous year. Previously, these cars were said to be completely self-driven. However, the cars that have been seen on the roads come up with a professional driver along with override controls that can be sued for manual use. The reason why the company has come up with these features is to make sure that the vehicle does not lose control and accidents do not occur. So this actually means that these vehicles are similar to the Lexus SUVs that are autonomously governed through the “Google’s Mountain View Campus”.

As reported, the self-driven cars by Google are extremely safe and do not boast of any problem whatsoever. But this is actually very weird, since it has been reported earlier that these self-driven cars of Google earlier caused 11 accidents in total. As a response to this allegation, Google Products and services went into the details of the incident to actually give a clearer picture.

According to the tech behemoth, the incidents termed as accidents which actually took place were extremely minor and did not post of big vulnerabilities. They also argued that the behavior of individuals which is extremely prone to errors can actually lead to a better algorithm. This actually results in more safety for the consumer.

Other than that, the company has also come up with a website that will allow drivers to gauge their experiences while experiencing the self-driven vehicle. This will allow other people to know more about the project through firsthand experience. Moreover, it will also allow Google to know what the audiences think about its product. As mentioned by the company earlier, Google is keen to conduct self-driven pilot projects in the coming few years before it actually officially launches these cars to the consumers across the globe.

Hence in a nutshell, Google has come up with something relatively different than what it promised earlier. Initially, the concept behind this car was completely autonomous but now it has a human touch to it. The idea to give manual power is actually a good decision as it curbs the chances of mayhem but kills the feeling of an autonomous car.

Google Faces Competition From Facebook In The Video Market

Facebook is all set to challenge Google in the online video market.

Google Inc. and Facebook are two of the giant companies in the information technology sector. Furthermore, both of these companies are the leaders in their own market and have been the dominant force for quite a long time now. Google is expanding at a very fast pace to keep up with the fast pace technology world and Facebook is doing the same as well to sustain its market position and status. The recent news regarding both companies is that they are set to take on each other but in a very different market than usual.

According to The New York Post, Google and Facebook will be battling each other in a very different market of online videos. Previously, these both tech giants used to take on each other in the advertisement market where the competition was very tough. However, Facebook leads the market of advertisements by a major chunk followed by Google, Twitter, and Yahoo right behind it. The New York Post writes “Google and Facebook were facing off for ad dollars here this week, with both companies operating out of huge beachside booths to pitch marketers on their offerings.”

As it stands now, Google dominates the online video market. Undoubtedly, Google is the uncrowned king of the industry and all credit goes to its ownership of YouTube. However, reportedly Facebook is working on a strategy to take on Google. Furthermore, sources familiar to the matter suggest that the social media giant has ‘much more diverse set of assets’.

An executive at one agency stated “You look at Facebook and see Instagram, Whatsapp and Oculus Rift, and you’re starting to see how they all come together. It must be very scary for Google to see that.” It is right that not only Facebook is beefing up its online videos segment but all other social media companies are turning their focus to this thing. Hence, Google and YouTube will have to take certain actions in order to sustain their market status and position in the coming time.

As mentioned above, it is possible that Instaram and WhatsApp must not be working on it on the same level as Facebook is. But YouTube is still here to reign over all other online video platforms.

It would be exciting to see how Facebook bring its A game to dethrone the market leader in the coming times. Mark Zuckerberg realizes the importance and significance of online videos hence he is all set to capitalize on it.

Apple iPhone Sales To Reach 53 Million In Third Quarter

As reported by Morgan Stanley, Apple iPhone sales likely to hit 53 million units in Q3.

Apple Inc., the tech behemoth is all set to schedule a time where they will reveal their earnings for the third trimestral when July FY15 ends. The company has been extremely successful with the rampant popularity of Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. This has resulted in the tech giant to grow considerably in each trimestral. However, analyst at The Street believe that the popularity of iPhones is likely to experience a downfall since the refresh cycle issue is becoming an issue for users.

An AlphaWise survey was conducted by Morgan Staley that will help them to track the demand for iPhone for the three month tenure ending in June. According to the survey, Apple is back in the game where it might sell around 53 million iPhone units during the current trimestral. This forecast, however, remains unchanged to what they predicted in May.

Katy Huberty, an analyst at Morgan Stanley believes that the growing markets have immense potential where China is likely to drive growth for them. The Chinese market has demands that are relatively late in the production cycle. Huberty highlights that the results of AlphaWise survey seem to be on par with the supply chain checks that took place recently for Apple.

According to Jasmine Lu, the tech analyst for Morgan Stanley believes that the company will be able to sell almost 54 million units of its flagship smartphone.

Huberty further believes that if all other aspects are monitored and remain constant, the three million devices according to the survey along with the 50 million other units estimations made for the iPhone would result in an increase in revenues by $.8 billion for the company. This would actually result in an 11 percent increase considering “Morgan Stanley’s EPS estimate of $1.82.”

Apart from that, the tracker by the Morgan Stanley for Apple Watch clearky highlights that the need for Apple iPhones has now stabilized at a 20 percent higher if considering that the first iPhone took almost six weeks to its launch. According to Huberty, “"Watch interest in the week of launch was about half that for the first iPhone, but the Watch has seen a much smaller deceleration since the initial spike.”

Hence, in a nutshell, Morgan Stanley has made an estimate which will not be so difficult for Apple to achieve considering the immense popularity of their products and services with the masses. The company has established itself as a reputable brand and this will help to sale swiftly in the long run.

Microsoft Xbox Head Advocates Right To Choose Own Gaming Platform

Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft gaming division talks about Microsoft Xbox One.


Microsoft Corporation has reportedly won over several games after the company completed a successful round of Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). Previously, the rival of Microsoft, Sony Corp. was successful in pulling off such activities over the past couple of years. The company now is determined to bolster its gaming division. On the other hand, HoloLens will also be launched in the coming fall. This is likely to comprise of backward compatibility along with an engaging integration between personal computers and Microsoft Xbox along with Windows 10.

The tech behemoth believes that the best thing to do now is integrate personal computers with Microsoft Xbox One that will allow gamers to choose their preferred platform to play games. There is good news for typical personal computers gamers since many popular video gaming companies with top notch games like Killer Instinct, Fable etc. will now be able to entertain them. The chances to have these games on personal computers were initially negligible but the paradigms might change now.

Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft Studios and Microsoft Xbox division mentioned how he really wants to establish Xbox as the best gaming console present in the market. The idea he wishes to implement is that gamers get the opportunity to play on various platforms like PC and TV. According to him, "As a gamer I play games on PC… I want to be able to play the games where I want to play them…” The idea is to provide consumers with alternates.

He further highlighted the aforementioned statement by saying, that there is a back channel present which he does not really wish to subscribe. It is a requirement to keep users intrigued and giving them various platforms which has now become the answer. So keeping this in mind, Mr. Spencer wishes to give Microsoft users various choices and make gaming on Xbox the best possible user experience. He states, “I’m not on my TV and I’m on my laptop, and want to play killer instinct, I want to play gear, I want to play fable, I should be able to do that and to try force people to buy something by excluding their choice.”

Mr. Spencer currently believes that the company is currently off track now particularly when it comes to PC gaming. However, at this point such comments by the head of Microsoft gaming division clearly indicates that the company is now focused towards making its gaming platform better and will also open it to various platforms.

Google's Psychedelic Picture Quest Resolved

Google and Facebook coming up with a futuristic image learning algorithm.

Google Inc. the search engine giant and Facebook Inc. the social media giant have collaborated to work on a system that will be designed to function as an artificial neural network. It is extremely interesting to learn that both the companies have not only become successful in reaching their objective that will allow them to identify images but will also assist them in automatically generating pictures through what the machine learns on its own.

Currently, the machine has the capability to recognize buildings, faces, cars and other objects of similar nature. Moreover, it also has the ability to create such images on its own. The machine follows a set pattern which makes it able to comprehend to the trends and patterns. This bears striking resemblance with the human cognition that takes use of cognitive reasoning to function.

It is said that the first algorithm is assigned to make the picture on an arbitrary vector whereas the second is responsible to match it with real looking objects. Moreover, it can also nullify bogus images so that a more definite result can be obtained.

Both the companies recently tested the images where they asked people to choose the real image from the bogus images. Ironically, 40 percent of the population was actually fooled by the fake images. According to a researcher working on the artificial intelligence platform of Facebook believes that the technology has the potential to decipher the abstract form of images. This can be done through the white noise pictures found on TV sets. Apart from that, it has the ability to locate images that are governed from someone’s camera that will be under the influence and structure of the imagery pattern.

Apart from this, Google products and services are also working on another project where an image taken by any user has the ability to detect any type of birds present in the sky. Although the results greatly depend on the quality and resolution of the image, howver, a trial and error mechanism needs to be used to come up with more accurate results.

Both the companies now wish to make the mechanism better so that it can develop the imagery along with adding more test trials so that it can assist further in machine learning.

Facebook and Google have taken a great step that is not only different but will also change the fate of augmented reality. It is extremely enchanting to know that whether other firms will actually be interested to work with this technology that has an image learning algorithm to facilitate virtual reality in the times to come.

Apple Music Likely To Face Competition And Criticism

Apple Music has to deal with rivalry, criticism and competition before its launch.

Apple Inc.’s annual World Wide Developers Conference for the year 2015 took place earlier this month. The highlight of the show were the launch of its much awaited online music streaming service Apple Music along with the launch of their upcoming operating system for Apple products.

The WWDC broadcasted Apple Music to a great extent. The idea behind this service is to bring users and music streaming under one consolidated umbrella. It is said that this service will be a direct competitor to Tidal and Spotify where the former holds almost 49 percent of the total market share. The Swedish platform has a strong position and it will be relatively difficult for Apple Music to overthrow them so easily. Spotify is not really a major threat. The service has 60 million active users among which only one-fourth of them actually pay for the service.

Apple’s entry into the online music industry is not something astonishing. The company previously acquired Beats Electronics the previous year for $3.2 billion which is said to be a record-breaking deal. Apart from that, the company has immense success with its music downloading platform iTunes.

Apple faced its first setback in FY13 since its launch which occurred 10 years back since the online music subscription trend rose by 50 percent in that tenure. So now when Apple is actually coming up with its own online music streaming service, then the impact will be observed on iTunes as the trend of digital downloads will further decline. This is quite similar to how initially Apple iPhones took over the iPods because of their mass storage capacity.

Apple Music is the first initiative by the company to enter the music streaming market so at this point users will not be comfortable in shelving out $10 monthly if they don’t know what the service actually holds for them. So the company has announced a three-month free trial to its customers so that they get the heck of it.

Recently, the company dealt with criticism when one of the renowned pop icons, Taylor Swift decided to remove her popular alum from Apple Music since the company decided not to pay artists during the free three month trial period. So Apple had to deal with criticism and eventually decided to pay artists during the free three month trial period.

Thus Apple Music does have its pros and cons but the response can only be governed once it is officially launched by the company.

Apple and IBM Collaborate To Develop Education App

Apple and IBM work on an education app dubbed as Student Achievement App.

According to a recent report by Coppell Gazette, International Business Machines Corp. and Apple Inc. are collaborately working on an education app that is aimed towards providing teachers a platform that will allow them to do data analytics of students in real time.

The executives belonging to Apple and IBM have called this education suite as “Student Achievement App” submitting the concept to the trustees of Coppell ISD Board. The global head of IB’s business service division Mr. Alex Kaplan who specializes in customized learning and education through cloud solutions has associated the concept of this application to the excitement that individuals shows when a Game of Thrones season finale is about to get released.

“The idea here is we want to stimulate adoption,” Mr. Kaplan mentioned while sharing insights through a presentation about this project to the trustees of Coppell ISD Board. The idea behind this app is to make teaching efficient and more exciting than it is currently. Moreover, it will provide new ways for teachers to work. Both the companies at this point have not revealed many details, but it is certain that through this application, the teachers will get assistance in making decisions. Many also believe that this app might completely change the current evaluation concept for students.

The application is likely to make use of data analytics in real time and technology to come up with a predictive model for the student and teacher success. The app can be customized according to the student’s level, incurred subjects, and the accessibility. He further stated that the main goal of this app is to allow teachers to make a decision in real time for the students considering their grades and data.

IBM and Apple have decided to launch a pilot program for the Student Achievement App in almost four districts in the United States that includes New Tech High School, Lee Elementary, and Coppell Middle School North.

Both the companies understand the potential of this application thus they are working aggressively to make it all happen. Mr. Jeff Douglas, the Business leader for IBM’s education analytics claims that a prototype will be ready in the coming two or three months.

Hence, IBM and Apple have come up with a major breakthrough in the field of education that will not only make teaching efficient but will also make the life easier of teachers who spend a good amount of time on students grade evaluation. This is an innovative venture with immense growth potential.