BOT, OF COURSE!

With SAP’s new tech, bots and other new-age tech are within reach

Ultra-slim, bezel-less, infinity display, lightweight — these are features that most modern smart phones come with. What if some of these features made their way into good old laptops? Except cameras, every other feature of a smart phone can be incorporated in the ‘lappie’, making it cooler, more useful and more attractive to look and hold. Asus has done just that, with its two latest festive offerings — the VivoBook S 15 and the ZenBook UX430.

With a deliberate focus on mobility, performance and style — the three tick-boxes for any smart phone, the Asus VivoBook S15 comes longer battery life than most lappies, along with an ergonomically superior keyboard. Housed in an aluminum chasis, and all of 1.7 mm thickness, the VivoBook S 515 weighs just 1.7 kg. Tablet PCs are turning out to be tricky things. It is not clear who buys them. They are too big to carry around like mobile phones — and bring hardly any additional functionality. They are not versatile enough to replace laptops for serious work. Samsung continues to lead the tablet business in India because it is clever enough to recognise the limitations of the tablet — and work around them. This it does by segmenting. Its latest tablet, the Galaxy Tab A 2017, focuses on just one class of user — the compulsive video viewer. Such buyers want to watch movies on the move, not on television sets. But the largest mobile phones are too small to satisfy them — screen-size-wise. So the Tab A 2017 is eight inches across with what is called a WXGA screen, that at 1280 by 800 pixels, is not quite full HD. However it can record in full HD video format. The cameras (8 MP rear with autofocus and flash; 5 MP front) are just adequate and nothing to shout about. But by using a hefty 5000 mAh battery, Samsung ensures that viewers can go on a 14 hour video binge between recharges. I found the brightness, a pluspoint when viewing movies outdoors or in a vehicle. There is also a useful blue light filter for viewing video in bed. Considering the core customer for this device, I would have liked to have seen more onboard storage. The 2GB RAM is less than many phones and the 16 GB solid state storage will hardly fit in half a dozen movies. One has to bank on the microSD (up to 256 GB) to carry your portable movie or music video library. When dad’s away, the kids do play — and this tab has a nice Kids Mode with a safe game launcher. The OS is the latest Android Nougat with no added frills. Samsung has also installed an avatar of its smart assistant — Bixby Home — but without the voice extensions. Exploiting this feature, may take some practice. At `17,999, the Galaxy Tab A 2017 may find buyers whose movie mania may make the platform worthwhile. At some point of time, we have all tried our hand at online shopping, then be it for apparel, electronics, or groceries While the sheer range of stuff available and the fast delivery speeds are great, what is more exciting is something we don’t see — which happens in the backend. A recent SAP executive summit in Mumbai, showcased a company called iFuture Robotics that has tied up with hyper-local shopping sites. The company has installed robots in the Bangalore warehouses of Big Basket and they sort and classify orders in real-time. The robots are intelligent enough to read RFID tags, and since every customer order cart is associated with a unique ID, the bots are able to know when a filled cart is ready for dispatch. They pull out the relevant cart and place it in the correct bay, based on area of delivery. Powered by SAP’s cloud-based machine learning, Internet of Things and analytics capabilities, many companies like iFuture are creating uniquely Indian solutions that truly leverage the power of new-age technologies. SAP has harnessed such new-age technologies to provide to its existing and new customers, a plethora of cloud-based solutions . New-age tech, for starters includes machine learning, Internet of Things, Blockchain, analytics and big data. SAP’s new offering for India — called SAP Leonardo — allows companies of all sizes to simply come on-board and ‘buy’ any of these solutions off the cloud and plug-in to create solutions. Also, existing SAP users who are currently using their in-memory database — SAP HANA — can automatically connect to these applications. The beauty of new age technologies, is that they do not require huge investments or hardware. All you need is a bright idea. You can truly give life to that special path-breaking idea that has been running in your head. Go on, do not let anything cloud your idea. On second thoughts, let your innovations be completely clouded!