Can Huawei's Harmony OS give tough competition to Google’s Android?

Agencies
August 12, 2019

The ongoing US-China trade war has done something good for the deep-pocketed Huawei: Create its own ecosystem where it does not need to look at the US tech giants for powering connected devices.

HarmonyOS -- a new microkernel-based, distributed operating system designed to deliver a cohesive user experience across all devices and scenarios -- is one such move which may threaten the dominance of market leader Android from Google in the near future.

HarmonyOS can work across devices, has cross-platform capabilities and support all scenarios - from smartphones to laptops, from smart TVs to Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

For the layman, the kernel is the core of an operating system and a microkernel is a toned-down version for better efficiency and low latency.

Today, Android has 76 per cent of the mobile OS market, followed by iOS at 22 per cent.

HarmonyOS is completely different from Android and iOS and supports seamless collaboration across devices.

You can develop your apps once, then flexibly deploy them across a range of different devices, says Huawei.

Traditionally, new operating systems are released alongside new types of devices.

With HarmonyOS, app developers won't have to deal with the underlying technology for distributed apps, allowing them to focus on their own individual service logic.

Apps built on HarmonyOS can run on different devices while delivering a seamless, collaborative experience across all scenarios.

It will also reduces the response latency of apps by 25.7 per cent, claims Huawei.

HarmonyOS uses a brand-new microkernel design that features enhanced security and low latency.

It can automatically adapt to different screen layout controls and interactions, and support both drag-and-drop control and preview-oriented visual programming.

This will allow developers to more efficiently build apps that run on multiple devices.

HarmonyOS 1.0 will be first adopted in Huawei's smart screen products, which are due to launch later this year.

Over the next three years, HarmonyOS will be optimized and gradually adopted across a broader range of smart devices, including wearables, HUAWEI Vision, and head units for cars.

To encourage broader adoption, Huawei will release HarmonyOS as an open-source platform globally.

"We believe HarmonyOS will revitalize the industry and enrich the ecosystem," says Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's Consumer Business Group.

However, there will be initial problems with its adoption.

According to Patrick Moorhead, ranked top analyst globally and President of Moor Insights & Strategy, with HarmonyOS, the time and investment to port apps will be huge.

"The hardest part will be linkages to peripherals like cameras, fingerprint readers, microphones, AR sensors, which are all API-based to Android APIs, not Harmony," Moorhead tweeted.

It will not be easy to sell HarmonyOS globally, especially when smartphones aren't the initial focus for Huawei.

"The exception is in Huawei's home market of China, where the company has enough clout to attract developers. But this is a global company with global ambitions.

"Internationally, HarmonyOS will face the same problems that felled Windows Phone and Tizen and other aspiring Android and iOS alternatives: Without apps, no one buys the devices. If no one owns the devices, developers don't bother tailoring apps," said a report on Wired.com.

Whether HarmonyOS will be a great platform for connected devices, only the time will tell but the road ahead is not easy especially when Google is also developing a similar operating system.

Google's Fuchsia, which is in the works is also an open source, microkernel operating system, designed to work across IoT and connected devices.

Google is slowly beginning to open up about its next-generation operating system which will take Huawei HarmonyOS head on.

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Washington D.C: One of the greatest spectacles of modern art is still thriving in the Australian outback as confirmed by satellite imagery of NASA. The Marree Man is a massive geoglyph depicting an aboriginal hunter, that spans over 2.6 miles in the Southern Australian region.

Discovered by a pilot in 1998, its origin still remains a mystery even to this date.

The Marree Man was given a new lease of life in 2016 when a group of people from the neighboring town of Marree plowed its lines to avert its fading due to erosion.

After NASA shared the image of the art-work that was taken in June, the efforts of the good samaritans turned out to be a total success, reported CNN Travel.

The restoration team believes that the refurbished Marree Man would last longer than its original version.

According to NASA, "They [the team] created wind grooves, designed to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation. They hope that eventually, the man will turn green."

In a previous article, CNN reported that an entrepreneur by the name of Dick Smith took upon himself to unravel the geoglyph's mystery in 2016. His team combed through all the available evidence but couldn't find anything conclusive.

In 2018 he even offered a 5,000 Australian dollar reward for anyone who knows the identity of its creator.

Nobody turned up with an answer but it was speculated that unknown artist lives in Alice Springs or even might be an American.

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Agencies
March 10,2020

New Delhi, Mar 10: Crisis-hit Yes Bank on Tuesday said that it has enabled inward IMPS and NEFT services.

The move allows people to send money from other bank accounts to their Yes Bank account through IMPS (Immediate Payment Service) and NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer) mode.

In a tweet, the bank also said that Yes Bank customers can pay their credit card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts.

"Inward IMPS/NEFT services have now been enabled. You can make payments towards YES BANK Credit Card dues and loan obligations from other bank accounts. Thank you for your co-operation. @RBIA @FinMinIndia," said tweet.

Last week Yes Bank was placed under moratorium and a withdrawal cap of Rs 50,000 was imposed till April 3.

The administrator of Yes Bank, Prashant Kumar and Rajnish Kumar, the Chairman of the State Bank of India are hopeful that moratorium would be lifted within a week.

As per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) draft reconstruction scheme for the crisis-hit private lender, the SBI will take up 49 per cent in the bank by investing Rs 2,450 crore.

The new board of directors will stand constituted from the appointed date. It will comprise a CEO and MD, non-executive chairman and non-executive directors. The SBI will have nominee directors appointed on the board of the reconstructed bank.

The RBI may appoint additional directors to the board, who shall continue in office for one year, or until an alternate board is constituted by Yes Bank.

The SBI will not reduce its holding below 26 per cent before completion of three years from the date of infusion of the capital.

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Agencies
July 2,2020

Leiden, Jul 2: Astronomers have discovered a luminous galaxy caught in the act of reionizing its surrounding gas only 800 million years after the Big Bang.

The research, led by Romain Meyer, PhD student at UCL in London, UK, has been presented at the virtual annual meeting of the European Astronomical Society (EAS).

Studying the first galaxies that formed 13 billion years ago is essential to understanding our cosmic origins. One of the current hot topics in extragalactic astronomy is 'cosmic reionization,' the process in which the intergalactic gas was ionized (atoms stripped of their electrons).

Cosmic reionization is similar to an unsolved murder: We have clear evidence for it, but who did it, how and when? We now have strong evidence that hydrogen reionization was completed about 13 billion years ago, in the first billion years of the universe, with bubbles of ionized gas slowly growing and overlapping.

The objects capable of creating such ionized hydrogen bubbles have however remained mysterious until now: the discovery of a luminous galaxy in which 60-100 percent of ionizing photons escape, is likely responsible for ionizing its local bubble. This suggests the case is closer to being solved.

The two main suspects for cosmic reionization are usually 1) a population of numerous faint galaxies leaking ~10 percent of their energetic photons, and 2) an 'oligarchy' of luminous galaxies with a much larger percentage (>50 percent) of photons escaping each galaxy.

In either case, these first galaxies were very different from those today: galaxies in the local universe are very inefficient leakers, with only <2-3 percent of ionizing photons escaping their host. To understand which galaxies governed cosmic reionization, astronomers must measure the so-called escape fractions of galaxies in the reionization era.

The detection of light from excited hydrogen atoms (the so-called Lyman-alpha line) can be used to infer the fraction of escaping photons. On the one hand, such detections are rare because reionization-era galaxies are surrounded by neutral gas which absorbs that signature hydrogen emission.

On the other hand, if this hydrogen signal is detected it represents a 'smoking gun' for a large ionized bubble, meaning we have caught a galaxy reionizing its surroundings. The size of the bubble and the galaxy's luminosity determines whether it is solely responsible for creating this ionized bubble or if unseen accomplices are necessary.

The discovery of a luminous galaxy 800 million years after the Big Bang supports the scenario where an 'oligarchy' of bright leakers emits most of the ionizing photons.

"It is the first time we can point to an object responsible for creating an ionized bubble, without the need for a contribution from unseen galaxies.

Additional observations with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will enable us to study further what is likely one of the best suspects for the unsolved case of cosmic reionization," said Meyer.

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