ISRO, MapmyIndia team up to take on Google Maps/Earth

 In a bid to take on Google Maps, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and digital mapping and location-based deep-tech company MapmyIndia on Friday announced a new initiative to offer a fully indigenous, mapping portal and geospatial services.The services will be combining the power of MapmyIndia's digital maps and technologies with ISRO's catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data.

Through the combined partnership with ISRO, MapmyIndia's end-user maps, apps, and services would be a much better, more detailed, and comprehensive, as well as privacy-centric, hyper-local, and indigenous mapping solution for Indians, compared to foreign map apps and solutions, the company said.

"This partnership with ISRO heralds a new dawn of Aatmanirbhar Bharat in the strategic area of maps and geospatial technologies," Rohan Verma, CEO & Executive Director, MapmyIndia, said in a statement.

"You don't need Google Maps/Earth any longer", Verma said in the headline in an article on LinkedIn.

Users will also benefit hugely from the various map-based analytics and insights about weather, pollution, agricultural output, land-use changes, flood and landslide disasters, among others, the company said.

MapmyIndia said its maps and APIs (application programming interfaces) will enrich ISRO's geoportals.

It will empower Indian scientists, academia, researchers, and government organisations with the best of India's satellite imagery, earth observation data, and digital map data, and advanced geospatial technologies, all combined together in a fully indigenous ISRO-MapmyIndia platform, the company added.

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These teenpreneurs are making wildlife conservation cost effective

Climate change has caused the extinction rate of species to increase 1,000x as compared to the natural extinction rate. Due to this, the migration patterns of a lot of avian and marine species have been affected, which means they are more susceptible to predation and their reproduction is also affected. As a result, their numbers start to dwindle, and they move into the endangered category before becoming extinct.

In an attempt to help solve this problem, teenagers Akarsh Shroff and Rakshak Gowda came up with a Femto-satellites based wildlife monitoring system, to help conservationists and research organisations collect data about the migration patterns of species via biotagging. “Though there are existing systems like ICARUS and ARGOS, the problem is they cannot track various smaller avian species and some deep sea marine species since these have an extended handshaking period [time it takes to exchange signals between the transmitter (biotag) and receiver (satellite)] and the size of the biotag is large,” says Gowda. 

They started work on the system in 2019 and set up a company, Grey Night, in July 2020. The duo is building a network of 17 Femto-satellites (miniaturised satellites that weigh less than 100 grams) to be launched in a low Earth orbit (satellites with orbital altitude under 1,000 km). Shroff explains, “With our patent pending technology, we will be able to reduce tracking costs, decrease the transmission energy, have lower handshaking periods and will be able to track deep-sea marine species as well, since our biotags will be smaller.

”Through Grey Night, Shroff and Gowda are planning to cater to wildlife conservation organisations that need migration data of species. “Currently, they [organisations] are charged anywhere between $7,000 and $9,000 but using our technology—where our capital expenditure will be reduced—we will be able to provide our tracking services at a 20 percent reduced cost,” says Shroff, 20. About $800 million is spent on tracking over 1,000 species annually, and this is projected to grow to about $3.8 billion in the next five years.

The duo is hoping to capture 15 percent of this market segment in the next five years.They have already received an undisclosed amount of seed funding from a reputed incubator. “We have received one provisional patent, and are in the process of filing five additional patents for the design of our satellites, motherboard and the design of the biotag itself,” says Gowda, 20, who looks after the technical aspects, while Shroff takes care of business. Shroff adds, “We have also made an agreement with the European Space Agency through which they will be covering the launch costs for our first satellite.”The prototype was scheduled to be launched in 18 to 24 months, but the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted their timelines. But Shroff and Gowda are hopeful to have the system fully operational in the next three to three-and-a-half years. Going forward, they are planning to incorporate Grey Night as a US-based company, since they believe space technology and conservation have a lot more scope in the US. “We are also looking at getting into an international space tech accelerator,” says a hopeful Shroff.

This story appears in the 18 December, 2020 issue of Forbes India.

FROM CELL PHONES TO SPACECRAFT – TOUCHSCREENS ARE TAKING OVER UI

 As SpaceX prepares to launch NASA’s Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station, the Crew Dragon spacecraft has already distinguished itself from prior generations of space capsules. 

Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley set off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020, and reached the ISS with no complications while testing out new features designed by the SpaceX team. Onboard were groundbreaking new tools such as the spacecraft’s dashboard. Normally when you see a picture of a cockpit, levers, dials, and gauges fill all the surfaces. Aboard the Dragon though, is a sleek touchscreen and a handful of buttons.

Questioned over their use of a touchscreen for a mission-critical interface, the SpaceX software team took to a Reddit AMA to answer questions. 

According to the team, their goal was to follow a human-centered design. This included safety and “identifying minimum crew interaction as a success criteria.” According to Sofian Hnaide, a SpaceX team member, they mapped out the crew’s tasks. They identified critical functions and then broke it down into a digestible screen display.  

HUMAN-CENTERED DESIGN AND CHROMIUM 

What is “human-centered design” and why is SpaceX prioritizing it? 

Human-centered design, in short, is the idea that people will follow a routine that is intuitive. By increasing accessibility, a task will be easier to accomplish. This can improve safety, efficiency, and happiness among users. 

For example, a person is working in an assembly line and they need to cut a piece of wood. They need to perform this action dozens of times an hour, but they have to travel to get the tools each time. By moving the tools closer productivity improves. Small, simple changes in layout can drastically improve performance and safety. 

With this in mind, the SpaceX software team sat down with Behnken and Hurley to develop the dashboard. Together, they identified all the commands for typical and emergency protocols. 

Then, they identified which data would be mission-relevant and made it part of the main display. Emergency hardware buttons were designed to function in case the display was rendered useless. 

Some of these include: 

Break out button to abort a station approach 

Emergency deorbit 

Execute command 

Cancel command 

Cabin fire response 

The Dragon software team used Chromium to develop their dashboard’s user interface (UI). Chromium is a free and lightweight browser framework. Google uses it as the core for its Chrome browser – which arguably dominates the browser world today. The same code used by people to look up sleeping pug videos helped astronauts reach the International Space Station. 

Per the Reddit AMA, Sofian Hnaide explained Chromium was originally part of a proof of concept to NASA. They hadn’t intended to use it in real-world applications. As testing continued they found the stack to be robust and reliable, so they moved forward with the design. Chromium gave the dashboard modern features and gave the team access to a fluent talent pool. 

Chromium is only surface level though. The dashboard and user interface look straight out of Star Trek, but in reality, it hands off commands to a Linux and microcontroller backend. According to SpaceX, they used a combination of CSS/HTML/Javascript for the displays, C++ for vehicle controls, and Python for testing. 

Linux – an open-source (aka free) operating system that can be highly customizable 

Microcontroller – a tiny specialized computer that’s usually designed to handle a single task (push a lever, release a solenoid valve, etc.) 

AUTONOMOUS AND MANUAL FLIGHT 

So the controls look space-age, but how well do they actually work? 

The ship is designed to be completely autonomous – including docking, landing, and de-orbiting but it does have the option for manual flight. Before the ISS docking process, Behnken and Hurley took the Dragon for two manual flights. Hurley ran through a series of commands to test out the controls. 

In a TechCrunch interview, Hurley noted, “The difference is you’ve got to be very deliberate when you’re putting in input, relative to what you would do with a stick,” he continued. “Because you know, when you’re flying an airplane for example, if I push the stick forward it’s going to go down. I actually have to make a concerted effort to do that with the touchscreen, if that makes sense.” He followed on to say that for the docking process “the touchscreen is gonna provide us that capability just fine.” For future space tourism, this touchscreen will probably become the new normal. 

If you’re interested in trying it out SpaceX made a simulator for the Dragon docking process. The key is patience and remaining calm as you approach the station. The controls are relatively simple and intuitive. Enjoy! 

Source: rocketstem.org

Reliance Jio unveils JioGlass to expand presence in virtual reality space

 Reliance Jio on Wednesday unveiled JioGlass to strengthen its presence in virtual reality space and capitalise on remote working culture triggered by Covid-19 pandemic.

The concept of digital glass and product was started by Google a few years back. The unveiling of Jio Glass coincided with Google's Rs 33,737 crore investments in Jio Platforms for 7.7 per cent stake.

"Jio Glass comes with a convenient cable that you can attach to your phone and thus connect to the internet. It is at cutting edge of the technology that provides best in class mixed reality service," Reliance Jio Infocomm President Kiran M Thomas said at RIL annual general meeting (AGM).

It has an in-built audio system and it can make calls to contact on voice command.

"In times of Covid-19, ways of working and workspace have completely changed and digital collaborations have seen an exponential growth. We can completely imagine this in mixed reality space. With Jio Glass, you could be sitting at home and join a meeting in your office with your colleagues in three dimensions," the presenter said.

While Thomas did not disclose the price of JioGlass, e-commerce platforms show similar digital glass with access to apps and internet in the price range of around Rs 37,000- Rs 40,000 a unit.

"While you are chatting with your colleagues, you can also share presentations that you will be able to view and present on a large virtual screen in any virtual environment you want with the help of JioGlass," he noted.

JioGlass is enabling teachers to conduct hologram class in 3D virtual rooms, Thomas said.

Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) director Isha Ambani said that Jio is committed to solve the problem being faced in education and health space though.

"With Jio meet you can conduct daily online assemblies for your entire schools and hold full day sessions as there is no limit on number of students or call duration," Isha Ambani said.

The company is also working to resolve the issue of shortage in teachers as well issues around untrained teachers through the "Embibe" platform where students can pick content of any class and improve their learnings, she added.

The company also announced making television watching interactive, as Jio TV plus users can now participate in TV programmes for voting etc in real time.

"We believe interactivity on the TV or two-way communication is the future of consumption," RJIL director Akash Ambani said.

Jio has brought in all the major over-the-top video entertainment apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Hotstar etc on its Jio TV plus which users can access through a click of button on the remote doing away with the need for separately logging in to each application.

Source: business-standard