#45 - US 5G problem explained / Drone display on Republic Day / Summon clothes to fitting room
Welcome to another edition of the newsletter. Some bits,
29-Jan-2022. Mark this day. On this day, the Beating the Retreat ceremony in the Republic Day celebrations will have a first of a kind 1000 drone based light display. Botlab Dynamics, an IIT Delhi startup will manufacture these drones. Positioning an array of lighted drones up in the air to make visual sense to the user is a complex technology.
Watch a sample lightshow here.
Amazon Style, a new physical store that will sell only apparel & shoes will go live soon in Los Angeles. And this store is designed to ensure that the customer does not leave the fitting room
New tech alert. The store will display items with only one size. The customer will use an app to summon an item with a specific size to be delivered automatically to the fitting room. Also, a screen in the fitting room will display recommendations .
IBM has sold its Watson Health’s data set and analytics to Francisco Partners for around 1 billion dollars.
Watson’s supercomputing ability was one of IBM’s big bet, but it found less traction amongst it customers and IBM decided to focus on bigger margin bets like AI and Cloud.
Why is 5G a problem in US and not in Europe?
It seems like US airlines are still concerned with 5G interfering with certain airline communications (specifically altimeters) leading to cancellation of airline services that fly Boeing 777 planes. How did Europe avert the issue?
In Europe, the 5G spectrum is 3.4 - 3.8 GHz, whereas in US, it is 3.7 to 3.98 GHz, too close to the 4.2 - 4.4 GHz used by airline radar altimeters.
In addition, European countries have mandated that the 5G antennas must use less power and be titled away from the runways. Whereas in US, the antennas use double the power and are not tilted away from the runways.
Yes, the rollout of 5G will be a mess in US in the near future
Microsoft acquires Activision Blizzard
Microsoft, in a bid to gain a strong foothold into Metaverse and to acquire a good catalog for its booming Xbox subscription service, had acquired game maker Activision Blizzard for a whopping $ 68.7 billion. Microsoft’s last big ticket purchase was LinkedIn for $27 billion.
Mesh, Microsoft’s version of metaverse is expected to go live this year. With this acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the company also acquires a good catalog of games such as Call of Duty, Candy Crush and Warcraft. It will also acquire all e-sports activities of the company.
Recently, Activision Blizzard was in news for lots of sexual harrassment claims, and the company has fired a few employees and promised to revamped its work culture.
Till the next edition, Stay Safe & Stay Healthy,
Best, -Senthil