Know How Flipkart Snapdeal and Amazon Are Funding Discounts!

Online shopping is a rage of late. Owing to the busy lives of people, most do not have time to go to shops every now and then whenever they need to. In these case, online shopping comes as a very convenient option.

The cash on delivery facility is a huge hit in addition to the popular payment modes through credit or debit card options. People are lured in buying online even more due to the attractive discounts that they give. The most popular online shopping sites are Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal. People have built a trust on these sites and they strive to provide effective and competent services to the customers so that they can keep the much needed trust.

The attractive discounts count for the exponential sales on these sites. Here, we will be looking into how Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal funds the discounts that they frequently give to the customers.

How they Fund the Discounts

Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal essentially work as marketplaces. No FDI is imposed on e-commerce in India and these sites make use of this policy itself. FDI is imposed only on those sites, which engages in linking buyers and sellers.

These sites fund the discounts using strategies which are extremely complex and make use of the fact that FDI is not applicable everywhere. The sites see to it that they incur maximum profit by making proper use of the different financial policies of the Indian law.

Even though these sites do not have the power to completely decide on the price or discount on a product, the sites have established for itself a platform where they can make such decisions, owing to their popularity and strength of their business in the market. Most of these sites do not breach laws because their business greatly depends on the reputation they maintain.

These firms deal with the customers directly in these cases. In these cases, it is seen that the site selling the goods keeps a cut for himself from the discounted price and returns the rest of the proceeds to the actual manufacturer of the item.

In case of e-commerce tax is collected on the actual cost of the product and at the price at which is finally sold to the customer. If the customer pays a lesser amount then the tax collected is lesser than what actually must be received if the discount wasn’t allowed. In such cases, thus sellers become eligible for getting a tax refund from the tax department of that particular state.

Online shopping is highly dependent on the discounts given on the various products. These discounts are a testament to show how these sites invest the large amount of money that has been raised from the investors.

An adverse effect of providing such discounts is that the brick and mortar shops are getting highly affected. They have to maintain their establishment costs and thus cannot provide such huge discounts. Shoppers on the other hand are going for profitable discounts available on the Internet.

Air Umbrella

The Air Umbrella – Adjustable to the Power of Storm

The Air Umbrella is the product that has been developed in China which does not use fabric to keep a person dry, but forced air and has been designed by Je Sung Park and Woo Jung Kwon in order to change not only the umbrella’s core design but also to make it adjustable to the power of a storm. The forced air can create a canopy over an individual in the same manner of a traditional fabric designed umbrella, which keep the showers of rain from falling on the person and when the rain subsides or the person has reached the desired location, all that is needed is to put the device in the bag since it is in dry form.

The appearance of the Air Umbrella is a rather big flashlight which consists of a motor and fan which forces the air up thus creating a shield. There is a chargeable battery in the shaft of the umbrella and the base is equipped with a button which can turn the Air Umbrella in `off’ or a `on’ mode and the size of the canopy can be adjusted which can be to anything up to over a meter in diameter or adequate to keep two people dry during the rains.

Device Tested – Remarkable Performance 

This Smart device has been tested at the time of heavy rainfall and according to the people who designed it, has shown remarkable performance.

The concept of the Air Umbrella is that it removes the plastic top from the umbrella replacing it with a wind shield which sucks the air through the bottom and then shoots out at the top in a pattern like a standard canopy.

The power and the canopy size controls are towards the bottom of the shaft which provides the person with the ability to strengthen the force of the air, thereby giving scope to widen the canopy to adjust according to the rainfall.

This would enable the person with protection against storms which a normal umbrella may lack though the air curtain stands a better option to face strong winds than a standard fabric umbrella. The absence of the canopy also saves in shaking off the water before going indoors.

Three Models to be Developed – Launch September 2015

The downside being that it has a motor and the Air Umbrella tends to make some noise though the same is not noticed with the sound of the rain and the air that is pushed by the Air Umbrella pushes the raindrops up to a distance of 70 centimetres away.

Should the rain tend to be come diagonally, all one needs to do is to change the way one holds the Air Umbrella. The cheapest Air Umbrella is offered at a price of $118 though they are being sold at a very fast speed.

There have been three models that will be developed, one being of 30 cm running for 15 minutes on a charge, another of 50 cm running for 30 minutes per charge and the 80 cm version too running for 30 minutes per charge. Presently the battery life is short but the company of Air Umbrella are striving to extend this together with the design within the next ten months and production would probably start somewhere in September 2015.

Ex-Tesla and NASA Engineers Made a Smart Light Bulb

Smart Light Bulb – Alba 

Great are the improvements made by man and with the help of advanced technology, have helped in enhancing the life style of individuals. Neil Joseph and Jovi Gacusan, Ex-Tesla and NASA engineers have partnered together and created a smart light bulb which according to them is an immense difference in the new lamp.

The recently unveiled Alba bulbs have sensor packed illuminator which changes brightness and colour based on the time of the day, location as well as to those who may be present in the room which is the world’s first responsive bulb.The Alba has embedded sensors which enable to respond intelligently to the surrounding atmosphere.

It begins with cooler and a much natural white hues on waking up and can switch to relaxing, warm colours when it tends to get late. It also can dim or shut off the lights whenever there is a good amount of ambient light, or if a person has left for work. Moreover it also can come to life when there is a commotion.

If interested in tweak settings, the mobile app can be used though the goal is to avoid using it as far as possible. Just like a Nest thermostat. Alba tends to learn the appropriate behaviour and enables you to keep the phone device in the pocket.

A 60% to 80% Savings on Electricity Consumption

The idea of the bulb developed when Neil Joseph while sitting around in his office, one sunny day, thought, why the lights should be on with full power when full sunlight came pouring through the windows. This led him to speculate on it resulting in the creation of Alba which is able to sense the lighting in the environment it is placed in and adjust its power accordingly.

He also claims that it can result in a 60% to 80% savings on electricity consumption when compared with the traditional LED lamp, which is already more sustainable than an incandescent lamp. Moreover, the colour of the light can also be controlled.

According to Joseph, it can shine preferably as a bluish light during the morning which can help to stimulate the brain while throughout the day; the lighting could be a more reddish colour to bring about a sense of warmth in the atmosphere.

Launch – First Quarter of 2015

Besides this, the Alba is also capable of learning the routine of the people that live within a house and can also predict when the light of a room would need to be lit and over a period of time this awareness would also tend to improve.

With the use of the app, one can set standards for certain type of light situations and the user could opt on how they would prefer the light at the time of dinner or later on. Manual adjustments could also help to add up to the data learned by Alba.

The launch of Alba is likely to take place in the first quarter of 2015 and would probably be sold in a package with two light bulbs at a cost of US$150 with additional of US$60 for each bulb. Users could pre-order the Alba system ahead of its launch for a starter kit with two bulbs according to their requirements.

Power of Big Data Analytics

Several companies tend to use Big Data technology across various industries to identify new options in improving their functions.

Cloud Physics is one such company who strives in bringing the power of Big Data analytics to every data centre, in capturing data with virtualized infrastructure, analyse it, providing great insights which could be helpful in making smarter data driven operational options.

Infographic helps in bringing about visual representations of information, data or knowledge which could present complex information accurately to the viewers. This could improve cognition through the utilization of graphics thereby enhancing the visual system of the human’s ability in seeing patterns and the trends.

The idea of the creation of infographic could be considered as data visualization, information architecture or information design. But there could be some scary things lurking in your data centre and CloudPhysics has brought about an awareness of some of the hidden hazards which could be lurking in virtualized data centres.

Data centres could tend to be fraught and could include hidden operational problems and since virtual infrastructure could be somewhat complex and dynamic, several vulnerabilities could go unnoticed and could be difficult to identify while on the other hand known hazards tend to get ignored since the administrators either underestimate, or don’t comprehend the scope, risk and severity.

Report Analysis on Virtualized Data Centre 

The company specializes in identifying and resolving issues which could affect virtualized infrastructures. A graphic in the spirit of Halloween, identifies issues like Heartbleed and renders control which could have unexpected repercussion on the operation of IT infrastructures.

Viewers could take the opportunity of requesting a free analysis report that could highlight hazards lurking in their data centres which is an easy process and can be obtained on furnishing the details desired by them.

The company helps in generating a full report on what is taking place in your virtualized data centre, at no cost. Should the user also tend to have other tools in their environment to inform on this stuff or that none of them may exits, the user could still benefit from the same.

Moreover, the report also provides information about virtualized datacentre which could not have been mentioned or that one may not be unaware of.

Space-Time Affects Behaviour of Hypothetical Quantum

With regards to quantum physic, one often comes across a phrase `quantum field theory’, which is referred to the general idea that quantum particles are just localized excited states of a general quantum field that underlies them, though it is mathematically a useful idea which interacts with Einstein’s classical conception of space-time in a complex ways.

Gravity is the outcome of curvature in the ineffable medium of space-time and modern quantum physics states that curved space-time should somehow affect the behaviour of hypothetical quantum.

One option to explore the link between the general relativity and quantum mechanics is to learn the physics which occurs on a small scale in highly curved space-time, though these conditions tend to occur only in most extreme environments like at the edge of block holes or in instances after the Big bang. However, physicists now tend to describe the possibility to create curved space-time in ordinary quantum optics lab.

Space-time Curving – Difficult Synthetically

Space-time curving is quite difficult synthetically. It is easy through classical means though to generate a curve steep with measurable effects on single quantum particles; it may need densities which are found only near black holes and the like. In a more direct way, curving space-time with magnetic fields or `exotic matter, was proposed in halls as hallowed like those at NASA, though such technology enables to build a literal warp drive.

German researcher, Nikodem Szpak had found a loophole which helped to study the effects of curved space-time without the need to actually curve it. His idea was that the ultracold atoms embedded in optical lattice were mathematically equivalent to quantum field in curved space-time and instead of finding a solution to the equations which describe quantum fields and together with curved space-times, there was a possibility to measure the behaviour rather than in any decent quantum optics lab.

Laws of Quantum Mechanics

The overlapping of two laser beams created an interference pattern and on careful control on the shape and frequency of the lasers, physicists were capable of creating interference patterns which took the shape of egg boxes.

This comes useful in trapping ultracold atoms that could settle in the minima in the field wherein the structure is known as optical lattice which is a standard fare in any quantum optic lab across the globe.

When the atoms tend to be close to absolute zero, they are not entirely still which is due to the laws of quantum mechanics enabling them to tunnel from a position to another in the optical lattice. Moreover, Szpak has also indicated that there is a formal mathematical analogy with this movement of atoms through the optical lattice together with their movement through quantum field in a flat space-time.

The pattern of movement of the atoms in an optical lattice is equivalent to the way they would move in a quantum field in a flat space-time and when the optical lattice tends to be regular, it is equivalent to a flat space-time. However, changing the optical set up in order that it varies in space would be equivalent in creating a curved space-time.