Science Labs in the Cloud: Champagne Discoveries, Beer Budget

Emerald Cloud Lab – ECL-1 – Remotely Conduct Experiment

Science is difficult and replicating other labs’ results is even more difficult which tends to be particular right with regards to life sciences. This has lead biologist as well as researchers to manually track sophisticated experiments fraught together with variable like water purity, humidity or elusive differences in equipment.

According to Ethan Perlstein, the founder and CEO of Perlstein Lab, a San Francisco based bio-tech start-up, operating in discovering drugs to combat rare genetic diseases states that `biologist do almost everything by hand and there is lot of variation in experiments lab to lab’. He further adds that he `wants to be able to do science in a way that is auditable and scalable and the data is repeatable, pristine and good’.

Emerald Therapeutics is of the opinion that its Emerald Cloud Lab which has been dubbed ECL-1, could deliver just what Perlstein ordered which is because ECL-1 enables scientist to remotely conduct over 40 various standard experiments worth $3 million of lab equipment inclusive of DNA synthesizers, advanced microscopes as well as mass spectrometers for the separation and measurement of weight of charged particles.

All identical equipment present in the 15,000 square foot facility tends to be same, down to the type and length of pipes and tubing where automated robots tend to perform the test, eliminating the human part in the process.

Aim – Amazon Prime of Experiments 

Other start-ups also tend to provide identical science labs in the cloud. DNAnexus offers tools to store manage as well as analyse the huge data content generated by genome sequencing. Transcriptic tends to advertise its automated robotics and controlled lab environment though it manages less than 20 experiments as compared with ECL’s 40.

Emerald and other companies prefer to become the biosciences version of Amazon Web Services. As it has been trimmed on the cost of developing commercial software, labs in the cloud could make a difference in the economics of life sciences exploration. For instance, the average cost per experiment run by ECL-1 is $25.

As per Brian Frezza, co-founder and co-CEO of Emerald Therapeutics stated from the company’s offices in South San Francisco, California that `they want to be the Amazon Prime of experiments starting within 48 hours of the order’.

Rent out Robots with Precisely Calibrated Instrumentation/Auditable Data Trail

Rather than leasing computer servers by the hour like Amazon Web Services, Emerald together with their rival start-ups tend to rent out robots with precisely calibrated instrumentation together with added benefits of offering auditable data trail.

Perlstein comments that `having robots handle experiments on exactly the same equipment, in exactly the same environment will always be superior to two pairs of hands. It is just objectively better to have fully auditable and automated experiments’. Provision of reproducible results is not the only probable benefit from labs in the cloud but also financial advantage.

This is due to the modern labs buying equipment which could be costing from $100,000 to $240,000 each, which is probably used only for 10% of their research. Frank Gillett, an analyst with Forrester Research states `that this sort of experiment as a service is interesting because it helps avoid the huge setup costs of buying the equipment and finding someone skilled enough to understand and configure everything – all before you can even run your first experiment. Now you can reduce the time it takes to complete the experiment and reduce the cost of the experiment’.

Windows 10 For Phones May Launch On A High-End Smartphone

In case you are amid follower of the news that is being published about Microsoft in the last couple of months, you have started wondering about their plans for the high end segment. Rumours suggest that the company is planning to debut a high end phone with Windows 10.

The company at present is awaiting the official announcement of the Windows 10 before they can unveil its high end windows based phones. This information has been revealed by Ravi Kunwar, who is the Director - North, Nokia India Sales.

He had participated in a chat along with the company during the launch of Lumia 430. He added that their Company has been focusing on their budget segment, as they still have to work on the premium budget as well. Once the budget has been done, they will start working on the unveiling of the devices later in this year alongside Windows 10 launch.


From the perspective of the company, this move is appropriate, as it will allow them to continue and improvise on the computing power of all the features of the Windows 10 specially the Continuum aspect. This is the main reason why the highly rumored the high end Lumia 940 might debut later this year and somewhat the same time as that of Windows 10. What is the most important thing to remember is that the Windows 10 Continuum feature is similar to that of 'Continuity' feature of Apple and other similar features by Google as well.


What remains a surprise is that a company like Microsoft has been shying away from the 4G connectivity from a long time. The company has never tried to impose the 4G element in any of their devices apart from the Lumia 638. Compared to this the competitors of the company like Xiaomi, Samsung, and Motorola apart from others have already started incorporating 4G connectivity as critical part of many of their devices.

Kunwar has also confirmed that Microsoft is already 4G ready at the back end. This indicates that whether they are using the 4G or not, the current phones from the company are already capable of 4G connectivity since Microsoft has the capability of adding the 4G functionality by means of a software update. He further added that 3G is currently the most widespread method of internet connectivity in India. This is the main reason why even Microsoft is focusing on this area.


In the past, Microsoft has already unveiled many more devices like Lumia 540, Lumia 530, Lumia 430, 435, 532, 640XL and 640 among others. All these devices have been marketed in India despite the fact that they are operating only using the 3G connectivity.

They have never tried to market or sell any of their devices based on 4G element. From what it looks like all or atleast most of their devices are easily capable of working on 4G connectivity and the company is already working on enabling these features in India owing to increasing 4G connectivity.

Facebook Introduces Anonymous Login For Apps to Let You Hide Personal Info

Towards an attempt to help safeguard the privacy of the user when they are sharing data with any third-party apps, Facebook has launched an Anonymous Login feature which will allow the users to login to apps without the need of sharing any of their personal information. Through this new way of login into any apps will increase the amount of control a user has over their personal info and they will be able to choose which of their personal information these third party apps should be receiving.

Apart from this the company also announced a newer version of the Facebook Login which will allow the users to choose the type of information they want as specific app to receive or check. For this they just need to check or uncheck specific categories one by one.

Through this new version, the user will have more control over what they want to be published on the Facebook post. The F8 developer conference saw a lot of different types of improvements which included redefining of the App Control Panel. According to the official blog of the company this App control panel is the center of focus for the users as it will help them to learn to manage all the apps they use.

Anonymous feature: 

Through the anonymous login feature the company is attempting to work towards the concerns raised by their users pertaining to sharing of personal information. There are users who are looking forward to try apps that are available but hesitant due to security reasons.

Even though the users have been able to enjoy free apps on the Facebook, there are growing instances from the perspective of the users highlighting the problem of granting permission to third part app to all the personal data. These third parts apps require the user information to allow them to create an account.

Anonymously logging into the app will give the users to control the apps in terms accessing it and at the same time not to worry about sharing any of their personal information with the app. Users will have the option of sharing specific or any additional information based on their preference during any stage of the app usage.

This feature is currently under test with some developers and the Company is planning to extend the testing for some more months by involving more number of developers. On the other hand the company is expected to roll out the new version of the login in the next couple of months but the updated control panel for the apps will be available for the users in the following weeks.

Facebook has over 1.55 billion of users around the world and it is apparent that the company has to take actions to control the growing concern of the people towards sharing of personal information. Considering the step taken by the company it will receive a warm welcome from growing number of users of Facebook. Safety has always taken utmost importance for the users.

Atmosphere With Google: Think Creatively and Innovate Boldly

 

Atmosphere With Google – An Event Platform

Google has recently planned an event platform called `Google Atmosphere’, at the Googleplex for around 300 technology professionals largely for CIOs and CTOs of leading organizations to discuss how the technology will evolve in the near future and how to mainstream it. It is considered to be an economic forum for the leading decision makers of the world. Atmosphere is about how Google Enterprise could be a game changer for enterprises.

 It is said to be a conference wherein Google would be displaying its top innovations and provide glimpses of what would be in store for the future. Some of the highlights in the past few years were Driverless cars, Cloud, Google Glass, Maps. Google Atmosphere was first held in 2008 in London and what began as a conference with 250 CIOs has now turned into a global event which is held annually at numerous cities. This grand event, this year will be organized in London, Paris, Munich, Sydney and several other places are tend to be the hub of technology. Google would be having bright minds to speak at this event and has also invited some of the most innovative brains to express their thoughts.

First Time in India – 19th September

Some of the geniuses like Nicholas Carr, Marc Benioff (SalesForce), Werner Vogels (Amazon), Amit Singh; Nikesh Arora had conferred the event in the past. Google Atmosphere, for the very first time is coming to India and the grant event would be held in Delhi on 19th September at ITC Maurya. Those intending to have glimpses of the future and be part of the event could register at – http://goo.gl/wIWZxf. Seats would be limited and hence registering early with MediaAgility - Premier Google Enterprise partner could be done, to avoid disappointment.

 It would be a great privilege in getting to hear from Google executives, experts as well as customers and get to envisage the latest innovations transforming business.For business operations, HR executives, marketing and sales, one could learn about Google’s vision in enabling employees to work out the way they live and get things done in a quicker and innovative way. In case of finance and IT, they could get deep into the financial as well as operational benefits of Google Apps, the leading communication and collaboration solution in the cloud.

Foundation of Cloud Computing Boils down Application/Platform/Devices

On stage, Google Enterprise President, Dave Girouard, had called cloud computing a `fundamentally disruptive’ technology, stating that it brought about a bit of emotion from anyone talking about it. At one end of the range there are some who tend to consider cloud as a computing nirvana while on the other end there are those who do not trust it.

It would be a day which would be filled with plenty of discussions together with debate on the cloud and some even making light issues at the close mindedness of some technology leaders who try to down play the cloud, which could be some of the executives from Oracle, Microsoft and IBM. Girouard has offered smart presentation which would break down old school business IT where everything is behind the firewall. He has commented that the foundation of cloud computing boils down to application, platforms and devices. He has pointed that a couple of key app have long broken out of the wall like mail (Gmail etc.) and CRM (sales force).

Technology Turns Touchscreen Displays Into Biometric Scanners

Some of the researcher representing and working at the Yahoo Labs have developed a very affordable alternative to the current fingerprint sensors available on the phone. They have developed a biometric system which is being called as the Body print. This biometric system will only require the capacitive touch screen displays of the devices to authenticate the body parts of the user.

However, on the down side, since the touch screen displays have lower resolution of the input when compared to other specialized sensors, the new biometric system will require the user to make use of the larger parts of their body. The user will simply have to press any of these parts on the screen to get access to the device. This biometric system not only works as a security gatekeeper for the phone, but is also has many other benefits and applications. This system has perfect ability to recognize the fist, ear, set of five fingers, phalanges, and the palm of the user.

Applications of the new biometric system: 

A simple example of this biometric system application is the fact that the user can configure the device system to only answers calls when the device has been able to detect the ear of the users pressed to the phone. Body print that was recently launched at the 2015 Computer-Human Interaction Conference (CHI) in Seoul, South Korea was able to accurately identify different parts of the human body as well as the owners of the system for nearly about 99.98 percent of all the times during all the tests that was conducted using 12 participants. But if it is important that the creator is this biometric system and his team, try and test this system on a wider scale before it can be released for commercial use. This application is perfect to keep the files and documents saved from inquisitive people.

This creation has come as a new breather for many companies who are still afraid to try on the biometric systems. Not many companies have tried to take complete advantage of the full potential of this system. Most of the latest smartphones are built with the fingerprint biometric system and how might be the perfect time for all these companies to raise the bar a bit higher.

In present all the finger print scanners are available on some of most high end phones but the Body print will allow all the smartphones have all the features of a biometric system.

This firm is not only innovating latest technology but also planning to extend its research in the field of technology, as Marissa Mayer, who is the CEO of Yahoo stated that firm might compete with the other leading technology of same field such as; voice-based virtual assistants or Cortana of Microsoft, Siri from Apple or Google Now from Google. It is expected that Bodyprint will arrive in the market in the form of app to support touch screen of almost all smartphones.