Kozminski Techblog

In 2021 California will have from April’s first driverless delivery service. Nuro company develops and operates a fleet of self-driving vehicles that deliver local goods of all kinds, from dinner to dry cleaning. Led by world-renowned experts in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer vision, and product design, the company began doing driverless deliveries to the general public in 2018. Till now, they have raised more than $1 billion in funding from investors.

Thats a huge step in technology! Imagine you make an online order, and in front of your house, there is “Nuro” waiting for you with your delivery. However what about the safety on the roads? Because the first thing as a good driver you have to predict others move, and the behaviors of the other, but what about self-driving cars? Are they really safe? And here we don’t speak about the passengers but all the people on the roads.

Luckily – the firm’s vehicles will be limited to 56km/h, and will be restricted to operating in “fair weather” conditions.

The vehicles are designed in such a way so they can work without a driver in them. How they have made that? Well, it uses radar, thermal imaging, and 360-degree cameras to direct its movement. And it lacks a steering wheel, pedals, or side-view mirrors. The vehicle has an egg-shaped frame that is smaller than most cars in general. It also has two temperature-controlled compartments for deliveries. Doors raise up to reveal the items once a code has been entered by the recipient.

Watch the video below and see the first users of Nuro service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKXbacNQGI8&feature=emb_title

Personally, I am impressed when I watch this. We are already in the future 🙂 If I were in California I wish to see this technology. That’s a significant milestone in self-driving cars. Bit of scary too but anyway exciting.

Reading Time: 3 minutesI am a huge fan of drones, personally, I have 2 already and I must say this technology is crazy! Honestly, the first time I bought a drone was one year, and I have chosen the Mavic mini as an ultra-light drone. It is unbelievable what you can do with such a big “mosquito”!

When choosing a drone, it’s worth knowing, what we expect. Children’s drones will be completely different from adult sports drones and professional drones for logs in the data. The DJI Mavic Mini 2 series drones are a versatile, high-bay recreational drone that can also be used for special tasks.

Those who think it is only for professional moviemakers or YouTubers are really mistaken. I am none of these people, but what I love is the memories you can create with such a drone. Videos of you while traveling, you can even take a selfie and you don’t have to ask anyone for a picture. Perfect for single travelers or those who enjoy creative things.

What are the differences between the Mavic Mini and the newest Mavic mini 2? Well, I have to say those who purchased the first Mavic mini, were so-called experiment rabbits for Dji unfortunately. In the previous one, I experienced some problems with the camera and very delicate propellers. However, the quality of videos even without after-effects is great. What about the weight? Of course, both are very light <249g. Thanks to the maintenance of this weight, the drone can continue to fly in the city without any additional permissions.

DJI Mini 2 still has tiny propellers consisting of two separate blades, thanks to which the drone will fit in virtually any bag, backpack, or even sweatshirt pocket when folded. What we can see on the front of the drone is a new status LED and the 4K marking on the camera. In short, the new DJI Mini 2 is mostly internal changes.

What are the improvements?

The first generation of the DJI Mavic Mini has a very low range in the city, which makes it easy to lose the connection between the controller and the device, which is very dangerous. In the new DJI Mini 2, the manufacturer decided to significantly improve the range parameter. Now it can fly up to 6 km far. The interesting point is that the camera in the new model got the option of filming in a maximum resolution of 4K at 30 frames per second, thanks to which the recordings from Mini 2, even on the big screen, will be still sharp and full of details. I think that’s awesome news!

Will I recommend you to buy the new Mavic mini? Hmm, I must say that even though it is not a cheap thing (2 199,00 zł )I would recommend to invest some money in such a toy! It is very creative and if you have never played with it before even the previous model is worth trying!

And you? Have you ever been thinking of buying a drone? 🙂

Here is something for you if you are still thinking!

Resources:

https://www.dji.com/pl/mini-2

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We are living in an era of changes, the beginning of online teaching. Who has thought that this way of learning will take place so soon? It’s 2020 and we already are experiencing something that supposed to happen in 100 years as some people were assuming the beginning of Online studies. Here, thinking of new ways how to make students’ life easier, we are this lucky that a company like Notion comes with these solutions. And this is the future of work.

Nowadays, management is hipper important. But if you don’t know how to manage your time and your work how can you make things done? That’s where Notion comes in. As a first step, you are blending much of your workflow into an all-in-one workspace. Want a task list? A product roadmap? A design repository? Knowledge base? They are now all in one place. LEGO-style building blocks give you the possibility to solve your problems in your own ways, bounded only by your imagination.

Not far from now we were using notebooks, and probably still some of you do. We can even remember caring all those books from school or files from work on the way back home. When you wanted to share notes with your colleagues, you had to wait till the time you could have met or in the best situation you send some pictures of what you got!

Not anymore.

You can invite a single teammate or share documents with the entire company.

Even the biggest start-ups are using Notion, where they can easily onboard new employees, present the project, delegate tasks, and so on. Probably that’s also the reason why the San Francisco-based maker of management and work software raised 2Bilion of Dollars this year. It was founded in 2012 and now they have more than four million users. It charges users a monthly subscription.

Personally, Notion is a tool I use on daily basis, whatever it is Notion has my back! Planning, taking notes, and having everything organized it’s the first thing I have in my mind when I think about Notion. Despite all of the advantages, there is one thing important to mention – Notion is environmentally friendly, you don’t have to use paper anymore. That’s is why I really encourage you to take all this in mind and start working by using Notion!

Ps. Every student can have a free student plan, I just emailed the Notion team and all you have to do is register with your University email! Check the video below to get started 🙂 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidjeans/2020/04/01/buzzy-work-app-notion-hits-2-billion-valuation/

https://www.notion.so/startups

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-only-app-you-need-for-work-life-productivity-1521640800/

And what about you? Are you using some similar tools to gather all your notes? Let me know in the comments below 🙂

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The world has already changed. New technologies are entering, some others are already in use for a long time, and others exist but without knowing a lot about them. What if everyone on the planet was trying to know how does the tv work or how you can connect with others by phone? And I don’t speak here about the theoretical knowledge, or that there is some kind of thing called “satellite”. Nowadays there are more advanced technologies than you can imagine and one of them is the LiDAR scanner. And if you can’t really imagine, as I said, read this article to be closer than anyone else. Because I assure you, this is not just another function.

Probably you have heard the last time a lot about the new iPhone 12 Pro Camera upgrade, but have you heard about that mysterious dot on the back? If you belong to that group of those who are huge fans of Apple, I assume you know what I am writing about. Lidar scanner is one of those things. What is it? LiDAR (or ‘Light Detection and Ranging’) is a method for measuring distances by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflection with a sensor.

This is big news for augmented reality (AR) and the movie industry too. Imagine in the past, people had to use a green screen to create unrealistic content.

Now, it’s impossible to make a difference between 3D and reality. A company like Quixel which is a 3D scans library, allows you to insert real items into the digital world. Even the scenography of Mandalorian is made with this technology. Put Disney, unreal engine, and Quixel in a bag, shake it and watch this video.

The technology is also used in control and navigation for some autonomous cars like obstacle detection and avoidance to navigate safely through environments. Some even say that LiDAR Scanning is like human eyes for a car. Another interesting usage – it is hard not to mention about a company like Epic Games, where they use the unreal engine software in video games editor to make a map design.

Well, this is let’s say just the beginning, and we already find so many usages of this technology! It’s very useful to know how does it work, and in practice, the usage of this is just incredible!

Sources:

https://quixel.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=quixel%20exact%20responsive%20search&utm_campaign=search%20brand

https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/what-is-lidar-technology-and-how-does-it-work/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar

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At the beginning of the epicenter of the coronavirus, no one was thinking about using technology to monitor for coronavirus in their workplace. Few months after being still in the same situation, “remote” working stopped being so fun, companies have to finally adapt.

The challenge begins now. Firstly how to screen patients for COVID-19 even before they entered the hospital? Or how to detect if the employee has some first symptoms of fever? Manually checking everybody’s temperature doesn’t sound like the best solution, you may say ist illogical.

Megvii company with its high-quality thermal scanners makes it possible to take the temperature of employees as they approach the front entrance, without contact with anyone checking their temperature manually. That is how workers may flow more smoothly into the building, so the system could alert staff automatically if someone is infected, in order to protect the others.

How does it work? Well, using dual light fusion technology, MEGVII has combined AI face detection with IR thermal images to accurately locate people’s forehead area for temperature measurements. Intelligently blocks non-facial high-temperature sources that would mistakenly trigger the signal alarm.

Megvii is one of the best companies offering systems to help employees confront the new challenges of COVID-19. Because more and more businesses plan to reopen,  technology firms have an array of monitoring systems to try to keep the coronavirus out of office buildings, medical facilities, and industrial plants.

That sounds like this sector might be a multibillion-dollar business in the coming year. According to investmentu.com Megvii raised $750 million in private funding in May 2019. It values the company at $4 billion, which means that Megvii is a technology unicorn.

Some companies like Amazon go even farer than using thermal scanners, by using the app called  “distance assistant” to keep people spaced out in its warehouses. Probably until there is a vaccine, the efficient monitoring and fighting the virus will be the key to whether businesses may be open.

Links:

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/should-you-invest-in-a-thermal-scanner.aspx

https://en.megvii.com/

http://www.fotric.com/en

https://www.ft.com/content/60ccc53e-c7c1-11e9-a1f4-3669401ba76f