Kozminski Techblog

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Elon Musk and Tesla don’t stop amazing us with technologies that are either brand new or make life easier. Two of them are Autopilot and Full Self-Driving capability, that make your car semi-autonomous.

The main difference between those two functions are that Autopilot “enables your car to steer, accelerate and brake automatically for other vehicles and pedestrians within its lane.” Meanwhile, FSD includes the ability to have your car find you anywhere in a parking lot (Summon), park on its own (Autopark), and adds the company’s most robust self-driving features (Navigate on Autopilot).” There are also plenty of other functions like detecting traffic lights, and many more that are yet to come.

Although it is still in beta mode, FSD is currently availiable for 10 000 USD, but according to Elon Musk it will be available as a subscription in early 2021. That is great news for people who are either not keen on that technology, as you will be able to test it without spending huge amount of money or people with leased cars.

Not only that, but Musk also announced recently that all Teslas bought until 31st December will get 3 months of FSD subscription for free.

Adding 3 months of FSD for free is a great way to boost end-year sales, and also it will allow people to test it before buying it. Implementing subscription model together with one-time payment will lead to more people using and testing the system, which will lead to it being more realiable in the future. Who knows, maybe in a few years ceratin cars will become fully autonomous and will not require constant supervision as now?

Sources:

https://www.engadget.com/tesla-fsd-3-month-offer-011341156.html

https://www.engadget.com/tesla-full-self-driving-subscription-early-2021-193919961.html

https://www.engadget.com/2019-02-28-tesla-autopilot-full-self-driving-tiers.html

https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-full-self-driving-free-trial-incentive/

https://twitter.com/elonmusk

Reading Time: 2 minutes

With finalization of new rules for small and unmanned drones, made by FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), delivery of goods by drones may become reality in very near future. New regulations will enable drone tracking, overflight and night operations under certain conditions.

Delivering packages by drones has never been as close in becoming reality as it is now. It means serious business for companies like Amazon – it may allow deivering more packages faster, cheaper and more efficiently. New regulations made by FAA will make some things more clean and allow deivery companies to get ready for the incoming new method of package delivering.

All drones will be required to have Remote ID, an equivalent of a digital license plate, which includes serial number or flight number of a drone, it’s location data and status. The drones must broadcast their locations at all times, but now they don’t have to be connected to internet in order to do that – new regulations allowed to directly broadcast identification and location information with radio frequency technology. Those rules were specially made in order to ensure public safety. Airspace awareness will reduce chances of drone interference with aircraft, buildings or people.

Other regulations will allow to operate such drones at night without a special waiver. Drones will be required to have anti-collision lights that can be seen for three miles. New rules are welcomed by drone developers and operators:

“The rules released today are critical steps towards future UAS rulemakings to enable more complex operations, including beyond visual line of sight for drone delivery, public safety operations and infrastructure inspection. Remote ID is also instrumental to the development of a UAS traffic management system that works alongside the existing air traffic control system for manned aircraft,” the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International said in a statement.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/new-faa-rules-put-drone-delivery-closer-to-reality

The only thing left to be desired is the ability to for beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations, which currently require a waiver. For example a railway company BNSF Railway had to “petition the FAA for a waiver to remotely operate up to five unmanned aircraft over long distances for rail inspection and patrolling its private property.” Those regulations need to be implemented in near future in order to make long-range deliveries possible. Overall, newly made regulations will make some peoples’ dreams about drone delivery possible in short time, as those regulations will take effect 60 days after their scheduled publication in January.

Sources:

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/new-faa-rules-put-drone-delivery-closer-to-reality

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/29/tech/faa-drone-rules/index.html

https://www.faa.gov/news/media/attachments/RemoteID_Executive_Summary.pdf

https://www.faa.gov/news/media/attachments/OOP_Final%20Rule.pdf

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Games on mobile devices developed significantly through the years. From very simple and basic, but entertaining games like famous “Snake” present on Nokia phones or 2d racing games, to games that can compete even with modern games intended for consoles or PC’s, at least in terms of generated income. Over the years mobile games were always behind PC or console games in terms of graphics, but now as technology advenced and phones may be more powerful than some PCs or consoles this is subject to change.

Mobile gaming industry is becoming more and more profitable industry, especially this year – beacuse of the coronavirus pancemic more people resorted to playing games on their phones to spend their free time. In 2020 top 5 money-earning games earned over 1 billion dollars each. PUBG mobile emerged on the first place. Although it was banned in India, because of Tecent being the developer of the mobile version of PUBG and accusations of stealing personal data, it achieved insane success.

PUBG Mobile, coupled with the Chinese relabeling, Game For Peace, emerged as the highest revenue-generating video game throughout the world this year, across both Google Play and the App Store. It garnered a jaw-dropping sum of $2.6 billion over the last 12 months, indicating a 64% year-over-year increase.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/12/pubg-leads-record-breaking-year-for.html

Developers of other games present on the graph above can also be proud of the income they generated. Overall, the industry generated huge profits this year having 19.5% increase from last year.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the mobile game sector witnessed a stellar boom. By generating around $75.4 billion this year and witnessing a 19.5% increase from last year, it’s safe to say that mobile games did a good job of entertaining the people while they were in quarantine.

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/12/pubg-leads-record-breaking-year-for.html

Mobile gaming this year saw a surge in popularity as homebound consumers relied on their smartphones for entertainment during the pandemic. App installs for mobile games surged 45% in 2020, outpacing the 32% growth for the prior year.

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/mobile-gaming-surges-as-pandemic-drives-45-jump-in-app-installs/591417/

Especially the simplest and most casual games are generating most profits, as they are literally for everyone. You don’t have to learn anything about the game, you just play and after a short while you are well acquainted with the rules. The game launches immediately, you can stop playing at any time and they don’t require great-performing smartphones. It is much easier to find a moment in your busy day to play a simple and casual game, instead of launching your PC or console and play a complex game that requires a lot of time.

Although the industry of mobile games is growing, smartphones specially designed for gaming are still not very popular. Not every smartphone is well suited for playing more complex games, and although the game may be lauched, it performance on your device may be upsetting. There aren’t many gaming smartphones on the market, and playing complex (in terms of graphics) games on your regular mobile phone may lead to it overheating easily. Not many companies are interested in making gaming smartphones, and prices of available ones are not satisfactory for everyone. In near future, more companies might get interesed in desiging phones made for gaming, especially if the mobile gaming industry will be expanding.

Sources:

https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/talking-points/story/tech-in-2020-mobile-gaming-is-growing-gaming-smartphones-aren-t-1754505-2020-12-30

https://screenrant.com/pokemon-go-pubg-billion-dollar-mobile-games-2020/

https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2020/12/pubg-leads-record-breaking-year-for.html

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/mobile-gaming-surges-as-pandemic-drives-45-jump-in-app-installs/591417/

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Cyberpunk 2077 was meant to be an insane, revolutionising game – at least it was seen like that by multiple fans. First announcement of the game was in early 2013, what gave plenty of time for people to over-hype it, what led to serious disappointments when the game was released, as some people imagined the game had insane elements in it and that literally everything would be possible to be done in that game. Reality was disappointing for them, although fans themselves were responsible for that as they were the people who hyped the game too much and had unreal expectations about it.

But the main factor what led to game having terribly bad reviews (especially on PS4 and XBOX platorms) was the performance and optimalisation of the game. The storyline of the game is praised, but it can not help if the game runs terribly on your console. There were plenty of situations where bugs in the game prevented you from completing it, for example some enemies were invincible. Most of these bugs are not present anymore, as they were patched out in a few patches provided by game developer, and most of the bugs you can encounter now are minor and visual only. But the performance issue was not resolved, and overall not everyone is happy, and value of CD Projekt on the stock market dropped drastically. That is why on 24th of December a lawsuit was filed by an investor named Andrew Trampe, who “is looking to include other investors in the suit to turn it into a class action.”

“CD Projekt failed to disclose that Cyberpunk 2077 was “virtually unplayable on the current-generation Xbox or Playstation systems due to an enormous number of bugs,” according to the complaint.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-24/cyberpunk-maker-cd-projekt-sued-by-investor-over-botched-launch

Although the game sold incredibly well, has an insane storyline and looks perfect on high-end PCs, beacuse of the overall performance GameStop and PS4 started accepting refunds, with the latter even removing it from online store. This had a huge impact on the stock prices and led to another price drop. Andrew Trampe, the person behind the lawsuit seeks to represent other investors who purchased CD Projekt stocks and lost their money, as in his opinion the comapny lied about the state of the game.

“…as a result, defendants’ statements about its business, operations, and prospects, were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages.”

A fragment of Rosen Law Firm’s press release. https://www.pcgamer.com/class-action-suit-filed-for-cd-projekt-investors-over-cyberpunk-2077/

If the lawsuit proceeds, it may have terrible consequences for CD Projekt. The company made a mistake, and even after a few month long crunch failed to deliver a full game. They should have released PC version only now, as it has only minor visual bugs and on a good computer it runs insanely good and looks stunning. The console version needs improvement, but developers promised to do it as soon as possible. On the other hand, CD Projekt is not fully responsible for this situation, as their game was overhyped by people with impossible expectations, especially after the success of their other game, The Witcher 3. In my opinion CD Projekt is a victim of it’s own success, and I hope that they will improve Cyberpunk’s performance and deliver many other great games in the future

Sources:

Lawsuit: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.805901/gov.uscourts.cacd.805901.1.0.pdf

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/25/22199768/cdprojekt-cyberpunk-2077-lawsuit-launch

https://www.pcgamer.com/class-action-suit-filed-for-cd-projekt-investors-over-cyberpunk-2077/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-24/cyberpunk-maker-cd-projekt-sued-by-investor-over-botched-launch

Reading Time: 3 minutesProbably all of us know Diego Maradona’s famous and controversial goal scored during a match between England and Argentina in the 1986 FIFA World Cup quarter finals. Maradona used his hand to score the first goal in the match. Under FIFA rules, the goal should be disallowed, but as the referees did not have a clear view of that situation and no technology that would allow to see a replay of that situation existed then, the goal was counted what caused a lot of controversy.

 

A lot of situations like that have happened in football. Goals that should have been disallowed but were not, offsides, fouls that were not seen by the referees. All of that causes controversy and especially outrage either towards the teams, certain players or referees. An idea of using video footage got more and more popular over the years as technology advanced. An idea of adding an additional referee, so called Video Assistant Referee was born.

 

VAR was tested from early 2010s, its first appearance was in the Eredivisie, the top football league in the Netherlands, although it was only in a phase of testing. The first official match played with VAR was in 2016 in a match between Ajax and Willem II. VAR already proved to be successful in that game as based on a video replay, a yellow card given to a player was turned into red after an uncertain situation. The introduction of Video Assistant Referee to football matches was a game changer as it brought a possibility of watching replays of disputable situations in matches. With VAR present on the match, Maradona’s “Hand of God” would not result in an accepted goal today, even tiny fouls or offsides can not escape from VAR’s all-seeing eyes. This is generally praised, but paradoxically presence of VAR can cause some bizarre situations. There are even some accusations that VAR disfigures football matches and causes confusion.

“VAR creates as much confusion as clarity in Confederations Cup final”

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/the-match/60/post/3151551/var-creates-as-much-confusion-as-clarity-in-confederations-cup-final

The other situations that led to simmiliar reactions either from news outlets or fans are controversial offsides that happened in Premier League. On one occasion, in a match between Tottenham and Norwich, a goal was ruled out because of a nearly invisible offside. The same thing happened in a match between Wolverhampton and Liverpool, where a goal scored by Pedro Nato was ruled out, what resulted in changing the matches result and caused a lot of controversy.

Although it was thought that presence of VAR would only bring advantages into improving refereeing in football, opinions used to be divided, as some of referees’ decisions greatly discredited the VAR idea. That was mostly a problem with poorly written rules, but currently as VAR gets more and more popular in professional football leagues and there are more regulations being implemented, I think that VAR in the near future will be near-perfectly working and will have a great impact on making football more fair.

 

Sources:

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/blog/the-match/60/post/3151551/var-creates-as-much-confusion-as-clarity-in-confederations-cup-final

https://www.sportbible.com/football/reactions-news-football-var-controversially-rules-out-norwichs-goal-against-tottenham-20191228

https://sport.interia.pl/pilka-nozna/news-system-var-mial-byc-swietnym-wynalazkiem-a-zamiast-tego-znie,nId,4292613

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