New capabilities are being added for creating and managing lists in Google Play, including the ability to save lists as drafts, schedule lists for publishing at specific times, and test lists with a portion of the relevant audience.

This follows changes from earlier this year, such as the ability to create custom store lists for different audiences.

The team is also adding several updates to price experiments, a feature that allows developers to test different price points and optimize prices for local buying power. Starting next month, developers will be able to save price experiments as drafts, remove variations from experiments if the results aren’t good, see warning notifications for price configuration issues, and apply the “winning” price to all products.

Developers can also now more effectively display their available products based on regional availability. This is accomplished by using the getBillingConfigAsync API, which provides the user’s state.

Another upcoming feature is the expansion of real-time developer notifications to include one-time purchases and canceled purchases.

The Android development team is actively enhancing billing flexibility by introducing alternative billing APIs in more than 35 markets. This initiative aims to offer developers a smoother billing experience when delivering apps to users in markets where alternative payment methods are preferred over Google’s payment service. With this update, developers will no longer be required to construct and uphold choice screens. They can efficiently handle alternative billing settings, and transactions processed through the API will be integrated into the Top Charts and developer reports. This reporting includes details such as exchange rates, associated app package ID, and service fee rates.

To improve overall app quality, developers will also get access to more metrics to help them monitor their apps for bad behaviors. New features include hourly vitals data during release rollouts, access to three years of vitals data to analyze long-term trends, per-device metrics, alerts when per-device bad behavior thresholds reach 8%, recommended fixes for errors in Android Studio, and the ability to grant team members limited access to app quality data.

Lastly, the Play Integrity API, designed to mitigate app tampering, has undergone enhancements, including a new signal verifying that Play Protect remains active, an additional Play Integrity API report, and the capability to oversee Play Integrity API integration through the Google Play SDK Console. Moreover, low-latency Play Integrity API standard requests are now widely accessible, promising integrity verdicts with a speed boost—reportedly 10 times faster, as per Google.

While the DevOps era has spawned tremendous innovation ranging from CI/CD, automated testing, and agile planning, the struggle to connect the innovations built through application development to the ways that customers experience those applications remains a challenge.

“The DevOps movement created years ago created an entirely new way to build software, yet there are still holes when it comes to the way customers interact with and experience applications today. With the Galaxy Product Release, LaunchDarkly hopes to provide engineering teams with a North Star that will solve for these gaps”, said Dan Rogers, CEO at LaunchDarkly.

The LaunchDarkly platform was built to guide engineers to the next frontier of DevOps by:

• Improving the velocity and stability of software releases, without the fear of end customer outages
• Delivering targeted experiences by easily personalizing features to customer cohorts
• Maximizing the business impact of every feature through the ability to experiment and optimize
• Coordinating the release and optimization of software to provide consistent experiences across mobile platforms and device types
• Improving the effectiveness and productivity of your engineering teams, by providing insights into engineering cadence and stability

“LaunchDarkly has helped JupiterOne’s software development teams unlock the power to release our software both faster and safer. We’re looking forward to diving into LaunchDarkly’s newly launched core capabilities into areas like product experimentation, release targeting, and measurement to see how they can continue to be such a successful component of our software delivery practices”, said DJ Spatoulas, Principal Architect at JupiterOne.

With this release, LaunchDarkly is continuing toward its vision of providing not just better developer experiences, but better customer experiences. The Galaxy Product Release includes:

• New capabilities to release stable features faster, including Release Assistant, to build pre-defined, repeatable paths for progressive rollouts, alongside Release Guardian, which allows teams to quickly identify and remediate operational regressions.
• Migration Assistant to reduce the risk of a migration such as an outage, data loss, or latency, while maintaining data consistency between data stores.
• Segment Builder to easily target customer groups with specific experiences through functionality that will sync and manage segments from existing data sources.
• Enhancements to LaunchDarkly’s Product Experimentation product, a new Funnel Experiments capability to measure and optimize customer behavior across full customer journeys. Mobile Release
• Optimization to liberate your mobile releases from app store processes and easily manage the full lifecycle of your apps.
• Engineering Insights Hub to help engineering leaders track velocity and quality metrics that show the measurable progress toward engineering transformation.

Moments before the end of the workday arrives, the only thing employees are dreaming about is slowly closing their laptops and walking to the elevator to finally get home.

The newly remodeled offices of software company Expensify in San Francisco represent a different way of working, proving that it may not be so boring and making employees look forward to the day they will start working again.

At the end of the working day it is in these offices that something unseen elsewhere happens. The bartender, whom employees like to call “the concierge”, uses a large cutlass to open the cap of a champagne bottle. Blowing the drink onto the beautiful blue carpet, the employees begin to cheer and clap.

Why is there a bartender in the office of a tech company?
The company’s newly renovated downtown space has a sleek bar on the 16th floor with premium liquor and a list of specialty cocktails. It seems like the perfect place where employees can work on their laptops, sip a Moscow mule or draft beer and keep working. Sounds like a dream come true, right?

The cocktail list includes standard drinks like martinis and negronis, as well as the most popular liqueurs, and also CEO David Barrett’s favorite: an old-fashioned with a branded ice cube depicting the first letter that begins the company’s name: “E.”

Compilation for productivity
Expensify’s head of public relations James Dean defines the bar as a kind of experiment, a combination between a social club and a place that predisposes people to be super productive.

The idea of creating this bar has been around since before the pandemic, which totally messed up everyone’s plans as people started working from their homes and remotely.

Video game rooms, foosball tables and more
San Francisco seems to boast other companies that are breaking the classic and, for some employees, boring work pattern by remodeling their offices, albeit after a brief pandemic-induced hiatus, with tech goodies like video game rooms and foosball tables (and a bar). And increasingly, many are also incorporating restaurant-style cubicles and more communal spaces to satisfy employees’ thirst for casual workplace interaction, the lack of which has caused telecommuting.

Expensify’s space, which the company calls a lounge, has no separate offices, but includes many meeting rooms located around the perimeter where employees can slip away to have a conversation or work in peace. There are meeting rooms with fresh and colorful couches, fluffy cushions that point to the streets of downtown. There are tropical plants, photos of exotic places and copper inlays everywhere.

Sabrage – Productivity lies in the unconventional?
The long table just behind the bar is where most employees choose to work, chat and write on their laptops before being interrupted by the afternoon “sabrage” ceremony known as opening a bottle of champagne with a sabre.

This roundtable style of working has been a hallmark of the company since it first moved into the building in 2015, before Expensify moved its headquarters to Portland, Ore. A much smaller table is set up in a side room, around which employees used to gather during work hours when they only had part of the 16th floor.

Since many bars and restaurants have closed since the pandemic began, the company has been licensed to sell about a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of liquor – far less than the $500,000 it was making before the pandemic, according to saloon operations manager Nikki Walroth, due to the massive closures.

As you read about this bar, you might be wondering if it is currently operating? The lounge is available for Expensify employees and for events, but will officially open to customers and guests on April 24.

Weddings, engagements and work
The original idea for the entertainment venue was to not only have a venue that offered free alcohol for employees, but also to create a perk for Expensify cardholders and customers.

And that’s still the case. But how the space will be used depends largely on the people who have access to it.

“My wedding reception was here”,

says Expensify employee Nick Tucker, sitting at the bar with an open laptop, sipping a Moscow mule as the sun illuminated the mahogany and crystal tones of the bottles in front of him.

The idea to share his most special moment at this place came from a colleague and employee of his who also had an engagement here.

The company has five offices, including its Portland headquarters, as well as offices in London, New York and Ironwood, Michigan. But because it is still sticking to its plans for remote work access while many other companies mandate a return to the office, the purpose of those offices has changed significantly.

Though it has invested heavily in office renovations – the Portland headquarters is located in an old bank building with soaring columns and a vault – Expensify doesn’t call on employees to fill desks. Rather, the current purpose of these offices are focused on the social aspects of the job that can’t happen while employees are confined to their homes.

“I’ll go home, but I’ll also work.”

says public relations manager Dean, who is an Ironwood native and plans to reunite employees at that office in August.

About 30 people from the company signed up to spend some time in the small Upper Peninsula Michigan town.

The desire to recapture the social aspects of work that the pandemic and telecommuting erased is even leading to new ventures. Social co-working clubs have sprung up in San Francisco and the Bay Area, attracting members supportive of socializing with people in a casual work atmosphere supported by an afternoon cocktail or glass of wine.

Expensify’s office is just one example. But even with the complimentary cocktails and social atmosphere, the lounge is still a place to work quietly and at the same time, a place to spend leisure time.

And that was obvious even before the champagne popped. There were about three employees at the bar, their eyes fixed on the screens of their laptops, cocktail in hand, while the rest worked quietly at the large central table.

Adding to the pleasant atmosphere was the music playing in the background, the afternoon sunlight gently creeping through the large windows, creating a beautiful glow on the leaves of the abundant greenery.

If this doesn’t happen, there’s a good chance that any effort to succeed will be delayed or worse – abandoned. To avoid this, it can be useful to identify which skills make someone stand out as a technology leader.

Today, we’ve chosen to present some skills that show tech leaders are looking to the future, according to The Enterprisers Project.

Inspiring others
Harvesting innovation requires changing how teams plan, think, and act. Inspiring others is key to encouraging teams to think differently. This is a challenge, as most organizations create barriers to change – opting for minor incremental improvements versus leapfrog breakthroughs. Inspirational technology leaders create teams that challenge the status quo, risk failure, and seek continuous learning to unlock innovation.

Inspirational leadership is a continuous activity. Future-ready technology leaders keep teams motivated and progressing toward a shared goal through committed action.

Storytelling
Once teams are motivated to create change, the next step is moving the entire organization toward the transformation goals. To achieve this cross-organization momentum, today’s technology leader must be a strong storyteller. A leader’s ability to connect the purpose of a transformation with each member of the organization is critical to help everyone see themselves as part of the journey.

All transformations require team members to learn new skills and possibly take on new roles in the future. This can be a challenge for many team members if they are successful in their current role and do not see the need to change. Being a storyteller helps team members envision themselves being successful at the end of the transformational journey.

Decisiveness
Teams look to leaders to be decisive. As the pace of change quickens, it is even more critical for technology leaders to build confidence through decision-making, and most do not. With abundant choices and decisions, most technology leaders adopt a wait-and-see approach out of concern that making the wrong decision can hurt the team. However, with a timely decision based on the best information available, teams can accelerate progress.

Flexibility
Decisiveness by itself is not enough. A strong technology leader needs to operate with flexibility. The pace of change is no longer linear, and leaders have less time to assess and understand every aspect of a decision. Consequently, decisions are made faster and are not always the best ones. Realizing which decisions are not spot-on and being able to adapt quickly is an example of the type of flexibility a leader needs.

Most of you probably know that electron microscopes are pretty good at imaging materials and detailing their properties, possessing resolution which is 1,000 times greater than a light microscope. However, it has some disadvantages which need to be overcome or fixed.

Often, when working on an upgrade, scientists focus their efforts on the hardware, which is always really costly. Yet, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory are giving us the opportunity to see how advanced software developments are able to push their performance even further.

Recently, a way to improve the resolution and sensitivity of an electron microscope by using an AI framework was introduced by some Argonne researchers. Their approach, which was published in npj Computational Materials, gives scientists a chance to get even more detailed information about materials and the microscope itself.  Tao Zhou, who is an Argonne assistant scientist and lead author, said:

“Our method is helping improve the resolution of existing instruments so people don’t need to upgrade to new expensive hardware so often.”

When a material is being exposed to a beam of electron waves this is the moment when Images are being formed. Because electrons act like waves when they travel, these waves interact with the material. As a result, this interaction is captured by a detector and is measured. Finally, these measurements are used to construct a magnified image.

Also, electron microscopes are able to capture information about material properties, such as magnetization and electrostatic potential. All of this information is stored in a property of the electron wave which is also known as a phase. The phrase describes the location or the timing of a point within a wave cycle.

Soon after all the measurements are taken, information about the phase is seemingly lost. That’s why scientists cannot access information about magnetization or electrostatic potential from the images they acquire. Charudatta Phatak, who is Argonne material scientist and group leader, as well as a co-author of the paper, said:

“Knowing these characteristics is critical to controlling and engineering desired properties in materials for batteries, electronics, and other devices. That’s why retrieving phase information is important.”

One of the most decades-old problems is retrieving phase information.  Eventually, it all started with X-ray imaging and now it is spread by other fields, including microscopy. With the aim of solving this problem, Mathew Cherukara, who is Phatak, Zhou, and Argonne computational scientist and group leader propose leveraging tools built to train deep neural networks, a form of AI.

What are neural networks and how do they work?

They are a series of algorithms that are designed to mimic the human brain and nervous system. When receiving a series of inputs and output, it seems that these algorithms seek to map out the relationship between the two. Cherukara said:

“Tech companies like Google and Facebook have developed packages of software that are designed to train neural networks. What we’ve essentially done is taken those and applied them to the scientific challenge of phase retrieval.”

Zhou pointed out:

“Normally when you’re trying to retrieve the phase, you presume you know your microscope parameters perfectly. However, that knowledge might not be accurate. With our method, you don’t have to rely on this assumption. Instead, you actually get the conditions of your microscope — that’s something other phase retrieval methods can’t do.”

The method they are using also improves the resolution and sensitivity of existing equipment. What does it mean? That means that researchers will be able to recover tiny shifts in phase, and in turn, get information about small changes in magnetization and electrostatic potential, all without requiring costly hardware upgrades. Zhou added:

“Just doing a software upgrade we were able to improve the spatial resolution, accuracy, and sensitivity of our microscopy,”

In his words, the fact that they didn’t need to add any new equipment to leverage these benefits is a huge advantage from an experimentalist’s point of view.

Our capabilities in developing hyperspectral satellites stands them apart from others. The fundamental principle behind hyperspectral imaging is that of imaging spectroscopy. They catch light in several narrow wavelengths with hyperspectral imaging, allowing them to delve into the chemistry of the image they are recording. Instead of telling you whether a section of the farm is green or not, they can tell you what kind of crop grows there.

They already have a significant number of customers from around the world who are waiting for our satellites to launch. Currently, they rely on imagery from planes or drones. In India, they are seeing a lot of interest from the government, with Karnataka, Telangana, and Gujarat all interested in these technologies. The markets range from multibillion dollar companies, large oil and gas companies, and large mining companies to national governments around the world.

Space is a costly field that necessitates financial resources. As of now, Pixxel has raised around $7.3 million in funding. Last year, they raised the largest seed funding of $5 million from established institutional venture capital firms — Lightspeed India and Blume Ventures. Since the launch of IN-SPACe, the regulatory environment in India has improved significantly.

They have seen Digantara raise $2.3 million recently. They have seen Skyroot and Agnikul raise $11 million each as well. Investment is flowing in and all this is possible because of the opening up of Space to private sector.

Moreover, investing in Space-tech startups has now become a viable option for Indian investors. The recent announcement of the seed fund scheme for new-age firms will ensure adequate availability of funds, especially for startups with good ideas across various fields. This will also help in creating a robust ecosystem in smaller towns of the country from where innovative ideas may emerge. Schemes like this are enabling startups grow and provide a safe space to experiment, while a majority of them fail to go beyond the idea stage due to lack of funds for initial deployment and identifying product-market fit. However, fluid policies will and can provide a room for new-age entrepreneurs to access funds that are not available through traditional mode of loans.

CIMON-2, the latest version of the artificial intelligence-powered astronaut assistant developed has successfully demonstrated its capabilities on board the International Space Station (ISS) in initial tests. The ball-shaped, free-flying voice-controlled assistant demonstrated its functionalities while interacting with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano.

CIMON-2 was launched to the ISS on December 5, 2019, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board the supply flight CRS-19. It is scheduled to remain there for up to three years. Nearly two months after the successful deployment of CIMON-2 in February, the project team has now completed its initial analysis.

CIMON-2 was tested on its autonomous flight capabilities, voice control of navigation and other tasks. For the first time, CIMON-2 was able to navigate by verbal commands to a specific point within the Columbus module, regardless of where it is located. This was demonstrated when, during the commissioning of the new hardware and software, Parmitano asked CIMON-2 to fly to the Biological Experiment Laboratory (Biolab) within the Columbus module.

Another task for CIMON-2 was to take photos and videos inside the European module of the ISS on command and then show them to the astronaut. With these skills, CIMON-2 will be able to support scientific experiments on the ISS in the future.

The current version of the astronaut assistant includes more sensitive microphones and a more developed sense of orientation than its predecessor (CIMON-1). The AI capabilities and stability of its complex software have also been significantly improved in CIMON-2. The autonomy of the battery-powered assistant has been increased by about 30 percent. In addition, CIMON-2 can detect emotions and language tones with Watson Tone Analyzer, enabling the AI assistant to react empathically to its conversational partners.

A further goal of the project is to explore how an intelligent assistant like CIMON can reduce stress for astronauts. As a partner and companion, CIMON could support them in their extensive work on experiments, maintenance and repairs, reducing their stress exposure. CIMON provides a possible basis for social assistance systems in space, which could reduce stress caused by isolation or group dynamic interactions during long-term missions, a benefit that could possibly be applied on Earth as well.

The team of DLR, Airbus, IBM and scientific partners LMU and the ESA User Support Centrum Biotesc are very satisfied with the performance of CIMON-2 so far. The new, improved hardware and complex software worked very well. This renewed success for the CIMON project is another pioneering achievement in the use of AI in space.

Meet The CIMON Family

The name CIMON came from the abbreviation Crew Interactive MObile companioN.

The development and construction of the interactive astronaut assistant CIMON was commissioned by the Space Agency at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) with funds from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy and implemented by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Bremen. IBM Watson technologies include Watson Visual Recognition, Watson Speech to Text, Watson Text to Speech, Watson Assistant and Watson Tone Analyzer, all running on IBM Cloud. The human aspects of the assistance system were co-developed and supervised by scientists of the Clinical Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU). The ESA User Support Centrum Biotesc at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland has ensured that CIMON works perfectly in the Columbus module of the ISS and cooperates with the astronauts.

In August 2016, a project team of about 50 people from DLR, Airbus, IBM, Biotesc, ESA and the LMU began working on CIMON-1. The prototype of the technology experiment was on board the ISS from July 2, 2018, to August 27, 2019, and made its 90-minute world premiere on November 15, 2018, with German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst. Following its successful mission, CIMON-1 was declared a German cultural asset and returned to Earth. CIMON-2 was completed in less than a year by a staff of about 20 members of the CIMON “family.” CIMON-1 will soon be presented to the public in museums and exhibitions to help the CIMON family grow and inspire future generations to study STEM subjects.

CIMON is a technology experiment to support astronauts and increase the efficiency of their work. CIMON is able to show and explain information such as instructions for scientific experiments and repairs. Voice-controlled access to documents and media allows the astronauts to keep both of their hands free. CIMON can also be used as a mobile camera to save time. It can perform routine tasks, such as documenting experiments, searching for objects and taking inventory. CIMON is also able to see, hear, understand and speak. Its “eyes” include a stereo camera used for orientation, a high-resolution camera for facial recognition and two lateral cameras for imaging and video documentation. Ultrasonic sensors measure distances to detect potential collisions. CIMON’s “ears” consist of eight microphones used to detect the direction of sound sources, plus an additional directional microphone for voice recognition. Its “mouth” is a speaker that can be used to speak or to play music.

CIMON is not equipped with self-training capabilities and requires active human instruction. The AI used for autonomous navigation was contributed by Airbus and is designed for movement planning and object recognition. Twelve internal rotors allow CIMON to move and revolve freely in all directions. This means it can turn toward the astronaut when addressed. It can also nod or shake its head and follow the astronaut autonomously or on command.