New tech on the block: AI, cybersecurity, data streaming, FinTech, cloud, SaaS & cleantech

The Tech Panda takes a look at recent tech launches.

AI: End-to-end AI-integrated user research platform that revolutionizes the way businesses gather insights

Entropik, an AI company, unveiled Qatalyst, the ultimate end-to-end AI-integrated user research platform that revolutionizes the way businesses gather insights to make informed decisions about their digital products.

Lava Kumar, Founder & CPO of Entropik, confidently stated, “Qatalyst marks a transformative moment in user research, backed by Gartner’s recognition of our platform’s excellence and our technological prowess with 17 patents on Emotion AI and Behavior AI technologies. Qatalyst serves as an all-encompassing solution for quick and well-informed product decisions, supporting diverse testing methods and harnessing unbiased insights through cutting-edge AI tools. Seamlessly integrating Insights GPT, design resources, and behavioral analytics, Qatalyst uplifts businesses in delivering actionable insights that fuel success.”

Features

• Its advanced emotion and behavioral analytics, such as click tracking, eye tracking, facial coding, and voice AI, provide unbiased actionable insights, enhancing the comprehension of user behavior and preferences.
• With real-time user tracking, unmoderated and moderated capabilities, and seamless ChatGPT (OpenAI API) integration, Qatalyst empowers users with timely, actionable insights to expedite decision-making.
• The platform boasts a customizable study builder with over 25 templates covering unmoderated, moderated, and task-based research techniques, in-depth analytics on user behavior and automated journeys, and an advanced insights generation tool to help create visually appealing and easily shareable research reports.
• It streamlines and augments the user research journey, equipping UX and Product teams with a comprehensive suite of robust tools to optimize their design and user research processes.
• By promoting early and continuous testing, it enables the collection of invaluable user feedback, allowing teams to swiftly identify strengths and weaknesses in their product designs. This iterative approach empowers UX/Product professionals to make continuous refinements, leading to the development of exceptional user experiences.

CleanTech: Sustainability solutions & services to help organizations achieve critical environmental & decarbonization goals

Hitachi Vantara, the modern infrastructure, data management and digital solutions subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. (TSE: 6501), announced new sustainability solutions and services to aid organizations in achieving critical environmental and decarbonization goals. Leveraging expertise in industrial domains, green transformation, energy, and mobility, Hitachi Vantara’s new offerings enable organizations to adopt sustainable business practices that pave the way to a greener future.

“Decarbonation is no longer reserved for the most environmentally conscious as industries face increasing regulation and requirements to limit carbon contributions,” said Bjoern Stengel, IDC’s global sustainability research lead. “This new approach by Hitachi Vantara gives customers the tools to make informed decisions about its process and create solutions that will truly impact the bottom line — both in sustainability and monetarily.”

The Why

“The agriculture industry is facing increasingly strict requirements to reduce the overheads of water usage, improve environmental outcomes, and ensure we maintain compliance with regulatory requirements,” said Wayne Parr, director at Golden Grove Nursery, the dominant supplier of citrus nursery trees to the Queensland, Australia citrus industry. “Golden Grove produces between 200,000 — 250,000 citrus nursery trees per year, supplying up to 70% of Queensland’s citrus growers and commercial orchards. Using the power of data and Hitachi Sustainability Solutions and Services to improve our irrigation management processes, we’re now able to intelligently monitor the irrigation systems daily and understand exactly when to water so we can identify and adjust for the months ahead.”

With Hitachi Sustainability Solutions and Services, you can confidently traverse your sustainability journey. Creating strategic plans and defining measured steps to drive real change, we enable you to transform your organization, reduce your environmental impact, and contribute to a better, more sustainable future.

Features

Hitachi Sustainability Solutions and Services are uniquely designed to better understand and reduce the carbon footprint from physical and digital operations. The comprehensive collection of services and solutions focuses on four key areas crucial for decarbonization:

• Green IT: Gain a holistic understanding of your IT footprint through insights to decarbonize IT assets and operations, including application and asset energy efficiency, power supply and equipment, scope 3 cloud emissions, energy efficient IT architecture — including Hitachi Vantara’s eco-friendly storage portfolio* — and data stewardship.
• Manufacturing: Understand energy consumption and carbon emissions across manufacturing processes and value chains to realize business growth through lower carbon intensity and resource efficiency.
• Facilities: Create an optimized system built for your needs by incorporating sensors, advanced analytics, and control systems to achieve greater energy efficiencies and cost savings.
• Data and Analytics: Co-create solutions for greater impact on social and environmental issues that matter the most to you and your stakeholders through Hitachi’s extensive expertise in IoT, advanced analytics, digital twin, and AI technologies.

• The service portfolio empowers customers to define and implement a realistic, measurable roadmap towards achieving carbon neutrality targets. Insights from precision dashboards can now easily identify carbon ‘hot spots’ and prioritize areas to realize environmental goals and business ambitions.

• It helps customers define a quantifiable path forward, augmented with tailored digital solutions to streamline and transform your organization, empowering you to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Cybersecurity: A tool to scan old messages within Office 365 Inboxes for threats

Cloudflare, a connectivity cloud company launched a tool that can enable customers to scan old messages within their Office 365 Inboxes for threats. Retro Scan will detect and highlight any threats so that customers can clean up their inboxes by addressing them within their email accounts.

Features

With this information, customers can implement additional controls, such as using Cloudflare or their preferred solution, to prevent similar threats from reaching their mailbox in the future. The retro scan is currently in a closed beta.

To be able to access the messages to scan, Cloudflare needs authorization to be able to scan messages. Customers can start this process by providing Cloudflare with the appropriate permissions to scan messages. The second authorization will allow the Cloudflare application to access Active Directory. This is needed to understand which users are within the organization along with which groups they belong to which helps the company’s algorithms better assess if a message is malicious.

After running a Retro Scan and seeing the results customers can either choose to purchase Cloudflare Area 1 to prevent future threats from making it into their inbox or choose to set up a phishing risk assessment which is a 30-day free trial of the Area 1 product.

Data streaming: A service for stream processing that helps companies filter, join, & enrich data streams with Flink

Confluent, Inc. (NASDAQ: CFLT), the data streaming company announced the open preview of Apache Flink® on Confluent Cloud, a fully managed service for stream processing that makes it easier for companies to filter, join, and enrich data streams with Flink. With data streams processed on the fly, organizations are able to react and innovate faster with timely insights. In addition, Confluent announced Data Portal to help teams discover all the real-time data streams within their organizations, Enterprise Clusters to cut Apache Kafka® costs for serverless private networking, and reduced storage costs for Confluent Cloud.

“Companies globally are leveraging data streaming with Apache Kafka to power real-time experiences,” said Shaun Clowes, Chief Product Officer at Confluent. “While data streaming connects data across an organization, stream processing tools like Apache Flink make it possible to act on that data in real time and accelerate the development of new use cases. Our managed Kafka and Flink offerings are like the peanut butter and jelly of data streaming. They work better together on a unified platform to connect and enrich data so teams can uncover more insights and deliver impactful experiences that move the needle.”

The Why

Data streaming is a critical business requirement – 72% of IT leaders use it to power mission-critical systems, according to the 2023 Data Streaming report. But streaming data is only part of the puzzle. To derive the full value of data streams, organizations need to combine, enrich, and reshape those streams with other data from across their organization. In a data streaming platform, stream processing acts as the compute layer that turns data into valuable insights and action.

Features

Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud allows teams to create high-quality, reusable data streams that can be delivered anywhere in real time. With Confluent’s fully managed and elastically scalable Flink service, teams can reduce the architectural complexity and operational burdens of stream processing to enrich streaming data and power innovative use cases.

Teams using Apache Flink on Confluent Cloud can:

• Effortlessly filter, join, and enrich data streams with Flink, the standard for stream processing.
• Enable high-performance and efficient stream processing at any scale, without the complexities of infrastructure management.
• Experience Kafka and Flink as a unified platform, with fully integrated monitoring, security, and governance.

Cybersecurity: A broad portfolio of cyber safety products for MSMEs

Gen™ (NASDAQ: GEN), a global cybersecurity leader launched a broad portfolio of cyber safety products offered through its trusted brands in India. Engineered to enable small businesses to operate online with confidence, the Gen Small Business portfolio of solutions – starting with the portfolio from Avast Business – will help small businesses and scale to stay ahead of the latest cyber threats.

The Avast Business Hub is a powerful cloud-based platform for businesses and IT Service Providers to manage all Avast Business solutions. It provides real-time visibility of threats, comprehensive reporting, and management capabilities, all in a single platform. 

Ritesh Chopra, Director Sales & Field Marketing, India and SAARC Countries, Gen said “We are glad to announce the launch into India of Avast Business Portfolio. The expansion of our portfolio reinforces our commitment to ensuring the cyber safety of small businesses. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, small businesses are the backbone of our economy, and they deserve the best tools to thrive. Avast Business Hub is our commitment to providing these companies with a cutting-edge, user-friendly cybersecurity software suite that provides ultimate peace of mind”.

Features

To protect against ever-evolving threats on businesses, Avast Business provides a wide array of award-winning products and services that are modular and can grow as companies grow. These include:

• Avast Business Patch Management – Allows businesses to maintain, manage, and update their Windows and third-party software applications all from our applications all from our Business Hub platform. It takes the guesswork out of patching by identifying critical vulnerabilities and making it easy to deploy patches across all endpoints from one central dashboard.
• Avast Business Cloud Backup – Service keeps data secure and ensures business continuity by protecting devices with an automated backup process that is easy to deploy and manage. Quickly set up backup schedules on devices. Centrally manage from one dashboard to ensure all data is backed up and available. Easily recover data in the case of an unexpected event.
• Avast Business Remote Control – IT admins can quickly and safely connect to a user’s machine and help resolve issues in real-time – saving them time and money.
• Avast Small Office Protection – Device, data identity and ransomware protection coupled with IT support.
• Avast Essential Business Security – Protection from Avast Small Office coupled with an easy-to-use online management platform.
• Avast Premium Business Security – award-winning protection for multiple operating systems plus Ransomware Shield for additional layers to help protect against ransomware attacks.
• Avast Ultimate Business Security – Award-winning protection plus VPN, webcam and password protection, Ransomware Shield and Patch Management to help fix vulnerabilities in third-party software.
• Avast Business Hub – Security platform designed to streamline how Avast’s channel partners, managed service providers (MSPs), and business customers manage their cybersecurity solution.

FinTech: A digital banking product

RBL Bank launched its latest digital banking product, GO Savings Account. A zero-balance account with simple account opening process and easy-to-operate features, the product caters to customers of all age groups.

Deepak Gaddhyan, Head of Branch and Business Banking, RBL Bank, said, “The launch of ‘GO Savings Account’ bridges the gap between traditional and digital banking by offering a compelling value proposition for customers. With our user-friendly account opening experience bundled with the new-age subscription-based model and services there on, we aim to bring digital convenience to a larger customer segment.”

Features

The GO Savings Account signifies a modern shift in the world of banking, presenting a novel subscription-based model. The product offers multiple customer-friendly advantages including – high interest rates of up to 7.5%* per annum, a premium debit card, vouchers worth Rs. 1,500 for premier brands, comprehensive cyber insurance cover, accident and travel insurance up to Rs. 1 crore, free CIBIL report, and an array of premium banking services, all bundled into a single package at 1st year subscription fee of Rs. 1999 + taxes & annual renewal fee thereafter of Rs. 599 + taxes.

The streamlined account opening process will enable customers to open an account in minutes by providing their PAN and Aadhaar details. Further, GO Account holders will enjoy fee-free transactions.

AI: AI-powered total talent acquisition integrates with WhatsApp

Ceipal, ??an AI-powered total talent acquisition and automation platform, launched its new integration with WhatsApp, so they can deepen their engagement with candidates in real-time. Ceipal applicant tracking system (ATS) users can now connect with candidates directly through WhatsApp conversations that strengthen relationships, improve efficiency, and attract talent faster. 

“In order to create remarkable candidate experiences, recruiters and staffing professionals must be able to immediately reach and nurture top talent before the competition,” said Ceipal Founder and CEO Sameer Penakalapati. “By interacting with candidates via instant messaging tools, such as WhatsApp, they can further build out their talent pools and personalize their communication with them. Ceipal’s WhatsApp integration is another solution for recruiters and staffing professionals to streamline their workflows and boost their productivity so they can strengthen their candidate relationships.” 

Features

• Ceipal users can configure WhatsApp to contact candidates and automatically schedule interviews with them directly through the ATS, allowing candidates to accept, reschedule, or reject calendar invites directly from WhatsApp.
• The integration enables users to auto-source candidates with Ceipal’s AI technology, which connects with potential candidates by sharing job information via email and WhatsApp messages to engage top talent from internal databases.
• Recruiters and staffing professionals can use WhatsApp to share GDPR consent requests.
• Candidates can easily accept or decline requests directly through WhatsApp.

Cloud: A single hybrid cloud data platform

Hitachi Vantara, the modern infrastructure, data management, and digital solutions subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), introduced Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One a single hybrid cloud data platform.

“Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One marks a significant milestone with our infrastructure strategy. With a consistent data platform, we will provide businesses with the reliability and flexibility to manage their data across various storage environments without compromise,” said Dan McConnell, senior vice president, product management for storage and data infrastructure, Hitachi Vantara. “The design, development, and construction of Virtual Storage Platform One, with a focus on reliability, security, and sustainability, further enhances the impact for our customers.”

The Why

Having a common data plane across structured and unstructured data in block, file, and object storage allows businesses to run different types of applications anywhere — on-premises and in the public cloud, without the complexities many are faced with today.

A recent report highlighted how data-intensive technologies and applications are exacerbating the already-strained infrastructure and hybrid cloud environments on which they run, with six in 10 business leaders already overwhelmed by the amount of data they store, and 75% concerned their current infrastructure will be unable to scale for the future. According to an Uptime Institute data resiliency survey, 80% of data center managers and operators have experienced some type of outage in the past three years.

Features

With Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform One, organizations can efficiently manage their workloads and data resources, including:

• Cloud self-service that enables users to rapidly consume advanced data services like replication at cloud-scale, without waiting for back-end manual work.
• Intelligent workload management to optimize storage pools by assigning and rebalancing workloads as conditions change, without hands-on management.
• Integrated copy data management to ensure global availability and superior fault tolerance without impacting performance using industry-leading replication and synchronous active storage clusters.

Upgrade: Product innovations to help support business productivity and growth

GoTo, the company making IT management, support, and business communications easy with flagship products GoTo Resolve, and LogMeIn Rescue, announced nearly 60 new product updates across its portfolio.

“Disruptions to businesses are inevitable, seen recently with the rise of artificial intelligence and cyber threats, and previously with hybrid working and COVID. For organisations aiming to overcome the disruption of the future, ensuring IT teams, the heart of digital transformation, are equipped with the right tools becomes paramount.”, said Lindsay Brown, VP and General Manager of APJ at GoTo.

The Why

According to Gartner, 96% of businesses either have or plan to adopt a hybrid work model. Yet, this new way of working comes with new, complex challenges coupled with an uncertain economy. Companies must give their IT teams the absolute best tools to make it easier to empower their employees and customers.

Features

The latest product releases from GoTo deliver just that with:

• Enhanced security and compliance for your critical IT management tools – The new application updates in GoTo Resolve keep third-party applications on managed devices updated. The recently introduced GoTo Resolve Asset Management also protects businesses by tracking, monitoring, and managing their inventory of IT hardware assets to increase productivity, easily identify devices and users, and ensure compliance.
• Complex workflows are more integrated and easier to navigate – GoTo Resolve now integrates with Logitech for CollabOS to provide built-in remote access for video conferencing hardware. GoTo Resolve also released a new dashboard experience for real-time visibility into key device monitoring and helpdesk metrics, and the ability to customize email addresses for helpdesk service.
• AI-powered and automated tasks – New features automate repetitive tasks to save IT teams and employees valuable time. These updates include GoTo Resolve Helpline, which gives end users an additional channel for support and generates AI-powered troubleshooting tips while they wait for an agent.
• More effective ways to serve your customers on any device – Rescue now offers support for Intel vPro® enabled devices allowing for support of out-of-band devices, as well as expanded OS support, including Linux improvements and support for Chromebooks, offering more ways to support more types of devices using Rescue. GoTo Resolve has added in-session VoIP capabilities to provide real-time verbal assistance in remote support sessions.

SaaS: Analytic Edge Qube, an all-in-one toolkit for marketing analytics

Analytic Edge, a provider of marketing and sales analytics solutions, launched Analytic Edge Qube, a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides companies with an all-in-one toolkit for marketing analytics.

Rahul Budhraja, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Analytic Edge, said, “I am pleased to announce the availability of our Analytic Edge Qube SaaS platform as an all-in-one toolkit for marketing analytics and data-driven decision making. The benefits of marketing analytics have so far largely been restricted to large companies and brands due to the cost and complexity involved. With this platform, our objective is to democratize marketing analytics by making it simple, fast and accessible to all.”

The Why

Today, companies face two major challenges with setting up an effective marketing analytics program. First, the long turnaround time for running analytics and generating insights and recommendations, makes it ineffective for real-time decision making on changes to marketing strategy and campaigns. Two, the dependence on large consulting firms or analytics providers to manage, run and interpret marketing analytics makes it expensive to set up and scale across multiple brands and markets.

The Qube platform offers highly automated, intuitive, no-code interfaces that enable companies and brands to bring their marketing analytics in-house without the need for data scientists or statistics experts within the company. Bringing marketing analytics in-house with Qube’s subscription-based, a-la-carte model delivers cost efficiency and easy scalability, while enabling more real-time marketing insights for timely and data-driven marketing decision making in today’s fast-paced competitive landscape. In addition, the Qube platform addresses increasing privacy concerns and regulations by reducing the need to share user data with third parties.  

Features

Clients can access the Qube platform through a cloud-based interface and log in to any of the solutions they are subscribed to. No code interfaces allow for creation of analytical models, running Test and Learn experiments, testing impact of pricing and promotion strategies, viewing insights on visual dashboards, and more.

The platform brings together a comprehensive suite of solutions including – DemandDriversTM for always-on Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), SynTestTM for AI powered Test and Learn, PriceSenseTM for pricing and promotion analytics, and PowerViewTM for analytics visualization. The platform provides marketers with all the analytics tools they need to deliver improved marketing effectiveness and marketing Return on Investment (ROI).

CleanTech: Regenerative Circular Bioenergy System that combines forestry & bioenergy

GPS Renewables, an Indian full stack technology & engineering company focused on Clean Fuels, has partnered with Hasten Ventures, a nature based solutions company, to introduce ‘Regenerative Circular Bioenergy System’ that combines forestry and bioenergy, representing a significant step towards addressing critical climate challenges.

Mainak Chakraborty, CEO and Co-Founder of GPS Renewables, said, “A first-of-its-kind concept, GPS Renewables is pioneering a uniquely designed decarbonization project that leverages a combination of forestry and bioenergy to establish a self-sufficient regenerative ecosystem. By integrating the two, our aim is to not only enhance climate impact but also empower local communities. This project addresses the crucial pillars of environmental, financial, and social sustainability.”

The Why

This project, set to be executed in Junda Village, Jaipur, Rajasthan, addresses all three pillars of sustainability, including environmental, financial and social sustainability. The project has already been kickstarted and the goal is to plant 16,000 saplings across 50 acres.

Features

The Regenerative Circular Bioenergy System (RCBS) is built on three core principles

• Regenerative: Focusing on the revitalization of ecosystems rather than depleting them. The project will focus on using degraded lands for climate impact, and in the process restoring them.
• Circular: Enabling a circular economy by recycling nutrients, utilizing manure from the CBG (Compressed Biogas) plant to enhance cropland fertility and providing feedstock for the bioCNG plant, which generates clean energy.
• Bioenergy: Harnessing the power of biomass to produce energy.

The RCBS system comprises three key sub-systems that work together to achieve a net-negative carbon impact.

• Forest: A significant forest cover will be established on community lands with a focus on improving local biodiversity and achieving carbon sequestration at scale. Forests provide valuable ecosystem services which are beneficial for local communities. Among others, this subsystem will  enhance soil fertility, improve water availability, and create a favorable microclimate for nearby crop plantations.
• Perennial Grass: Cultivation of Napier grass not only supports local communities but also ensures a year-round supply of feedstock to the adjacent Bioenergy plant.
• Bioenergy Plant: The Bioenergy plant produces green biogas, generating clean energy. Simultaneously, it promotes nutrient recycling by using manure from the CBG plant to benefit crop plantations.

Deep synergies exist between these subsystems, ensuring both commercial viability and a positive climate impact. Forestry enhances crop lands by increasing fertility, water availability, and improving the microclimate. Napier Cultivation guarantees a constant supply of feedstock for the Bioenergy plant. The Bioenergy plant, in turn, supplements the forestry economically during its initial years until the forest becomes economically self-sufficient and can generate income from carbon markets. The climate impact is two fold with forestry resulting in sequestration of carbon and the CBG plant output directly substituting use of fossil fuels.