It is widely known that Apple invests lots of funds in design and marketing, which is easy to notice once we are on campus and observe the surroundings. Here technology becomes a real experience thanks to solutions provided by Apple, with Virtual Reality technology just one such example. Visiting the campus is also an extraordinary experience, since dedicated applications allow us to learn more about the natural landform of the area and to get to know the Apple Park better.

An interesting fact is that solar panels are the main source of energy, which makes the campus one of the most energy-efficient buildings, not only in the USA, but also in the whole world. After such a presentation it is hardly possible to pass by Apple devices and gadgets in the Apple Store without a feeling of excitement. Przemek seized the opportunity to test the newest version of the GarageBand Application on the iPad, which is paired with a huge beacon and an excellent sound system.

Apple technology is all around us. While driving by San Jose, which is home to the San Jose Sharks ice hockey team, we saw an enormous shark photo, taken – of course – with an iPhone, as a part of the Earth Shot cycle.

18,700+ attendees, 700+ cities, 675 exhibitors, 400+ speakers, and JCommerce team members: Justyna, Agnieszka, and Tomek. All at this year’s Smart City Expo, which aims to present the latest social and technological trends as well as specific solutions and ideas for improving urban life.

It is estimated that more than half of the human population lives in cities, and by 2025 this percentage should rise to 63%. Unfortunately, city dwellers are exposed to the most serious contemporary problems like pollution, climate change, social exclusion, migration and terrorism.

During this year’s edition of Smart City Expo, entitled ‘Cities to live in’, the organizers set out to find the answer to the question of how technological innovation and the sharing economy can transform cities to make them better places to live for their residents, meaning sustainable and integrative.

JCommerce’s team

Justyna Mikołajczyk, International Business Development Manager, helps companies by providing IT project and team delivery services.

Agnieszka Bujak, International Business Development Manager, supports companies in terms of software development for new IT solutions.

Tomasz Krupa, Delivery Manager, supports JCommerce’s clients by providing international software development projects.

Justyna Mikołajczyk

Key Account Manager, helps companies by providing IT project and team delivery services.

Agnieszka Bujak

International Business Development Manager, supports companies in terms of software development for new IT solutions.

Tomasz Krupa

International Business Development Manager, supports companies in scaling and speeding up the software development of new IT solutions.

You can meet us at our booth at Gran Via Venue, Hall P2, Level 0, Street A, Stand 118. Feel free to just come and chat or contact us via the form to schedule a meeting!

For all of you that can’t be in Barcelona, we will be sharing our insights from the meetings and lectures during the Smart City Expo on our blog and social media profiles, so stay tuned!

Photo gallery from the first day:

For JCommerce, it is an opportunity to meet representatives of companies from around the world and share their experience as a trusted technology partner, particularly in terms of the implementation and maintenance of Industry 4.0 solutions.

During the fair, JCommerce representatives also met representatives from Bystronic, for whom JCommerce is the main nearshoring partner.

Cooperation between JCommerce and Bystronic

Bystronic is a leading supplier of high-quality laser machines and technological solutions for sheet metal processing. The company’s range of products and services includes laser cutting systems, press brakes and automation and software solutions, as well as a wide range of complementary services.

The company’s current priority is to automate the entire technological process in the sheet metal cutting and bending production chain, including material and data flow.

On 25 October, JCommerce took part in the presentation of the latest Bystronic devices and software, such as the latest press brake models: Xpert Pro 150, Xpert 40, Xpert 80 and Xact Smart.

Joint participation at the fair is proof of the close technological and business cooperation between JCommerce and Bystronic. Cooperation with Bystronic is very important to JCommerce, mainly as it brings with it the opportunity to participate in the most technologically advanced Industry 4.0 projects; while the partnership with JCommerce is important to Bystronic due to their extensive software development experience.

EuroBLECH 2018 Photo Gallery

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Read more about Industry 4.0:

Is Standardization in PLC Programming a Good Idea?

Virtual Commissioning – Software Testing Not Just in IT

E3 is not the only gaming-related event which took place in Los Angeles during our stay here, so before the fair started, we went to the EA Play 2018 event. The most important Electronic Arts premieres of the year were presented at the Hollywood Palladium, including Battlefield V, Anthem , FIFA 19, Madden NFL 19, Star Wars Battlefront II and Sea of Solitude.

After the start of E3, Piotr, our CEO, had the opportunity to be one of the first in the world to watch Cyberpunk 2077 – the new CD Projekt Red game – live. But this is not the only taste of Poland we have had here. To my surprise, The Witcher Geralt, the hero of the most famous Polish game in the world, had a cameo in … a Japanese fighting game, Soul Calibur. It’s great to see how Polish heroes can kick the butts of Japanese warriors.

We also had the chance to see the new version of Fallout, this time in the form of a multiplayer Fallout 76 game. In the gallery below the post you can see the legendary PowerArmor helmets from the game (picture 9).

We almost paid for a look at the Resident Evil 2 remake with our lives, because the zombies turned out to be just as bloodthirsty in reality as in the game. Fortunately, Marcin defended us, and you can see proof of his heroic act in the gallery below.

We also watched a tournament of the popular game Fortnite, in which 50 American celebrities (although mainly B-listers, admittedly) faced off with 50 streamers. The winning pair included Marshello, a music producer known mainly for the popular hit “Friends” (by the way, in the tournament he turned up in the same outfit as in the music video for this song). The victors raised $ 1 million for charity.

In addition, we watched and had the opportunity to play the latest versions of Assassin’s Creed, Odyssey, which tells the story of the Spartan warrior this time, (photos with the title of the game) and exclusive Playstation games like Spiderman, Last of Us: Part 2 and Death Stranding.

Of course, you could still play a lot of other games at the fair, but the queues were huge so it was not always worth waiting. But we got a sneak peek at such games as the new Tomb Raider, Trials, Tom Clancy’s The Division 2, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, Forza Horizon 4. We also saw gameplay from Rage 2, the new Doom, and the announcement of Elders Scrolls 6, successor to the famous Skyrim.

See the photo gallery from the events and from the games I mentioned:

We came to Los Angeles to promote the largest Polish export sensation after The Witcher, meaning talented Polish programmers. The Witcher and Polish programmers have much more in common than you might think at first glance.

Created in Poland, The Witcher received the accolade of ‘Game of the Year’ in 2016 and became the most successful (in terms of awards) computer game in history. In the same year, Java programmers turned out to be the best in the world according to the HackerRank ranking of best programmers, and have managed to hold onto this title in subsequent editions.

See Paweł Smagała’s invitation:

Meet us at E3:

Piotr Zyguła

President & CEO

Marcin Siemieński

Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board at JCommerce

Paweł Smagała

Delivery Manager & Heavy ‘The Witcher’ Gamer

What awaits us at E3

E3 is the place where the most important companies in the industry present breakthrough technologies and products that have never been seen before. There are experts, visionaries, entrepreneurs, influencers and YouTubers from all environments connected with technology and the computer games industry, as well as – and perhaps above all – gamers from over 100 countries worldwide.

At E3, you can also find:

• Software Developers
• Buyers and Retailers
• Programmers
• Distributors
• Entertainment Industry Representatives
• Gamers
• Financiers and Venture Capitalists
• Importers and Exporters
• Manufacturers
• Resellers
• Researchers & Educators
• Financial and Industry Analysts
• Worldwide Electronic and Print Media

#E3

If you are interested in what’s going on at E3, follow our Twitter and Facebook channels and keep up to date with our coverage of the event.

Revolution requires sacrifice

Nowadays, we are experiencing a similar change, although many of us still do not realize it. The fourth industrial revolution, robotics and IoT devices have significantly changed the world in which we live, work and run businesses. For example, it is estimated that by 2030, 80 percent of global transport will operate in Transport as a Service mode, and the number of individual car users in the US alone will fall from 250 million to less than 20 million. This means not only a huge change in the way we travel, but above all a bloody revolution for the entire automotive industry and companies operating within its supply chain.

Read more: Technology in Our Future Mobile World

Challenges

In the United States there is an ongoing discussion on how to deal with the potential problem of people who will lose their jobs as a result of these changes and the technological revolution. Conservative estimates are that more than 300 million people will need additional training in order not to find themselves locked out of a labor market dominated by robots and automation. On the other hand, more than 10 million jobs will be created by 2030 in Germany alone, although what kinds of job has not yet been defined. We know only that they will be closely related to robotics, automation, IoT, artificial intelligence and the management of data sets, but in reality they do not exist today, so it is very difficult to prepare for them from a professional standpoint.

This raises the question of how and what should we be teaching in primary and secondary schools today? How to prepare today’s teenagers for a labor market which in a dozen years’ time will be dominated by petabytes of data and robots? Which competences to invest in and how to reallocate people threatened with the loss of their current job? What should we do as business leaders to influence the digital society, and how to shape it in order to fully benefit from the development of civilization? And finally, how to write and change the law to adapt it to the rapidly changing social, economic and technological circumstances? There are a lot of questions, and the future seems very unpredictable.

Action

There is no doubt that change is taking place now. Therefore, we should decide how to translate these questions into specific political and social activities as soon as possible. Decisions should be made on whether a universal basic income will be better, or investments should be made in order to properly educate or help people adjust to the new technological opportunities, so that they do not lose their jobs but rather gain new knowledge needed in the world of automation. A major role in this change is played not only by the public sphere, but also by corporations such as Google, Facebook or Microsoft, which should undertake activities to properly educate society and aim for sensible investments in startups and new technologies.

The conference at the University of Berkeley definitely showed that we still have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of facing the social challenges associated with the next technological breakthrough. However, we should be optimistic and draw on the history of such changes and the three industrial revolutions to date: while new technologies have always changed the labor market, they have certainly raised the level of affluence and have given us more leisure time. Let us hope that we will be able to achieve this once again, and we will be able to use the effects in order to ensure the sustainable development of all societies.

I was amazed by what technology can really offer. The German company Bionic Systems GmbH from Augsburg, one of the exhibitors at Hannover Messe, has displayed their exoskeleton, and no, I am not at a science fiction convention. This is a real-life combination of pipes and a backpack, which you put on yourself, and it looks like a kind of uniform.

The idea of the exoskeleton is of course to extend human power, to go beyond the limits of human strength. It was initially invented to help disabled people, but it is starting to be used in a wide range of industries during the production process, to help workers with their daily tasks. Simply put, it helps them to lift loads which they wouldn’t normally be able to lift.

Industry 4.0 production plants

Another big initiative from Germany that impressed me at Hannover Messe was from the German consortium SmartFactory (Technology-Initiative SmartFactory KL), which has the aim of building, managing and delivering outstanding and complex solutions for Industry 4.0 production plants. This is a joint initiative between companies including Festo, Harting, Huawei, IBM, Mettler Toledo, Rexroth (Bosch Group), Siemens, SAP, Tüv and many more.

Each company in this consortium offers unique competences, ideas for experimenting and co-operating in order to develop the intelligent factory of tomorrow. All the ideas of Industry 4.0, the smart factory and the IoT are combined to develop the concept of the innovative factory system and put it to practical use.

Industry 4.0 trends at Hannover Messe 2018

• IT and automation are influencing each other more and more, becoming inseparable.
• Retrofitting, the process of setting up communication between old and new systems, is becoming more challenging.
• Industry 4.0 requires the support of various technology platforms, for example combining .Net, cloud services, and PLC programming, all at the same time.

Polish developers are highly thought of

Meetings at b2fair, the matchmaking area of Hannover Messe, have showed that manufacturing companies from Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium are increasingly open to working with Polish engineers. Clients appreciate the top-end skills which they can find on the Polish market, and also the fact that such skills are made available in a short time. Moreover, thanks to the specifics of software development, it is often possible to organize cooperation in the field of Industry 4.0 in the nearshoring model and have large parts of the project done remotely.

Everything here is the largest and the most advanced of its kind, and the proof of this is the Hannover Fairground itself, where the trade fair is taking place – the largest exhibition area in the world, covering 554,000 square meters. With comfortable shoes on, we are going to check what the latest trends and the most urgent challenges in Industry 4.0, industrial automation and robotics are.

See Radek Szmit’s invitation:

What are we doing at Hannover Messe?

For the next three days, we are going to network with companies from around the world, talking to them about the latest industrial challenges such as Industrial Automation, IT Services, Industrial Supply, Production Engineering, Energy, Environmental Technology, and Smart Factories.

We also want to introduce our Innovation Center for Industry and the services of our .NET and PLC&HMI teams that support advanced projects for Industry 4.0.

You can also meet us at the b2fair, a matchmaking area at the trade fair, so feel free to contact us via the contact form to schedule a meeting!

In Hannover you can meet:

Grzegorz Sikorski

PLC Programmer, specializing in solutions for industrial, process and machine automation.

Anna Nowicka

International Business Development Manager, supports companies in scaling and speeding up the software development of new IT solutions.

Radek Szmit

International Sales Manager, Manager and lead, traveller, visionmonger. Enjoys all aspects of IT, outsourcing, software development and IT team building.

Justyna Mikołajczyk

International Account Manager, helps companies by providing IT project and team delivery services.

4IR technologies presented at Hannover Messe:

• connected manufacturing (industrial internet of things)
• industrial Internet
• blockchain in industry
• smart industrial equipment
• additive manufacturing

We will share our insights from the meetings during Hannover Messe on our blog so stay tuned!

Among the best-known software solutions already in use in daily life, above all, are solutions that help people living with disabilities. During the fair in Barcelona, manufacturers presented glasses for the visually impaired, advanced accessories for the hearing-impaired, as well as tools to enhance the cognitive abilities of the mind.

Glasses for the visually impaired

The mechanism by which glasses for the visually impaired operate is based on an ordinary digital camera which transmits an image to an assistant, who is then able to describe to a visually impaired person what is happening around them. Today’s solutions of this type are still quite limited, and the image is transmitted “on demand” to the human assistant who helps the person with a disability as part of the healthcare service. However, advanced tests are already being conducted using image recognition algorithms and artificial intelligence that will be able to fulfil the role of an autonomous assistant in the future.

Hearables

The hearing aids currently in use are limited and are not always comfortable to use. For this reason, there are an increasing number of hearables released on the market to solve such issues in different ways. Many of them resemble the regular headphones which we use every day to listen to music or make phone calls. Because these are shaped like a fashionable gadget, they don’t embarrass people who wear them. And it is worth remembering that hearing problems might be the cause of such stigmatization, because they are usually associated with elderly people. Added to that, hearables are much cheaper than traditional hearing aids, and they also provide many more possibilities, including many solutions dedicated to entertainment. They are much more attractive to the hearing-impaired, allowing them to enjoy a full life.

Extended thinking

Another interesting group of software solutions supports human cognitive abilities. Over the past few decades, there has been a revolution in science and communication in all areas of our lives, but the possibilities of our mind have remained unchanged. Researchers have already noticed that we produce so much data that we need help to understand it, which is why they are intensively working on tools that will act as a “thinking assistant”. The basic challenge in this area is to create an optimal model that allows the human brain to be able to interact with data. Special graphics interfaces are created for this purpose, visualizing huge data resources. These tools learn about their users, following how we interact with them using tools such as eye tracking, voice recognition or monitoring other physiological reactions of the human body.

HealthTech predictions 2028

Intelligent implants – medication will be provided in implantable form and delivered automatically based on real world-data, e.g. in emergency situations such as a stroke, heart attack, or lack of oxygen (asthma). Real-time physiological data as a trigger.

Personal Health Scores – health scores will be a part of our daily life, just like a credit score in today’s world. In 2018, there will be about 10 billion biosensors in use. Each user will receive tips for living a healthy lifestyle based on his or her medical records. Monitoring the results of medical tests will motivate people to follow these recommendations. The Personal Health Score will be used for insurance purposes. Such a solution will probably not be used everywhere, though, due to ethical concerns.

My Data Marketplace – people will collect their own health data and have incentives to share it, earning money just by being alive.

Robotic surgeons – remote robot-assisted surgeries will become commonplace.  This technology will allow for surgical operations with more precision, reduced blood loss and a shorter recovery time.

Smart therapies – the convergence of predictive analytics and personalized medicine to predict the efficiency and safety of a therapy will fundamentally disrupt the pharmacology and healthcare industry.

It is estimated that, by using only some of these solutions, we will slowly extend our lifespans by an average of 10-20 years.

The healthcare industry is an exciting area in terms of software development. It has seen a large amount of growth within the last few years and we at JCommerce have been taking on more healthcare software development projects worldwide.