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Monthly Archives: June 2019

  • June 26, 2019
  • 0

Fact Check: How Magento 2 Platform can Support the Hyper Growth of Ecommerce & Retail in Middle-East

Category : Digital Commerce & Experience Blog

Over the past few years, Middle-eastern market has witnessed an exponential growth of ecommerce businesses. Moreover, it is set to chart newer records, with UAE as the front runner.

According to a report published by Bain & Company, “e-commerce market in MENA has the potential to grow 3.5 times by 2022, reaching a total market size of $28.5 billion”

Thus, it would not be wrong to state that the Middle-east will emerge as the hotspot of ecommerce growth in the coming years!

So what is fuelling the growing popularity of ecommerce in the Middle-eastern region?

This blog is our attempt to answer such queries and also understand the inherent nature of Middle-Eastern ecommerce market. We also explore what makes Magento 2 the preferred platform of choice for the major retailers of the region.

Image 1: Growth of Ecommerce in Middle-East from 2015 through 2020

What is Driving this Ecommerce Growth in the Middle-East?

  1. Changing Consumer behaviour: High level of internet penetration, a high spending potential, improved infrastructure & logistics facilities and internet savvy consumers. These are few critical drivers of this burgeoning growth of ecommerce business in Middle-eastern region.
  2. Government’s Digital Initiatives: Also worth mentioning are proactive support and e-governance initiatives extended by the government bodies aimed at making Middle-east, a favourable destination for conducting ecommerce business. Some of these initiates includes:
    • The Dubai Free Zones Council’s new e-commerce regulations encourages foreign direct investment into the e-commerce sector.
    • Launch of various paper-based information services have considerable simplified the entire process of starting and growing ecommerce business in Middle-eastern region, specifically the UAE. These services include vehicle licensing, passports/visa issuance, integration with standardized online payment platforms.
      These initiatives are encouraging more and more local merchants to leverage the power of ecommerce platforms to fuel their business growth.

      While there is a plethora of options when it comes to choosing a robust ecommerce platform to manage their scaling businesses, the Middle-eastern region has demonstrated an interesting trend over the past few years.

      Yes, we are talking about growing popularity of the Magento commerce platform, specifically Magento 2.x version.

    3. Image source: trends.builtwith.com

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Read about our successful Magento partnerships with leading brands from the Middle-East, helping them leverage ecommerce technology and achieve their business goals
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How Does Magento Commerce Act as Catalyst for the Growth of Middle-Eastern Ecommerce Market?

Off-late, Magento has been enjoying the title of most preferred ecommerce platform on a global scale. And market experts feel that this trend will only grow after its acquisition by the Experience Maker, Adobe in 2018. Let us look at some data and stats to get an idea about the popularity of this ecommerce platform:

  • Magento is used by more than 250,000 merchants, globally
  • Magento has been ranked #1 under the Internet Retailer 1000 list for four consecutive years
  • From March 2017 to August 2018, the number of sites built on Magento has nearly doubled
  • The number of online customers served by Magento merchants is expected to grow by 200% between 2016 and 2020.

Image Source: Hackernoon

As Magento was leading the global ecommerce market, it came up with Magento 2 in the year 2015. The launch of Magento 2 has been a significant event for the open source ecommerce platform.  The newer version has improved architecture, a well-defined data base design, faster development time and more. All of these mean more ease-of-use for the developers, ecommerce merchants and end-users alike.

As per a study conducted by global strategy consultancy Stax, migrating to the latest version of Magento Commerce 2 helped ecommerce merchants to save cost by 62% while deploying new content.

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“While we’re committed to supporting the success of all merchants, the time to upgrade to Magento Commerce 2 is now. Magento Commerce 2 delivers superior cloud-hosted performance at scale, freedom from IT bottlenecks with creating, scheduling, and launching compelling content, and true business intelligence capabilities. Plus Magento’s unmatched flexibility enables our global community of partners and developers to deliver virtually any commerce experience in record time and at a superior total cost of ownership.”

– Joe Ayyoub, Former Head of Global Support Operations, Magento
______________________________________________________________________________________

Let us look at the list of features offered by the latest version of Magento 2, that is making it a favourite amongst the ecommerce store owners:

  1. Support for Progressive Web Apps: Magento 2 extends support for Progressive Web Apps with its PWA Studio: a suite of tools helpful in building Magento-powered PWA storefront.

    PWA, the most efficient mechanism to embrace Headless Commerce architecture, is a mobile app delivered through a web browser. It renders a web app with added capabilities like superior performance in terms of speed and functionalities support (push notifications, working offline, and app-like UX).

    Since its inception, it has been a boon for online retailers looking for options beyond native apps.

  2. Page Builder: In its latest release, Magento 2.3.0, Magento has come up with intuitive, drag-and-drop content management functionality – the Page Builder.

    The Page Builder enables anyone to manage and create new pages, customize the website content and appearance, launch content on pre-determined schedule.

  3. Multi Source Inventory: This feature lets the ecommerce store owner assign products to multiple sources, track the inventory at multiple physical locations, and manage the sources of inventory which are used to fulfill orders for each website. All this with the help of a unified Magento admin panel.
  4. Support for the Arabic language: Magento 2 offers support for both RTL (Right to Left) languages like Arabic, Hebrew; and LTR (Left to Right) languages. This is a critical requirement for merchants (local as well as global) who want to cater and offer content to the customers of the Middle-eastern region in their languages.
  5. Support for plethora of Payment methods: WePay , MangoPay, Citrus Payment Gateway, Paypal Adaptive Payments, Paypal Parallel Express, Cash On delivery; Magento 2 allows  the online shoppers to choose from an array of payment modes.
  6. Rich Web API Framework: Magento 2 brings with a wide array of web APIs that lets the online merchants to:
    • create new shopping applications,
    • Build JavaScript widgets in the Magento storefront
    • integrate their webstore with other 3rd party platforms such as CMS, CRM, ERP, etc.
  7. Robust security features: Magento 2 uses a robust Two-Factor Authentication extension to restrict the access to its backend to only the trusted devices, authenticated using four different types of authenticators.

    Additionally, hacking of Magento 2 admin panel can be prevented by creating a secret key for the Admin URL. With this one can add additional layer of security: custom created passwords, set the admin session durations, set the password validation period etc.

    Magento 2.3, the latest version of Magento 2 has come up with an option X-Frame-Options HTTP request header to protect you storefront against clickjacking attacks. Using the X-Frame-Options header sites can ensure that their content is not getting embedded into other websites.

Looking for more reasons to migrate your existing ecommerce website to Magneto 2? Give this blog a read: Top 8 Reasons to Migrate to Magento 2

  • June 25, 2019
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[Vlog] Understanding Vehicle Diagnostics: On-Board vs Off-Board Diagnostics

Category : Embedded Blog

Let’s imagine a scenario! A car while going on a highway develops a glitch in the Anti-lock braking system. This glitch might cause the ABS to not work as efficiently as it should.

The following two very important things happen at such instances:

  • First, the fault is stored in the ECU in the form of a Diagnostics Trouble Code (DTC).
  • Second, a warning light is switched on, to alert the driver that some fault has occurred. The driver can then take the vehicle to the garage and get the issue rectified.

It is the vehicle diagnostics that carries out this functionality. This diagnostics system has been categorized as – on-board diagnostics and off-board diagnostics.

Our latest video discusses both these vehicle diagnostics systems and their working. We also have detailed blog on OBD vs Off-board diagnostics that you can find here.

Key Takeaways of the on-board diagnostics vs off-board diagnostics video

  • Introduction to vehicle diagnostics
  • How Vehicle Diagnostics works?
  • Need for vehicle diagnostics?
  • On-board diagnostics vs Off-board Diagnostics: A Quick comparison

The video attempts to present a qualitative analysis of on-board and off-board diagnostics and why they need to co-exist.

All these attributes make this video a must-see for automotive enthusiasts and even the engineers who are working or plan to work on projects related to UDS, OBD2 protocol etc.

  • June 20, 2019
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How SAE J1939 Protocol Powers -Vehicle Communication & Diagnostics in Commercial Vehicles

Category : Embedded Blog

Commercial Vehicles and Passenger vehicles are different in many aspects and vehicle diagnostics is one of them. There are complex processes at play and a higher degree of standardization is required in commercial vehicles. The reason is that they might use various implements from different manufactures.

Diagnostics protocols such as OBD and UDS had been designed for Passenger Cars. Commercial vehicles such as buses and trucks required high-layer protocol for complex operations.

And this is precisely the reason why a separate communication and vehicle diagnostics protocol, SAE J1939 was created.

This video blog on SAE J1939 sheds some light on the following important aspects:

  • An Introduction to SAE J1939 Protocol
  • Need for J1939 Protocol ( even when CAN protocol already existed)
  • Key Characteristics of SAE J1939 Protocol
  • Layered Architecture of SAE J1939
  • PGN, SPN and Diagnostic Trouble Codes

This short introductory video on SAE J1939 will help you develop understanding of both the in-vehicle communication and diagnostics aspects.

We have also tried to explain the concepts with the help of real-world examples. Automotive professionals, business managers and even decision makers will find this video quite helpful. You can also read our detailed blog on SAE J1939 here.

  • June 19, 2019
  • 0

PoC Development of a Laser Based and Gesture Controlled HUD

Category : IoT casestudies

About the Customer:

Our Customer is the subsidiary of a leading manufacturer of off–road vehicles and machineries for Construction, Agriculture and Forestry applications.
 

Business Challenge:

The customer’s automotive software development team realised the need to integrate a Laser-based Windshield Heads-Up Display solution in their off-road vehicle product line.

The Heads–Up display system had been conceptualized to support a range of features including:

  1. Interactive navigation that is controllable through hand gestures,
  2. Seamless camera streaming, &
  3. Accurate display of live data from the CAN BUS

However, before kick-starting their production-grade solution development,   the customer realised the gravity of some critical challenges:

  • Since the HUD system would be installed in off-road vehicles that operated under varying ambient lighting conditions, visibility of the HUD display was a challenge.

  • The HUD solution had to display alerts pertaining to critical vehicle parameters/information on windshield of the off-road vehicle.
    These information alerts included:

    • Vehicle speed
    • Parking mode
    • Left and Right Turn Signals
    • UREA level indicators
    • Break warnings
    • Front and rear Power Take-Off

    • & many more

  .
To confront these challenges successfully, our customer decided to take the PoC development route! It was decided to partner with a reliable technology partner, who can help them with PoC development and testing of the Laser Based Heads-Up Display solution for their off-road vehicles.
 

Embitel Solution:

At Embitel, our Android Teams already have experience in delivering a production-grade Heads-Up Display for global Automotive customers.

We also have successfully demonstrated capabilities in the areas of J1939 stack development and Android based embedded application development. The customer developed trust in our product development capabilities and decided to partner with our product engineering team, for HUD PoC development.

Our HUD solution development team included the following experts:

  • Android Engineer
  • Embedded C Engineers
  • Automotive diagnostic and networking stacks Expert
  • Android Device Driver Development Expert
  • UI/UX developer
  • HUD product development experts

The following is the snapshot of the PoC development Roadmap for the Gesture Controlled Heads-Up Display:

  1. Software and hardware modules evaluation: Consulting services for identification of key software and hardware modules.

    This was critical in design and development of:

    • Laser based projection of alerts on HUD windshield
    • Configuration of the CAN BUS messages
    • Facilitation of the transmission of CAN BUS parameters to the HUD system.
  2. Integration and customization of J1939 stack with the HUD system:
    • Configuration of Receive (Rx) and Transmit (Tx) CAN messages between HUD system and J1939 stack.
    • Network management through configuration of CAN Node address HUD on J1939 BUS.
    • Middleware development: For reliable transmission of the vehicle information related to each CAN BUS parameters, the HUD system should be able to communicate with the vehicle ECUs.

    To facilitate this seamless communication between the J1939 bus and the heads-up display unit, a middleware acting as the network management layer was developed.

  3. Design and development of User interface elements for the HUDsystem.
  4. Implementation of Hand Gesture-based control interface.
  5. Android based application development using Android app framework to ensure that vehicle parameters are appropriately projected on the HUD’s windshield as and when it received the corresponding CAN parameter.
  6. Developed a J1939 based Android application layer (basedon an Arm core processor)

 

Embitel Impact:

Embitel’s domain expertise in automotive HUD product development and innovative technology approach proved to be a great value-add during the customer’s solution development journey:

  1. The customer was very pleased with the PoC solution and they now have plans to take the solution from PoC to full-fledged development.
  2. Embitel’ s in-house development team helped in eliminating the initial bottlenecks faced by the customer; and successfully developed the PoC solution within a short span of 2-3 months
  3. The PoC solution helped in accelerating the customer‘s in-house R&D efforts. This also provided them with a seamless solution to reduce the overall time to market of their final product.
  4. Additionally, usage of re-usable components such as J1939 stack, HUD software stack also helped in reducing the overall PoC development time

 

Tools & Technologies:

  • Busmaster for simulating vehicle movement
  • Arm core processor
  • Android studio
  • J1939 stack
  • Laser based projector
  • June 13, 2019
  • 0

DRIFT your Android OS Porting Projects!

Category : Embedded Blog

Over the last few years , Android has emerged as a platform of choice for the development of embedded applications, including Automotive, and Industrial Automation Applications.

Right now, there are a vast number of embedded devices running successfully on the Android OS – From Automotive infotainment systems to Telematics to Home automation devices & many more.

The open source architecture and the native multimedia capabilities –are just two of the key factors that have made Android so popular, globally.

This also has made way for the increasing popularity of Android OS porting process, especially in case of embedded systems.

What is  Porting of an Operating System (OS)?

OS porting refers to the process of modifying the OS, in order to make it adaptable to run on a hardware architecture, than is different from the one, OS was originally designed for.

In the world of Embedded Systems, Android OS Porting, as a process for enabling the compatibility of embedded applications across different hardware platforms, is of utmost significance.

Curios to read about some real examples? Read  this story of successful Android porting for an Electric Scooter start-up : Porting of Android OS on Toradex SoM for a Smart Electric Scooter

Benefits of Android OS Porting:

How does Android porting prove beneficial to your embedded solution development initiatives?

  • Applications developed for one platform can be made compatible across different platforms, with minimal changes. E.g. Porting of an application developed on a proprietary OS, can be ported to Android to save licensing cost.
  • Porting Android OS lets you leverage the open-source software packages. This helps in Reducing the time-to-market of your product line.

But how can you best leverage the above mentioned benefits of Android OS porting?( HINT:   Your answer lies in these 5 letters:  D R I F T )

How do you ensure that your Android OS porting initiatives are a 100% success?

This video will offer answers to these queries.

What to Expect from this Video:

This video offers insights about some Porting best practices that every Embedded Development team should follow for a successful Android OS porting. These best practices revolve around the following aspects of an OS porting process:

  • Selecting the Hardware Platform
  • Deciding a robust Bootloader design
  • Optimizing memory footprint
  • Driver development & Coding
  • Managing the dead codes

Who all Should Watch this Video?

From professional embedded engineers and solution architects to hobbyist embedded developers- everybody associated with embedded development environment can find this video a value- add.

Please click on the subscribe button below to receive notifications about our latest blogs.

Also, feel free to share these blogs using your social media handles by clicking on the icons given below!

  • June 6, 2019
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Infotainment v/s Instrument Cluster: Why a Digital Instrument Cluster is an Ideal Low-Cost Solution for Electric Scooters

Category : Embedded Blog

Information is indispensable, especially when you’re driving. To ensure a comfortable and safe ride, the driver must have an access to critical information, pertaining to the vehicle, in a way which is easy to understand and doesn’t unnecessarily distract the driver.

Since time immemorial, Instrument Cluster has played a pivotal role in fulfilling the above mentioned requirements.

An Electronic Instrument Cluster makes available data like Speed, Fuel Gauge (Petrol/Diesel/Oil Levels), and Engine Temperature, Distance and certain warnings and alerts.

Courtesy the in-roads of In-vehicle Mobility, Connected Car and other Digital Technologies, our humble Electronic Instrument Cluster has evolved into a Digital Instrument Cluster.

This Digital Transformation has paved the way for Digital Cockpit experience for the end-users.

In this blog, we will focus on one of the interesting chapters of this digitalization journey. We will throw some light on the role of Digital Instrument Cluster as a low-cost alternative of an Infotainment System, for the next generation Electric Scooters or Electric Two-Wheelers.

So, let’s get the ball rolling with some introductions!

What is an Electronic Instrument Cluster (in the context of Automotive)?

Automotive Instrument Clusters comprise of various displays and indicators which enable a driver to operate the vehicle appropriately.

Instrument Cluster

Digital instrument Cluster in a two-wheeler Image Source: indianautosblog.com

Among the displays in such a cluster are

  • Speedometer
  • Tachometer
  • Odometer
  • Fuel gauge
  • Oil pressure gauge
  • As along with different indicators for system malfunctions and warnings.

While these are the primary components of an Instrument Cluster, the Digital Avatars offer many additional features such as turn-by-turn navigation systems, Bluetooth connectivity, and more.

Infotainment System v/s Instrument Cluster

Based on the features supported, the key differences between the two can be summarized through the following table:

Features Supported Infotainment System Instrument Cluster
Display screen specs 7 inches 5 inches
Hardware Application processors (Snapdragon, NXP’s IMX8 Series, Renesas’ R-Car) Microcontrollers (STMicroelectronics, PIC microcontrollers)
Audio Playback Supported Yes No
Video Yes No
Camera Yes No
Smartphone sync Yes No
Real-time Map/ route display Yes No
Turn by Turn Navigation Yes Yes
Alerts Yes Yes
Support for FOTA (Firmware-Over-The-Air) update Yes Yes
Advanced Graphics Yes No
Trace and Track /Find my Bike Yes Yes

So, in effect, infotainment systems offer options for entertainment and information like audio playback, video, camera, Smartphone sync, and enable the user to have an interactive control over what is displayed.

On the contrary, instrument clusters are more like radios which relay information without facilitating user interaction.

Infotainment Solution v/s Digital Instrument Cluster: What is the take of Electric Scooter OEMs’?

Currently, the OEMs’ of the Electric Scooters are opting for one of the following two approaches:

  1. High-end infotainment solutions: Loaded with an intuitive GUI, Bluetooth Controlled Smartphone Integration & phone call management, audio/video Playback, real-time maps, Commercial vehicle-specific navigation system among other capabilities. Such systems require investment in software and hardware modules and hence have a higher per unit cost.

    These solutions are ideal for Electric Scooters that are being sold at the price-point of $100 to $500. Ather Energy, an Indian EV start-up is a leading example in this case.

    Two-wheeler infotainment solution

    Typical example of a Two-wheeler infotainment solution. Image Source: Bosch
  2. Instrument Clusters: On the other side, there are other set of OEMs’ whose focus is to enable display of crucial vehicle information on the dashboard while supporting cloud connectivity.

    Information services offered by such systems include battery health status, locating the nearest EV recharge station, distance covered, etc. Such systems will act as information only systems or in other words, instrument clusters. A big player in this sector is Bajaj.

What Makes Instrument Cluster a Low-Cost Option, as Compared to an Infotainment System?

A major factor influencing manufacturers to go for sophisticated instrument clusters as against a full-fledged infotainment solutions is the cost saving.

Instrument clusters are considered a low-cost option as compared to infotainment systems, and there are several reasons behind this.

  • One, instrument clusters offer much-limited information; only that which is necessary for the driver.
  • Two, the area requirement for an instrument cluster on a vehicle’s dashboard is pretty concise (5 inch display v/s 7 inch display).
  • Three, an instrument cluster is designed on a microcontroller platform, whereas an infotainment system is powered by an application processor.

By definition, an application processor is a much costlier option than a microcontroller. A microcontroller includes some motors, LEDs, and sensors which require perfect time control. It can’t perform heavy computation owing to its limited memory and computation capabilities. On the other hand, a microprocessor has GBs of memory and can perform heavier computations.

The per unit cost of MCU from STMicroelectronics is around 1.95 USD, while the i.MX 8M Application process would cost around 57.24 USD per unit.

Saying that the two-wheeler industry is fast moving on the road to implementing instrument clusters is one thing and actually bringing that into action is another. There are several hurdles to be crossed and multiple risks to be taken. Let’s look at a few.

Challenges Faced by the Two-Wheeler Industry in Implementing Digital Instrument Clusters

Some of the key challenges faced by the two-wheeler industry in implementing digital instrument clusters can be summarized as follows:

  • The cluster will need a powerful microcontroller with graphics controller capability to drive the display.
  • Owing to the software requirement to render the digital cluster’s graphics, an RTOS becomes a necessity.
  • Need for expertise: Automotive Engineers who have expertise in analog cluster solutions will need to unlearn and re-learn while moving to the environment of a digital cluster.
  • Inculcating Functional Safety best practices in the development of instrument clusters can get tricky
  • June 3, 2019
  • 0

[Vlog] Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA): A Friend In-deed of your ISO 26262 Functional Safety Journey

Category : Embedded Blog

A gamut of electronic and electrical systems work together, to keep an automobile in action. Functional Safety is critical for most of these system, however the degree of criticality varies.

For example, an Airbag system failure can cause fatal injuries to the driver and the co-passengers in the event of a collision. On the other hand, failure of a wiper may not have that serious impact.

To measure this criticality, Automotive Engineers need to understand the probable hazards related to a system and the associated risks. And that’s where HARA plays a key role!

HARA is specified in the PART-3 (Concept Phase) of the ISO 26262 standard document. This qualitative analysis is the stepping stone, which helps to assign the right ASIL value to an automotive system and derive the safety goals.

In the subsequent phases of the functional safety lifecycle different activities are performed to meet the safety goals and the assigned ASIL.

In our latest video on the Automotive Functional Safety series, we have tried to explain HARA, since it is a crucial milestone of your ISO 26262 Functional Safety Journey.

Viewers who are curious to understand HARA in more detail can refer our blog on

The Video Covers the Following Aspects of HARA

  • What is HARA?
  • Finding HARA in Functional Safety Lifecycle
  • How to Implement HARA: The Process Work-Flow
  • Outputs of HARA
  • Understanding HARA with an example

Our video explains HARA in a simplistic way, making it ideal for a wide range of audience. From automotive engineers working on functional safety projects to Business Managers looking to win customers, this video will help everyone. For more details, please refer to our Functional Safety services here.

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