FlowEdge: India’s First Strategic Startup Funding Event Hosted by FreeFlow Venture Builders

In the picture: FreeFlow’s Co-Founder Aaquib Hussain lighting the ceremonial candles with Piyush Pandey, Sanjoy K Roy etc.

FreeFlow sets up another milestone in the entrepreneurial world by organising India’s First Strategic Startup Funding Event, FlowEdge. Held on the 17th of August 2022, FlowEdge was the flagship startup pitching event of the annexe event BrandEdge 2022. The co-host of this strategic event for startups to raise startup funding was the Public Relations Society of India, Kolkata Chapter, in association with Venture Catalysts 7 & Velocity1.

AB2

In the picture: FreeFlow’s Founder Suraj Juneja with Vijay Chaudhuri (Pachwati Group), Utkarsh Roy (Introbot), Ravi Ranjan (Velocity1), Aishwarya Biswas (Auli), Deepak Agarwal (OneX Solutions), Piyush Agarwal (Cashless Bazar)

Post-pandemic, new categories of consumer brands and behaviours have risen and has permanently shifted business trends. It is now more leisurely for a brand to embark, build and prosper with confederates across media, research, production, data, marketing, and distribution.

In this changing scenario, the past events organised by FreeFlow have set an example of phenomenal success. In our five events, we raised funding of over 226 Crores for different promising startups.

In the picture: Aaquib Hussain, the Co-Founder of FreeFlow, presenting the memento to Aishwarya Biswas.

 

To be more specific, this is what our data says:

  • Engagement of 1600+ Startups
  • Pitching 600+ Pitches, including Events & Demo Days
  • With 124+ Sales Funnels Developed
  • 115+ MOU Signed
  • 81+ Funding Commitments for Startups
  • Establishing 67+ B2B Networks 
  • Securing 25+ Direct Investments
  • And the engagement of 18+ Government Departments

 

The Collaborator Story

In the picture: Investors, Jury Members, Guests and Startup Founders attending the confluence.

 

In paving its course from Engage to BrandEdge, The Public Relations Society of India (PRSI), Kolkata Chapter, has documented phenomenal climacterics. For nine years, “Engage” was PRSI’s signature event, shaping the benchmarks for advertisement, branding and thought leadership. The imperative belief behind organising the events was to confer the assertive outreach they construct in the world of communication to see business disruptions, fostering evolution and novelty.

Over the years, the Chapter immersed the attention of the communicator’s fraternity on the digital podia and how it had invaded every facet of communication, from brands to corporate image building and social communication to politics.

In the picture: Startups introducing their brands at FlowEdge.

BrandEdge was the Chapter’s new mantra for the forthcoming years. BrandEdge aspires to garner executives from innovative brands, PR and advertising agencies, and distinguished media companies to debate proven growth scenarios for a contemporary brand.

 

The New Shift

In the picture: Investors and Jury Members keenly evaluating the Startups.

 

FreeFlow has persevered with #Engage for an extended period and considers to have created adequate scope for technological innovations encompassing modern-day communication. It’s now the juncture to push the brands and give them an identity as precursors of an industrial renaissance

 

The Event

In the picture: The FlowEdge floor at ITC, SONAR.

FlowEdge is a one-of-a-kind premiere Fundraising Event in India, wherein we entitle startups to raise finances for explicit requirements, namely, Marketing Capital, Technology Capital, PR Capital, and Value Chain Capital (Debt & Working Capital) with the Investment against Equity/CCD, and more.

Our formerly managed and hosted events have been liable for placing the state’s entrepreneurial map in front of the country and shedding light on the disruptions happening within the state and in the overall Eastern Indian region. In 2021-22, we wanted to raise the stakes, making it compelling for aspiring entrepreneurs and registered businesses to create the utmost value and worth from our precise effort.

 

What FlowEdge Achieved

In the picture: A part of the team behind FlowEdge.

 

We received applications from 593 startups, out of which, 54 shortlisted ones made it to the event. The event marked the presence of 62 investment organisations, VCs and fund houses, 12 jury members, and 6 sponsors. FlowEdge was an event with 14 days of engagement where 8 startups made their way to the finale.

The success of the event was grand, bringing us some phenomenal achievements. FlowEdge 2022 was concluded with 225 investment commitments of over 300 Crores on 37 startups. None of this would have been possible without the gracious presence of the investors and enablers, the fabulous jury members, the soaring spirit of participating startups, our supportive partners, humble sponsors, and our dedicated team working tirelessly to make it happen.

This summit was an unparalleled opportunity to comprehend and discover how brands are born and may die, how brands can scale up, and what the pivotal role of communicators and marketers is in confronting emerging trends and challenges!

August 29, 2022 Business, Event, Future No comments yet
Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

Human 2.0 into the Metaverse : Design & Development

In the history of time, humanity always wanted to create its own alter egos. It probably began from the very initial time of civilization with cave arts, Pebble/wood carved dolls and still continuing with Instagram Filters. The Point which  I wanted to portray here is humanity always wanted to present its best version to the world. In recent times, we are probably taking the biggest and most accurate step towards our alter ego perfection goal with Metaverse. It might end up with just a wrong effort or humanity’s evolution towards creating Human 2.0 into the Metaverse.

Human 2.0 into the Metaverse is one of the most essential of all its building blocks.

so, before proceeding more about Human 2.0. Let me give you a small and significant list of those building blocks.

Key Hardware Building Blocks:
IoT, 5G, Cloud Computing, AR Glasses, VR Headsets, and Gears, etc.
Key Software Building Blocks:
AI, Automation, 3D contents, and Animations, Location, Mapping, Sensor data, Simulations, etc.

Yes, I know that I have not mentioned Human 2.0 yet in this list and my reasons are very clear.

Firstly, Human 2.0 is still under development, no one can tell what should be the perfect version of it.
and Obviously, It’s going to be a combination of many of those building blocks utilized for a common goal to make our life virtual.

Companies that are developing Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

Tech giants like Meta (earlier known as Facebook), Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Autodesk are already investing huge towards it. Then comes the medium-scale and small startup companies like Roblox, Epic Games, Unity, Active Theory, Decentraland, Dapper Labs, etc.

Let’s start exploring the tools which we can use to develop Human 2.0 into the Metaverse.

Epic Games

Epic Games is one of the companies that started thinking about building Metaverse even before the conceptualization. Metaverse was already there with them and growing at a significant speed. Can you guess the name??


It's 'Fortnite'


Epic’s court battle with apple revealed documents that show ‘Fortnite‘ alone brought more than USD 9 Billion total of Revenue in 2018 and 2019.

Now, Coming to the real tools, Many of you are aware of ‘Unreal Engine’ It’s probably the most used production level game Development engine that exists. Unreal Engine is an open-source, also it’s used in the development of Film & Media Production, eLearning Platform development, etc.

Metahuman Creator

Metahuman creator is a recent add-on tool for the unreal engine built to create believable real-time High Fidel Digital Human. This cloud streamed app allows creators to shorten their month/week-long digital human creation task to hours, without compromising on quality. It does not just create a 3d model of a person but a complete digital twin which has all the skin details, facial expressions, and almost everything similar to the original person.

This research was first shown in 2018 when Chinese actress Bingjie Jiang delivered her first performance as Siren. Confusing right? See this small video to understand better.

Siren Real-Time Performance

We could also get our hands-on experience in MetaHuman Tool. Epic Games allowed us early access to explore.

Some screen records of Metahuman App

MetaHuman : Human 2.0 into the Metaverse
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MetaHuman : Human 2.0 into the Metaverse00:08

MetaHuman : Skin Details00:12

MetaHuman : Actions00:13

Screenshots from Metahuman App

Reallusion

A company that was always building for Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

Although, the company has not yet mentioned their contribution or capabilities about the Metaverse. But, 3D animators, Game Developers, Motion work studios already know about Reallusion’s software capabilities. Their upcoming software like Iclone 8, Character Creator 4 along with Motion Live, Headshot Plugin, Skin gen Plugin is directly getting utilized towards the creation of digital humans and other Metaverse contents.

Check the cool videos below to understand more about Reallusion tools.

Reallusion Character Creator 4 Showcase

Reallusion Iclone 8 Showcase

Some other significant Human 2.0 contributing tools which they have

Motion Live 3D: real-time motion capture and animation using camera and body sensors.
Headshot Plugin: Photo headshot to AI-based 3d head generator
Skingen Plugin: Photorealistic skin generation and detailing tools

Here is a sample image of how this design and development Pipeline works.

Reallusion Pipeline : Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

Reallusion Software set’s pipeline towards Production.

What’s really necessary to bring Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

Although, until now I have talked about enhanced 3d design and development tools that are successfully enabling us to create digital humans. But, it still lags a major human capability, Intelligence, and responsiveness.

We need technology to bring Intelligent 3d Models, animation, Sensor data, communication data, and artificial intelligence together. That’s where the next tool or the startup comes into play.

Soul Machines

A startup that is bringing Digital Humans into life.

We are not very sure if they are using either Metahuman or Reallusion to make this possible. But, Soul Machines have made very significant progress towards assembling Artificial Intelligence and Digital Humans together in a working format for use cases like Customer Experiences, Entertainment, Health Care, E-commerce, etc.

Human 2.0 into the Metaverse
Sam : One of the digital human created by Soul Machines.

Soul Machine’s digital humans are responsive. They can listen to you, chat with you also see you. Check out their demo.

Their Digital people are empathetic and engaging in nature, they can speak up to 12 languages for now. Their Digital DNA studio allows researchers and Developers to Customize and Scale it as per their requirements. The Human OS platform with a digital brain on the cloud allows these digital humans to automatically generate new animations based on the interactions it’s getting from the opposite side.

Our Verdict about Human 2.0 into the Metaverse

We from FreeFlow Technologies wanted to encourage startups to lay their first footsteps into the Metaverse. The way the recent tech movements are happening. We can say that Metaverse is pretty much inevitable. So, why not start early, You can even start with building simple 2D Apps for the Metaverse. But, let’s keep that tech blog for another Sunday.

November 28, 2021 Future, IT No comments yet
Cryptocurrency : Rise and Fall

Cryptocurrency Market: Rise or Fall!

October 31, 2008, a pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto suddenly published a white paper that detailed the foundation of the world’s first cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The paper was titled “Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System” and with this, the word Cryptocurrency took its first step in the market.

Blockchain and Cryptocurrency:

A cryptocurrency is an encrypted data string that denotes a unit of currency. A peer-to-peer network monitors and organizes a blockchain. It also serves as a secure ledger of transactions, e.g., buying, selling, and transferring. 

How does Cryptocurrency work

Source: www.bitpanda.com

The first block, also known as the genesis block was mined in 2009. Bitcoin had a valuation of  $0.0008. Now as of today it has a trading value of $58000. It is a far cry from when it was created.

Cryptocurrency genesis block

Source: Wikimedia

So how does its value turn into a skyrocket? Bitcoin functions on the Proof of Work system. Miners have to validate a block to receive bitcoin as a reward, which has certain difficulties. With time the difficulty to mine one block increased, resulting in a reduction in supply. But the demand kept growing which resulted in a skyrocket jump from <<$0.1 to $58000. But the crypto market was never limited to bitcoins only. The very next year cryptos like Litecoin, Namecoin were introduced to the market which serves to mine/validate blocks in different networks and transactions.

Cryptocurrency Bitcoin's price history

Source: Investopedia

Pros & Cons of Cryptocurrency:

Now you may question, why bitcoin? Why other cryptos? The reward system could have been the legitimate non-volatile currencies, right?

Wrong! In this information age, where we are on the verge of cyberattacks, all the transactions in the network are not unnoticed by hackers. This was one of the reasons we needed to introduce this blockchain technology. 

Pros:

  • As a reward, the miner is paid in crypto, so this way the blockchain owner does not have to know to whom the reward is paid, so no fear of information leakage. 
  • Also, cryptocurrencies themselves are encrypted in code so no one can steal and no fraud can happen and most of all it is totally digital. 
  • A major pro of cryptocurrencies is that they are mainly decentralized. Many cryptocurrencies are controlled by the developers using it and those who have a significant amount of the coin or by a corporation to develop it before it’s released into the market. 
  • The decentralization helps keep the currency monopoly free and in restraint, so nobody organization can determine the flow and so the worth of the coin, which, in turn, will keep it stable and secure, unlike fiat currencies which are controlled by the Government.

Cons:

  • But with such pros, there are cons definitely. Many illegal businesses and activities on the dark web are taking place and the transactions there are made in crypto because it is untraceable and so criminals are using it as a mode of payment to keep on doing illegal activities. 
  • Also, the crypto market is very volatile. One can not keep up when the trade value goes up and when goes down. 
  • Also, the owner of the crypto has to keep it at his/her own risk, in case of any mishap if somebody loses the crypto, they cannot claim it back as this reward has no ownership and authority. 
  • The crypto rewards are stored in a wallet, which can be a cloud or a physical-digital crypto wallet. 
  • Also, some cryptocurrencies can only be traded in one or some fiat currencies. It forces the user to convert these currencies into one all told the most currencies, like Bitcoin or Ethereum first and then through other exchanges, to their desired currency. It can apply to just some cryptocurrencies. By doing this, the extra transaction fees are added within the method, costing unnecessary money which also affects the market value.

Cryptocurrency’s impact on the global market :

But with such cons the global crypto market capitalization hit the coveted $3 trillion mark. With this, the total value of cryptocurrencies was more than the GDP of nations like the United Kingdom, France, India, and Italy. 

However, it lagged countries like the United States, China, Japan, and Germany. This is an important milestone for the crypto industry and re-emphasizes investors’ trust in this potential of blockchain technology to disrupt the way digital natives interact with the internet. So, as of conclusion, despite being volatile, the crypto market is uprising rapidly with the increased blockchain difficulties and trading. 

Offering from FreeFlow?

We present to you a business that is going to make an impact on billions of people in our country!

Listerr – An Indian Marketplace is a complete digitizing supply chain solution from consumers to retailers to wholesalers that uses blockchain so that cost of all the industries can be reduced up to 20%.

TraceX is a leading blockchain powered traceability platform that creates transparent and traceable Agri & Food supply chain.

Team Freeflow invites all potential investors to be a part of Listerr – An Indian Marketplace and TraceX.

Article By:

Subham SenPython Developer - FreeFlow
November 21, 2021 Business, Future, IT No comments yet
3d Experiences on web

Creating hyper-realistic 3D experience on Web

When you’re looking at a photo that just looks a little bit too perfect and pleasant to the eyes, is not always a real-world picture captured by a high configuration camera there’s a chance you are not looking at a photo at all. You could be looking at a hyper-realistic 3D experience on web, let get back to the days where games use to be just a few pixels reused everywhere to form a scene but now things changed drastically and with a light tracing manner. Take any game now it’s so realistic that you play that for 10 min you feel like your Captain price in Call of Duty.

So now let’s get back to our design part as we are daily looking into a 2d based design on the web its looks so boring and simple but what if I say we can bring them alive with just a few z-axis’s sizzling into it. Sounds simple right, then have a look at this. 

hyper-realistic 3D experience 

By Redis Agency

Now a simple story well explains, isn’t it?

There where the power of 3D comes in to make a simple site into an eye-soothing site. Now let’s take another example, say suppose you are a builder and you want to explain what work you have done. Instead of just writing it down with images attached what you can do is this.

hyper-realistic 3D experience 

 By Proximity

Now let’s talk a bit about the tech that helps a web developer to build it just like Thanos’s snap.

  • WebGL: WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics and image processing and effects as part of the web page canvas
  • Three js: Three.js is a cross-browser JavaScript library and application programming interface used to create and display animated 3D computer graphics in a web browser using WebGL. The source code is hosted in a repository on GitHub

These are all bout old tech that HTML, CSS, and Js can do but what about the new tech like React, Angular, etc … a good question!!

For that, we have npm backed up packages like three.js, @react-three/Drei, and @react-three/fiber which provides component base 3D models and a lot more. 

And as a FreeFlow team, Let me share our experience using these packages.

This package is well maintained and easy to use. As a React developer who was not experienced with 3D models, it took only a week or so to understand how this is rendering, and now I am implementing this in our new venture’s site i.e Cre8.

Cre8 Zone websiteBy FreeFlow Tech

Cre8 going to be a platform where its investors and start-ups are going to sync up to bring their ideas to life with sync with FreeFlow. 

Tech used:

  • Next Js: Next.js is an open-source development framework built on top of Node.js enabling React-based web applications functionalities such as server-side rendering and generating a static website.
  • Three.js: As mentioned above, it works with WebGL to render the canvas.

 

Okay let me share, our steps to future

With that said let’s talk about a bit more advanced thing in this 3D universe which is the next step towards web experience, which is none other than VR (Virtual Reality), in the current phase of web dev we are lucky enough that we can present our thoughts with 3D Models and environment but there are sites which are working on Virtual Reality for better presentation and user experience.

We FreeFlow Tech are looking forward to presenting you our thoughts with the same reality. 

Article By:

Debmalya De SarkarWeb Devloper - CraftVeda Technology
November 14, 2021 Future, IT No comments yet
Facial Recognition

Facial Recognition : Brilliant Future or Privacy Threat?

One of the top tech trends of this decade is Facial Recognition, a growing technology that has already surpassed humans in terms of speed and efficiency. Businesses are being attracted to it from various industries due to its wide array of potential applications.

Facial Recognition Technology has found its most practical use in security and surveillance but tech giants like Apple and Google are also using facial recognition in their mobile devices to verify their user’s identity and provide secure logins to devices.

Facial Recognition has also shown promising results in helping law enforcement agencies in tracking down criminals in just a matter of a few hours.

In general, the benefit of facial recognition technology is a sense of security and safety. And this is achieved through an ever-evolving technology but its huge success and wide array of applications have raised many privacy concerns for privacy rights.

What is Facial Recognition?

Facial Recognition Systems use the face characteristics such as eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, chin, and ears to identify the person’s identity in public settings, this can occur in photos or videos even in real-time video streams.

These automated systems are capable of identifying individuals in various public settings even in crowded and unstable environments and all this in just a split second which already surpasses human-level performance in this task.

But it is worth noting that the technology is not always accurate and could be biased towards a specific section of society if not implemented properly.

It uses a mix of artificial intelligence (AI) and biometric technology to identify human faces through measuring nodal points, the distances between certain facial features. The software analyzes and compares patterns of a person’s facial features to provide accurate verification of their identity.

Is Facial Recognition Future?

The global facial recognition market size was valued at USD 3.86 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.4% from 2021 to 2028. One of the key driving forces supporting this increasing demand for facial recognition is used of recognition-based security and monitoring systems used by business owners to monitor people and identify their faces when they arrive at their stores, apart from this the technology is also increasingly deployed for security purposes.

Facial Recognition

With the COVID-19 pandemic, facial recognition technologies also increasingly get used in digital healthcare and disease outbreak prevention by combining it with other types of biometrics and in applications, ranging from identifying people with protective headgear to applications including, for instance, temperature detection.

What are the major applications of Facial Recognition?

Facial recognition is a game-changer for law enforcement in tracking criminals and finding missing persons.  Airport authorities use facial recognition at security check-ins for international flights. Smart CCTV systems can be used to identify potential evidence in video surveillance.

Zonal access among employees in institutions can be actively controlled with the help of facial recognition. This is a very important task for data centers, research institutes, and banks where access to only authorized personnel is one of the priorities.

A Facial Recognition system can be used in educational institutions for improving the student experience and also monitoring attendance and behavior, thereby increasing learning efficiency and security.

An automatic time and attendance system can be employed to solve employee management tasks like clock in and clock out records, early and extra hours records.

With the increasing computational power of mobile devices deploying on-device facial lock systems is now possible. In spite of the availability of other biometric lock systems available facial recognition is much more preferred because of easy deployment and quick locking and unlocking. 

Covid-19 has given a radical boost to digital banking. Even before the pandemic users were engaged in digital banking services but now banking systems have observed a considerable increase in users moving to online banking solutions because of which deploying better customer monitoring and biometric security system is one of the prime needs.

Because of the ability to recognize multiple users in a single frame, emotion monitoring in movie theaters and stadiums is becoming common to analyze crowd sentiment and also get more statistically backed reviews.

Emotion recognition is also being used by hotels and restaurants to get more analytical results for their services.

Security

Facial recognition is a game-changer for law enforcement in tracking criminals and finding missing persons.  Airport authorities use facial recognition at security check-ins for international flights. Smart CCTV systems can be used to identify potential evidence in video surveillance.

Zonal access among employees in institutions can be actively controlled with the help of facial recognition. This is a very important task for data centers, research institutes, and banks where access to only authorized personnel is one of the priorities.

Monitoring & Attendance

A Facial Recognition system can be used in educational institutions for improving the student experience and also monitoring attendance and behavior, thereby increasing learning efficiency and security.

An automatic time and attendance system can be employed to solve employee management tasks like clock in and clock out records, early and extra hours records.

Biometric Access Control

With the increasing computational power of mobile devices deploying on-device facial lock systems is now possible. In spite of the availability of other biometric lock systems available facial recognition is much more preferred because of easy deployment and quick locking and unlocking. 

Covid-19 has given a radical boost to digital banking. Even before the pandemic users were engaged in digital banking services but now banking systems have observed a considerable increase in users moving to online banking solutions because of which deploying better customer monitoring and biometric security system is one of the prime needs.

Emotion Recognition

Because of the ability to recognize multiple users in a single frame, emotion monitoring in movie theaters and stadiums is becoming common to analyze crowd sentiment and also get more statistically backed reviews.

Emotion recognition is also being used by hotels and restaurants to get more analytical results for their services.

How could it be a Privacy Threat?

Even if Facial Recognition technology has shown numerous real-life applications and improvements to existing systems still it has been criticized for the legality and ethics of its use.

While nobody can take away your physical face, digital images are another story. You can give up your right to ownership to your face when you sign a term of service agreement on a social network. Signing away the rights to your likeness allows images of you to be collected as data and sold.

For public safety and security purposes, facial recognition has a lot of potential to control crime and criminal activities but without proper regulation and oversight, there is potential of it being misused. This solely depends on the regulations and the authority which is using the system.

Face Recognition in India

  • The Aadhaar project has one of the world’s largest biometric databases, containing unique digital identity numbers, names, ages, addresses, mobile numbers, and also face images of reportedly 1.29 billion residents as of the end of March 2021. UIDAI announced that the facial authentication system would be launched in a phased manner. It’s presently being tested for financial services. Face authentication will be available as an add-on service infusion mode and one more authentication factor like a fingerprint, Iris, or TOTP. (source)
  • India is also expecting to roll out the World’s most extensive facial recognition system, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) had issued an RFP inviting bids to develop a nationwide facial recognition system According to the 160-page document, the system will be a centralized web application hosted at the NCRB Data Center in Delhi. It will be available for access to all the police stations.  (source)
  • A passenger stands as she registers her personal details at a facial recognition counter at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad, on July 26, 2019. (source)

 

  • In March 2020, Government officials admitted that the law enforcement agencies used facial recognition software to identify about 1,100 people who participated in February 2020 riots in the capital New Delhi. (source)
  • Recently the Indian Railway has deployed nearly 500 facial recognition cameras to track millions of passengers in an effort to increase surveillance efficiency. The system was employed in around 30 stations in Gujarat and Maharashtra including Mumbai which is famous for its local train network with 7 million daily commuters. (source)
  • The Times of India reported a notable result during the trial run of the Facial Recognition System (FRS) by Delhi Police who were able to identify nearly 3,000 missing children in just 4 days. (source)

Role of FaceLabs Helping businesses to grow

Facial Recognition

FaceLab provides AI-driven computer vision solutions to improve the customer experience while enhancing safety. Our recognition technology is built into industry-leading touchless access control and automated watchlist alerting capabilities that perform with unrivaled accuracy, speed, and efficiency in the most challenging conditions.

FaceLab has developed a suite of SDK and a dockerized container solution that harnesses the powers of machine learning and artificial intelligence to transform your existing camera infrastructure into actionable intelligence. Facial recognition, weapon detection, and age verification technologies are all easily deployable on your infrastructure, creating safer and smarter environments for your customers, employees, guests, and more.

At FaceLabs our Computer Vision Scientists from FreeFlow Tech is vigilant to your privacy, our facial recognition implementation neither stores real facial images nor any type of potential private face data which could be misused anywhere else. We employ industry-standard encryption algorithms to store sensitive information in our servers which are further backed with strict access control policies and Automated incident response and recovery to help shift the primary focus of security teams from response to analyzing the root cause.

AI and Facial Recognition Technologies are only growing and they can be powerful and helpful tools when used correctly, FaceLabs has a dedicated team capable of using these technologies to help businesses to grow exponentially.

Article By:

Mayank ThakurComputer Vision Developer- FreeFlow
November 6, 2021 Future, IT No comments yet
MetaVerse

MetaVerse : Are We Evolving to Next phase ?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Connect 2021 on October 28, 2021, introduced Meta, which eventually brought the Facebook apps and their technologies under a new umbrella or a new company brand “Meta”. They are creating MetaVerse which might be another next step to Human Evolution. So, Are you Ready to evolve to the MetaVerse of Life?

Welcome to the Metaverse Era of the Life

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“You might be wondering if this can be a kind of The Matrix or Avatar where you are using a virtual avatar of yourself to meet with other people in the universe or around the world.”

What is Meta

Meta is like a hybrid of today’s online experience which can be expanded sometimes into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It allows the people to share immersive experiences with other people even when people can’t be together and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world.

What is MetaVerse ?

The metaverse doesn’t really exist — at least not yet. The idea was popularized by the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, a persistent virtual reality world navigated by the book’s protagonist. Also, other science-fiction books, movies, and TV Shows like The Matrix, Ready Player One, and Stranger Things. You can also explore the concept of “mirror worlds” where everything in the real world has a digital counterpart.

Metaverse : Key Impact Areas

Education

Augmented and Mixed Reality Tool powered Education Experiences

Entertainment

Socially Connected Entertainment Zones through Virtual Reality.

Fitness

Mixed Reality powered Fitness Trainings.

Gaming

Retro games with a socially connected Mixed Reality Experience.

Home

Smart Homes with spark of virtual assistance and 3d projection Technology

Work

Smarter Virtual Work Places: Work from Home still be there with colleagues at Office.

Social

Mixed Reality powered Social Life: Meet and spend good time with friends without all that travel hassles.

Oculus : Gateway to Metaverse

To experience any Virtual reality and Mixed Reality Experience in this current form of available Technology you require a VR Headset or at least a Smart Glass.

Since 2014, Facebook has acquired many AR/VR/XR startups one of the key investments among those was the Acquisition of ‘Oculus’

Oculus Quest 2 : MetaVerse

Oculus headsets such as quest, quest 2, Oculus go enable you to experience the best of the AR/VR/XR world have to offer.

Cost:

Oculus Quest 2 (128 GB): 31500 INR. at Amazon India

Oculus Quest 2 (256 GB): 39999 INR. at Amazon India

Ongoing Works at Facebook Reality Labs

Core Research

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AR experiences

Polar

a new, free iOS app that makes it easy to imagine, create, and share AR effects and filters without needing to code or work in the Spark AR Studio. Creators will be able to extend their personal brands, art and creative vision in new ways – like a virtual sticker with their own tagline, or a piece of swag they can share during an AMA. Opening applications to the closed beta program for iOS later this year.

$150M Immersive Learning education program

Aimed to help create economic opportunities for AR/VR creators and developers, ranging from new training and career development resources to new content and technology partnerships.

○  Spark AR Certification: AR creators will be provided with a formal pathway and program to demonstrate their knowledge and proficiency of Spark AR, and Research.

to earn a Facebook Certified Spark AR Creator credential. The first exam will take place in November and registration will open soon.

VR and XR Experiences

Check out the amazing different VR/XR Platforms Meta (Facebook) is building. Don’t miss these cool Geeky Videos they have showcased.

●  New fitness offerings on Oculus: Supernatural boxing, new FitXR fitness studios, and Player 22 by Rezzil, which is currently used by pro athletes, are adding guided and hand-tracked bodyweight exercises.

●  Active Pack for Quest 2: A fitness accessories pack that makes Quest 2 more comfortable, with controller grips for when things get intense, and a facial interface that you can wipe the sweat off, making your sessions more comfortable. That’s coming next year.

●  Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: The Rockstar Games classic, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is currently in development for Oculus Quest 2. This new version will offer players an entirely new way to experience this iconic open-world in virtual reality.

●  Vertigo Games Partnership: Oculus is partnering with Vertigo games to bring a total of five games to the Oculus platform.

●  Beat Saber update: Beat Saber surpassed $100 million in gross lifetime revenue on the Quest platform. We also shared a teaser for a new update, coming soon.

●  POPULATION: ONE ongoing updates: POPULATION: ONE will be offering a double XP weekend October 30-31 tied to its Halloween event that went live last week. Next month, they’ll launch an Autumn event, followed by a Winter Wonderland update in December. Since its launch last October, POPULATION: ONE has seen more than 5 million friend connections made in-game, as reported by BigBox VR, the title’s developer.

●  Blade & Sorcery launch date: Blade & Sorcery: Nomad is launching exclusively for the Quest 2 on November 4, 2021.

A broad range of machine perception and AI capabilities will enable developers to build mixed reality experiences on the

Quest platform. A realistic sense of presence will be key to feeling connected in the Metaverse, and Presence Platform’s capabilities deliver on this promise with things like environmental understanding, content placement and persistence, voice interaction, and standardized hand interactions. Presence Platform consists of three offerings: Insight SDK for developing mixed reality experiences, Interaction SDK to make it easier to add hand interactions to apps, and Voice SDK to make voice input a part of the experiences they build.

Interaction SDK
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Interaction SDK00:57

Passthrough API01:23

Insight SDK00:23

Voice SDK00:09

Soon when you join an Oculus Party you’ll be able to invite your friends into a new social version of your Home where they’ll be embodied as their avatars. You’ll be able to spend time together with friends, co-watch videos together, and launch games and apps together

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Horizon Worlds is just the jumping off point. Connect with people all over the world and test your skills, imagination, and more.

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Soon you’ll be able to communicate with your friends across all your apps and devices — including Portal — with Messenger calling in VR coming later this year. From anywhere in VR, you’ll be able to invite your Facebook friends to join a Messenger call and eventually spend time together or travel to VR destinations.

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A place to focus and work using the new suite of 2D panel apps, or just check a few things off your to-do list.

●  Workrooms customization: For Horizon Workrooms, we’re working on launching the capability to customize your Workroom with your company logo, posters, or designs.

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Services like Slack, Dropbox, Facebook and Instagram, and many more will soon work in VR as 2D panel apps in Horizon Home — so you can multitask, cross things off your to-do list between gaming sessions, and stay connected while in VR. This starts bringing some of your favorite 2D internet services into the metaverse.

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This will bring work capabilities into consumer Quest devices, including the ability to log into Quest 2 with a Work Account instead of your personal Facebook account. It will also bring businesses the tools they need, like account management, IDP & SSO integration, Mobile Device Management and more. Beginning to test this year; fully available in 2023.

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Fitness

●  New fitness offerings on Oculus: Supernatural boxing, new FitXR fitness studios, and Player 22 by Rezzil, which is currently used by pro athletes, are adding guided and hand-tracked bodyweight exercises.

●  Active Pack for Quest 2: A fitness accessories pack that makes Quest 2 more comfortable, with controller grips for when things get intense, and a facial interface that you can wipe the sweat off, making your sessions more comfortable. That’s coming next year.

Gaming

●  Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: The Rockstar Games classic, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is currently in development for Oculus Quest 2. This new version will offer players an entirely new way to experience this iconic open-world in virtual reality.

●  Vertigo Games Partnership: Oculus is partnering with Vertigo games to bring a total of five games to the Oculus platform.

●  Beat Saber update: Beat Saber surpassed $100 million in gross lifetime revenue on the Quest platform. We also shared a teaser for a new update, coming soon.

●  POPULATION: ONE ongoing updates: POPULATION: ONE will be offering a double XP weekend October 30-31 tied to its Halloween event that went live last week. Next month, they’ll launch an Autumn event, followed by a Winter Wonderland update in December. Since its launch last October, POPULATION: ONE has seen more than 5 million friend connections made in-game, as reported by BigBox VR, the title’s developer.

●  Blade & Sorcery launch date: Blade & Sorcery: Nomad is launching exclusively for the Quest 2 on November 4, 2021.

Presence Platform

A broad range of machine perception and AI capabilities will enable developers to build mixed reality experiences on the

Quest platform. A realistic sense of presence will be key to feeling connected in the Metaverse, and Presence Platform’s capabilities deliver on this promise with things like environmental understanding, content placement and persistence, voice interaction, and standardized hand interactions. Presence Platform consists of three offerings: Insight SDK for developing mixed reality experiences, Interaction SDK to make it easier to add hand interactions to apps, and Voice SDK to make voice input a part of the experiences they build.

Interaction SDK
play-sharp-fill

Interaction SDK00:57

Passthrough API01:23

Insight SDK00:23

Voice SDK00:09
Horizon Home

Soon when you join an Oculus Party you’ll be able to invite your friends into a new social version of your Home where they’ll be embodied as their avatars. You’ll be able to spend time together with friends, co-watch videos together, and launch games and apps together

video
play-sharp-fill
Horizon Worlds

Horizon Worlds is just the jumping off point. Connect with people all over the world and test your skills, imagination, and more.

video
play-sharp-fill
Messenger

Soon you’ll be able to communicate with your friends across all your apps and devices — including Portal — with Messenger calling in VR coming later this year. From anywhere in VR, you’ll be able to invite your Facebook friends to join a Messenger call and eventually spend time together or travel to VR destinations.

video
play-sharp-fill
Horizon Workroom

A place to focus and work using the new suite of 2D panel apps, or just check a few things off your to-do list.

●  Workrooms customization: For Horizon Workrooms, we’re working on launching the capability to customize your Workroom with your company logo, posters, or designs.

video
play-sharp-fill
2D Apps in Home

Services like Slack, Dropbox, Facebook and Instagram, and many more will soon work in VR as 2D panel apps in Horizon Home — so you can multitask, cross things off your to-do list between gaming sessions, and stay connected while in VR. This starts bringing some of your favorite 2D internet services into the metaverse.

video
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Quest for Business

This will bring work capabilities into consumer Quest devices, including the ability to log into Quest 2 with a Work Account instead of your personal Facebook account. It will also bring businesses the tools they need, like account management, IDP & SSO integration, Mobile Device Management and more. Beginning to test this year; fully available in 2023.

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Hardware Works

Project Cambaria

Project Cambria is currently in its prototyping phase, but Oculus parent company Facebook has stated that it focuses on face- and eye-tracking. Just like any other popular virtual reality headset on the market, Project Cambria will wrap around its user’s face to provide the virtual experience. Unlike previous Oculus headsets, Project Cambria introduces pancake lenses which will likely improve the design of the headset.

Project Nazare

wrist-based electromyography (EMG) input technology that Meta believes will be key to controlling future devices — could one day allow you to send a message in AR with your hand resting comfortably at your side.

They are also building AI that understands your context and can give you a simple set of choices based on that context. They demoed a series of assistant-related smart home experiences enabled by Project Aria.

These experiences are proofs of concept for the types of interactions AR glasses will one day bring to us. Our first fully-fledged AR glasses — Project Nazare — are still a few years out, Are you excited by the progress ?

Ray-Ban Stories

Ray-Ban Stories pairs with the new Facebook View app, so you can share your point of view, stories, and memories seamlessly with friends and social media followers. The Facebook View app on iOS and Android makes it easy to import, edit, and share content captured on the smart glasses to apps on your phone: Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, and more. You can also save content to your phone’s camera roll and edit and share from there. And new, exclusive post-capture enhancements built into Facebook View let you create unique content to put a special spin on your posts.

Our Verdict about MetaVerse

We at FreeFlow Technologies believe whether you want it or not. You and Most of us, have already started evolving into the MetaVerse Phase of Life. Our Facelabs Team is also super excited about this. as they are also working on a similar domain of technology. So, we have to slowly embrace it. Good or Bad that only the future can answer.

Article By:

Mukesh Ranjan KumarLead Backend Developer- FreeFlow
October 31, 2021 Business, Future, IT 1 comment
RapydFund

A ‘Rapyd’ rise in Crowdfunding startups

In the modern age of digitalization, paper-based money continues to lose relevance as smart wallets and payment apps take a firm hold of the driver’s seat. Not only is this significant in terms of environmental sustainability, but it also warrants a call to developments in digital security. To this effect, we have RapydFund a breakthrough in crowdfunding startups. It is not a business, but an idea waiting to happen. This idea was coined by a team of three, participating in a hackathon organized by Rapyd Financial Networks Ltd.

RapydFund is a crowdfunding platform wherein there are two main parties- the investors and the project managers. The investor can be anyone with an idea that impresses, and similarly, there are no constraints as to who can invest in a particular project.

The problem it solves

A recent survey showed that approximately 10% of all money donated/invested in fundraisers, charities, and crowdfunding is embezzled, and an amount even higher than that misappropriated and subject to inefficient use. RapydFund a crowdfunding startup aims to tackle this problem by providing airtight security and transparency to all parties involved.

How it works

RapydFund allows its users to host and invest in various crowdfunding projects. It leverages blockchain technology to ensure not only the improbability of misuse and mismanagement but also seamless transacting and complete accountability.Both parties are provided with Rapyd smart wallets that they may use for all transactions on the platform. RapydFund’s unique offering is that not only can investors track the progress of their desired projects, but they can also monitor how and where their contribution is being utilized.

Once a project manager’s investment goals have been met, he/she can choose how to appropriate the funds acquired. However, as an added layer of security, he/she can only transact with a pre-disclosed and approved list of vendors (with Rapyd smart wallets of their own) to accomplish the specific requirements of that particular project. Leveraging Ethereum Smart Contracts, tracking and logging transactions become dead simple for all parties involved, with a transaction list that is crystal clear, complete with unique identification codes.

Finally, to make it even easier, RapydFund provides a dedicated transaction page, accessible by the investors and project managers, where a list of all transactions is maintained and displayed, thereby adding a layer of trust and security to the platform.

This idea has not yet gained the traction it probably will in the next decade or so. There is potential for limitless growth and capitalisation for crowdfunding startups– if only one were to act.

 

 

October 22, 2021 Business, Future, IT No comments yet
Facebook Outage : Lessons Entrepreneurs should Learn

Facebook Outage : Lessons Entrepreneurs should Learn

It might be a little late to talk about the massive Facebook outage that happened on October 4th, 2021. But, We entrepreneurs should concentrate on what to learn from the incident. That’s why it might be ideal to be slow, steady, and learn from detailed  Genuine sources. In case, you are not a techie avoid the link and read about 5 Lessons Entrepreneurs should Learn from Worst Facebook Outage Ever.

No matter if your business relies on technology heavily or Very lightly. The Facebook Outage still has 5 key lessons to share no matter if you are a technical person or not. 

Lesson 1: In a high-end networked infrastructure, outage can happen at any point in time with just a small change in any line of code.

So the Facebook outage occurred from a routine network maintenance job.  It was not a feature update work or upgrade job. Shocked?! But, it is the reality you should stay ready for.

You are not as huge as Facebook. So, always keep a backup network infrastructure ready.

Lesson 2: Avoid relying on automation tools completely/blindly.

A massive networking company like Facebook is always aware of this eventuality but a small Glitch in their Code audit tool allowed them to Issue a buggy command in their Network backbone to assess the global network availability and it caused complete disconnection of their servers.

So, Automation tools and pipelines are all good. But, you should stay cautious about it all the time and keep things in check.

Lesson 3: On-premise Server maintenance is a huge struggle. Avoid self-hosting, go for the cloud.

Facebook has to maintain a total of 15 Huge Data centers and numerous localized facilities. When you open Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp/Workplace and load up your feed or messages, the app’s request for data travels from your device to the nearest facility, which then communicates directly over our backbone network to a larger data center. 

Facebook doesn’t host its platform through any 3rd party cloud or hosting services. When it was created cloud infrastructure was not commercialized yet. So, They had to host their own servers, set up their own network. Eventually, the popularity of the platform led Facebook to have its own cloud network infrastructure.

Lesson 4: If you run a multi-platform business, keep their network infrastructure separated from each other.

Every online business would like its audience to have complete reliance on its platform.

So, when your platform is down for any reason you can try to solve it from its core. But, when you are running a multi-platform/app business an outage in a common back-boned infrastructure would lead to the complete collapse of all the platforms/apps. You should definitely try to avoid that situation.

Lesson 5: Keep your internal ecosystem control separated.

Facebook engineers with the knowledge to recover the situation were not able to enter the premises at all. The physical and digital entrances of the infrastructure premises were secured using Facebook’s own Workplace tools. So, when the entire backbone got down. It also collapsed, shutting out the access for its own employees. That’s why it took more time to recover.

That’s a clear indication of what future digital collapses would look like and as an entrepreneur, you would probably not like the idea of your own system shutting access for your own employees.

Although Facebook lost a lot of business during this outage, what they have lost most is the public’s trust in their agility. Entrepreneurs should definitely learn from it and avoid repeating the same situation in the case of their online platform.

At FreeFlow, You are Free from worrying about all these complex geeky issue,

We at FreeFlow, have a separate team of Freeflow Technologies with hand-picked engineers and innovators. We don’t only code your platform but also host it with a high agile cloud environment. Our Cloud Solution Architects and DevOps make your platform hosting capabilities elastic and quickly recoverable/ Failsafe.

Freeflow Technologies Team’s hosting strategy helps you to avoid huge cloud bills. Our Serverless first approach will make you pay only that amount which you are really using not for idle times. Moreover, We are direct Partnered with AWS. Our incubated startups are eligible for 5000 USD worth of Free Cloud credits and an additional 1500 USD worth of support credits from AWS as a part of the AWS activate Portfolio Programme.
So, do what you love to do, leave your hosting and downtime worries with us.

Article by:

Rudranil DasCIO (Chief Information Officer)

 

October 10, 2021 Business, Future, IT No comments yet
Cyber Security Investments

Cyber Security Investments for future

Cybersecurity issues are becoming a day-to-day struggle for businesses. Cyber Security Investments can bring change and make a difference in the business.

Recent trends, side effects of a global pandemic, and cybersecurity statistics reveal a huge increase in hacked and breached data from sources that are increasingly common in the workplace, like mobile and IoT devices. On top of this, COVID-19 has ramped up remote workforces, making inroads for cyber-attacks.

These recent events and the below cybersecurity statistics and figures considered, here are some industry trends and also predictions to watch for in 2021 and beyond.

  • Remote workers will continue to be a target for cybercriminals.
  • As a side effect of remote workforces, cloud breaches will increase.
  • The cybersecurity skills gap will remain an issue.
  • As a result of 5G increasing the bandwidth of connected devices, IoT devices will become more vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

68% of business leaders feel their cybersecurity risks are increasing.

A recent report by the Ponemon Institute indicated that 61% of small and medium-sized businesses in the US faced cyberattacks in the last few years. Even so, many small businesses tend to overlook the cybersecurity aspect of their operations

Now the question is should you worry even if you are not in the US or UK or any other western world where data sovereignty is the highest priority. The answer is absolute YES.

Let me put it like this, do you try to stay healthy by default or worry only when you fall sick. Obviously, all of us love to stay healthy.  Similarly, all organizations should start practicing cybersecurity measures, and NOW is high time before it gets too late.

Security Investments

Below stated are two main reasons why cybersecurity investments are important for your company.

 

  1. Hackers are not going to sit idle with the exponential or rather parabolic growth of technological advancements, the world has become more interconnected than ever before. And do you think it’s only the good side that’s gaining from this? The hackers are getting advanced as well. Since most modern business relies highly on technology there’s a need to incorporate cybersecurity to the corporate DNA.
  2. It’s a Strategic Investment

Implementing Cyber Security is a costly affair [unless you Zeron], to say the least as it builds trust and trust is costly. However, it enables your long-term savings as breaches are even costlier. It’s similar to have a Mediclaim card with yearly investments. Let’s see some of the repercussions of a breach to your organization.

  • Loss of Business Revenue.
  • Disruptions in Operations.
  • Intellectual Property Theft.
  • Loss in Reputation.
  • Legal Suits.

Security InvestmentsA simple calculation,

Case I

You are investing 500$ per month for 1 year in cybersecurity.
Total Investment – 500 x 12 = 6000 $
[90% assurance that you have got your back covered up]

Case II

You are investing 0$ per month for 1 year in cybersecurity.
Total investment – 0 x 12 = 0$

However, you are unaware that you are data is flowing out of your organization daily with a cumulative value of let’s say 500$ per month.
You in this case are actually making a loss of 6000 $ in revenue + another 60% of it for future business. A total of approx. 10,000$ which increases exponentially with time.
Here Case I is a strategic investment for future business as it builds trust whereas Case II is a loss from all sides.

 

Article By:

Sanket SarkarCEO & Founder - Zeron
July 3, 2021 Future, IT No comments yet
pseudo LiDAR Technology

Our Experience with Pseudo LiDAR Technology

Remember When Elon said, “LIDARS ARE A CRUTCH”. Well, that sparked both debate and further research in the field of Computer Vision and led to the birth of a new branch called the Pseudo LiDAR concept.

Before proceeding further, We should first understand the difference between LiDAR and Pseudo LiDAR

LiDAR, or light detection and ranging, is a popular remote sensing method used for measuring the exact distance of an object on the earth’s surface. A LiDAR system measures the time it takes for emitted light to travel to the ground/obstruction and get back. It calculates the traveled distance by measuring that time. Then it converts the traveled distance into elevation. LiDAR system uses its key components to measure these parameters. The key components of a lidar system include a GPS that identifies the X, Y, Z location of the light energy and an Internal Measurement Unit (IMU) that provides the orientation of the plane.

Pseudo LiDAR uses Convolutional Neural Network to convert image-based depth maps to pseudo-LiDAR representation.

One of our Team members at HEVA named Ayushman Kumar, had been researching this field on Pseudo Lidar and converting Depth Maps into point cloud but didn’t find any sample implementation of the procedure or any code. So we worked it out from scratch and thus got what you see below now in the video.

We have a Normal RGB Image from which we did 3D image Reconstruction and Visualization using Intel Open3D and then did Self Supervised Learning.

The Process that we followed to design the Pseudo LiDAR

We found out the Depth Map of the image and created the point cloud using that. Finally, to color the point cloud, we used the intensity of the original RGB image. In simple words convert the whole image into a 3D World image and then treat each pixel from that 3D image as a point cloud data. We generated the heat map based on the blackness and whiteness, which helped in realizing the distances between everything in the image. Then replace each point cloud data back with the pixel and give its color back to it. (P.S. I know this is a lot but hey things like these are never simple).

We trained this model on AWS for about 72 hours. The above video that you see is the models’ performance in a PC running at 12 FPS on NVIDIA GTX 1650.

Application of this technology –
1. Self-driving Cars
2. Drone Technology
3. UAV Technology
4. Space Technology
5. Safety & Security in the real world.
6. Construction
7. Manufacturing
8. Literally any other application that uses LiDAR.

HEVA – HEVA is an idea working towards the future of Autonomous Mobility in every sector, pioneering innovative ways of generating and storing Clean Energy and applying Artificial Intelligence in every industry/business to make it more profitable and help serve their customers even better. We stand for House of Energy, Vehicles, and AI thus called HEVA. Right now the team consists of 6-8 students only.

Article By:

Mohamed Fazal MustafaCo-Founder - Collegeshala

 

June 20, 2021 Future, IT No comments yet