This Week I Learned - Week #251

This Week I Learned -

* The new Azure Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS) (currently in public preview) is built over Availability Zones in Azure which provide resilience against failures through fault-isolated groups of datacenters within a single region. Zone Redundant Storage should be considered for applications where regional availability is critical and downtime is not acceptable, and both read and write access are required at all times. ZRS requires a general purpose v2 account. Effective immediately, the existing ZRS offering has been renamed to ZRS Classic and can continue to be accessed without any code change required - Azure Blog

* Google introduced a cloud-computing service (Cloud AutoML) that it bills as a way to build a so-called computer vision system that suits your particular needs even if you have little or no experience with the concepts that drive it. If you are a radiologist, for example, you can use CT scans to automatically train a computer algorithm that identifies signs of lung cancer. If you run a real estate website, you can build an algorithm that distinguishes between living rooms and kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms - NY Times

* Microsoft announced about their upcoming Public Preview of Custom Vision Service in October 2017. Custom Vision Service is a tool for building custom image classifiers, and for making them better over time. 

* Flipkart started out as an online retailer but because of the ban on FDI in direct online retail, the Bansals were forced to create a complicated corporate structure. Flipkart India Pvt. Ltd, the business-to-business entity that received FDI, sold goods to WS Retail, which in turn sold products to customers on Flipkart’s site. After the new FDI rules capped the contribution of a single seller at 25% of a platform’s overall sales, Flipkart needed more sellers to route sales through, as WS Retail generates more than 25% of the firm’s sales currently. India’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart has identified at least four large seller entities, Health & Happiness Pvt. Ltd and Consulting Rooms Pvt. Ltd, that will help it comply with two potentially troublesome foreign direct investment (FDI) regulations on offering discounts and capping a single seller’s contribution to overall revenues at 25% - Mint

* In medicine, a differential diagnosis is the distinguishing of a particular disease or condition from others that present similar clinical features. As usual Vocabulary.com impresses me with its informal explanation of the word "differential" - You're most likely to come across the adjective differential in scholarly or scientific writing — it's really just a more formal way to say "different" or "differing."

* On an average, listed Indian companies pay 27.7% of their taxable profits in taxes. The average tax paid by profitable companies in India (27.7%) is much higher than the corresponding global figure (24%) - Mint

Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu  has been elected Prime Minister of Israel four times. When Netanyahu won the 1996 election, he became Israel's youngest ever Prime Minister. He has Bachelor of Science (SB) and Master of Science (SM) degrees from MIT.

* China has an atheist constitution

* The population of Shanghai is as much as the population of Australia - 24 million!

* The maximum tax that one can save by investing Rs 50,000 a year in NPS under section 80CCD (1B) for those paying 5.15 percent, 20.6 percent and 30.9 percent is Rs. 2,575, Rs 10,300, and Rs 15,450 respectively - ET

* Urdu is the official language in six states in India and is one of the 22 official languages recognized by the Constitution of India. Hyderabad, Rampur, Badayun, Bhopal and Lucknow are noted Urdu-speaking cities of India. Urdu and Hindi languages share 70% of the same words. Additions from Persian and Arabic languages add linguistic sheen to the Urdu language making up for the other 30% of it. In fact, 99% of Urdu verbs have their roots in Sanskrit/Prakrit. Certain letters in the Urdu alphabet have sounds that do not exist in Hindi or English - Aamozish.com

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