This Week I Learned - Week #279

This Week I Learned -

* You can provide image data to the Google Cloud Vision API or OCR.space API by sending the image data as base64-encoded text & extract text

Azure Security and Compliance Blueprint provides guidance and automation scripts to deliver a Microsoft Azure platform as a service (PaaS) hosted web application architecture appropriate for handling workloads classified as UK OFFICIAL

* With Docker containers, developers own what's within the container (application and service, and dependencies to frameworks and components) and how the containers and services behave together as an application composed by a collection of services. Meanwhile, IT operations teams (IT professionals and management) can focus on the management of production environments; infrastructure; scalability; monitoring; and, ultimately,ensuring that the applications are delivering properly for the end users, without having to know the contents of the various containers. Hence, the name"container," recalling the analogy to real-world shipping containers.Thus, the owners of a container's content need not concern themselves with how the container will be shipped,and the shipping company transports a container from its point of origin to its destination without knowing or caring about the contents. In a similar manner, developers can create and own the contents within a Docker container without the need to concern themselves with the"transport" mechanisms - Containerized Docker Application Lifecycle with Microsoft Platform and Tools

* Although the cloud is under rapid development in China, regulatory requirements simply don’t allow foreign companies to offer cloud services without first partnering with local companies. Provisioning and migration times are significantly longer, in no small part because operations must be conducted by the local partners themselves. The fact is that, while it is possible, adopting a cloud infrastructure that does not have a physical presence in China places companies at an enormous disadvantage....The administrative maze can only be navigated by a competent local cloud partner, and even then it sometimes seems to be more a matter of creative negotiation rather than satisfying specific rules. In response, cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure have Chinese operations that are logically separate from their worldwide platform. This stems not just from regulatory restrictions but also security concerns, making it impossible to provide cross-border migration and data replication - Forbes

* The US Department of Defense has prohibited the use of GPS-featured devices for its overseas personnel.

* The inventor of Python has stepped down. Dutch computer scientist. Guido Van Rossum, though delighted by this enthusiasm for his software, has come to find the rigours of supervising it, in his role as “benevolent dictator for life”, unbearable. He fears he has become something of an idol. “I’m uncomfortable with that fame...Sometimes I feel like everything I say or do is seen as a very powerful force.” On July 12th he resigned, leaving the Pythonistas to manage themselves - Economist

* As of May 2018, India’s total debit-card volume was 925 million, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data. Launched in 2012, National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) RuPay claims to power over 500 million cards issued by nearly 1,100 banks — giving it more than 50% share in the country’s debit-card market by volume, beating the much older duo of Visa and Mastercard. Globally, 18,000 banks issue Visa cards, and they are accepted at 44 million locations worldwide. For every RuPay-based transaction, say these bankers, NPCI charges a flat 60 paise for acquiring and 30 paise for issuing (ET Prime could not independently verify the exact rates). In other words, for instance, if a customer with a RuPay card issued by Bank A pays through Bank B's PoS terminal, as the acquirer, Bank B will pay 60 paise to NPCI and, as the issuer, Bank A will pay 30 paise. This is a tiny fraction of Visa and Mastercard’s merchant-discount rate, which is calculated as a percentage of the actual transaction amount. RuPay has about 38% market share in ATM transactions and 26% market share in PoS/e-commerce transactions. At Flipkart and Amazon, even with Mastercard and Visa, the transaction-success ratio of is 70%-75%. RuPay’s success rate is around 15% lower than that - ET

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