Your tweets can reveal how much you earn: Research

LONDON: Your tweets can reveal more than you intend to as researchers have found that it is possible to know a Twitter user's income level simply by looking at the words that he or she uses to post messages.

Analysing more than 10 million tweets from over 5,000 Twitter users, the researchers found that those who earn more tend to express more fear and anger on Twitter.

Those who come across as optimists have a lower mean income, the study said.

Text from those in lower income brackets includes more swear words, whereas those in higher brackets more frequently discuss politics, corporations and the non-profit world, the researchers said.

"Lower-income users or those of a lower socio-economic status use Twitter more as a communication means among themselves," said Nikolaos Aletras from University College London.

"High-income people use it more to disseminate news, and they use it more professionally than personally," Aletras noted.

For this experiment, the researchers started by looking at Twitter users' self-described occupations.

In Britain, a job code system sorts occupation into nine classes.

Using that hierarchy, the researchers determined average income for each code, then sought a representative sampling from each.

After manually removing ambiguous profiles, the team ended up with 5,191 Twitter users and more than 10 million tweets to analyse.

"It is the largest dataset of its kind for this type of research," one of the researchers Daniel Preotiuc-Pietro from University of Pennsylvania said.

From there, they created a statistical natural language processing algorithm that pulled in words that people in each code class use distinctly.

"The dataset enabled us to do something no one has really done before," Preotiuc-Pietro noted.

The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

The Nexus 5X Does Have A True RGB Notification LED Just Like The 6P, But It's Missing From The Spec List

Nexus launch day is a cutthroat time when mere moments can make the difference between a speedy shipment and weeks of waiting. While quickly comparing the Nexus 5X and 6P to decide which one to order, many have noticed that the 6P lists an RGB notification LED, but the 5X doesn't. Well, we've confirmed there's an LED on the 5X too. How? We bothered Google VP of Engineering Dave Burke via email. He was kind enough to explain what's going on.

The omission of the LED from the 5X's spec list is a mistake, but it should be corrected soon. The LED is behind the speaker grille on the bottom of the phone. Burke explains that this is a real notification LED, not like that fake LED on the Nexus 6 that only worked with root. Apps can use the LED API to produce any color they want, but the system uses ambient display by default. You can see the LED in the image below, which apparently came from a network test unit.

So if you get the 5X, you'll be able to get LED notifications from apps. You could use something like Light Flow to customize and manage them, but the system favors ambient display. The Nexus phones will also use that LED as a "sign-of-life indicator" in the event something is wrong with the hardware. That's all the Nexus 6's LED was used for, but these are much more capable.

Source : androidpolice.com

Facebook Warns Users Against Hoax Messages On Privacy

HOUSTON: Facebook is warning people not to fall prey to the hoax messages making rounds on the website which ask users to post a legal notice to retain copyright of their pictures and sign up for a paid monthly subscription.

FB users were inundated with messages on their news feeds that warn if they don't act fast, the company will be allowed to infringe on their privacy . These hoaxes play on concerns that consumers have about how their personal information are getting used by net giants such as FB, Google and Netflix, among others, who have in the past been accused of violating users' privacy .

One of the hoaxes, which resurfaces every couple of years, warns users to post a legal ly binding statement to their feeds that prohibits FB from using their photos, content or information without users' permission, the report said. The hoax promises to exempt those who repost the legal-sounding statement from FB's data use policy , a document that governs how Facebook may use its members' data that they agree to when they sign up to use the service. However, once approved, the contract cannot be altered by users. It goes on to state that violation of privacy can be punished under Uniform Commercial Code of US.

Another hoax says users can protect their privacy by purchasing a $5.99 month subscription to ensure that their posts stay private. FB's efforts still haven't stopped users from fearing the worst

Source : techgignews.com

Samsung rejigs electronics business to give a ring to its sales

KOLKATA: Samsung India, the market leader in mobile phones and flat panel televisions, has restructured its consumer electronics and home appliances business into geographical divisions, seeking to replicate the success of its smartphone sales model only weeks before the festive season, two senior industry officials said.

The reorganization undertaken about 10 days ago follows the merger of divisions and reshuffle of heads in the business in July-August. Samsung India Electronics president and chief executive officer Hyun Chil Hong wants to ensure that the consumer electronics business performs at the same pace as the smartphone business.

Samsung has divided the business into two broad regions. India One will cater to the North and East and will be led by Alok Pathak, who earlier headed brand shops and retail sales, engaging with smaller dealers and distributors. India Two will cover the South and West and is headed by Rakesh Moza, who was chief of modern retail and regional retail chains.

Modern retail, which includes business from chains such as Croma and Reliance Digital, will remain a separate vertical headed by Nabendu Ray.

"This geographical division of business structure was already prevalent in the smartphone business and the management believed it was one of the main reasons behind the accelerated growth," a senior trade official of Samsung India said. "Such belief has led the company to adopt the same model for consumer electronics and home appliances where the market has slowed down and sales targets are hard to meet." Samsung has expanded the number of regional offices from eight to 14 and placed seasoned professionals to push sales and better control inventory.

"In order to achieve our goal of delivering maximum value to our consumers and partners, we do reallocate resources in business divisions from time to time," a Samsung India spokesperson said in response to an email from ET. Samsung India, the No. 1 seller of smartphones in the country, has a marginal lead over Sony in flat panel televisions. In white goods, rival LG India is still the leader, with Samsung focusing on premium products to gain share.

The industry has slowed down since June with sales of white goods stagnating and the growth rate for television has halved, pinching all brands. The changes at Samsung India are aimed at boosting sales, especially during the festive season, which accounts for more than one-third of the industry's sales.

"It shows the urgency in hand for Samsung to overcome the slump since sales during Onam have been below target," said another senior trade official, adding that it is probably the first time that any maker of consumer durables has made such sweeping change in business structure and teams just before the festive season. Mobile phones contributed 70% to Samsung India's Rs 40,392 crore revenue in 2013-14. The company has not released sales information for 2014-15.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

Skype Gets Cozy With Android Wear, Brings Calls And Chats To Your Wrist

Skype for Android is getting an update to version 6.4 this evening, bringing along with it some much-needed integration with Android Wear.

 With this latest update, users will now be able to manage their conversations on their Android Wear watch by responding to chats with voice-to-text, accepting or declining incoming calls and more. Here's the skinny on all that's new:

Messaging - Get notifications and view messages on your Android Wear device.

Reply - Quickly respond to messages by speaking to your wrist, sending emojis, or choosing a pre-written response.

Calls - Accept or decline calls, mute ongoing conversations, or hang up on your Android Wear device.

Skype Mojis: Send short clips from your favorite movies and TV shows in a Skype chat.

Source : techgignews.com

Remember To Cancel Your Apple Music Free Trial

Apple Music launched with a three-month free trial earlier this summer, a trial millions of people signed up for. Well, the leaves are changing, a brisk chill is in the air, and it's the ideal time to disable the auto-renew on your trial subscription.

With Apple's trial subscription, you've got three months of free listening from when the trial was activated. After that, it's $10 a month. If you signed up for the trial back when Apple Music launched, it will be ending on September 30th.



So, if you're jumping ship back to Spotify or Pandora or whoever else (you'll be in good company), double-check that Apple's not going to keep billing you. Open the Music app, go to your profile page (the head icon in the top left), then View Apple ID -> Manage (Subscriptions) -> Your Membership, and turn the automatic renewal toggle off.

Source : gizmodo.in

A software trick will make your Sonos sound better than ever

If you're feeling envious of Sonos' new flagship speaker, the company has some good news in the form of Trueplay. It's a new feature coming to the Sonos iOS app that will make your old speakers sound better through calibration, and it works really well. When the update comes to the app, you'll be asked to run through the setup in order to better tune your speakers. The process is simple. You'll be asked to wander around your room keeping your iPhone or iPad vertical while waving it slowly up and down. At the same time, all the speakers in your room will be outputting some odd sounds, perhaps best described as what I thought a space battle would sound like when I was 5. The microphones in your device will pick up all these pew pews, and then the software analyzes what frequencies are being distorted by your furniture.

I heard the benefits of Trueplay in a couple of test situations. The first was in a room with a pair of Play:1s hidden behind thick curtains against glass. Without Trueplay, high frequencies were coming through fine; mids were okay; but the bass was horribly distorted, as you'd expect -- the low-frequency sound waves were reverberating between the glass and curtain. The Trueplay calibration recognized the sounds were distorted, and which particular frequencies were being affected. Its algorithm then pushed less or more power into various points in the frequency range, canceling out the distortion. The result was thoroughly listenable music: The bass channels were a little light, but all the notes were distinguishable, and it felt like the software had adjusted the mids and highs to balance the overall sound as best it could.

Of course, this was an extreme example -- think of it as the Sonos sound engineers' party piece. You're unlikely to want to hide Play:1s behind a thick curtain, but you might put them in a tiled bathroom or kitchen, or hidden away behind an armchair. Trueplay will totally change the way music sounds in these acoustically poor environments.

Trueplay is iOS-only at launch. Sonos explains that because there's so much variation in microphone sensitivity between Android devices it's very difficult to support a wide range of phones and tablets. Its engineers aren't happy with only supporting a subset of users, though, and are working on a solution that'll let everyone enjoy the new feature. Chances are it'll use a feedback loop of sorts to ascertain the microphone sensitivity of the device before starting the test. For now, though, Trueplay will be available to iPhone and iPad users with Sonos Play:1, Play:3 and both generations of Play:5 speakers.

Source : engadget.com

Facebook back after short outage

Facebook Inc's social media website is back and running after it became inaccessible for a short period to some users late on Monday night in India, its second outage in less than a week.

A message displayed on facebook.com said "Sorry, something went wrong. We're working on it and we'll get it fixed as soon as we can."

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

First light-based memory chip puts SSDs on notice

Researchers have created the first optical-only chip that can permanently store data, a discovery that could lead to storage devices that leave SSDs in the dust. Non-volatile flash memory currently relies on electronic chips, which are speed-limited by the heat and resistance generated by colliding electrons. Light-based circuits don't have that problem, but so far "nano-photonic" chips created by the likes of IBM are volatile (need to be powered), making them a non-option for permanent storage. The team from Oxford and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany managed to solve that problem using a familiar light-based storage medium: DVDs.

Re-writable DVDs and CDs save data using a material called "GST " -- an alloy made from germanium, tellurium and antimony -- that changes its structure when hit by a laser. The UK and German team built a chip using "waveguide" technology that directs light through channels etched into a silicon-nitride material. The chip was coated with nanoscale GST, then blasted by a high-intensity laser through the waveguide channels. That changed the GST from a consistent crystalline structure into an amorphous blob, which was detected by another low-intensity laser and read out as data.

The GST transforms back to a crystalline state when hit with another high-intensity shot, making for a true rewritable device. By varying the intensity and wavelength of the lasers, the team was even able to store up to 8 bits of data in a single location, a big improvement over binary electronic devices.

While the research is promising, there's still a lot of work before commercial, light based devices appear. For starters, the chips will have to be hundreds of times smaller before they can compete with flash storage. However, the prototype chip is on par with its electronic counterpart for speed and power consumption, and the technology already exists to make it commercially feasible, according to the team. If paired with photonic logic chips, it could eventually result in computers that are up to 100 times faster than the one you're using now.

Source : engadget.com

Concrete Absorbs 880 gallons of water at a time

Source : facebook.com

Trippy art project has you exploring fractals in virtual reality

Fractal art can already be mesmerizing when you're staring at a 2D picture, but artist Matteo Zamagni has found a way to kick things up a notch. His Nature Abstraction art project has you diving into 3D fractals thanks to both an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset and the almost psychedelic imagery from Google's neural network-based Deepdream. The result, as you'll see below, is rather hypnotic -- you're floating through formula-based shapes that are at once familiar and completely alien. Zamagni sees it as a way to challenge the accuracy of your perceptions. You're sadly too late to see this installation in person (it was part of an exhibit at London's Barbican this August), but here's hoping that it resurfaces... it looks like a wild mind trip.

Source : engadget.com

Chrome's "Add To Taskbar" Is Broken In Windows 10, Here's What To Do Instead

With every passing year, it feels like I use more and more webapps instead of desktop apps. Chrome's "Add to Taskbar" is a great way to make those webapps feel like desktop apps, but it's slightly broken in Windows 10.

If you try to add a site to Windows' taskbar, you'll probably notice that it doesn't show up at all. 

After trying this about six times today, I discovered that the feature still half works: it will create an app shortcut, just not on your taskbar. After clicking "Add to Taskbar", you have two choices:

Click on Windows 10's Start menu and you should see the app shortcut under "Recently Added".

Right-click on the app's icon and choose Pin to Taskbar.

 It should appear on your taskbar.

If you've turned off "Recently Added" in the Start menu (or it doesn't show up for some reason), do this:

Type chrome://apps in Chrome's address bar and press enter. This should take you to Chrome's "app launcher".

You should see the shortcut there. Right-click on it and make sure "Open in Window" is selected.

Click the app's icon to launch it. Its icon should appear in your Windows taskbar.

Right-click on the icon in your taskbar and choose "Pin to Taskbar".

This was frustrating me a fair amount this morning, so I hope it helps some people.

Source : techgignews.com

Wikimedia founder sees another 1 billion phone users in the next 5 years

Jimmy Wales greatest life's work has been creating a free, online encyclopedia for everyone, and so it was a bit surprising to see Wikipedia founder to launch a phone network earlier this summer.

On stage at the Social Good Summit in New York, Jimmy Wales explained it was created in a hope to connect the world and help further important causes. Like other carriers, The People's Operator is an MVNO network that offers prepaid and post-paid cell phone plans and mobile internet contract. However, as an added wrinkle 10% of all customer's bill goes towards a charity of their choice.

Wales explained that most carriers will take this 10% of their revenue to create flashy commercials and giant billboards, The People's Carrier's goals are to help more people around the world.

"It's not going to change the world in any sort of fundamental way," Wales expounded. "But I'm hoping to raise billions of dollars for good causes."

The next wave

Furthermore, Wales highlighted how a $40 Android phone with the same capabilities of the first iPhone coming to market will have huge technological implications for developing worlds in the next few years.

"The next one billion people are about to come online in the next five years and this is going to empower a huge number of people," he explained.

Using the Arab Spring that occurred a few years ago as a key example, Wales said technology will be instrumental for the "rise of social activism from [groups] who previously didn't have a way to organize of research the facts."

Source : techradar.in

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Pledges Refugee Camp Internet Access

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to help bring the internet to UN refugee camps.

Speaking at a UN forum in New York, Mr Zuckerberg said it would help refugees access aid and maintain family links.

He also said Facebook would be part of a new campaign to make the internet available to everyone on the planet within five years.

He said the internet could help the UN meet its development goals and lift people out of poverty.

Signatories to the campaign, called the Connectivity Declaration, include rock star Bono, actress Charlize Theron, entrepreneurs Bill Gates and Richard Branson, and Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales.

He said Facebook would work with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Connectivity will help refugees better access support from the aid community and maintain links to family and loved ones," he said. "Facebook is in a unique position to help maintain this lifeline."

Some three billion people around the world have internet access, and the connectivity campaign aims to bring the internet to the other four billion.

Mr Zuckerberg says that Facebook has nearly 1.5 billion users who log in once a month, and achieved a billion users in a single day for the first time last month.

He has predicted that the site's reach will continue to grow.

Source : BBC News.

After Facebook, PM Modi Gets Demo At 'Google Guru'

SILICON VALLEY: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday visited the Google campus where he was given a tour of some of the latest products and forward-looking researches being done by the search engine giant.

Modi asked Khagaul to be pinpointed on Google Earth when he was given a glimpse of the unique tool. Khagaul near Patna is where the great ancient astronomer Aryabhatta had an observatory.

"Projects for progress," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said of the various projects which were shown to Modi by Google CEO Sunder Pichai.

Pichai explained navigational, safety and other uses of Street View and Google Earth to Prime Minister Modi.

"It is a visit to Google Guru," Modi said as he reached its campus from nearby Facebook headquarters.

Modi was given a tour of four critical projects and their value for the 'Digital India' campaign.

Another project that was shown to Modi was Project Iris, smart lens that measure glucose levels.

Later, Modi participated in a hackathon at Google. Many youngsters in their 20s had come from India to participate in it.

Before leaving Google, Modi had a group photo with its top officials.

In his brief remarks, Modi stressed the need to "encourage Hackathon culture" in India so that the youth are inspired to find solutions to the country's problems.

With social media becoming a part of today's lifestyle, Modi said people spend a significant amount of time on it.

"This is just the beginning," Modi said, adding that in the years to come he expects this to bring qualitative change in life of people.

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO announced that Google would provide high-speed Internet services at 100 Indian railway stations and would expand this to another 400 by next year.

Social media, he said, has become a strong and new power of democracy.

He urged Google employees to help him meet the challenges being faced by India including poverty.

Source : techgignews.com

Google voice search can now hear what you've got to say

Need a better reason to say "OK Google" in public? Well, the search engine just announced a refinement to voice search on its research blog. Now, it can more accurately pick out your voice even in noisy surroundings, and perform the necessary analysis in real-time. 

This is all made possible by software that can make faster phoneme predictions by listening further ahead in a user's speech.

In addition to this, acoustic models utilize feedback loops to tell the difference between similar sounding letters. For example, the word "museum" is broken up into / m j u z i @ m/ in phonetic notation and normally the sounds made by "j" and "u" would be difficult to separate. But with feedback loops, the software takes in all letters and sounds at once, just as the word itself is said in one breath. This is achieved with the help of newly developed memory cells that work with a sophisticated gating system. You can test Google's upgraded digital ears on both Android and iOS now.

Source : www.engadget.com

THIS BADASS DRONE CAN CARRY A MAN

Esentially, a drone is an aircraft without a pilot which is also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs.) A drone can be remotely controlled or can fly autonomously by onboard computers. Drones were seen to have a wide range of purpose. From delivering goods and products to your doorstep to aiding during a natural disaster.

Drones were used in search missions in inaccessible locations and were equipped with thermal cameras to locate people trapped under rubble or snow. However, the Nepal government later banned the use of drones as they were concerned over illegally leaking images of national heritage sites.

Last year in October, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) prohibited the use of unmanned drones citing safety reasons. Drones had made headlines when a pizza outlet used the device for one of its deliveries. Soon after that many commercial organizations started showing interest in using drones.

The DGCA, however, stated in a circular that “the UAS (unmanned aerial system) has potential for a large number of civil applications. However, its use, besides being a safety issue, also poses a security threat. The airspace over cities in India has high density of manned aircraft traffic. Due to lack of regulation, operating procedures/ standards and uncertainty of the technology, UAS poses threat for air collisions and accidents,”

But the DGCA never mentioned anything about manned drones. In a recent video posted on YouTube, a man is found standing on top of a drone, which seems to be the first ever manned drone to take flight, and it is indeed a spectacle.

The video shows a man hovering well above water and controlling the drone with ease. Though this drone seems to be only a one-off at the moment, chances are this could be approved for the masses. The quad copter shows it is powerful enough to carry a man.

Unless the DGCA announces new rules and regulations for drone flying (which it had planned to do since October last year), even if a manned drone such as the one in the above video were to be mass produced, it would not be seen hovering over India any time soon.

Source : www.igyaan.in

Bengaluru-based Helpchat to acquire hyperlocal discovery platform Niffler

Bengaluru-based Helpchat, a chat-based personal assistant application has announced that it will be acquiring Mumbai-based deal-discovery platform, Niffler for an undisclosed amount.

Niffler, a deal-discovery platform for local offline stores, was founded in July 2014 and recently introduced chat-based interactions between consumers and local businesses. It had raised funding worth $1 million in March 2015 from SAIF partners.

"In Helpchat, we found the perfect partners to further our mission of plugging the information gap that exists in India. We share Helpchat's vision of assisting consumers in getting more done by doing less, using its chat-based personal assistant app," said Niffler co-founder Edul Patel.

"(This) Acquisition will also help Helpchat accelerate the growth of its personal assistant engine across the areas of offline commerce and local deals based on user's intent," said Ankur Singla, CEO and Founder of Helpchat.

Sequoia-backed Helpchat's Android application has had over 7,50,000 downloads since it was launched in January and sees over 1 million chat sessions in a month, according to the company.

It hopes that this move will allow a faster acquisition when it launches in Mumbai and Pune, where Niffler already has a presence.

"We are geared for aggressive pan-India growth in the coming few months. The acquisition of Niffler is one of the first major steps in this direction," said Singla.

Source : tech.economictimes.india.com

Old net addresses run out in US

North America has officially run out of its stock of old net addresses.

This week the American agency which oversees net addresses in the region gave out the last block of these vital net components.

It said companies in North America should now accelerate their move to the latest version of the net's addressing system.

Now Africa is the only region with any significant blocks of the older version 4 internet addresses available.

Rising prices

The older addressing system, called IPv4, was created when the net was being set up in the 1970s. 

The system can support up to 4.3 billion addresses but the massive growth of the online world has swiftly depleted this.

The successor addressing system, known as IPv6, can handle a vast amount of addresses and is unlikely to ever run out. IPv6 has been available since 1999 but only now are large numbers of firms starting to use it.

"Organisations should be prepared to help usher in the next phase of the internet by deploying IPv6 as soon as possible," John Curran, head of the American Registry for Internet Numbers (Arin) told tech news site The Register.

Shifting to IPv6 can be tricky for some ISPs because, for the time being, they have to support both old and new addressing schemes. Running both and translating from one to the other can break some services and introduce delays that irk customers.

Afrinic, which hands out net addresses in Africa, currently has about 2.3 million IPv4 addresses left and these look set to run out by early 2019, statistics suggest. Stocks of IPv4 addresses ran out in other regions several years ago.

Axel Pawlik, managing director of Europe's net address administrator Ripe NCC, said Arin exhausting its stock of IPv4 addresses was a "landmark moment in the history of the internet".

"This means that organisations across North America can now only obtain IPv4 addresses by trading for them," he said. "For networks looking to grow, this will increasingly create pressure in the immediate future. "

The steady depletion of IPv4 addresses has kicked off a market in buying and selling chunks of addresses that large or defunct companies no longer use.

The Arin depletion might spark a significant rise in prices, suggests research by the IPv4 Market Group which acts as a broker for firms with addresses to sell.

The sale of several big blocks of addresses from very large companies including Merck, Lilly, Dupont and Nortel could spell problems for anyone looking to buy a significant number of addresses, it said. 

The lack of single big blocks would probably drive prices upwards as anyone requiring lots of addresses would have to get them from several sources, it said.

In May, the UK's Department for Work and Pensions started selling off some IPv4 addresses it owned and got about £7 for each of the 150,000 it sold.

Arin's announcement came as BT, the UK's biggest ISP, unveiled that it planned to enable its entire network for IPv6 by the end of 2016.

Source : BBC News -Technology

Facebook's Internet.org Platform renamed to "Free Basics"

Back in May, Facebook launched an Internet.org Platform initiative that let third-party developers get on board with the project - it meant other software makers could plug their wares into Mark Zuckerberg's grand vision.

Now the Internet.org Platform is live and open for business, and it's got a new name at the same time: "Free Basics by Facebook". The scheme as a whole is still called Internet.org so make sure you get your terms right when discussing all this next to the office watercooler.

"Today, more than 60 new services are available across the 19 countries where free basic services are available," explains the Internet.org blog post. "Not only does this expand the range of resources available to people, it gives them more choice and control over the services they can use in the app and website."

The next billion users

A couple of the early third-party apps included are SmartBusiness, for helping people launch their own enterprises, and BabyCenter, which includes vital health information about pregnancy and parenting.

If you're completely bamboozled by all of this, Internet.org is Facebook's initiative to get the developing world online using low-cost smartphones. Some services are available free of charge (hence "Free Basics"), paid for by Facebook's carrier partners and the premium options people can choose to upgrade to once they get connected.

The plan has had its fair share of critics who think Facebook just wants more people signed up for its social network and locked into the Facebook ecosystem. This extending of the platform to other developers and apps is part of a response to that criticism.

Source : techradar.in

Draft encryption policy: Frequent changes in key positions & talent crunch in DeitY led to the debacle

NEW DELHI: As the blame game for the fiasco created by the draft National Encryption Policy plays out, experts are asking if frequent changes in key positions and a talent crunch in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) led to the debacle.

After the government held a junior scientist responsible, officers in the department are now pointing fingers at each other, while maintaining all along that due procedure was followed.

"You think anything in the government moves without due procedure? All I can tell you is that all rules and regulations were followed," said an official who requested anonymity. The draft policy, which proposed that social media text messages be stored for scrutiny by the government, was withdrawn after a public outcry.

Another set of officials alleged that the junior officer did not seek the advice of higher-ups before making the policy public. Some officials said they were out of the country when the policy was released online and others said they were not involved in framing it, laying the blame squarely on the junior official.

The episode has led experts to ask whether organisational instability in DeitY over the past few months led to the embarrassment. The department, which is part of the Ministry of Communications and IT, has the mandate of running the government's ambitious Digital India project. However, several key posts have been lying vacant for many months. DeitY has also seen several changes, including that of the secretary, additional secretary and joint secretary, over the last one month.

"Unfortunately, DeitY has gone through a number of changes very frequently. Every change affects function and decision making," said an official of a Big Four consultancy firm, who requested not to be identified.

While the position of the director general of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which manages technology of the entire government machinery, has been lying vacant for over a year, the key post of director general of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) has not been filled after Gulshan Rai was appointed national cyber security chief under the PMO in March.

CERT is responsible for warding off and fighting cyber attacks. While ministry officials have been given additional charge of these positions, it may be adding to instability and workloads. Nodal officer for the encryption policy is supposed to be the group coordinator for cyber law -- but there is confusion in the ministry on who holds that post after Rai moved to the PMO.

Even the National e-Governance Division and the Controller of Certifying Authorities are being run by acting chiefs for months now. Appointments to the position of additional secretary (egovernance) and joint secretary (electronics) are also awaited.

"Though vacancies and frequent changes are routine in the government, the secretary, additional secretary and joint secretary, all in charge of the same function - e-governance - should not have been changed at the same time, especially with all the focus on Digital India," said another technology consultant. The person added that because of these vacancies, several key initiatives such as restructuring of NIC have been stuck.

Ministry officials, while conceding that there are vacancies, countered by saying that business in the government never stops. "There are lots of competent people in the department to take on additional responsibilities," said a senior official of the department.

The first consultancy official said there is a vacuum in the department in terms of the second rung of leadership.

Source : ETCIO.com

NASA

Two US airlines will soon begin testing a new NASA-developed software that is designed to help air carriers save time, cut fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

During the next three years, Virgin America and Alaska Airlines will use the Traffic Aware Planner (TAP) application to make "traffic aware strategic aircrew requests" (TASAR), the US space agency said in a statement.

TAP connects directly to the aircraft avionics information hub on the aircraft.

"It reads the current position and altitude of the aircraft, its flight route and other real-time information that defines the plane's current situation and active flight plan," explained David Wing, TASAR project lead at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Then, it automatically looks for a variety of route and/or altitude changes that could save fuel or flight time and displays those solutions directly to the flight crew.

TAP also scans the signals of nearby air traffic to avoid potential conflicts in any proposed flight path changes, making it easier for air traffic controllers to approve a pilot's route change request.

For airlines with internet connectivity in the cockpit, TAP also can access information -- such as real-time weather conditions, wind forecast updates and restricted airspace status -- to further increase flight efficiency.

The software is loaded onto a tablet computer, which many airline pilots already use for charts and flight calculations.

Even four minutes of flight time shaved off of each leg of a trip made by an airline could result in massive fuel and time savings, according to researchers.

The software provided similar results in flight tests. A second round of flight tests was recently completed to ensure readiness for operational use by partner airlines.

"We are excited to partner with NASA to test this new technology that has the potential to help reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions and save our guests time in the air," commented Steve Forte, Virgin America's chief operating officer in Burlingame, California.

Developers say the new technology will not require changes to the roles and responsibilities of pilots or air traffic controllers.

Source :gizmodo.in

iOS 9 bug fixes arrive with iOS 9.0.1 update

The first round of iOS 9 bug fixes have landed, just one week after iOS 9 went public.

The fixes arrive with iOS 9.0.1, a small update that users can download over the air now.

On the bug side of things, iOS 9.0.1 does the following:

-Fixes an issue where some users could not complete setup assistant after updating

-Fixes an issue where sometimes alarms and timers could fail to play

-Fixes an issue in Safari and Photos where pausing video could cause the paused frame to appear distorted

-Fixes an issue where some users with a custom APN setup via a profile would lose cellular data

-The update also brings some performance enhancements to Apple's latest mobile OS. The timing for iOS 9.0.1 couldn't be more clutch: the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus launch globally on September 25 and iOS 9 adoption is on a crazy clip.

Source : techradar.in

LinkedIn And Uber’s China Rival Didi Kuaidi Ink Deal To Partner On Apps, R&D And Recruitment

LinkedIn took a step today to build up its presence in China, and China’s Uber rival Didi Kuaidi took a step to make more inroads into the U.S. tech industry: the two companies have signed a deal to form a strategic partnership covering product integration, technology, recruitment, and brand development.

The announcement was made during a large meeting today at the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, where nearly 30 tech executives including Apple’s Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos from Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as part of the U.S. China Internet Industry Forum. Other news out of the event included a deal between Microsoft and Baidu, where Baidu would become the default search engine for Windows 10 in China; and a JV between Cisco and Chinese server maker Inspur.

Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding between LinkedIn and Didi, there are several parts to the deal.

In China, Didi’s social ridesharing service Hitch will let users connect on the app using their LinkedIn profiles. Hitch opened for business in the country in June of this year and has managed to pick up 5 million users so far, the company says. Didi inked a deal with Lyft earlier this month, and Lyft itself acquired a startup called Hitch a year ago, but (somewhat confusingly) the Hitch in China is not related to that service.

While the main thrust of Hitch is ridesharing with other consumers to bring down the cost of the service, the idea here is that by integrating with LinkedIn, the service can also be used for professional social networking.

“By connecting with LinkedIn, Hitch will be able to enhance its networking function, particularly targeting professionals who represent a big part of its user base,” Didi noted in a statement announcing the deal.

Another part of the agreement, according to the MOU, includes developing algorithms and machine learning to “improve their user experience and create new market opportunities.” The companies do not spell out what this might entail exactly or where that research would be done. We have reached out to find out more.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Didi Kuaidi will be working with LinkedIn on recruitment. Specifically, Didi is interested in hiring more people to come work for them in China, and it will be using LinkedIn to help find them.

The agreement between the two companies speaks miles about where each hopes to go longer term.

On the side of LinkedIn, the company has made a concerted effort to build up its user base and operations in China since opening its first China-specific site in February 2014 — although some of that growth has attracted controversy because of its willingness to follow Chinese government restrictions.

In its last quarterly earnings, LinkedIn’s CEO Jeff Weiner cited China as a big growth driver for the company. LinkedIn currently has 10 million users in China, adding 6 million since February 2014.

But to put that number into context, the company has 380 million users globally. In other words, partnering with Didi Kuaidi could potentially help LinkedIn tie itself to a local business that is already very popular with consumers who are professionals — LinkedIn’s target demographic — to grow that base even faster, and provide a service that might compel Chinese LinkedIn users to log in and use its service more.

The fact that LinkedIn is offering sign-in services to Hitch users is also interesting in itself. This is an area that LinkedIn has been looking to develop more for a while as a counterbalance to Facebook’s social sign-in services, although much of its efforts have been focused on LinkedIn’s own services.

Whereas Facebook has largely cornered the market for social logins in the West, it has made less inroads in countries like China, and that leaves a window for LinkedIn as a Western competitor to local services.

On the part of Didi, the company has been a thorn in Uber’s side in China, where the two appear to be in a race to see who can raise the most money to duke it out locally. Elsewhere, Didi shares common investors with other Uber rivals like Ola in India and Lyft in the U.S.. It’s not clear how and if this deal is a signal of Didi expanding further in North America, but it at least seems to indicate that it will look to tap U.S. talent to grow its business overall.

Source : techcrunch.com

PM Narendra Modi trip gives Facebook, Google chance to press on Indian expansion

SAN FRANCISCO: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip this weekend to Silicon Valley gives Facebook and Google the chance to press him on issues that have bedeviled them in that country, a market they see as vital to their aggressive global expansion.

Among their concerns are unreliable electricity, slow internet speeds and an education system that does not produce the engineers they need.

For Facebook and Google, India is a crucial market. With 1.3 billion people, it is the world's second most-populous country -- and they are blocked from China, the most populous, making success in India even more critical for their global growth.

For well-traveled Modi, the first trip to the US West Coast by an Indian leader in more than 30 years is a chance to get help on his top policy initiatives, including "Digital India," which aims to connect thousands more Indian villages to the internet and create more tech jobs.

"I've been in the Valley for two decades, and I've never seen Indian policy or leadership have a deep engagement with the Valley" until now, said Punit Soni, chief product officer for Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce company and a former Google executive.

Facebook and Google executives were scheduled to travel to Seattle for a visit this week by Chinese President Xi Jingping, but sources close to the companies told Reuters they would not be meeting with him one on one.

In contrast, Modi is visiting Google's campus and will hold a town hall with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Both Facebook and Google declined to comment ahead of Modi's visit.

Modi clearly understands the power of social media: His more than 30 million "likes" on his Facebook page and 15 million Twitter followers make him the second most-followed political leader after US President Barack Obama.

Modi is eager to bring jobs to India for the 1 million Indians entering the job market each year, foreign policy experts said. India needs to maintain GDP growth of 9% a year to provide them all jobs, but the rate is currently hovering at about 7%. He sees technology as vital to increasing that rate.

Facebook and Google have added staff in India over the past five years -- although neither breaks out staff numbers by region -- but Modi will likely press for even more, seeking deals for them to build research and development centers in India and for the companies to employ more local Indians.

"(Modi's) top programs ... are based on the idea that international companies will invest money and bring in technological know-how to build out the infrastructure - digital and otherwise - that India needs," said Mukesh Aghi, president of the US-Indian Business Council.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech.

Flipkart Co-Founders Bansals New Billionaires

MUMBAI: Leading Indian e-retailer Flipkart's co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal are the latest billionaires in the country, with $1.3 billion (Rs.8,582 crore) net worth each, according to leading business magazine Forbes India' rich list released on Wednesday.

"Indian e-commerce has added its first billionaires with Flipkart's founders (Bansals) making debut on our rich list at number 86, with $1.3 billion net worth each," the magazine said in a statement in Mumbai.

Though Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani tops the rich list for the ninth consecutive year, his net worth, however, declined $4.7 billion to $18.9 billion (Rs.127,700 crore) from 2014 owing to lower oil prices that hit his oil and petrochemicals giant.

Sun Pharmaceutical's Dilip Shanghvi also retained the second spot, with $18 billion net worth, acquisition of drug major Ranbaxy Industries for $4 billion by his company notwithstanding.

Wipro chairman Azim Premji also retained the third spot in the list, with a net worth of $15.9 billion though $500 million less than in 2014.

"The generous billionaire has pledged 18 percent of his stake in Wipro to his charitable trust, in addition to a 21 percent stake already given," the statement noted.

"The combined wealth of India's 100 richest remains largely unchanged at $345 billion, as compared to $346 billion in 2014," it added.

Similarly, wealth of 10 tycoons slumped by $1 billion over the year owing to global and domestic factors, including a volatile stock market and currency fluctuations.

Fortune of steel magnate L.N. Mittal (65) declined by $4.6 billion to $11.2 billion and his ranking in the rich list slipped to eight from five year ago, as his and world's largest steel major ArcelorMittal was hit by imports from China.

"India is facing a reality check in 2015 after the euphoria in 2014. Though it has impacted several big fortunes in the top 100, the country's entrepreneurial spirit remains buoyant, as evident from a dozen new faces on the list," said Forbes Asia's India editor Naazneen Karmali.

Other top 10 billionaires are Hinduja brothers ranked fourth with $14.8 billion net worth; Pallonji Mistry (86), fifth, $14.7 billion; Shiv Nadar (70), sixth, $12.9 billion; Godrej family, seventh, $11.4 billion; Cyrus Poonawalla (74), ninth, $7.9 billion and Kumar Mangalam Birla (48) tenth, $7.8 billion.

Gujarat-based Adani group's founder chairman Gautam Adani (53) is ranked 11th with net worth of $7 billion and Kotak Mahindra Bank vice-chairman and managing director Uday Kotak (56) is 12th with $6.5 billion net worth.

Only two women figure in the top 100 billionaires' list - Leena (Gandhi) Tewari (58 years), chairman of drug major USV Ltd, is ranked 54 with $1.9 billion net worth, while Indu Jain (79 years), chairperson of the country's largest media group Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd, is ranked 57 with $1.85 billion net worth.

Five co-founders of global software major Infosys Ltd figure in the rich list- N.R. Narayana Murthy (69) ranked 53, $1.92 billion; S. Gopalakrishnan (60), 67, $1.67 billion; Nandan Nilekani (60), 69, $1.61 billion and K. Dinesh (61) 96, $1.19 billion.

Mahindra group chairman Anand Mahindra (60) is ranked at 99 with a net worth of $1.12 billion.

The rich list also has 12 new comers, including IndiGo budget carrier co-founder Rakesh Gangwal at 70 with $1.6 billion net worth, while his friend and co-founder Rahul Bhatia moved up 12 positions from last year to 38 with $2.4 billion net worth.

The biggest gainer is Poonawalla, the vaccine magnate, whose fortune increased to $7.9 billion from $6.2 billion in 2014 and entered the top 10 list at nine. He recently bought heritage property Lincoln House in Mumbai for $110 million.

"This year's list reflects the churn in the global economy and the growing clout of emerging sectors like ecommerce in India," Forbes India editor Sourav Majumdar added.

Source : techgignews.com

Apple Watch may have saved this kid's life

According to a report, a teen in Massachusetts says he used his Apple Watch's heart rate sensor to monitor his heart and it end up saving his life.

Speaking to CBS San Francisco, Paul Houle explained how after football practice, he began suffering from chest and back pain.

Using his Apple Watch, Houle said, "I tested my heart rate, and it was about 145 for about two hours after practice."

Worried, he went to the hospital where he ended up being diagnosed with a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which can be triggered by intense exercise.

The condition causes the cells in muscles to leak enzymes and protein into the blood, which can end up leading to heart, kidney and lung failure.

A concerned CEO

The story doesn't end here, for Houle, as somehow, the news of the teen somehow reached Apple CEO Tim Cook, who made a phone call.

"I got a phone call from a California number, and he said, 'hello, my name is Tim Cook, CEO of Apple,'" Houle said.

During the phone call, Cook ended up offering Houle an iPhone, as well as a summer internship at Apple.

Source : techradar.in

Smart devices to get security tune-up

Hi-tech firms are banding together to make sure "internet of things" smart devices are safe to use.

More than 30 firms, including BT, Intel, and Vodafone, are creating an industry body to vet internet-connected devices for vulnerabilities and flaws.

It will encourage firms making smart gadgets to think about security as the hardware is being developed.

Consumers could be at risk unless the industry gets better at securing hardware, say experts.

"We need to be careful because if we are not, then we could be sleepwalking into some big problems," said John Moor, from the NMI industry group that represents UK chip makers and has helped launch the forum.

Smart and safe

The internet of things is the name given to the growing trend of adding sensors and communications to household objects so they can help monitor a home and be managed remotely.

In addition, many formerly dumb machines used in manufacturing and industry are being hooked up to the net to help firms fine tune their business.

Before now, said Mr Moor, there had been a series of security lapses in which popular consumer devices such as baby monitors were found to be leaking data or were vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

The Internet of Things Security Foundation would address this problem by educating its members about ways to secure smart devices so they were much harder to hack, he said.

"We want to make it safe to connect," said Mr Moor. "That's what we are imploring our members to do."

Mr Moor said the forum was keen to work with other industry groups also trying to make smart stuff more secure.

Organisations such as the BuildItSecure.ly, I Am The Cavalry and the Online Trust Alliance's IoT Trust Framework are all working to educate hardware makers about security and harden devices against attack.

Without greater effort to secure the emerging net of things, consumers and businesses would be put off adopting devices and services that could make their lives easier, said Mr Moor.

"It's a bit like the aviation industry - when it began, it had to reassure people it was safe to fly," he said.

"We have to do the same and help people realise it is safe to connect."

Source : BBC News

Cybersecurity firm offers $1 million for Apple hack

PARIS: Computer security firm Zerodium on Tuesday offered a $1 million (890,000 euros) bounty to hackers who can find a way to breach Apple's latest iOS 9 mobile operating system.

Zerodium, launched early this year in the United States by French online security expert Chaouki Bekrar, said it would pay out $1 million each to as many as three people or teams who manage to break into iPhones or iPads equipped with the iOS 9 software.

To win the money, hackers must use a web page or text message to remotely bypass the iOS 9 security and discretely install an application on the iPhone or iPad by October 31, the company said in an online statement.

The hackers must exploit previously unknown weaknesses in the security system.

Apple's operating system is the most secure on the market, Zerodium said.

"But don't be fooled. Secure does not mean unbreakable, it just means that iOS has currently the highest cost and complexity of vulnerability exploitation and here is where the million dollar iOS 9 bug bounty comes into play."

Zerodium says it rewards independent researchers for discovering new software vulnerabilities. It then analyses the security data to help corporate and government agency clients to beef up their online defences.

The strength of iOS is essentially based on layers of security that are individually vulnerable but extremely effective together. It is nevertheless to possible to attack each of these elements, which is a fairly long and costly process," Bekrar told AFP.

Several researchers had expressed interest in the bounty, said the Zerodium boss.

Apple had not been consulted about the bounty, he added. Apple, which launched iOS 9 on September 16, was not immediately available to comment.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

Now, An App That Will Help People With HIV

NEW DELHI: In an attempt to increase accessibility of information and treatment of HIV, National Aids Control Organization (NACO) has rolled out a mobile app for AIDS awareness and prevention. 

The app, first of its kind in India, is based on various international models. The app would provide all kinds of information on AIDS, which is not easily available otherwise. For instance, it will provide information of HIV testing centres in the locality, information on availability of free testing kits and medicines etc. 

The app, called HELP (HIV Education and Linkage to Prevention), will also prompt users to access HIV testing from the nearest centre free of cost. 

The idea is to bridge the awareness and accessibility gap through digital intervention and encourage youth to know their HIV status. The move will also help the government to keep a count on the incidence and prevalence of HIV cases, which is currently a major area of contention. 

The national AIDS control programme is the government's largest health intervention programme. 

The programme, run under NACO and implemented by states, demonstrated an overall reduction of 57 per cent in the annual new HIV infections among adult population from 2.74 lakh in 2000 to 1.16 lakh in 2011, according to NACO's 2013-14 annual report. However, the facts were questioned by many international agencies, which said a lot of people in India are unaware of their HIV status. 

According to the United Nations, India has the third highest number of estimated people living with HIV in the world. 

"To start with, it will provide some basic information but slowly we will ramp it up to include detailed information and education as well as various services," an official said. 

AIDS Healthcare Foundation, an international agency which works in the area, is working with the government to expand the use of the app across the country. AHF has also funded the app, while NACO is taking care of the operations and implementation part. 

According to the official, the app will ensure confidentiality and can currently be operated in two languages - English and Hindi. The health ministry is expecting to reach more than 11 crore people across urban and rural geographies through the app. 

The government is also planning to launch promotional advertisements for the app on television and radio. Besides, it will also use social media and you tube to popularize it. 

"Once the app is popular among the youth, we will update it to include more information," the official said adding in future it can also be used to spread awareness about many other diseases and preventive healthcare measures. 

"There is a gap between the estimated number of people living with HIV and those who have tested and know their status. It is critical that people know their HIV status early so that they can opt for treatment," he said.

Source : techgignews.com

Bengaluru firm, IIT-H take lead in 5G technology for India, IoT

BENGALURU: In an example of industry-academia collaboration and a futuristic, time-based research, Bengaluru-based Tejas Networks is working with Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad (IIT-H), on a novel 5G Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN), keeping in mind India's needs. 

In the works for two years, the first field demonstration of the technology, project lead Dr Kiran Kuchi of IIT-H, said: "...Will be scheduled in the next two months or so." 

"This will be the first such technology in India. Even outside, only Germany had tried demonstrating CRAN, but I think we've taken it way beyond that." This "Make-in-India" technology will help India in the long run and will help articulate our needs from the 5G standards. 

"India is one of the few countries which has voting rights in the global 5G standardisation framework and all the learning from this project will help us in the future," Sanjay Nayak, CEO of Tejas Networks, which has already embarked on many Make-in-India projects including a few in the defence sector said. 

Explaining further, Kuchi, who is leading the project said that the 5G CRAN technology which will enable centralisation of radio signals which will enable greater efficiency by reducing interference from other cellular devices. 

"In existing technology the base stations are not only bulky and expensive but are prone to a lot of interference as cellular processing is at the bottom while the antenna and radio are at the top. With our technology we will draw all of them to a radio cloud and then transmit the same, which will reduce interference," Kuchi explained. 

Tejas Networks Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Dr Kumar Sivarajan said: "We've provided them with the hardware (base station, radio et al) without which the project could not go forward. And what we are together trying to achieve will be of immense value not only for the industry but also for the customer." 

How it works 

The 5G CRAN will have a central server (cloud) which is easy to handle connected to remote radio headends (RRHs) which can be fitted at a low cost in any place. "The RRHs will take the signals to the server from where it will be transmitted," Kuchi said. 

"The technology although sounds similar to the traditional IT cloud service, is not so as it involves complicated radio signals," Kuchi said. 

Kumar added that the team at IIT-H is coming up with a series of complicated algorithms to achieve this and that "the effort is commendable as there is no reference to such technology and things are being done from scratch." 

Kuchi added that the technology has a potential of connecting hundreds of radios and base stations, we are, as part of the project looking at connecting 19, which we believe is good number to demonstrate efficiency. 

Reduction of call-drops 

Kuchi said that with a shortage of spectrum service providers are forced to re-use spectrum which is one of the main reasons for call-drops. "Our technology, by way of using cloud, will cleanse the system while reusing the spectrum thereby reducing call-drops," he said. 

Kiran also said that this technology will ease the process of establishing communication networks in remote areas as it will cost let. It will also allow speedy access to day with little interruption accessing data very fast without much interruption. 

Internet of things 

World-over the conversation on 5G has largely been on how it will support the Internet of Things (IoT), and this technology will also do the same. 

It will offer convergence of cellular, IoT, machine-to-machine transfer of information, WiFi everything on a single platform, the radio cloud.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

Funny/Edited error messages you have never seen before :)

Source : hongkiat.com

Google Street View Likely To Get Government Nod Soon

NEW DELHI: Indian cities, tourists spots, hills and rivers could be explored soon through 360-degree, panoramic and street-level imagery as the government plans to allow Google to cover such locations through the Google Street View with certain riders. 

Except sensitive locations like defence installations, nuclear sites and some other high-valued spots, it is expected that Google will get permission to cover most of the Indian territory through Street View. 

A formal communication is likely to be conveyed to the Google after detailed deliberations by the top officials of the ministries of defence, home, external officials and the Prime Minister's office, official sources said. 

Google Street View explores places around the world through 360-degree, panoramic and street-level 3D imagery. Everything taken under it posted online. 

It has been extensively used in the United States, Canada and many European countries, its applications in India have been limited so far. 

Google has launched Street View in some of the tourist sites like Taj Mahal, Red Fort, Qutub Minar, Varanasi river bank, Nalanda University, Mysore Palace, Thanjavur temple Chinnaswamy stadium besides others in partnership with the Archaeological Society of India. 

Indian security establishment is wary of allowing such image-capturing given that planning for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai is believed to have involved photographic reconnaissance of targets by Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley. 

Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from positions along many streets in the world. 

It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide. Streets with Street View imagery available are shown as blue lines on Google Maps. 

Google Street View displays panoramas of stitched images. Most photography is done by car, but some is done by trekker, tricycle, walking, boat, snowmobile, camel, and underwater apparatus. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Google headquarters during his tour to the US beginning tomorrow.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech

National Encryption Policy draft withdrawn: 11 things to know

If you were worried that deleting WhatsApp, Facebook and Viber chats could put you behind bars, fret not. In a complete u-turn, the government has withdrawn the proposed National Encryption policy that could have landed you in trouble for deleting your WhatsApp, Facebook messages before 90 days.

Here's all you need to know about the now-withdrawn policy draft

* Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has announced that the government has decided to withdraw the draft of National Encryption Policy. The minister said that the draft of the policy has created many apprehensions

* Prasad said that in view of the concerns raised, he has asked the draft to be withdrawn, made changes to and then re-released. The telecom also clarified that it is just a draft and not a policy of the government.

* The union government had put up a draft National Encryption Policy document online seeking to prescribe the methods of encryption of data and communications used by the government, businesses, and even citizens. The document says that the policy's mission is to "provide confidentiality of information in cyberspace for individuals, protection of sensitive or proprietary information for individuals & businesses, ensuring continuing reliability and integrity of nationally critical information systems and networks."

* The now-withdrawn proposed policy, issued by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, would apply to everyone including government departments, academic institutions, citizens and for all kind of communications — be it official or personal.

* The document was formulated by an "expert group" set up under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) which comes under the union ministry of communications and information technology.

* The draft policy was introduced under Section 84 A of the Information Technology Act (2000). Once finalized, it aimed to introduce rules for encryption of electronic information and communication.

* The policy document triggered widespread privacy concerns and generated a heated debate. As the language of the draft was open to interpretation and implied that all citizens who use encryption services should store in plain text versions of encrypted communication for 90 days. So this meant that users will have to store their WhatsApp messages for 90 days or face action in case asked to reproduce old messages.

* Another contentious point of the draft said users "shall reproduce the same Plain text and encrypted text pairs using the software/hardware used to produce the encrypted text from the given plain text. All information shall be stored by the concerned B/C (business/citizen) entity for 90 days from the date of transaction and made available to Law Enforcement Agencies as and when demanded in line with the provisions of the laws of the country."

This meant that e-commerce websites may have to keep a plain text copy of user transaction details, leaving their information vulnerable to hackers. However, the issued addendum exempted "SSL/TLS encryption products being used for e-commerce and password based transactions."

The addendum also exempted "SSL/TLS encryption products used in internet banking and payment gateways as directed by the Reserve Bank of India."

* Current guidelines on encryption: Encryption was never a top priority for the government. According to Pavan Duggal, an advocate who specializes in cyberlaw, the ISP license conditions formulated in 1999 mandated 40-bit encryption standard as de facto. It was never revised even at a time when 256-bit encryption was being widely used. The IT Act 2000 also didn't detail encryption.

It was only in 2008 after the Mumbai terror attacks that the Act was amended to expand the government's power to decrypt information. It could also approach intermediaries for assistance. As per the amendment, the government may only prescribe the modes or methods of encryption "for secure use of the electronic medium and for promotion of e-governance and e-commerce."

* Encryption used in mass communication mediums such as WhatsApp and Apple iMessage: To prevent an intruder from getting access to your private messages through servers, messaging services like WhatsApp and Google Hangouts use end-to-end encryption. This means that your messages are converted into a different format before being transmitted and the capability to convert them back to text or the 'key' is only available with the other user on his/her device.

Similarly, Apple stores encrypted iMessage chats on its servers before the messages are delivered but it cannot unscramble these. Some services keep this key on their own servers but most are moving to end-to-end encryption. There is a backlash from surveillance agencies who want access to decryption keys for security reasons.

* Messaging services that use encryption: WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Skype, Apple iMessage, Telegram, Viber, Line and BlackBerry Messenger use encryption to convert your chats to some undecipherable code that can be only decrypted by the recipient. This means all services other than BlackBerry, such as WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, Apple iMessage etc do not have dedicated servers to store encryption data in India.

Source : The Times Of India - Tech