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O for Oreo? Android O is the new 8.0 version!

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Google unveiled the latest version of its mobile operating systems code named ‘Android O’ on 21st March, 2017. The new design of the OS is aimed at improving battery life and the interactive performance of the device. The update puts restrictions on how apps run in the background. ‘Picture in picture’ (PIP) is the new feature that’ll be rolling out with the update. What that means is that a mobile user can watch a video while doing something else such as booking a cab or chatting with someone. Some other major highlights about the new OS update are :

1.BETTER NOTIFICATIONS

The notifications will come with snooze setting, wherein the user can set the time to deal with the notification later if they don’t want to deal with them at the moment. For instance, the user can select the snooze time from 15 minutes to 1 hour. Better control over handling the notifications will be provided to the user through the new notification ‘channels’. These channels will help user to have more control over notifications of storage and screenshots.

2.IMPROVED SETTINGS

The settings app has been revised completely. It’s much more condensed and about half as long as Android’s current version. It has been sectionalised more efficiently, providing a concise and logical view to the users. The colour scheme of the settings app has been changed to an all white theme, along with the icon as well.

3.SYSTEMS UI TUNER

The System UI Tuner has a new navigation bar. Users can do a lot of customisation on this: from selecting layout of the whole screen to adding two extra custom buttons on the bottom screen in addition to home, back and recent apps. These extra buttons will have three buttons : Clipboard, Keycode and Change Keyboard. Users can access all the text that they have recently saved via clipboard and change the keyboard they’re using with the other option. Keycode is a value in Android System to almost every input that the OS receives. This can range from buttons on keyboard to launching apps through the button click. The tuner also houses a lock screen customiser which will let the user to customise the apps to launch from the shortcuts on extreme ends at bottom of the screen. Possibilities range from opening Gmail on right swipe while unlocking to launching a game on left swipe.

There are many more exciting features that will be bundled in the update. Let’s hope it receives better response from the users than the ones before did!

Kavach Chandra
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Image Credits: www.wikipedia.org

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QWERTY

QWERTY: Big acquisitions of companies built by Indian techies

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Many Indians take the risk of starting their own venture, especially in the field of technology. However, there are only a few who are rewarded handsomely for taking that risk. Making the right decisions can lead to the success of a company, and when it comes to selling the company, the right choice is what makes it or breaks it. Selling too early and selling too late, both roads lead to financial regret and loss of zeros at the end of the number on the cheque. Here’s a list of few Indians companies that sold to the western giants such as Facebook, Google and others:

 

1.      TupleJump

TupleJump was a Hyderabad based startup which focused on machine learning, a field of artificial intelligence. The company was acquired by Apple very quietly, sometime in 2016, for a whopping $20 million. The company comprised a very small team of 16 at the time of acquisition. It was started in 2013. It is Apple’s first acquisition in India.

Image Credits: github.com
Image Credits: github.com

2.      Flutter

Navneet Dalal and Mehul Nariyawala founded Flutter, a startup focusing on gesture based technology. The company is known for their “flutter app” which allowed users to control apps such as iTunes, VLC and others using hand gestures and movements. The brilliance of the app lay in the fact that no additional hardware was required, unlike Microsoft’s Kinect, at that time. It was acquired by Google in October 2013 for $40 million.

Image Credits: Wikipedia
Image Credits: Wikipedia

3.      AppDynamics

Jyoti Bansal founded AppDynamics in 2008. It is an IT operation and application performance maintenance company, working majorly in the area of managing performance and availability of applications on cloud platform. It was acquired by Cisco for $3.7 billion.

Image Credits: appdynamics.com
Image Credits: appdynamics.com

4.      Little Eye Labs

This Bangalore based startup makes software which analyses the performance of android apps and generates detailed reports. It was acquired by Facebook in January 2014. Although the actual amount hasn’t been disclosed, the deal is said to have been sealed in the range of $10-15 million. It was the first Indian company acquired by Facebook.

Image Credits: littleeye.co.in
Image Credits: littleeye.co.in

 

Kavach Chandra

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QWERTY

QWERTY: From Fiction to Facts

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Necessity has been called as the mother of invention but imagination is what creates the idea for that invention. Impossibility finds a way to seep into our dreams but it’s their depictions that brings them into existence.

Fiction has been one of the key mediums for people to connect with versions of themselves, who they inspire to be. It deals with imagination which is the first component of any technological invention, advancement or venture. Science fiction is a genre of fiction that deals with imagining technology that does not exist presently. The ideas behind a lot of modern technology has been inspired from the field. Here’s a short list of tech inspired from science fiction:

  1. Payment Cards: Before moving pictures depicted fictions scientific technology, written word was the way that jogged the most powerful graphic chip on the planet – the human brain. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward 2000-1887 published in 1888 was the first novel that introduced the concept of “universal cards”. These cards were used by the author’s citizen of utopia to purchase goods and services anywhere in the world. Credit cards have been around since the 50s but the idea dates back half a century.
    Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons
    Payment cards

    2. Video Chatting :

    Inventors struggled for nearly two centuries to invent the technology that enabled humans to communicate with each other without being in the range of sound emitted by human mouth i.e. the telephone. While people were getting used to idea of talking to one another on the phone, someone thought of seeing the person at the other while doing that. That man was Hugo Gernsback. It was his novel, Ralph 124C+1 published as a twelve-part series in Modern Electrics that had a device called “telephot” that led people to see each other while talking across large distances.

    Video chatting
    Video chatting

    3. Antidepressants and Genetic Engineering :

    Gadgets and gizmos aren’t the only areas where science has benefitted from fiction. Medicine has been influenced as well. In 1931, Aldous Huxley gave the concept of antidepressants in form “mood altering” medicine that was given to the citizens of 2540 London to keep them mentally balanced. Apart from this, the novel details a society where humans are engineered as per their role in the society. Sounds a lot like tinkering with the genome to modify and produce desired living things, doesn’t it?

    Anti Depressants
    Anti Depressants

    4. 3D Printing: 

    The earliest reference that I came across about 3D printing was from Eric Frank Russell’s novelette, the Hobbyist. Published in 1947, he describes machines which are manufacturing different things, both living and non-living. We haven’t come across the former, but the latter is something that we have all witnessed, either in person or in countless videos on YouTube.  Who’s to say how far we are from creating something or someone using a combination of Russell’s fabrication device and Huxley’s notion of genetic engineering?

    3D Printer in action
    3D Printer in action

     

Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons

Kavach Chandra

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Hindu College

Because human rights are not optional: Human Rights Chapter, Hindu College

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Founded by the students of the college, this organisation functions on the basic premise that human rights are not optional.

Although, the preamble of the Indian Constitution is based on human rights and there are many laws in place to protect the aforementioned rights, very less is done to preserve them. India has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but there’s still a lot that needs to be done in terms of prevention, protection and preservation of human rights in the country. The Human Rights Chapter, Hindu College aims at doing exactly that.

HRC Hindu college
The Human Rights Chapter, Hindu college.

This nascent organisation was founded by students of Hindu College, who abide by the maxim ‘Human rights aren’t optional.’ Staunch proponents of human rights and all its facets, its members seek to carry the baton of change, both by instilling awareness about these rights and fighting against breaches of the same. HRC, by being a vehicle of social awareness and change, aims to be the link between authorities, students and teachers. The chapter has aligned its agenda with the vision of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The organisation’s main focus is on promoting the right to education, which it believes to be the foundation of change.

One of its kind, HRC is committed to the foremost cause of ‘democracy:’ where everybody has a voice and the power to claim their rights. It seeks to incorporate the voices of the silenced and marginalised through the medium of film screenings, seminars, reading sessions and other such events. It ran a successful social media campaign called ‘8 Days of Activism’ which shared stories of eight inspirational human rights activists. From Arundhati Roy’s work in the field of democracy to Medha Patkar’s attempts to make development humanistic, from Ashok Row Kavi’s work for the LGBT community as the first openly ‘gay man of india’ to Kailash Satyarthi’s indomitable passion for children’s rights, the campaign instilled both inspiration and motivation to take a stand for human rights. HRC collaborated with the Bastar Solidarity Network and organised a movie screening along with a group discussion to acknowledge the war that the Indian state has been fighting against its own ‘second-class citizens.’

HRC movie screening
Movie screening by HRC in collab. with Bastar Solidarity Network

Despite being young, the organisation has garnered members from many colleges and different disciplines, establishing a strong grip over its area of work. The members stand united for human rights and against atrocities inflicted on the people.

Image credits: The Human Rights Chapter, Hindu College

Kavach Chandra

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Reliance JIO: Taking the Telecom Industry by Storm

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With the entry of Reliance Jio into the market, the telecom industry faces more rivalries and competition than ever before. After all the hype, can Jio live up to expectations?

The commercial launch of the Reliance Jio 4G SIMs on 5 September 2016 created large-scale unrest in the world of telecom. Telecom charges are among the primary expenses of today’s individuals. Jio effectively targeted this pain point of the Indian customer with its ‘free call’ plan. This one move has pushed people into a frenzy to get the Jio SIMs, which are now in extremely high demand. In fact, many retailers ran out of Jio SIMs on the very first day. The problem with this is that new SIMs are not easily available. It is therefore easy to believe the rumors of the SIMs being sold on the black market.

SIM unavailability is not the only issue that the company faces. Although the data services provided by the company have lived up to the customers’ expectations, the calling services have not. This is highly prevalent when it comes to internetwork calls. In response to the issue, Reliance has accused rival telecom brands of not providing more point-of-interconnections (POIs) despite the large number of requests. The company has criticised this behaviour of the telecom companies as poor ethics of business, and has made several complaints to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) as well. Another issue that has cropped up in the last few days is of Mobile Number Portability (MNP). Reliance has accused other major brands of not granting MNPs as per requests, thereby violating the MNP rules and regulations. Vodafone and Airtel representatives have refuted this claim, stating that they are doing everything they can on their end. Idea has yet to comment on the matter.

Reliance Jio has truly disrupted the standards of the industry, consequently facing a lot of resistance. The future of the company looks bright due to the overwhelming response of the Indian public. Nevertheless, only time will tell the outcome of the competition between Reliance and the dominant players in the industry.

Featured Image Credits: India TV News

Kavach Chandra
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QWERTY

ABCs of Tech Business in 2016: Acquisitions, Buyouts and Consolidation

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The business part of any venture witnesses the most extreme of situations. There are companies which face the ruthless tyranny of a buyout while some thank their stars when saved by acquisitions. Whatever the path may be, cruel or rewarding, it always ends in consolidation of industry. Suffice it to say, the ‘A’ and ‘B’ always lead to ‘C’. So, here is a list of ‘A’s and ‘B’s this year, some of which lead to the ‘C’ of that industry:

1. Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn

While Facebook and Google are thought of as cool kids on the block, Microsoft has always ensured that its identity remains like that of men in suits in the tech world. And its latest acquisition, for a whooping amount of $26.2 billion, further strengthens that image. Being a highly professional organisation, Microsoft acquiring a professional social network wasn’t surprising at all. The LinkedIn social network will be quite helpful in taking the MS Office suite to the next level, adding a social component to the work, thereby connecting professionals and their work more effectively. Also, Lynda.com, a website which offers tutorials was acquired by LinkedIn some time back, which Microsoft sees as an opportunity.

Microsoft_logo

LinkedIn_logo

2. Dell merges with EMC

If you thought $19.3 for WhatsApp was high, then this will blow your mind. Dell, the computer multinational behemoth, has acquired EMC, a computer storage company for the highest amount ever in the tech world for $67 billion. Yes! You read it right, it’s 67 billion. The merger has started and will take some time to complete. The effects and verdict of this merger will probably be visible to us by 2017 or 2018. A lot of things, from policies to name, from logos to software design, will change. Only time will tell the verdict of this expensive marriage.

emc_logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Verizon buys the struggling Yahoo!

What once was a company valued at over a $100 billion, got sold at an amount of $4.8 billion. Verizon, the telecom giant acquired Yahoo, which had been fighting for survival for quite some time now. The deal includes the real estate and some intellectual property of the company but doesn’t include the valuable stake of Alibaba group in the company. With this deal, Verizon can go head to head against Google and Facebook in the field of advertisement.

Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verizon_Logo_2015.jpg

yahoo_logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Myntra buys Jabong

Flipkart owned Myntra acquires Jabong for $70 million. This move is one of those that will consolidates the e-commerce market in India today. Flipkart has made a statement that it still is one of the key players in the business and is here to stay. With Jabong and Myntra, Flipkart has gained the majority in terms of fashion e-commerce. With this buyout, Flipkart and Amazon are currently the two major pillars while Snapdeal and others are in supporting roles.

 

Source: stuffled.com

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Myntra-Logo.png

 

 

 

 

Image credits: commons.wikimedia.org

Featured image credits: http://stuffled.com/vector/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/06/Jabong- Logo-EPS- vector-image.png

Kavach Chandra

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QWERTY: Prepare for your entrance exams with these 4 apps

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The first year of college usually goes in finding where you fit in, the second in cementing the bonds & friendships and the third goes in woes and worries about the future. Although some students take up the campus placements, majority of people prepare to pursue higher studies or to do professional courses. Whatever option they may choose, all of them go through a barrier, known commonly to every college-going, degree-seeking individual as ‘entrance test’. There are different types of entrance tests for different courses and institutions, all of them testing the candidate’s knowledge of a certain field. However, most of these exams have some common sections, which tests one’s general knowledge, English proficiency, etc. The following apps will come to your rescue, so that you don’t have to put too much effort for preparation of these sections:

1. Inshorts – News in 60 words

high-resolution
InShorts

The title says it all. With one of the simplest user interface out there, Inshorts offers the users with the news in the most precise and accurate manner. The news articles are stacked and can be viewed one after another by swiping up. The concise nature of content in the app helps the user stay updated with everything going around the world without getting bored, which the reader feels when going through long articles. The reader can also cover news from various sectors without having to spend a lot of time going through each of them.

2. Slide

Slide
Slide

This is a news app. An average user locks and unlocks his/her phone at least 100-200 times a day. The app banks on this simple activity. The app displays news excerpt on the lock screen. The user has a choice to swipe left and read the whole article or swipe right to continue to the home screen. The title of the article and the news is visible, which in itself, is enough to convey most of the story. This app can also help you stay on top of worldly events. In addition, the app gives 5 paisa every time the user unlocks the screen irrespective of, whether the user opens the article or not.

3. Vocabulary.com

Vocabulary.com
Vocabulary.com

This app’s purpose is evident in its name itself. The app helps the user improve and expand their vocabulary through word games and quizzes, which are quite addictive. Gamification, the concept of imparting knowledge through games, has been effectively used in this app. The app also helps you prepare for different standardised tests like SAT, TOEFL, GRE etc. as users can chose which exam they want to prepare for. The app covers everything related to any word, from its origin to pronunciation to meaning.

4. GK Current Affair SSC-IBPS-IAS

GK Current Affair SSC-IBPS-IAS
GK Current Affair SSC-IBPS-IAS

This app is designed with a special focus on Indian entrance exams. It is a complete exam preparation app, which offers everything a candidate might need for the exam, they are preparing for. There is a forum section where user can post question about any doubts regarding any topic they are preparing or answer any doubt question on the forum. The app has complete study material for entrance exams, which include – e-books, question banks etc. The user can also take mock tests to check the level of their preparation.

Kavach Chandra

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QWERTY: JustDoc- An app bringing healthcare and tech together

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In recent years, medicine has progressed at an unprecedented pace and technology has infiltrated the field of medicine as well. Improving connectivity is one of the biggest features of technology in medicine. JustDoc is one such beautiful concoction that connects customers with the doctors via a phone or video call. With a team of over 100 doctors from top hospitals of the country, the app aims at providing end to end medical consultation to everyone who has a smart phone, albeit only for Android users right now.

Mohit Saxena, the founder of Inmobi and an investor in the venture was all praise for the concept. He said, “Medical health in third world countries is a big issue and it suffers from problems like shortage of adequate doctors, differential care due to varying financial status of patients and acute accessibility to the doctors and facility, especially in the rural areas.  I have invested in JustDoc because their solution to these problems is to leverage technology and break the barriers that include reducing financial burden, providing video medical consultation in rural areas by connecting everyone from anywhere to the best possible doctors at a minimum cost.”

Started by three IITans- Jugal Anchalia, Abhishek Kumar and Vikash Singh, JustDoc is looking to make healthcare as simple and accessible as possible. Currently targeting General Medicine, Dermatology, Gynaecology and Psychology, JustDoc is planning to add Paediatrics and Sexology soon. Jugal Ancholia gives us some insight:

Motivation behind JustDoc:

Being misdiagnosed several times and wasting my time roaming from clinic to clinic got me thinking about a time-saving method of finding a good doctor. That’s how JustDoc happened. It is about using technology to make healthcare as simple as it should have been. It will make sure that quality healthcare is delivered to patients in need round the clock. We met around 150 doctors to understand how to make it work. Today, we are doing over 100 consultations a day and putting smiles on our customers’ faces.

How JustDoc plans to reach students:

Students are aware about technology and internet,but equally ignorant about their health. As a student, I just remember Googling my symptoms if I was sick. We know how lazy a student can get and that this is also very dangerous.

Image Credits: http://cdn.inc42.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/justdoc-1.jpg  

Kavach Chandra

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Li-Fi: Tapping into the speed of light

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Speed is something that everyone in the community related to networks has been obsessed with. Everyone wants to access information at the quickest click of a mouse. Wi-Fi technology taps into the radio frequencies, serving the needs of the present time. Well, almost.

Light, from the time of Newton has been a fascinating subject. Over the course of history, many scientists came forward and explained whatever they could about the subject. A general conclusion derived from centuries of research is that light has always been associated with power and energy. Tapping into that power and energy to transmit information and data is what the technologists want. Their work is finally starting to surface in the form of a word that you might have heard-“Li-Fi”. 

So, what exactly is Li-Fi? It comes under the category of VLC. VLC stands for Visual Light Communications. Basically, an LED light will flicker at a rate undetected by naked eye. The data will be encoded in those high speed ‘flickers’. That, in the simplest of words is how a Li-Fi device will work.

What does this mean? The most basic perk that a common man will enjoy is that he’ll be able to access internet at an incredibly fast speed by just standing under a Li-Fi device, which essentially can be just a lamp or a tube light. Another advantage is the speed of transmission which the scientists say, theoretically is around 224 Gigabits/second, meaning that you one can download all the seasons of FRIENDS in HD quality in a second or two. Also, the number of connections to the Li-Fi network won’t affect the speed.

In an office setting, where the results couldn’t be replicated to the theoretical value, the results were very promising as the speed achieved was over 100 times faster than Wi-Fi. Security is an additional feature of this technology as one would have to stand in the region of light of the device. So, if someone wanted to steal your stuff, they will have to be physically present in the room to access the network. Another good thing about it is that it doesn’t interfere electromagnetically, so there are a lot of areas of medical and hospital care where this technology can be used effectively.

Like every great piece of technology, Li-Fi also comes with its limitations which I am sure will be worked upon once this tech picks up. Since, light cannot pass through walls; a single Li-Fi device will not be able to provide access to network in other rooms in the current architectural setting. Also, a bright sunny day is what we all want sometimes, but with the implementation of Li-Fi, that may become our adversary since that could mean receivers getting confused in distinguishing signals.

The technology is expected to be seen in pure Li-Fi products in this year itself. Let us see what happens. Something on the verge of a Wi-Fi VS Li-Fi battle is what I suspect.

Image Courtesy: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-znmDvBBI7bI/Vlb4n9JhlkI/AAAAAAAAlf8/vmeA_GaqxXQ/s1600/fastest-li-fi-internet.png 

Kavach Chandra

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Once: The heart wants what the heart wants

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once

Dating apps have become more prevalent in the recent years. And the reason behind that is a simple one: everyone on this planet wants to find their soul mate or the perfect “match,” as these apps refer to them. Sex Amma on the other hand, has a completely different view on the success of these apps, she thinks all young macchhis want a quickie, but maybe this new app will change her opinion.

Sex-amma   “A wink is all I need to convey to the readers the success of dating apps.”

 

 

Once is available exclusively in UK, France and Spain region on both iOS and Android Platform. The difference between Once and other apps in similar category is that while one can get multiple matches on a single day, the app lets you take it slow as only one match per day is allowed in this app. Since the market of wearable has increased drastically since last year’s apple watch release, the developers at Once have come up an update for the app on wearable. The app can now match users according to how their heart races when they see a picture of their potential date, literally. The app measures the heart’s response when a user views the suitor’s profile and when the heart beats over a certain threshold, which is scientifically proved to be a sign of attraction, there’s a match. So, even when your eyes fail you, the heart won’t.

Once
Once

Their plans for expansion into other countries have not come up yet but I hope that they find their passage to India soon. Till then, we have Tinder and others.

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