Top Tech Trends for 2015

2014 marked an incredible year. We watched technology cross the threshold from futuristic concept to mainstream use with biometric devices like Apple’s Touch ID featured on the iPhone and iPad, and 3-D printers like the MakerBot’s Thing-O-Maticinstalled in local schools and libraries for the kids to use. The release of Gigabit-per-second broadband service Google Fiber pushed broadband to new limits and free Wi-Fi became a mainstay in public places like Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Whilesome companies soared—Internet serviceAirbnbkick-started the sharing economy, WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook for a whopping $16 billion, and Alibaba celebrated the largest tech IPO ever, raking in $21.8 billion, others fell by the wayside.Amidst all the market upheavals, change was the only constant.

"When you're finished changing, you're finished."

- Benjamin Franklin

What’s in store for 2015? As the Digital-First World takes hold, the disruptors will be disrupted and technology will continue to change our lives in big ways. Here are the top technology trends that I see impacting the way we work and play in 2015.

President of India awards eBay India merchants

President of India, Pranab Mukherjee awarded two eBay India merchants the ‘FIEO Online Retail exporter of the year,’ at the 14th FIEO Niryat Shree and Niryat Bandhua Awards held last week in New Delhi. The Online Retail Exporter of the Year award has been created and approved by The President’s Office this year. 

Mr. Anuj Chawla, owner of Active Industries received the Gold Award while Mr. Abhinav Sharma, promoter of Angaris Exim Ind Pvt Ltd, received the Bronze Award.  

Mr. Latif Nathani, Managing Director, eBay India, said, “We are extremely delighted and feel proud of our sellers who are recipients of the FIEO Online Retail Exporter of the year award. FIEO and the ministry have been doing a sterling job of promoting Indian exports and it was about time that online entrepreneurs get recognized, who equally contribute to Indian exports. We are sure that our seller achievements will inspire many online entrepreneurs who wish to benefit from the power of ecommerce.”

CSI-Nihilent e-Gov awards to be held at Hyderabad on Dec 13th

The 12^th edition of the CSI-Nihilent e-Governance awards is all set to take place on the 13^th of December at the staff college auditorium of JNTU, Hyderabad, on the side-lines of the annual convention of the Computer Society of India (CSI).

As many as five Indian states have been nominated for the prestigious awards this year, the highest number since it was instituted. Several other projects have been shortlisted for the awards, which will be given away on Saturday, the 13^th of December. The awards is an initiative by CSI’s Special Interest Group on e-Governance (SIG eGov), which has been one of the premier consulting organizations for eGovernance in India.

NantOmics Cancer Genome Browser launched

BlackBerry and NantHealth, a cloud-based information technology provider combining science and big data to transform healthcare, announced the first secure clinical genome browser that gives doctors unprecedented access to patients’ genetic data on the BlackBerry® Passport smartphone - The NantOmics Cancer Genome Browser.

The NantOmics Cancer Genome Browser platform on the BlackBerry Passport enables deep, interactive reporting on genomics data for physicians and other treatment providers in clinical settings - for example, giving oncologists a powerful view into the individual genetic alternations that make each patient’s disease unique and highlighting relevant treatment options. The BlackBerry Passport’s large high resolution screen enables clinicians to view a patient’s chromosome at an individual base-pair level. It is the first in a series of innovative offerings being developed jointly by BlackBerry and NantHealth for use by healthcare professionals.

'Digital India Conclave 2014’ to intensify the Digital India initiative

India Inc along with FICCI, Invest India and Chase India is organizing a “Digital India programme”, a series of online and offline activities pivoting around two conclaves in New Delhi and Washington DC. The first conclave of the Digital India Programme is on 5th December 2014 at Longchamp Hall, Hotel TajMansingh, New Delhi. 

The Narendra Modi led Indian government officially clicked through the ambitious Digital India programme a few months ago. The vision is simple: to usher India into the digital age where each and every citizen can experience the impact. But this simple vision will require a lot of hard graft and investment towards the right kind of infrastructure.

Internet Grows to 280 Million Domain Names

VeriSign announced four million domain names were added to the Internet in the second quarter of 2014, bringing the total number of registered domain names to 280 million worldwide across all top-level domains (TLDs) as of June 30, 2014, according to the latest Domain Name Industry Brief.

The increase of four million domain names globally equates to a growth rate of 1.4 percent over the first quarter of 2014. Worldwide registrations have grown by 18.6 million, or 7.2 percent, year over year.

The .com and .net TLDs experienced aggregate growth in the second quarter of 2014, reaching a combined total of approximately 128.9 million domain names in the adjusted zone for .com and .net. This represents a 3.7 percent increase year over year. As of June 30, 2014, the base of registered names in .com equaled 113.7 million names, while .net equaled 15.2 million names.

Everymedia bags Digital Duties for India Kids Fashion Week 2015

The prestigious India Kids Fashion Week (IKFW) has recently associated with Everymedia Technologies to create a stronger digital presence. IKFW is an initiative by Event capital & Craftworld. IKFW 2015 is the third season of the property slated for February 20th& 21st, 2015 at the Lalit Hotel, Mumbai and February 28th and March 1st, 2015 at The Grand Hotel, Delhi. The past two years have seen top designers, brands and Bollywood celebrities as a part of the event.

India Kids Fashion Week is an effort to bring Indian kids fashion industry on the global map for kids industry. IKFW is a large-scale event that provides a platform for kids from all over India to present their talent, walk the ramp for top designers and offers brands and designers the scope to get to the untapped audience by exhibiting clothes, footwear, toys and a lot more. With this esteemed collaboration, Everymedia will be solely responsible for creating, building and executing ideas for IKFW digitally.

Government in favor of data tariff reduction

Data tariff is expected to reduce further with the scaling up of data services by way of innovation and surge in content. While speaking during the inaugural session of Broadband Tech India 2014, Shri AK Bhargava, Advisor (Technology), Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India said that Government of India is in favor of reducing data tariff, as the country is getting ready for 3G and 4G spectrum auctions.

The announcement comes as the Department of Telecommunications is preparing to roll out spectrum auctions, which is expected to intensify the competition between service providers, which may push up spectrum prices.

'Unicorn bug' in action spotted

ESET alerts Internet Explorer users on the latest patch of a Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerability allowing remote code execution, which had lain undiscovered for almost 20 years, has prompted significant interest among cyber-attackers. 

Earlier this week ESET researchers spotted the first proof-of-concept showing the CVE-2014-6332 vulnerability, or 'Unicorn Bug', in action.

Following original research by a Chinese researcher, the proof-of-concept shows that by using this vulnerability attackers can run arbitrary code on any remote machine and, moreover, bypass various anti-exploitation tools. The same Chinese researcher also found out that arbitrary code could also run on a machine with unpatched Internet Explorer that visit a specially crafted website. ESET researchers started looking for such websites.

Gartner positions CommVault as a Leader in the Magic Quadrant

CommVault has been positioned by Gartner. in the “Leaders” quadrant of the “Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving” for the second consecutive year.

According to Gartner, “the Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Information Archiving profiles vendors that offer, at a minimum, integrated email and some other content archiving utilized predominantly for information governance and eDiscovery, with storage capacity management as a secondary benefit. Leaders have the highest combined measures of ability to execute and completeness of vision. They have a proven track record of financial performance and established market presence.”

Vdopia launches Mobile Video Programmatic Marketplace

Vdopia, a player in mobile and online video advertising, announces Asia-Pacific (APAC) launch of programmatic buying and selling platform exclusively for mobile video advertising. The new marketplace product, called ‘Chocolate’, is built from the ground up solely for mobile video advertising. It is designed for brand marketers and demand partners who want a highly functional marketplace platform that offers top quality mobile video inventory at significant scale with complete transparency. Chocolate is being launched with a potential audience reach of more than 200 million unique users globally.

The Xbox One Debut of the Master Chief

Today, more than 13 years after the first Halo game launched in 2001 on the original Xbox, the legendary franchise has arrived on Xbox One with the worldwide release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

Leading up to the official launch of the title worldwide, Halo Nation came out in full force with millions of people around the world tuning in to live streams previewing the game’s content, and an estimated 285,000 fans lined up at more than 4,300 midnight madness retail events around the world to get their hands on the highly anticipated game.

“Halo has always been synonymous with Xbox,” said Director - Interactive Entertainment Business, Anshu Mor. “‘Halo: The Master Chief Collection’ allows us to thank our fans and celebrate with an amazing package that will introduce a new generation to the epic Halo universe.”

Happiest Minds Ranked Second Fastest Growing Technology Company

Happiest Minds Technologies announced that it ranked Number 2 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India 2014, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology companies in India. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over three years. Happiest Minds grew 2,377percent during this period.

Ashok Soota, Executive Chairman, Happiest Minds Technologies, credits company’s sharp focus on disruptive technologies and a unique happiness and wellness centric culture, for the company’s 2,377 % revenue growth over the past three years. He said, “It is gratifying that despite so much competition out there in the market, Happiest Minds has bagged the second spot in this prestigious ranking.” 

India PoS Printer market records 55,322 unit shipments for 1H CY2014

India PoS Printer shipments were driven by thermal printers, which contributed 68% of overall shipments in 1H CY2014 with an impressive 17% sequential growth over 2H CY 2013. Impact printers, which contributed 32% of shipments during the same period, observed an 8% sequential decline over the previous half-year due to reduced shipments by market leaders Epson and TVSe.

Epson led the overall India PoS Printer market with a 45% share in terms of unit shipments during 1H CY2014. However, the vendor registered an 8% decrease in absolute number of shipments during

1H CY2014 vis-à-vis 2H CY2013. TVSe maintained its position at the second spot.

Social Routing in the Contact Centre

By:Dave Paulding

regional sales director UK & Middle East at Interactive Intelligence

Social routing is an emerging trend, a way in which contact centres can more accurately meet the needs of their customers. But how is this different from what we’re doing at the moment? The answer lies in describing the modern day customer.

New media - new environment

Consumers, especially the younger demographic, are more empowered today, through the use of technology and social media. When interacting with an organization about a product or service they increasingly using channels other than the telephone.

Instead, the proliferation of social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter, web chat, video chat and other communication methods have seen a decrease in the use of the humble telephone. In addition, this empowerment has created a virtual buying experience online, characterized by more choice, and the availability of product videos, other customer reviews, descriptions, and technical information.

AccessData to split into two: AccessData and Resolution1 Security

AccessData Group announced the split of its industry leading businesses into two independent, global companies, AccessData and the newly formed Resolution1 Security. This new corporate structure will allow each company to capitalize on its unique business model by delivering deeper, more focused customer engagement and support.

The separation will afford each company the agility to move quickly and grow their distinct businesses. Each company will focus on its market dynamics and customer specific-needs while extending its technology leadership to transform the investigation and incident response (IR) markets, respectively. The company split will go into effect January 1, 2015.

Dell bolsters digital services and software solutions

Dell introduced a series of solutions that help enterprises take advantage of to enable improved customer relationships and transform data into actionable business insights. Dell Services introduced comprehensive, digital business services that help customers redesign business processes to improve operational efficiency and engagement at every point in the customer experience through digital technologies. In addition, Dell Software announced the start of a collaborative effort with Microsoft aimed at delivering predictive in a hybrid cloud setting. Dell Software is also upgrading its Statistica (formerly StatSoft) advanced platform with enhanced big data capabilities through integration with Kitenga.

Dell Services is focused on helping its customers in three primary areas: modernization, transformation and digital services. Today, the business unit has unveiled a new, dedicated service line called Dell Digital Business Services (DBS), which includes Digital Transformation Consulting and Digital Technology Services, to help customers better understand their end users’ preferences and transform business processes using digital technologies.

NetIQ gets Cisco Compatibility Certification

NetIQ Sentinel 7.2 has successfully achieved Cisco compatibility certification with Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) through integration with Cisco Platform Exchange Grid (pxGrid). The Internet of Everything (IoE) continues to bring together people, processes, data and things to enhance the relevancy of network connections. As a member of the Cisco® Solution Partner Program, NetIQ is able to quickly create and deploy solutions to enhance the capabilities, performance and management of the network to capture value in the IoE.

For security teams, visibility into user activity and the context of those activities is critical in determining if behaviors are appropriate or if they could result in a breach. NetIQ Sentinel 7.2, a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform that goes beyond the traditional SIEM capabilities, including the collection, monitoring, and analysis of system log data, integrates identity information as context into security monitoring data to deliver actionable security intelligence to security teams. Teams can then use this intelligence to quickly decide if user activities are risky, unusual or business appropriate, reducing risk of an external attack and identifying potentially malicious or accidental insider activities quickly. Now compatible with Cisco ISE, NetIQ Sentinel 7.2 provides network and security analysts the ‘identity context’ they need to rapidly assess the significance of security events, decreasing the time required to detect, assess and respond to security events.

Tom Klein moves to Persistent Systems as General Counsel

Persistent Systems has appointed Thomas alias Tom Klein to the position of the General Counsel and Senior Vice President of Corporate Development. He will be based in the Company’s North American headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.  Tom is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Chicago School of Law.  He has more than 20 years of experience in technology law including an extensive focus on start-up and venture capital transactions, mergers and acquisitions as well as the domestic and international intellectual property transactions. Most recently, Tom was a partner in the Silicon Valley office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP and before that he spent 20 years with Wilson Sonsini  Goodrich & Rosati, the last 13 as a partner.

Lenovo launches zero percent financing for PCs in India

Lenovo rolled out finance schemes to sell computers in India at faster rate. The company is facing challenges due to low demand for computers in the countries as the population has surpassed computers to buy tablets and smartphones. In India current computer penetration is 10%, which is the lowest among developing countries like Vietnam (16%), South Africa (18%), Turkey (49%) and Malaysia (64%). For this scheme, Lenovo has joined hands with Intel in its effort to promote this initiative across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Lenovo will offer 100% financing with zero down payment and zero interest on the purchase of high performance laptops and AIOs. The company further says that the payment can be broken up across multiple EMIs with no interest fee.

InMobi increases to 872 Million Uniques

InMobi announced its network growth numbers. InMobi reaches 872  million active uniques spanning over 200 countries, bringing a truly global audience for advertisers wanting to reach their target consumers. InMobi now serves nearly 138 billion ad impressions every month.

Mobile brings an entirely new set of data and signals to marketers that allows them to do far more than they could  in other media. These signals include consumers’ location, mobility, the weather, and tactile elements. InMobi’s decision sciences enable creation of high-confidence Consumer Experience Profiles, which brings together a clear understanding of consumer preferences and how they vary across moments. For instance, InMobi Geo Context Targeting showed 2x CTRs on campaigns and comes with 651 million Points of Interest mapped across 50 countries. InMobi for Brands also has over 75 audience personas across 15 industry verticals.

Snapdeal.com launches Bigg Boss House, Online

Snapdeal.com has launched what it claims is a one-of-a-kind virtual Bigg Boss house on its website.

After successful integrations like ‘The Designer Studio’, ‘Order Order’ and ‘Bigg Boss Merchandize Store’, Snapdeal.com will now enable the consumers to get a complete 360 degree view of the Bigg Boss house and allow them access to each and every corner of the property. Users will also get a chance to purchase products similar to the ones on display in the Bigg Boss house. These products will include a range of home furnishing and home décor items, kitchenware and electronics.

Talking about this unique initiative, Sandeep Komaravelly, Senior Vice President - Marketing, Snapdeal.com said, “Big Boss 8 is only getting bigger and better with every episode. We joined hands with television’s most popular show with an objective of engaging with our audiences on a daily basis. The virtual Bigg Boss house will provide consumers with an option of buying the products as well, which is a very strong proposition for the users, given the popularity of the show.”

Opinion: Powering STEM Classrooms with Social Media

By Kathy Pretz, IEEE

Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and almost any other social media platform that comes to mind have found their way into STEM classrooms. Not because the students are peeking at their smartphones but because educators are using the platforms to add pizzazz to their lectures.

Whether through scientific experiments on YouTube, do-it-yourself projects demonstrated on Pinterest, or tweets about research papers, forward-looking educators are harnessing the power of social media and other technological innovations to inspire youngsters about STEM topics.

“We need to open the classroom to embrace technology, social media, online learning, the DIY maker movement, and all kinds of new things,” says Dusty Fisher, chair of the IEEE-USA Precollege Education Committee and a long-time STEM advocate. “We’ve known for years that if students are physically engaged instead of being lectured to or shown slides, they will learn more and retain more.”

Fisher and other IEEE members involved with STEM education are using social media in a number of ways.

Ericsson bags deal from Ozone Networks

Ozone Networks has signed a Small Cell as a Service agreement with Ericsson to provide a neutral carrier-grade Wi-Fi network across India.

Ericsson offers Small Cell as a Service with a variety of different business models to suit environments such as connected venues, connected streets and connected enterprises. This deal is an example of the connected venue application, as Ozone’s Wi-Fi network will serve restaurants, cafés, shops and malls.

Sanjeev Sarin, Chief Executive Officer at Ozone, says: “In today’s world, consumers like to be connected at all times, which means that network capacity becomes an extremely important factor. Deployment of Ericsson’s Small Cell as a Service offering will enable us to better manage consumer expectations in ultra-dense environments. The partnership will also ensure that Ozone is able to establish the neutral Wi-Fi model in India, which will help the Indian Government make the right to internet access a reality for every Indian.”

Keysight Tech signs MoU with IEEE India

Keysight Technologies announced that a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed with IEEE India to develop tools, programs and activities to help increase technical engineering capabilities In India. Their mutual interest is focused on workforce development, technical advocacy, and creating technical communities to assist the industry at-large.

The work will include private and government sector involvement to setup technical labs with state-of-the-art equipment, hosting seminars and creating certification programs to benefit engineering students across India.  Among the various programs offered will be the IEEE Labs Initiative and Wireless Certification and Electronic Test Program. 

“We understand that knowledge, skills and resources are critical to advance economic and industrial development in India,” said Mr. Sudhir Tangri, country general manager, Keysight India. “As the need for knowledge workers with high levels of technical and soft skills increases, we will require intensive focus on advancing the technical know-how and growth of individuals in test and measurement.”

IKYA Group forms Global Technology Services Group

IKYA Group entered into a definitive agreement with Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited to acquire a 49% stake in MFXchange Holdings, Inc.

The integration of MFX with IKYA will result in the formation of the Global Technology Services Group marking IKYA’s entry into IT Services and Solutions space in the North American market.

Based out of Morristown, NJ (US), MFX is a leading provider of hosted information technology applications and outsourcing solutions for the U.S. commercial property and casualty insurance industry.

Microsoft TechEd Conference kicks off in Bangalore

Microsoft is hosting TechEd, its largest annual technology conference, November 5-6, The Lalit Ashok, Bangalore. TechEd is Microsoft's premier technology conference and is expected to bring together over 2000 developers, technology enthusiasts and IT professionals, providing them with opportunities to learn about and explore productivity and endless possibilities in the cloud.

TechEd will be addressed by speakers and experts from Microsoft, its partners and leading research, consulting and academic institutions. The topics will address trends and developments in Cloud technologies like Azure, datacenters, SQL server, Internet of Things (IoT) among others.

Telefónica Argentina Selects Amdocs to Manage Business Support Systems

Amdocs has announced that Telefónica Argentina, the leading multi-play service provider in the country serving 27 million wireless, wireline and high-speed Internet customers, has selected Amdocs to manage a range of its business support systems (BSS) applications. The multi-year application management agreement covers key BSS areas including Amdocs billing and ordering solutions as well as interfaces to non-Amdocs legacy systems. This marks an expansion of Amdocs’ relationship with Telefónica Argentina for the previously-announced wireline and wireless transformation projects, which aim to provide a seamless experience across all customer interaction channels.

Under the new agreement, Amdocs will assume responsibility for managing, maintaining, configuring, testing and training across multiple Telefónica Argentina BSS systems, including interfaces to applications from third-party vendors - thus increasing Amdocs’ role in the overall transformation, enabling Telefónica to focus on its core business activities.

9 Social Scams to Be Aware Of

“Social media scams are increasingly popular,” said Terrence Tang, Senior Director of Consumer Business, Asia Pacific, Trend Micro. “They lure users to install third-party apps through social media posts or trick users to click on phishing sites that cause malware infection. Users are advised to be ever vigilant when they surf online. Always check the source of posted links and apps. Change social media passwords regularly. Install an app that offers privacy protection, like Trend Micro Dr. Safety free app, to protect your device and personal information from prying eyes.”

Here are 9 popular social media scams Trend Micro has identified:

1.          The Facebook Color Changer app: This app appeals to users with the feature to personalize their Facebook color. But it also leads users to phishing sites and tricks them to share the app with friends. It also uses a tutorial video to trick users to click on an ad. It hijacks users’ profile and spams users’ friends. It even infects mobile devices with malware.

2.          Who Viewed Your Facebook Profile app: This Facebook scam lures users with messages from friends or ads posted on their walls and invites users to check who viewed their Facebook profiles. Once clicked on, users’ profiles and their social network will be exposed to the scammer.

Quikr to launch its classified app on Windows platform

Quikr, India’s one online classifieds company, joined hands with Microsoft to launch the Quikr app on the Windows Phone Store. Through this strategic partnership Quikr and Microsoft have worked closely to make the design appealing to users of the Windows platform and thereby bring the power of the Quikr classifieds marketplace to Windows Phone users.

The app comes equipped with open source software stack that has been used to build the backend while the front-end of the app has been built using native SDKs. This technology makes the performance of the app, fast and user friendly. This app is aimed at reaching out to a wider audience of smart phone users offering them the convenience of trading online.

Emerging markets banks invest to gain innovation leadership: Study

Infosys has launched its Innovation in Retail Banking 2014 report. The sixth annual study, commissioned by Infosys and conducted by Efma, surveyed over 100 retail banks around the world. The latest report has revealed that more banks in fast growing and rapidly developing markets display greater ambition for becoming innovation leaders in delivering superior customer value.  They do this by investing more in research and development, compared to their peers in mature markets.

The study also revealed that banks across the globe, especially from more mature economies, are increasing their innovation investments in 2014 compared to 2013 to keep pace with increasing customer expectations and respond to new market entrants.  While new competitors include established technology companies and telcos, there is increasing collaboration with start-up companies to help drive innovation in banks.

Watson Supercomputer at work, to mine millions of tweets

While IBM has entered into a parntership with microblogging site Twitter claiming that it will assist businesses to understand their customers, markets and trends, it has got its Watson supercomputer at work. Twitter is a hot bed of popular discussions on multiple topics. The outcomes will be helpful for companies to understand a variety of trends that can help them take informed decisions for their businesses.

The statement issued by Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO, pans out well when he says that the partnership will change “the way business decisions are made - from identifying emerging market opportunities to better engaging clients, partners and employees.”

Consumers shun Dropbox, Facebook and Google post the Snowden expose

On the heels of Edward Snowden’s advice to switch from Dropbox, Facebook and Google to services that place a high priority on security and privacy, F-Secure is releasing survey results that show that many people are willing to do just that. The survey, which polled people in six countries, also shows that a majority of people have changed some of their Internet habits in recent months due to increased privacy concerns.

In a recent video interview, whistleblower Snowden cautioned viewers, saying such major Internet services are dangerous and should be avoided. And in fact, 53% of survey respondents said they’d be willing to switch from services like Google to other more private services to avoid search-based profiling. 56% of people also said they have become more wary of US-based Internet services in the past year. 46% of people said they would be willing to pay to be sure that none of their personal data transits via the US. And 70% said they are concerned about the potential of mass surveillance by intelligence agencies in countries through which their data may be passing.

Ixia and NSS Labs partner for network security

Ixia entered into a partnership with NSS Labs, an information security research and advisory company, to provide customers with the tools and knowledge needed to test and validate network security in their labs. In combination with Ixia’s award-winning security solutions, the new NSS Test Packs provide enterprises and equipment manufacturers the ability to find network security issues and failures in their own labs prior to deployment, saving time and costs.

Network security test cycles, in pre-deployment enterprise networks and in equipment manufacturer R&D, are critical to ensuring the resiliency of enterprise networks and the corresponding networking equipment. However, the traditional test cycles can be lengthy and expensive. Using Ixia’s security solutions along with the NSS Test Packs, enterprises and equipment manufacturers now have a streamlined way to benefit from the gold standard of testing to evaluate and test products for performance, resiliency and efficacy.

Tata Sky selects Genesys to deploy contact center solutions

Tata Sky, a Direct-to-Home (DTH) provider, has associated with Genesys to deploy Genesys Customer Experience Platform enhance service delivery to its 13.5 million subscribers.

The association is an endeavor to empower its workforce to service customers seamlessly across multiple touch points. The platform provides greater efficiencies in Tata Sky’s contact center operations and provides subscribers with new, personalized self-service applications to provide customers with a complete user friendly experience.

“Tata Sky is pleased to partner with Genesys in our quest to bring superior quality television entertainment to its viewers. The system is clearly the best in class and offers cost savings, operational efficiencies and visibility into contact center operations,” said Harit Nagpal, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tata Sky.

Wickedleak Smartphone buyers to get repairing services at doorstep

Mobile phone company Wickedleak has entered into key agreements with logistic firms Gojavas (Arm of Jabonng) and DTDC to provide door-to-door delivery and repairing service for its Wickedleak wammy smartphones customers.The customers will receive their serviced phone within 24 hrs-48 hrs from Wickedleak.

"We are working on the experience side of Wickedleak customers. Besides product quality, we will provide services to customer at their doorstep in 2400+ Locations which 103 Cities Spread across India.

The top 10 cloud myths

Cloud computing is uniquely susceptible to the perils of myths due to the nature, confusion and hype surrounding it, according to Gartner, Inc. These myths slow things down, impede innovation and induce fear, thus distracting from real progress, innovation and outcomes.

"Cloud computing, by its very nature, is uniquely vulnerable to the risks of myths. It is all about capabilities delivered as a service, with a clear boundary between the provider of the service and the consumer," said David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner Fellow. "From a consumer perspective, 'in the cloud' means where the magic happens, where the implementation details are supposed to be hidden. So it should be no surprise that such an environment is rife with myths and misunderstandings."

Zebra Technologies completes acquisition of Motorola’ Enterprise Business

Zebra Technologies Corporation and Motorola Solutions announced that Zebra has completed the acquisition of Motorola Solutions’ Enterprise business for $3.45 billion in cash. The transaction was funded with $200 million of cash on hand and $3.25 billion in new debt.

MapR claims its customers achieve more than 5X RoI

MapR Technologies, a provider of the Apache Hadoop with over 500 paying customers worldwide, released at Strata Conference + Hadoop World 2014 results of independent, third-party research that indicated a majority of MapR customers experienced payback in less than 12 months and greater than 5X returns on their investment. More than 50 companies that responded to the survey also had experience using other Hadoop distributions and even those reported similar, large returns, with 65% reporting greater than 5X returns and 40% reporting greater than 10X returns using the MapR Distribution.

According to the September 2014 survey of MapR customers conducted by TechValidate, an independent research organization, respondents who previously used another distribution cited high availability, performance, data integration, data protection, and multi-tenancy as reasons for selecting MapR. More than 80% of experienced Hadoop customers also identified the in-Hadoop NoSQL database, MapR-DB, as a significant differentiator. MapR-DB recently received from Forrester Research the highest score for current offering among all reviewed vendors in The Forrester Wave™: NoSQL Key-Value Databases, Q3 2014.MapR, with its comprehensive and integrated NoSQL and Hadoop platform, enables real-time business impact while maintaining architectural simplicity.

Android app training soars in popularity in India

Sulekha.com shared the results of a study undertaken on online search trends for “Computer training” courses in India.  

This study analyzed of 2,737,349 user needs on Sulekha.com’s from Tier 1 (New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune and Ahmedabad) and Tier 2 (Thrissur, Agra, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Kochin, Coimbatore, Jaipur, Jalandhar) cities, in the last one year (September 2013 - September 2014); and the database of over 20,000 Computer training service listings.

The growth in search for computer training courses increased from 20% in previous year (2012-13) to 40% in (2013-14). Owing to the growing Smartphone market in India, there is 171% increase in online search for Android Application Development training. Engineering related computer courses like Auto CAD training saw an increase of 116% in 2014 as compared to 2013.

Ola to Raise Series D Funding of $210mn Led by SoftBank

Ola (formerly Olacabs), India’s mobile app for cab-booking confirmed a definitive agreement to raising $210mn (approx. INR 1260 cr.) from SoftBank Internet and Media, Inc. (SMIC) and existing investors, Tiger Global, Matrix Partners India and Steadview Capital. Ola in the last two months has launched operations across 9 new Indian cities taking its overall presence to 19 as well as new and innovative categories across existing cities. Such rapid growth has made Ola, the first choice of transportation across every city of its operation. Ola is the largest and fastest growing cab-booking app with over 33,000 cabs on the mobile app available for customers to book from. This fresh investment led by SoftBank will further propel Ola to be an integral part of India’s transportation ecosystem across newer cities by making available an efficient, reliable and convenient option for users and service providers.

Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Corp. said, “Since SoftBank’s foundation, our mission has been to contribute to people’s lives through the Information Revolution. We believe India is at a turning point in its development and have confidence that India will grow strongly over the next decade. As part of this belief, we intend to deploy significant capital in India over the next few years to support development of the market.”

Worldwide Shipments of 3D Printers to Reach More Than 217,000 in 2015

Worldwide shipments of 3D printers (3DPs) will reach 217,350 units in 2015, up from 108,151 in 2014, according to Gartner, Inc.'s latest forecast. 3D printer shipments will more than double every year between 2015 and 2018, by which time worldwide shipments are forecast to reach more than 2.3 million.

"As we noted last year, the 3D printer market is at an inflection point," said Pete Basiliere, research vice president at Gartner. "Unit shipment growth rates for 3D printers, which languished in the low single and double digits per year throughout the 30 years since the first 3D printers were invented, are poised to increase dramatically beginning in 2015. As radical as the forecast numbers may seem, bear in mind that even the 2.3 million shipments that we forecast will be sold in 2018 are a small fraction of the total potential market of consumers, businesses and government organizations worldwide."

Microsoft to offer unlimited OneDrive cloud storage to Office 365 Subscribers

Today, Microsoft announced that all Office 365 customers will get unlimited OneDrive storage at no additional cost. The roll out will start today, first targeting Office 365 Home, Personal and University plan subscribers. More details around the roll out for OneDrive for Business customers will be shared through the standard Office 365 roadmap website.

Today’s announcement of unlimited storage is just one small part of Microsoft’s broader vision to deliver a single experience across work and life in order to help people store, sync, share and collaborate on all the files that are important to them. During our earnings call last week we mentioned there are now over 7 million Office 365 Home and Personal Subscribers.

Cloud Plus to facilitate capacity on demand with Brocade

Cloud Plus, a wholesale provider of private cloud solutions, is turning to Brocade for its next-generation data center and MPLS network infrastructure. The company is applying its own on-demand playbook to the network upgrade by leveraging the pay-as-you-go flexibility of the Brocade Network Subscription acquisition model.

Cloud Plus saw its revenues grow by 191 percent in the financial year ending in June 2013. It achieved 147 percent growth levels in fiscal year 2014, and is on schedule to exceed that growth in 2015. The data traffic running over its network has actually been growing at an even faster pace, as a result of the telecommunication industry’s falling costs for network bandwidth and the ability of Cloud Plus partners to execute larger deals that deliver data transfer at a lower price.

Kerala Government to announce new startup and innovation policy

Kerala government will soon announce a new startup and innovation policy to promote entrepreneurship, Chief Minister Shri Oommen Chandy announced on Monday as he inaugurated the first phase of the Technology Innovation Zone (TIZ), an ambitious project under the Technopark-Technology Business Incubator (TBI), at the Kinfra Hi-Tech Park in Kalamassery.

“The draft of the new startup and innovation policy is ready and we will be unveiling it soon,” Shri Chandy said, adding that the government will also chair a meeting of University Vice-Chancellors in the state to finalise a programme to provide support to student entrepreneurs.

The newly inaugurated 10,000 sqft work space at TIZ will be handed over to Startup Village for providing incubation support to around 40 startup firms. 

“The objective of the Innovation Zone is to provide the maximum possible support to young entrepreneurs across a number of industry verticals, apart from telecom and IT. At least eight different sectors like agriculture, electronics, food processing, tourism etc have been identified for providing incubation support” Shri Oommen Chandy said in his inaugural address.

NSDC and AskMe join hands to enhance employability of youth

AskMe, a consumer Internet Company and National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) entered into a significant partnership to enhance skilling and employability of youth across India. Through this partnership AskMe aims to support youth aspiring to build successful careers through training programs conducted by NSDC partners across India. For this, an agreement was signed by Mr. Dilip Chenoy, MD & CEO - NSDC and Mr Naveen Luthra, VP - Group Strategic Alliances, AskMe.

Under this partnership, AskMe will list all NSDC authorized training centers across the country, operating under Public Private Partnership model, on Askme.com. These listings will enable youth to locate a training center in their close vicinity and reach out to them and acquiring new skills in the sector/ job role they are interested in. The training will be imparted across various sectors like leather goods, manufacturing, automobiles, finance, healthcare, electronics, handloom and handicrafts, software etc.

Referral based recruiting platform MyRefers receives Pre-Series A Funding

MyRefers (www.myrefers.com), claimed to be an innovative recruiting platform is all set to change the hiring process. MyRefers is working towards creating a skills marketplace powered by referrals and enabled by data intelligence. The Delhi based start-up had received Pre-Series A Funding from Bedrock Ventures, a leading India based VC firm.

Delighted at the development, Lalit Bhagia, Founder and CEO, MyRefers said, “I am excited about the leap the product is expected to make with the funding from Bedrock Ventures. We hope to bring about an inspirational shift in recruitments, after the last one brought about by Job-boards. It is an established fact that ‘Referrals’ is the best and most trusted source of hiring in organizations today. Unlike some job-boards that have recognized this and are including referrals as another option within their current offering, we have built a technology platform that is based only on the concept of referrals and enables the organization to reach out to a larger network without compromising on the parameters that makes employee referral schemes the most powerful and effective way of recruiting.

Tips and tricks for shooting beautiful pictures on Diwali

 It’s Diwali time; time for festivities, friends and relatives, lights and fireworks, food and gifts, and prayers for prosperity. It’s the ideal occasion to capture the memories of our loved ones and the festivity while experimenting with multiple styles of photography. Equipped with the right tools and technique, one can capture an array of experiences; from macro shot of a lamp to long exposure shot of fireworks, from family portraits to candid shots on streets, Diwali is the time for you to unleash the photographer in you.

Follow these quick tips and tricks by Adobe’s very own Vipul Vaibhav, video editor and avid photographer, and Abhishek Mukherjee, solution consultant, to make this Diwali a memorable one!

WalkOn App rewards people for activity

With the launch of its free Android app, “WalkOn”, Mobile Health Solutions (MHS) promises to usher in a new era of “health-e” commerce where businesses walk their talk on consumer well-being. The app features free products/services and exclusive discounts and deals from 20+ brands in the form of rewards ‘earned’ by users for simply walking, jogging or cycling. The rewards offer real value incentives to people across India to lead active lifestyles and gives businesses the chance to stand for health and stand out from competition.

“WalkOn converts fitness into a currency, it makes sweat pay!” says Shwetank Verma, co-founder and ex-PWC chartered accountant and intrapeneur for a multi-billion dollar fund. “WalkOn’s innovation is to combine people’s love for retail with their desire to get and stay fit. It is about making prevention fun rather than a chore.”

Telenor Group completes 100% ownership of Telewings in India

Telenor Group has completed the acquisition of the 26 per cent ownership stake in Telewings, held by Lakshdeep Investment & Finance.  As a result, Telenor now takes full ownership of the company that operates under the brand name Uninor. The process was finalized after Telenor received approval from the Indian government's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) to increase its stake from 74 per cent to 100 per cent.

"Telenor Group has a long-term view on India, and we are encouraged by the strong growth of our Indian operation. The company continues to capture market share every month and is leading in new subscriber additions in many of its circles," said Sigve Brekke, EVP of Telenor Group and Chairman of the Board of Telewings.

LINE achieves 30 million users in India

LINE has announced that it has achieved an outstanding 30 million registered LINE user base in India on October 17th, 2014.

May 2013 marked the formal launch of LINE in India. The story of LINE continued with a TVC launch in June 2013 with Katrina Kaif and by October 2013, LINE was already shining brightly with 10 million users, increased to 15 million in December 2013. It now stands at an astonishing 30 million as of today.

"In a short span of time since entering the Indian market, we have surpassed another milestone of 30 million users. Optimal user experience is in the heart of every feature that we bring for our users in India, as we make sure that our new features and services take our users beyond the usual messaging communication experience. As the leading global mobile platform, LINE now offers a variety of communication, entertainment and information features for all users in India to enjoy.”- Damandeep Singh Soni, Spokesperson from LINE

JDA Software appoints Baljit Dail Chief Executive Officer

​​JDA Software Group announced that Baljit (Bal) Dail, a senior technology executive and JDA’s Chairman of the Board, has been named JDA chief executive officer after assuming the CEO position on an interim basis in May 2014.

“The potential for JDA now, and into the future, is tremendous and I am excited about the opportunity to continue leading this innovative company,” said Dail. “Our game-changing suite of solutions spanning retail and supply chain planning and execution, coupled with our deep expertise in many industries and regions, puts us in a perfect position to deliver real business value and results to leading companies around the world."

IMImobile acquires TextLocal

IMImobile, a provider of software and services announced the acquisition of TxtLocal Limited, an award winning self-service, cloud based, mobile messaging business.

Named one of the fastest growing technology companies in 2013 by Deloitte and GP Bullhound in 2014, TextLocal is the leading mobile communications company focused on enabling SMBs to harness the capabilities of mobile messaging. Based in Chester and Malvern, TextLocal has served over 120,000 businesses, including customers such as Debenhams, Paddy Power, Greenpeace, Groupon and P&O Ferries

IMImobile has identified significant opportunity to leverage its global footprint to introduce TextLocal’s messaging platform to new international markets, industries and clients. The SMB mobile messaging market is forecasted by many analysts as one of the fastest growing segments and the TextLocal platform will form an essential element of IMImobile’s mobile engagement product portfolio to capitalise on this trend.

Worldwide Semiconductor capital spending to increase by More Than 11 Percent in 2014

Worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to total $64.5 billion in 2014, an increase of 11.4 percent from 2013 spending of $57.8 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. Capital equipment spending will increase 17.1 percent in 2014, driven by strong memory average selling prices and increased demand for consumer products (see Table 1).

For 2014, Gartner's forecast for semiconductor equipment has been increased slightly from the previous forecast. Longer term, Gartner expects modest growth through the semiconductor cycle, with just a modest pause in the equipment market expected in 2016.

"While capital spending outperformed equipment spending in 2013, the reverse will hold true for 2014," said David Christensen, senior research analyst at Gartner. "Total capital spending will grow 11.4 percent in 2014, compared with 7.1 percent in our prior forecast — a result of Samsung increasing its announced spending plans to $14 billion. Equipment spending will increase 17.1 percent, as manufacturers pull back on new fab construction and concentrate on ramping up new capacity instead."

Avaya gets 2014 Asia Pacific Enterprise Networking Customer Value Enhancement Award

Avaya announced that it has been awarded the 2014 Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific Enterprise Networking Customer Value Enhancement Award.

At an award presentation on October 16th, Andrew Hindmarch, Asia Pacific Networking Leader, Avaya, received the award from Andrew Milroy, Vice President, ICT Research, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific.

The customer value enhancement award is given to a company which has enhanced customer value through its networking offerings and recorded revenue growth in its networking product line. Criteria include both the business impact achieved - including growth, customer acquisition, growth potential and operational efficiency - and customer impact, based on price performance value, and the customer experience across the entire process.

Sales of Tablets Will Represent Less Than 10 Percent of All Devices in 2014

Tablet sales growth is slowing in 2014 as new hardware buyers turn to alternative devices and existing users extend the lifetime of their tablets. Gartner, Inc. estimates that tablet sales worldwide will reach 229 million units in 2014, an 11 percent increase from 2013, representing 9.5 percent of total worldwide sales of devices in 2014. In 2013, tablet sales grew 55 percent.

Worldwide combined shipments of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) for 2014 are estimated to reach 2.4 billion units in 2014, a 3.2 percent increase from 2013 (see Table 1). "The device market continues to evolve, with the relationship between traditional PCs, different form factor ultramobiles (clamshells, hybrids and tablets) and mobile phones becoming increasingly complex," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

Opus Software names Anand Ramakrishnan as President and CEO

Opus Software announced the appointment of Anand Ramakrishnan as   President and CEO of the company. He takes over the position from Ramesh Mengawade (ex- CEO of Opus Software and ElectraCard Solutions) who will continue to be with the company as Executive Chairman. The move is part of Opus Software’s growth strategy, aimed at accelerated growth in the North American marketplace. Earlier this year, Opus Software Solutions entered into an agreement with MasterCard to sell its subsidiary ElectraCard Services Private Limited (ECS) for an undisclosed amount.

Anand Ramakrishnan joins Opus from Capgemini, North America where he served for the better part of the last two decades, the latest as the SVP of Banking Business Unit, responsible for business development. Anand was part of the senior management team at Kanbay, (acquired by Capgemini in 2007). He developed Kanbay’s cards and payments practice from its infancy to being the largest cards practice in the IT services industry. His experience in developing Kanbay from an entrepreneurial firm in 1995 to a publicly traded firm in 2005 and subsequent sale to Capgemini will enable Opus with its growth aspirations.

Namma Bengaluru blooming with the Vibrancy of Gujarat

Government of Gujarat organized a roadshow in Namma Bengaluru to showcase the forthcoming Vibrant Gujarat 2015 Summit being organized on11-13 January, 2015 in Mahatma Mandir, the state-of-the-art convention center in the state capital Gandhinagar. The seventh edition of Vibrant of Vibrant Gujarat Summit will be led by Chief Minister Smt Anandiben Patel.

Shri Saurabhbhai Patel, Minister of Finance, Energy & Petrochemicals spearheaded the roadshow at Hotel Sheraton, which was attended by over 300 top industrialists and corporate leaders from the city. The Vibrant Gujarat Summitwill be inaugurated byPrime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, who conceptualized and created this biennial event, and transformed it into the business gateway of India. This leading business event is partnered by seven countries - Japan, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Singapore, South Africa and the Netherlands.Vibrant Gujarat is the only business event organized by a state government in the country that is partnered by theleading developed nations of the world.

A presentationcovering key sectors of the Gujarat economywas made at the roadshow. The Gujarat minister separately met key industry and business stalwarts of the city in one-to-one meetings. Additional Chief Secretary (Industries) Shri D.J Pandian and senior officers from the departments of energy, environment, education, IT and urban planning interacted with the elite gathering at the interaction meet.

Akamai warns of UPnP devices used in DDoS Attacks

Akamai Technologies released a new cybersecurity threat advisory. The advisory alerts the security community, device vendors, Internet service providers and enterprises to the risk of massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks involving Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) devices. The advisory is available for download from Prolexic (now part of Akamai) atwww.prolexic.com/ssdp.

PLXsert has observed the use of a new reflection and amplification DDoS attack that deliberately misuses communications protocols that come enabled on millions of home and office devices, including routers, media servers, web cams, smart TVs and printers. The protocols allow devices to discover each other on a network, establish communication and coordinate activities. DDoS attackers have been abusing these protocols on Internet-exposed devices to launch attacks that generate floods of traffic and cause website and network outages at enterprise targets.

Amazon Cloud Drive is now available on the Amazon Instant Video app

Amazon.com announced the availability of Amazon Cloud Drive on the Amazon Instant Video app, giving customers greater access to their personal videos and photos from connected devices. The feature is now available on PlayStation 3 and 4 along with select LG and Samsung smart TVs across the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

The Amazon Instant Video app is the latest place where customers can view and enjoy personal photos and videos stored on Amazon Cloud Drive, adding to the already extensive library of movies and TV shows for purchase, as well as thousands of movies and TV shows for Prime members with Prime Instant Video. Amazon Cloud Drive is already accesible on the web, iOS and Android devices, Fire TV, Fire phone and Fire tablets.

Gartner: India IT spending to reach $73.3 billion in 2015

IT spending in India is projected to total $73.3 billion in 2015, a 9.4 percent increase from the $67.1 billion forecast for 2014, according to Gartner.

“India is forecast to be the third largest IT market within the Asia/Pacific region by the end of 2016 and will further progress to become the second largest market for IT by the end of 2018,” said Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research. “Much of the growth from being the number four market in Asia/Pacific to number three is likely to happen in 2015.”

Sondergaard discussed the latest outlook for the IT industry here today as he addressed an audience of more than 900 CIOs and IT leaders at the sold out Gartner Symposium/ITxpo.

Oncam Grandeye comes to India, opens office in Delhi

Oncam Grandeye, the security division of Oncam Technologies, formally launched its regional office in India. On the day of the launch, the company addressed a fair gathering of industry people and partners.

St.John Gould, the British High Commission Director for UKTI and Prosperity in India, said “Oncam is a great example of a bright, innovative and advanced company bringing British technology to the global market. Their 360-degree camera solutions are used widely in the UK and other countries and we look forward to seeing their success in India. Prime Minister Modi has encouraged international business to engage with India. UK businesses like Oncam are doing this in significant numbers.”

Security vendors deliver a blow against cyberespionage group Hidden Lynx

The midweek spotlight shines on cybersecurity as a cross-industry security collaboration named Operation SMN takes action against Hidden Lynx malware. Meanwhile, the Sandworm Windows zero-day vulnerability has been actively exploited in targeted attacks.

A coordinated operation involving Symantec and a number of other security companies has delivered a blow against Backdoor.Hikit and a number of other malware tools used by the Chinese-based cyberespionage group Hidden Lynx. The organisations involved in this operation include Cisco, FireEye, F-Secure, iSIGHT Partners, Microsoft, Symantec, ThreatConnect, Tenable, ThreatTrack Security, Novetta, and Volexity.

Cisco to expand its IoE use cases

Cisco outlined an expansion of its fog computing strategy with the second phase of its IOx platform for industrial scale IoT deployments. Cisco outlined increasing industry ecosystem partner momentum and new hardened IoT platform support, and introduced its IOx Application Management Module. As a key part of the Cisco® fog computing strategy, IOx enables third party operating systems such as Linux and industry software applications to run directly on Cisco hardened IoT network platforms, which is critical for IoT solutions where applications, storage and compute needs to reside closer to “Things” such as sensors and devices.

RiT boasts advanced network connectivity to datacenters

RiT Technologies has announced that it has integrated its CenterMind solution with PatchView+ bringing advanced intelligent network connectivity to the enterprise datacenter. PatchView+ is RiT’s most advanced intelligent connectivity solution available to date. 

The integration of CenterMind with PatchView+ provides datacenter managers with the industry’s first IIM solution to support mixed inter-connect, cross-connect and combined topologies, as well as combined copper and fiber cabling.  In addition, the PatchView+ breakthrough architecture requires no rack space to support an unlimited number of ports, meaning a lower upfront investment in panels and rack space, and less power consumption than previous IIM systems.

Acer comes out with BYOC solution

Acer India unveiled a new BYOC (Build Your Own Cloud) solution which enables customers to seamlessly integrate their PC and mobile devices for accessing data — anytime, anywhere. With this launch, Acer reiterates its transformation into a “hardware + software + services” company.

Offering unlimited storage, BYOC is a world where anyone can easily create, personalize and enjoy their connected universe on any device. By using Acer BYOC, consumers can effortlessly build a friendly and personal cross-platform, multi-device cloud without a significant investment in time and resources.

Unveiling the cloud solution, S. Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India, said, “Cloud technology is a disruptive concept and the industry, realizing its potential, is working towards unlocking its full range of capabilities. Acer is spearheading value-driven change by handing over the power of the cloud to the people.”

RailYatri.in claims to be the largest taxi aggregator service in India

As the taxi segment continues to hot up in the country, RailYatri.in claimed to be on the largest aggregator of branded professional taxi service providers in the country, with partners covering over 30 cities in the country.

“The taxi market in India is highly fragmented. So, while on one hand travellers struggle to find a reliable provider, professional taxi companies find it expensive to reach out to travellers”, says Manish Rathi, CEO, RailYatri.in. “We saw the need for an aggregator who could bring quality taxi partners together on a single platform. Our aim is to cover the top 200 cities across the country. We are growing rapidly and aim to be in every state by the end of this fiscal year”

Invixium Expands Distribution Agreement with Ingram Micro

Invixium Access, a Canadian based manufacturer of next-generation biometric products and solutions, has expanded its distribution with Ingram Micro whereby Ingram Micro India Ltd. will now distribute Invixium’s IXM product line of modern biometric access control solutions to channel partners throughout India.

The partnership is expected to fulfill the ever growing demand in India for exquisitely designed products with robust quality for various biometric access control installations, including: government, corporate enterprise, IT, healthcare, construction and manufacturing industries.

The IXM product line incorporates the industry-leading biometric fingerprint sensing technologies, allowing for multi-factor authentication with PINs and access cards all within a slim and stylish enclosure.  The products also support storage for up to 100,000 users and 500,000 log records with multiple connectivity options such as TCP/IP, PoE, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth and include a playful and intuitive web-based software which allows for quick configuration and monitoring of the network. Invixium products are proudly made in Canada.

Samsung Honours Incheon Asian Games Medal Winners

Samsung Electronics felicitated winners of the recently concluded Incheon Asian Games. M.C. Mary Kom was declared as the Most Valued Player (MVP), and awarded a cheque of Rs. 10 lakh by Samsung. The company also felicitated the Incheon Asian Games medal winners from different sports disciplines for their performance and dedication by presenting them with Samsung Galaxy S5. A token of acknowledgement for their sterling achievement, the Samsung Galaxy S5 is the ideal tool for athletes - equipped with state-of-the-art features like S Health, IP 67, Heart Rate Monitor, UPS etc. which the athletes can use frequently during their training and game schedule. The choice of selecting the Most Valued Player among all those who brought glory to the country was certainly not an easy one. Samsung India left the task to eminent sports journalists and general public on social media.

Cordery strengthens team with data protection and privacy expert

Cordery has strengthened its Data Protection and Regulatory team with the appointment of Patrick O'Kane, an experienced Barrister. Practicing for the last 14 years in Belfast, O'Kane has been involved in some significant data protection and regulatory decisions during his time at the Bar.

"Patrick has an excellent reputation for the work he does and is a great addition to our team," Jonathan Armstrong, Partner at Cordery, said. "Data protection and privacy is a complex and dynamic space and a real challenge for many organisations. Patrick's specific experience in this area will be very valuable for our clients. Equally important is his deep knowledge of the political and legal climate in Ireland, especially due to the vital role that Ireland plays in the global data protection regulatory environment."

New Document Capture Software from Kodak Alari

Despite widespread adoption of document capture solutions[1], IT and operations managers in many mid-to-large sized enterprises with paper-based processes are still searching for ways to boost efficiency and productivity in the ways they capture and manage information. Scanning and extracting data for use in business processes and exporting information into repositories can be a bottleneck with serious implications on the cost of back-office operations and customer satisfaction.

"As organisations become increasingly dependent on e-business platforms to drive profitability, it’s clear that the remaining paper-based information must be managed more effectively,” said Harvey Spencer, President of Harvey Spencer Associates, a leading analyst firm in the capture software market. “The best way to do this is to convert paper to usable electronic information as fast as possible."  

Connected Students Would Prefer to Give up Coffee and TV: Survey

Many students would prefer to give up coffee, TV and eating out before their precious smartphones, according to a report called ‘Building the #GenMobile Campus’, from Aruba Networks. Nearly a fifth of these students (19%) spend more than five hours online daily, preferring Wi-Fi connections (73%) over any other such as 3G or 4G.  

The study, which questioned nearly 1500 students across the globe including UAE and Saudi Arabia, the two biggest IT markets in the Middle East, showed that nearly two thirds (65%) of today’s students own three or more connected devices; spend over five hours a day on their mobiles, often use more than five apps at any one time; and are regularly rejecting traditional lecture-hall based learning for digital working across campus - whenever it works for them. About half even said they preferred to work ‘outside of normal school hours’, stating they worked more efficiently.

VSS Monitoring signs distribution partnership with SCOPE ME

Scope Middle East announced that it has been signed on as a distributor for VSS Monitoring in the Middle East. As per the agreement, SCOPE, through its extensive network of specialty resellers and system integrators across the region, will be responsible for promoting and distributing VSS Monitoring’s comprehensive and feature-rich family of network packet brokers that allows IT professionals to see into the farthest reaches of even the largest networks.

“Our partnership brings together SCOPE’s expertise of operations in the Middle East and portfolio of security tools with VSS Monitoring’s leading network packet broker (NPB) solutions, providing large enterprises and service providers with the visibility and scalability to optimize their network performance and security tools," says Firas Ghanem, Regional Sales Director, Middle East at VSS Monitoring. "Our investment in SCOPE reflects our commitment to our partners' success, through programs, training and support to accelerate their business growth."

AccessData Empowers Middle East Organizations with ResolutionOne

AccessData announced that it will be exhibiting ResolutionOne Platform at HP’s booth CLD-7, located in hall 6 of Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), at Gitex Technology Week, 12-16 October, 2014. AccessData in partnership with HP Enterprise Security Services will be demonstrating how their best of breed cyber security solutions and services minimize the damaging impact, risks and costs to enterprises.

With the increase in major breaches across financial services, retail, energy and other industries, companies are investing millions of dollars to secure and keep would-be attackers out of their networks. Security teams are faced with thousands of daily alerts using manual processes across multiple security point solutions that do not integrate. Incident-related data is disparate across solutions, endpoints and networks. The challenge remains as to how do organizations make sense of all this data and understand the context so they can intelligently respond and remediate quickly.

‘Genius of the year’, Alia Bhatt tops as McAfee’s Most Sensational Celebrity

In its eighth edition this year, McAfee’s Most Sensational Celebrity survey has found Bollywood’sAlia Bhatt topping the charts in Indian cyberspace. As part of the program, McAfee researched popular culture’s most famous people to reveal the riskiest celebrity across the web and unveil the 2014 rendition of its ‘Most Sensational Celebrity’ research.  Alia trumps Priyanka Chopra, who topped the list in 2013.

As cybercriminals exploit consumers’ need to be updated on celebrity news, McAfee’s survey highlights the pitfalls of the trend. These criminals capitalize on the public’s fascination to lure them to sites loaded with malware, which in turn allows them to steal passwords and personal information. This year, searching for a ‘celebrity name’ coupled with search terms like ‘wallpaper’, ‘videos’, ‘free download’, ‘hot pictures’, ‘selfie’ and ‘internet memes’ have resulted in instances of malware-laden sites.

YuppTV App now available on Amazon Fire TV

Reaching out to global viewers with its viewing experience and taking its ever-increasing array of channels to a greater segment of global audiences, YuppTV has launched its application on Amazon Fire TV.

Using the application, viewers using the Amazon Fire TV will now be able to take advantage of top South Asian Content that has enabled YuppTV to grow into the world’s leading over-the-top (OTT) content player. Fire TV is tiny yet powerful set-top box from the e-commerce giant Amazon.

ZTE powers rail development with the world’s first 4G solutions

ZTE Corporation is demonstrating its world-leading 4G rail telecommunication solutions at GITEX and the Middle East Rail Technology Exhibition. Industry experts have predicted that by integrating the 4G network with rail transportation, ZTE can boost global rail transportation development.

Prior to the events, which take place in the Middle East, ZTE's 4G rail telecommunication solution was successfully implemented into the Wenzhou City Railway Line S1 project in China. This solution provides three TD-LTE-based key services, including wireless multimedia broadband trunking, Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) and Passenger Information System (PIS), changing from the previous networking mode, where Tetra and WLAN provided separate bearing for different services. It is the world's first rail telecommunication project that fully uses 4G wireless broadband trunking, paving the way for a new era of wireless technology in rail transportation.

NIELIT takes forward the National Digital Literacy Mission and Digital India Campaign

Taking forward the National Digital Literacy Mission and Digital India Campaign of the Government of India, the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), a body with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India has entered into an MOU with Intel India to jointly conduct courses and online examinations on digital literacy as well as vet NIELIT’s courses on Electronic System Design and Manufacturing (ESDM). Intel will develop the software for assessment of candidates under the National Digital Literacy Mission to make the courses more industry oriented.to endeavor to make one member of each house hold digitally literate in India. The MOU was signed by Dr. Ashwini Kumar Sharma, Managing Director, NIELIT with Ms. Debjani Ghosh, Managing Director, Intel South Asia in the presence of Chief Guest Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Hon’ble Minister for Communications & Information Technology and Law & Justice at NIELIT’s national level workshop 2014 for its accredited partners (900 Nos.) and facilitation centres (5000 Nos.).  31 NIELIT centres are located across the country from Leh in the North to Chennai in the South.

The annual workshop on Supporting Digital India by Skilling, Scaling and Speeding Operations through Public Private Partnerships explored possible avenues to facilitate the Skill Development and Capacity Building initiatives of the Government of India. NIELIT also entered into an MOU with the Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) on the occasion. Also present were Shri R.S. Sharma, Secretary, DeitY, Shri Tapan Ray, Additional Secretary, DeitY and Dr. Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, DeitY. 

Multi-Screen Media’s premier digital Sports Entertainment destination

Multi Screen Media (MSM) announced that “LIV Sports”, its premier Digital Sports Entertainment destination - www.LIVSports.in holds the Mobile and Internet Broadcast rights of the UEFA Euro 2016 Qualifiers for India. The Qualifying schedule is currently underway, starting September 2014 and it will run through November 2015. LIV Sports will offer both LIVE and Video-on-demand match content, with rich and informative statistics and analysis. The 2016 UEFA European Championship is scheduled to be held in France from 10 June to 10 July 2016.

The power packed digital destination will enable viewers to watch the LIVE telecast of the Qualifying tournament at a nominal rate of USD 3 per match and will also offer Video-on-demand highlights. The Video-on-demand content on LIV Sports will include Match Highlights, Goals, Penalties, Red Cards, Free Kicks and Misses.

PayUMoney acquires mobile payment product Eashmart

PayUMoney, an online payment solution by PayU India, claims to make another strategic move towards cashless economy by acquiring Eashmart, a mobile based payment application. With this acquisition, PayUMoney is furthering towards its goal to replace cash payments with online payments.

By enabling consumers to use credit/debit cards/net-banking to make payments for anything, the mobile app let users buy things without swiping the card in a swipe machine. One of the key features of this app is that it doesn’t require merchants to install or buy any hardware. It further eases the payment process by sensing the OTP (one-time password) from user’s mobile phone without having user to type password from the text messages.

Eashmart was founded by Amit Kumar and he along with his team has joined PayUMoney team where they will continue to help with the development of new app features.

Virtual Trading game brings new opportunities to India

Nous Global Markets announced the India entry of its ‘Spark Profit’ application. Spark Profit is a free to join, free to play and free to earn virtual trading game. Behind its friendly interface is a highly realistic trading simulator that pays actual cash for correctly predicting financial markets (currencies, commodities, stock indices and Bitcoin). As a bonus players will also learn the valuable skills needed to trade as fulltime occupation.

The goal of Spark Profit is to make predictions in financial markets to earn points. Earn enough points, and you start to earn money - the more points you accumulate, the more money you earn! There is no outlay of cash nor investment required. Even more compelling, 95% of the points you earn are carried over each week, to help you earn as much as possible.

NetRack Appoints National Product Manager

NetRack, a solutions provider for data centers and end-to-end IT server racks, has appointed PavanKumar as National Product Manager for Technology Division. Pavan Kumar will ensure the product distribution across India along with smooth functioning of business operations at NetRack by coordinating with the Regional Channel Manager and OEM at the time of POC's, pricing affairs, stock availability deliveries, grievances etc. Mr Pavan Kumar will be responsible for upgrading and providing the solutions for the existing products along with the new products.

Mr Pavan Kumar is skilled with identifying appropriate market for the IT hardware and software products like IP Base PDU, KVM switches, asset management, data backup software, storage etc. He has gained valuable experience in data center management products. He has taken up product training, enabling and empowering partners for client pitches and product mapping.