" BHIM app for UPI-based payments, now available for iPhone"
In an attempt to push digital pay throughout the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched an app named as ‘BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money)’ for Android back in December last year, which is still o of the top apps on Google Play with over 500 million users. Now the app is finally live for iOS platform, as NPCI had promised earlier.
It offers easy and quick payment trsactions using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). NPCI says that the BHIM app on iOS platform comes with updated features available on BHIM’s Android version 1.2, inclng Pay to Aadhaar Number, SPAM report, Customer Redrassal Mechanism with drop down menu and more. It currently has English and Hindi languages, while Android has support Odia, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and Gujarati.
Commenting on the iOS app, A. P. Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI said:
| The BHIM App will now cater to almost 100 per cent smartphone users in the contry wih the lauch on iOS. This will ensure wider acceptance for digital transactions among consumers across all sections. users of iPhone are high transacting customers. Therefore, it is a development of special signifiance as it will help to boost transaction volumes.
This week Xiaomi introduced the Redmi Note 4X Hatsune Miku Special Edition smartphone, Asus launched the ZenFone 3s Max (ZC521TL) with a 5000mAh battery, HTC launched the 10 evo with Snapdragon 810 SoC and more that happened this week in our weekly roundup.
HTC launched the 10 evo smartphone in the ‘HTC 10’ series in India. It doesn’t have a 3.5mm audio jack instead it uses USB Type-C audio, comes with HTC BoomSound Adaptive Audio. It also has Hi-Res audio that delivers 24-bit audio. It also has a water resistant (IP57) body.
The HTC 10 evo comes in Cast Iron and Pearl Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 48,990 in India and is available from HTC estore.
3 days of battery life with normal use. It packs a 5.2-inch HD 2.5D curved glass display, Octa-Core MediaTek MT6750 processor, Android 7.0 (Nougat), 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash .
It has a unibody metal design, VoLTE support and a fingerprint sensor on the front. It comes in Black and Gold colors, is priced at Rs. 14,999 and is available from offline as well as online retailers in India such asFlipkart and Amazon.in.
Interesting Statistics for the Top 10 Social Media Sites
Social media is that dominating force in the modern world that can change minds, catch more business, increase sales or build and shape a brand or business.
Have you fallen prey to spending hours on Facebook, or waking up at midnight to check for Tweets?
This is because of the impact social media has on all of us these days. Over the years, social media sites have also proven to be effective platforms for marketing.
Below are a few interesting stats for the top 10 popular social media sites.
1. Facebook
This is the biggest social networking site with the largest number of users. There are more than 1 million small or medium sized businesses advertising here and it is estimated that larger companies are spending as much as $100 million on Facebook advertising per year.
2. Twitter
Twitter is loved for spreading the word via tweets. This site has revolutionized social media. Approximately 81 percent of Twitter’s advertising revenue comes from mobile and there is a $200,000 cost estimated for a 24-Hour Promoted Trend on Twitter.
3. LinkedIn
LinkedIn helps to build professional networks and engagement with other users. It is the world’s largest professional network being used for this purpose. Today, it has over 332 million users and each second adds two new members, all of which attracts marketers.
4. Google +
This site has 300 million monthly active users and is used for relationship marketing. It has over a 53 percent positive interaction between Google+ users and brands.
5. YouTube
YouTube is expected to generate $5.6 billion in gross revenue in 2016. Currently, there are 6 billion hours of video watched on YouTube per month and 1 billion videos watched over mobile phones per day.
6. Pinterest
Pinterest marketing is another social media tool helping brands to grow rapidly. There are over 70 millionusers of Pinterest of which 80 percent are women and 20 percent are men. Over 9 million users have connected their accounts to Facebook.
7. Instagram
Marketers know the usefulness of Instagram marketing and use Instagram to market products and services. It is a wonderful platform to share visual stories.
There are more than 300 million monthly active users on Instagram, of which 75 million are daily active users. Instagram is widely being used for business marketing.
8. Tumblr
This microblogging platform is used for sharing photos, videos, audio, quotes, text or anything that you’d like to market. It has more than 420 million users and 217 million blogs created, making it a favorite.
9. Flickr
This image and video hosting social network has over 3.5 million images uploaded daily by users and offers massive online photo storage.
10. Reddit
Reddit is a social networking site used for entertainment purposes, where registered members share content and direct links. It has 174 million monthly unique visitors.
Kingston DataTraveler 2000 USB 3.1 drive with Alphanumeric Keypad for PIN protection launched in India
Kingston has launched DataTraveler 2000, secure USB 3.1 drive with alphanumeric keypad that locks the drive with a word or number combination, for easy-to-use PIN protection. It also features hardware-based, full-disk AES 256-bit data encryption in XTS mode. Encryption is performed on the drive and no trace of the PIN is left on the system. It is also FIPS 197 certified, to meet a frequently requested corporate IT requirement and has a durable design that protects the drive from everyday elements such as water and dust.
Highlights of Kingston DataTraveler 2000
Alphanumeric keypad makes it easy to lock your drive
Full-disk AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption
Can be used on any device with a USB 2.0 or USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) port
16GB,32GB and 64GB capacities
FIPS 197 certified
Kingston DataTraveler 2000 is available through both, retail and online stores at an MRP of Rs. 10,000 for 16GB, Rs. 14,000 for 32GB and Rs. 18,000 for 64GB capacities, but you can get them at a cheaper rate onAmazon.in.
Commenting on the launch, Vishal Parekh, Marketing Director, Kingston Technology India, said:
Kingston DataTraveler 2000 is great for users on the go and who wants to keep their data secured.Users no longer have to worry about their data as it uses DataLock Technology licensed from ClevX, LLC.
Huawei’s Honor brand launched the Honor 6X smartphone in India last month starting at Rs. 12,999. It packs a 3,340mAh built-in battery, slightly bigger than than the 3000mAh battery on the Honor 5X, has a 5.5-inch 1080p screen and is powered by an Octa-Core Kirin 655 16nm processor. We already brought you the review of the smartphone, here we have the battery life test results of the phone.
Talk Time
It lasted for 33 hours and 21 minutes in our talk time test topping the chart.
3G Browsing
It lasted for 10 hours and 3 minutes in our 3G Browsing test, better than the Xaiomi Mi Max and Redmi Note 4.
WiFi Browsing
It lasted for 12 hours and 32 minutes in our WiFi Browsing test same as Xiaomi Redmi Note 4.
Amazon Echo with Alexa AI assistant reportedly launching in India this year
Amazon is expected to launch Echo, its voice activated smart speaker device in India this year, according to a latest report from FactorDaily.Powered by Alexa which is an artificial intelligent voice assistant, Echo acts as a smart hub for your home.
Citing sources the report said that Amazon is “putting together content and localising the service,”. Amazon Echo is expected to be announced in second half of 2016. Announced in 2014, the device lets you enjoy music, manage everyday tasks and ask questions via voice commands. It offers real-time answers for questions ranging from cooking, news, sports and even basic day-to-day tasks like knowing the weather, stock markets and so on.
Android privacy assistant seeks to stop unwanted data collection
Not sure what your phone is collecting about you? A free Android app is promising to simplify the privacy settings on your smartphone, and stop any unwanted data collection.
The English language app, called Privacy Assistant, comes from a team at Carnegie Mellon University, who’ve built it after six years of research studying digital privacy.
“It’s very clear that a large percentage of people are not willing to give their data to any random app,” said CMU professor Norman Sadeh. “They want to be more selective with their data, so this assistant will help them do that.”
Their Privacy Assistant is designed to automatically modify your phone’s privacy settings for you, based on your views about certain types of data collection.
For instance, when the app first starts up, it’ll ask you three to five questions to gauge your privacy preferences. How do you feel about your social media accessing your camera? Or what about game apps pulling your location data?
The assistant may sound enticing, but it comes with a catch. The software only works with Android 5.x and 6.x phones that have been rooted -- which most Android users haven’t done.From those answers, the app will recommend a particular set of privacy settings you should consider. Users can then approve the recommendations or alter them, accordingly.
Rooting a phone means gaining root access to the Android operating system, opening it up to full customization. But the act can also void your phone’s warranty or brick the phone, if done improperly.
Computer scientists at Carnegie Mellon have previously published research, showing that users are often alarmed when they learn their smartphone apps have been collecting their private data like locations.
Users, however, can face a cumbersome task when modifying their phone’s privacy settings or the app permissions.
“A typical Android user has between 50 and 100 apps, and these apps can require three permissions,” Sadeh said. “So you do the math, and the number of permissions can be overwhelming.”
Many apps are also collecting private user data when they don’t really need it, he said. The Privacy Assistant is designed to revoke those permissions, without causing any malfunctions with the offending app.
As the user downloads more software, the Privacy Assistant will continue to work in the background, recommending what new app permissions should be approved or denied.
With root access, the CMU team’s Privacy Assistant app is able to automatically apply new permission settings to the phone. However, Sadeh estimates that only about 25 percent of all Android smartphones in the world are rooted and many of those are located in Asia.
He doesn’t recommend people root their phone just to use this app. But Sadeh believes his team’s Privacy Assistant will attract a “sizable population” of existing users who are concerned about their online privacy.
The app is also part of the researchers' larger efforts to streamline privacy settings. The hope is that Google, Apple, and device manufacturers will notice the benefits offered by their Privacy Assistant and incorporate the technology into their products.
Google is among those funding the university's work on online privacy, Sadeh said.
“People like this stuff,” he added. A smartphone manufacturer “would have an advantage over your competitors if you ended up putting this on the smartphone you sell to customers.”
Presently, HoloMaps has the ability to use various layers of data, such as current traffic flow and conditions, live weather and forecasts, and even geotagged tweets. A 3D pen allows the users in a workspace to draw on these maps, share those changes in real time with each other. Overall, this system appears to help enable a highly collaborative work environment.
