Topps blog brings you allround news from all around the world: Technology, Political, Science, Entertainment
It's not just the cost of labor -- building an iPhone in the US would be massively complex. China has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure, while Apple's entire supply chain for the product is tuned to Chinese manufacturing. Revamping those decisions would cost a great deal of money.
The post Why iPhone production isn’t coming to the United States appeared first on ExtremeTech.
If there's one day where everyone wants to move out cars, it's New Year's Eve day. Automakers want sales bragging rights, dealers want to meet the next quota level, sales reps want bonuses. You're in the driver's seat. And you can always walk.
The post Five reasons you should buy a car right now appeared first on ExtremeTech.
Today, Dell is offering up a substantial discount on the Inspiron 15 5000 laptop. If you're in need of a powerful 15.6-inch device, this is the perfect time to buy. With a full HD display, a Skylake CPU, a dedicated graphics card, and a sizable hard drive, this laptop offers a complete computing experience wherever you go.
The post ET deals: Dell Inspiron 15 5000 15.6-inch laptop for $549 appeared first on ExtremeTech.
The push for cashless India has been aggressive in the recent past, thanks to the ongoing demonetization efforts and the apparent shortage of cash. Today, the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has launched BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money), an app that will make use of Aadhar card authentication to make cashless transactions. As of now, the app is only available for Android but soon we can expect the same to go live for iOS and other platforms as well.
Provided the app gains sufficient traction it can further ease the burden of people and also compete with the likes of other payment systems including PayTM, Freecharge, and MobiKwik. That said, as of now, BHIM app is mostly centered around making and receiving payments, unlike PayTM and others who offer an array of services including mobile recharge and bus ticket booking. Also, it’s not a wallet per se as it’s directly linked to your bank account(s).
Must Read: 8 Things You Should Know About Narendra Modi’s BHIM App
Downloading and installing the app shouldn’t actually be a problem since it is already up on Google Playstore and will be soon launched for other platforms.
This is the part that is quite impressive, unlike other apps, BHIM has aimed for a simplistic approach and due to this, it doesn’t distract you with a slew of other services. The app links up with your bank account with just your phone number. I just had to punch in my phone number and all my bank accounts associated with the mobile number cropped up. In the background, the app will request for an OTP and authenticate the same before letting you access. That said, you don’t need any bank account credentials and just a cell phone number will suffice. Please note that you must have linked your Aadhaar account number with your bank for the account to appear in the list.
The BHIM UI is simplistic and is made up of three primary functions, Send Money, Request Money and Scan and Pay. Send Money, lets you send money by typing in the UPI address which is the “phone number@UPI” Similarly one can request the money from a user by punching in their UPI address in the “Request Tab”. Additionally one can also scan the QR code of the merchant in order to send/receive the money, just like how it works with PayTM and other mobile wallets.
The app offers a feature to check your account balance by heading over to “Bank Account” and selecting “Request Balance,” However this feature started throwing up an error and is most likely to be fixed in the future builds. The app currently supports Hindi and English and new languages might be added soon.
The QR code will ease out the payment process as all one needs to do is simply point out their mobile camera at the code without the need to punch in the numbers. The merchants can simply download the QR codes and take a printout and display it at the payment counter. The app doesn’t levy charges for the transfer but however since it is based on UPI the nominal transfer charges will still be levied by the concerned Banks. Again on this front, I faced a problem, the QR scanner on the app refused to work and asked me to restart my device and even after restarting the app showed the same error.
As of now, the app doesn’t allow linking multiple accounts and in case you want to change your account, go to the Bank Accounts and unlink your current account and add a new one, however, this means that you will no more be able to access the unlinked account. So, it’s not a typical “switch”, but “change” of accounts. Also, note that your UPI username will remain the same even after you change the accounts.
UPI PIN is a four digit number that is needed to authenticate the transactions, akin to the four-digit ATM PIN. Changing UPI is pretty easy, head over to Bank accounts and select “Reset UPI PIN.” Subsequently, you will be prompted to enter the last 6 digits of your debit/ATM card and then will receive an OTP. Please note that the UPI PIN will be common for all the UPI apps.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post How to use BHIM App to Send and Receive Money in India appeared first on Technology Personalized.
As 2016 draws to a close, we asked the team at TechPP to list out what in their opinions were the best products and the biggest disappointments of 2016. And what they were looking forward to in 2017. The result was quite a collection. Read on.
For me, the best of 2016 has to be the Google Pixel. And this may sound fanboyish and even typical but the truth is I have been waiting for a phone like this for years. I always considered iPhones to be the best smartphone lineup there is in the market, however, my deep hatred towards Apple’s constrained ecosystem never let me buy one. And its Android counterparts always seem to be lacking at least one major aspect – the Samsung S7 was too glassy for my usage, the Nexus 6P was huge, the Nexus 5X wasn’t powerful enough, the HTC M9 didn’t have the best in class camera… you get the idea. The Google Pixel showcases Android in its true glory while not compromising on the rest of the features. The smaller variant too packs the same punch and best of all, Google has taken control of both software and hardware leading to a significantly better experience.
Unfortunately, there were a lot of gloomy periods of 2016. However, if I had to select just one product, it has to be Twitter (wearables too but I don’t really care that much about them). The social network couldn’t fix even a minuscule percentage of the issues haunting it and hence, its share has been gradually declining ever since the start of this year. The return of Jack Dorsey as the CEO back in October 2015 did not bring any substantial alteration and each and every shortcoming Twitter is facing has only worsened in the past year. Problems such as it being too intimidating for new users, its news and social dilemma, not allowing users to edit tweets, the algorithmic timeline change, and a whole lot more still persist. Numerous reports revealed the social network is looking for buyers and at this point, I am not particularly surprised by that.
I’m looking forward to how personal computers shape up in 2017. As of now, the PC space is highly scattered throughout the industry and there are numerous manifestations of how they function and look. There are Chromebooks which are betting their entire future on the Web, Apple’s ambitious MacBook that bets on a wireless life, ultrabooks which attempt to encapsulate powerful hardware in a relatively portable aesthetic, tablets like the iPad Pro, two-in-ones such as the Surface Pro, and a couple more. Your phone is also playing a vital role here as companies continue to crown it with the ultimate mobile device, especially Microsoft which recently managed to implement its complete operating system on Qualcomm ARM processors. So, yes, personal computing currently is going through an experimental age and it’s a fascinating one as every technology’s fate depends on upon it. It may not reach a conclusive stage in 2017 but it will truly come out with something which will roughly give us a glimpse into the future of the computer.
I loved the kind of comeback Microsoft and Amazon made. Microsoft, in particular, has been more and more open to various competing platforms such as iOS and Android – perhaps the biggest shocker was Microsoft becoming a part of the Linux foundation which was once regarded as cancer by the Redmond company. I also loved the aggressiveness of Amazon. The company ventured into a brand new computing platform via Echo and found success. Apart from that, Amazon’s aggressiveness in India was stunning. The company unveiled its Prime membership program at rock bottom prices and quickly followed the same with the roll out of Amazon Prime Video which was again free with Prime and otherwise also available at a very low price.
There had been quite a few hiccups in products by big tech companies but I would not want to go into that – most of the big companies have enough resources to be able to make a solid comeback or improve their products down the line (just look at Microsoft Surface as an example). What kills me the most are the small companies that could not survive 2016. The two companies, in particular, are Pebble and Cyanogen. Pebble basically jumpstarted the whole smartwatch revolution and gave people reasons to believe and invest money in Kickstarter projects. Now that Pebble is dead, not only has the smartwatch industry lost a major player but this will significantly reduce the confidence of people in Kickstarter which will have effects on other companies. Next in line was Cyanogen, the company was a go-to alternative for many people who wanted to customize their smartphone, make it truly theirs. However, this too is dead now and with it a major way to circumvent the software that ships on Chinese smartphones.
I look forward to 2017 where a new computing platform starts gaining a lot of traction. Let us admit it, smartphones are getting boring with every passing release. There are improvements with every new release but the “wow” factor simply is not there anymore. Most of us would do just fine with the smartphone we bought last year. There are new computing platforms like AR/VR/conversational computing platforms, etc. I want one of these emerging computing platforms to have their iPhone moment next year, that one moment where a new product would kick start the entire category and get the innovation wheel spinning again. I also look forward to better broadband connections. I know it sounds lame but so many activities in India like gaming and streaming have been held back because of the poor broadband connections that most of us are plagued with. Here’s hoping that initiatives like Airtel V-Fiber and the impending launch of Jio FTTH improve the situation in India.
Last year we saw laser auto focus and PDAF becoming common in mid-range and flagship smartphones, and this year, it’s the dual camera setup! Apple implemented it for better zooming, LG did that for wide-angled shots and others like Huawei for sharper/detailed images. And each of these implementations has been good in its own right, in the price ranges they come in. And as we end the year, we already see signs of this making its way in more phones and will continue to get better in 2017.
Fraudulent attacks on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Yahoo and so on have been truly alarming. It always existed but the scale at which it occurred in 2016 brings up hundreds of questions on the safety of user’s data. As companies and governments increase their spending, only time will tell how effective they’d all be.
Smartphones are getting boring. The game of numbers (about specifications) is no more exciting. As we now have the midrange phones in the striking distance of matching the flagships, there needs to be something that will excite the buyers. Far away from being predictable. And this is where the software can make such a big difference. We look forward to operating systems that are far smarter, UI elements that will hold the intelligence to change shapes and forms based on the user’s need, preference and behavior. We have seen this in many apps but would be amazing to see these coming integrated into the software. But then, there’d be a right balance that needs to be achieved in keeping it light, at the same time make it feature rich – a challenge worth cherishing for the OEMs and an experience worth buying for the end users.
Snapchat Spectacles was one of the most compelling releases in 2016. It was indeed impressive how Snapchat took something as rudimentary as a spectacle and turned it into a cool-looking toy. Snapchat fuelled the kindled the hype around the product by deciding to go with Snapchat vending machines, instead of online stores or retail stores. It is noteworthy how Snapchat built funky looking spectacles that would work in conjunction with their app – glasses could record videos for 10 seconds and this could be directly uploaded onto the Snapchat. Then there was Amazon Go. Amazon seems to have brought the future into the present with their Amazon Go. The Go is Amazon’s fully automated stores, with no cashiers, no queues, and with automated billing and seamless sync with your Amazon account. The customers can buy all that they want and simply walk out of the store and the bill will get generated automatically and will be charged to their Amazon account. A public opening is scheduled in early 2017. Exciting!
What started out as an isolated event soon snowballed into one of the biggest recalls in the tech community. Yes, as you may have already guessed I am talking about the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. As per the last report from Samsung, it had already recovered a staggering 2.5 million Note 7 phones, a debacle that clearly overshadows Nokia’s recall of BL 5C, though the latter was not handled with the same gusto. That said, Samsung made no efforts to hide the anomaly and this is most likely to have softened the blow to a certain extent. I personally feel that it will not be an overkill or an exaggeration of any kind to label the Galaxy Note 7 debacle as one of the worst Tech mishaps in 2016.
The MacBook Air has been around for a while and despite receiving an upgrade last year the laptop has been given a step-motherly treatment as opposed to its Pro cousin. Well, the new MacBook Pros are great so are the 12-inch MacBooks, but they do not even come close to the Air when it comes to affordability. While the MacBook is currently selling with some discounts it certainly cannot match up to the $800-$950 price tag a MacBook Air with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD commands. With this, Apple is inadvertently setting up a barrier for first-time users and folks who want to switch over to a Mac without the wallet troubling base price. Apple, please pump some life into the MacBook Air lineup, and yes please resurrect it. Uncannily this was one thing I expected from Apple this year!
2016 witnessed various technological breakthroughs and many new concepts were highlighted in this year. But one thing which made my eyes literally pop was something which was launched in India just as the year was about to end. Lenovo’s Yoga Book has to be my favorite device of 2016. Although I have not used the device thoroughly but the company certainly has done a commendable job on its design. The Lenovo Yoga Book actually looks like a thin book (thanks to the metallic hinges on the side) and has introduced some really interesting features like the Halo Keyboard, the Stylus, the Book Pad and Real Pen Ink Refills with the device. With the Book Pad and the Real Ink Refills, you can write anything on the paper pad and it will appear on the Lenovo Yoga Book’s display. And all this for Rs. 49,990 which is actually lesser than the cost of the latest iPhone or Google Pixel for that matter. The device has some limitations but I have to hand it to Lenovo for trying out something completely different which came to me as a wave of fresh air.
Call me crazy but I think iPhone 7 by the Cupertino giant was THE DISAPPOINTMENT of 2016 for me. Apart from the new color offered by Apple for the iPhone 7, I do not think there is anything exceptionally different in the new iPhone 7 as compared to its predecessor. I can still let the iPhone 7 Plus breathe because of the dual camera stacked on its back. But apart from the removal of the 3.5 mm jack, the displacement of the antenna bands from the back, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6 look almost identical. And as for Tim Cook’s statement about the new iPhone 7 being the best iPhone created so far, wait till next year and you will see him saying the exact same thing for the next iPhone as well. The world was waiting to see something new and so was I but I think I would have to wait for another year or another year or another year to see something radically different from Apple on the iPhone front at least.
Had there been no Yoga Book, my favorite thing about 2016 had to be the Moto Mods. I loved how the Motorola made the complete concept of modularity so easy to use. One can just slap them on the back of the device, the Mods get magnetically attached and Voila! the Mods will start working. You do not need to pair the Mod, turn the device off and then turn it on or any other headache of that sort. But the one complaint I had was: THERE WERE NOT ENOUGH MODS!! I would love to see some new Mods from the company which will change the way we look at modularity. For example, I would love to see a new Polaroid Mod from the company which can be slapped on the back and can print pictures instantly. After all, a little greed never harmed anyone.
Just like any other year, 2016 came with its fair share of good and bad. One of the most interesting announcements that took place this year was the launch of the long-awaited services of Reliance Jio. It not only became India’s first 4G only network provider but with its unique data-centric tariff plans and free calls, it gave the traditional network operators a run for their money. Besides that, Jio’s ‘freemium’ policy made people flock in to opt for their services. While critics may not be convinced by Jio’s current market policy, there is no doubting the fact that it has indeed shaken up the dormant telecom market from its slumber. Virtual Reality too took baby steps towards a promising future during the past few months. Going beyond entertainment, virtual reality based gadgets founds their way into healthcare, wherein they are now being used for a wide variety of processes, starting from hands-on surgical training to phobia rehabilitation by means of virtual therapies. Artificial Intelligence backed with machine learning and 3D printing technology too made huge advancements during the past year.
2016 was not a great year for a number of brands, and among them, the worst hit was Samsung. The Samsung Galaxy Note 7, one of the most anticipated phones from the Korean electronics giant turned out to be a major debacle for the company. Not only did the brand lose a huge amount of money, it lost some vital ground in terms of customer comfort due to the security threats posed by the exploding battery of their flagship smartphone. Another major happening was the death of Nexus range from Google, which was replaced by a new Pixel range. Apple too disappointed many of its hardcore fans this year, with their new range of MacBooks Pros, mainly due to the sky high price tag of the laptops.
Talking of the smartphone market, 2017 is expected to bring a number of key changes, especially in terms of specs. Expect dual curved displays becoming a mainstream component of mid-range smartphones, and not being restricted to the top of the line devices. Considering the current scenario of the smartphone market and the competition brands face from each other, we can expect to see smartphones with a sub Rs 20,000 ($300 approx.) price tag coming with such display technologies. Apart from that, dual rear camera setups too are expected to be found in a wide range of smartphones next year.
Personally, there were very few drool-worthy hardware products in 2016. Most of the things were on expected lines with little tweaks in terms of design or a bump in specifications. But it got crazy exciting on the software side, thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI). Although we have been hearing about it for several years now, it’s accessible to end consumers more than ever, and it’s really making a difference. From Google Allo/Assistant to Amazon Alexa to Tesla’s autonomous cars to Netflix’s recommendation engine, AI has become a part of our lives.
When the year started, wearables promised a lot. Now, as we end the year, they are probably not even on most people’s holiday wish list. I would blame Google and Android Wear majorly for this. Although, it always had issues, the sheer reach and ‘openness’ of Android should have rubbed off on Android Wear as well, but it was not to be, at least not in 2016. The Android Wear 2.0 update was delayed to 2017 and most of the major players in the game like Moto and LG temporarily shelved their plans to release the upgrade. An absolutely forgettable year for Wearables in general and Android Wear in particular.
I expect 2017 to be relatively dull for the most part. The smartphone market continues with iterative upgrades and is badly looking for some real inspiration. Apple is rumored to be betting big on Mixed Reality, but that’s expected to come in 2018. Till then, I expect the specs race to continue. I will be looking forward to advancements in AI with better functionality and cool (niche) gadgets coming to the market. All in all, I expect software to excite us more than the hardware in 2017.
It came in right at the end of the year and it proved my initial impressions about it to be totally wrong. When I had first heard of the Touch Bar on the new MacBook Pros, I had dismissed the whole notion as a bit of a stunt. Having used it for a couple of weeks, I have to confess that I have had to eat my words. The Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro is simply the best blend of touch and type I have seen on a notebook and while it is very pricey indeed at the time of writing, I really hope it will pay the way for a new UI in notebooks. God knows we need one beyond the routine touchscreen!
The year 2016 was supposed to be the one in which wearables would really take off. They did not, and while part of the blame for this can be laid at the rather static Android Wear scene, I cannot help but feel that the Apple Watch could have done more. It was the flag bearer and benchmark of the smartwatch segment, and I honestly expected something much more radical from its second edition. Don’t get me wrong – I think the Apple Watch Series 2 is easily the best smartwatch out there, but my complaint is that I expected it to do far more for the category than the water resistance and the spec upgrade. The smartwatch is still something you can leave home without, and I had expected the Apple Watch Series 2 to change that. Alas, it did not.
Yes, yes, Apple again. Because truth be told, one does tend to expect radical innovation from the Cupertino giant. And that has been largely missing on the iPhone front for a few years with incremental changes being the rule. Yes, the iPhone remains the gold standard for most smartphones out there, but I really believe that it is due a radical overhaul, a bit like what Apple did with the MacBook Pro and the Touch Bar – could it add a “real” keyboard to the iPhone? Who knows. All I am asking for is something radically different in 2017, which makes the phone unlike any other. Come along, Tim, Cook us something.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post Tech Hits & Misses of 2016 and What Lies Ahead in 2017: the TechPP Team Report appeared first on Technology Personalized.
Demonetization has finally given the long-overdue push to digital payments in India. Platforms such as Paytm or even POS services have been at their peak position as the citizens continue to struggle due to the lack of cash. Now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a new UPI-based app called BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money). Hence, here are eight things you should know about it.
Unlike Paytm and Freecharge, BHIM is not a digital wallet and is actually based on UPI (United Payments Interface) that government announced a few months ago. This essentially, means you don’t need to load any money as it’s directly connected to your bank account. Therefore, whenever you transfer or receive money, your account will be automatically updated.
In case, the receiver’s bank doesn’t support UPI which is actually quite unlikely since almost every other bank is compatible from Axis Bank to Bank of Baroda, money will be sent through IFSC (Indian Financial System Code), Ã la normal net banking.
The cashless future mainly depends on the people who currently don’t own a smartphone as everyone else has gradually boarded the digital bandwagon after the cash crunch issue. Keeping that in mind, the NCPI has adapted USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) platform. Hence, they can access these features by dialing a number which in this case is, *99#.
Just like most other similar services out there, BHIM also has a daily limit – you can transfer a maximum of Rs. 10,000 per transaction and Rs 20,000 in total.
For users who don’t want to reveal their phone numbers, a QR code can also be generated from the app which can be scanned by the sender to make the payment.
As the government is primarily targeting the users who aren’t particularly accustomed to these platforms, BHIM has an exceedingly simple interface. There are three main buttons for sending, receiving and generating QR code. Below that, there are options for viewing past transactions, profile, and bank account.
BHIM also supports multiple accounts and interestingly, the setup only takes a couple of seconds. You just need to feed in your mobile number and the app will immediately add all your bank accounts linked with that number. Though you can’t “switch” between accounts, you can easily “change” the account as you need.
BHIM utilizes your Aadhar card information for quickly authorizing these connections. Hence, your bank account will have necessarily have to be linked with it.
BHIM is definitely one of the most promising attempts towards the cashless economy of India. However, without proper education and marketing, this might also not take off. So go ahead and give it a shot. The app is only available for Android right now, iOS support is coming soon.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post 8 Things You Should Know About Narendra Modi’s BHIM App appeared first on Technology Personalized.
Supernovae, gravitational waves, exoplanets, a solar flare in 4K, and... space Hammer pants? It's been a wild year.
The post The year in space: Supernovas, gravitational waves, theoretical planets, and Hammer pants appeared first on ExtremeTech.
Going with Prime Minister’s vision for a cashless economy, the Government of India has now announced a new Aadhar based payments app that aims to take on the likes of Paytm and Airtel Money. Bharat Interface for Money, in short BHIM, is currently available for download only on Android. With that said, National Payments Corporation of India (NCPI) plans to launch a iOS version of the same soon.
The BHIM app can be regarded as a rebranded version of the Unified Payments Interface or UPI app that was launched by Narendra Modi earlier this year in August. The app aims to minimize the use of debits and credit card besides allowing people from rural areas make payments without the need of a smartphone or mobile data. With the app in place, users can make payments by simply using their Aadhar number, bank name, and fingerprint. To receive payments using the BHIM app, merchants would to install the app onto a smartphone and connect it to a biometric reader, which is currently available in the market for around Rs 2,000. With that said, it’s worth noting that the customer making payment using this method needs to have their bank accounts linked with their Aadhar card. Currently, around 40 crore Aadhar numbers across India is seeded with bank accounts, claims a government report. The aim is to link all Aadhar number with bank accounts by the end of March 2017.
The Aadhar based BHIM app has the potential to drive PoS terminals to extinctions. For those unaware, the machine where you swipe your card after a purchase at a merchant’s place is referred to as a PoS terminals. It’s worth noting that only 15 lakh PoS terminals are available across India and that mainly because merchants need to dole out 2-3% as charges for every transaction made using the terminal. The BHIM app further enables users to send money to non-UPI supported banks. That said, the list of banks supporting UPI is quite exhaustive. These include Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Catholic Syrian Bank, Central Bank of India, DCB Bank, Dena Bank, Federal Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, IDFC Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, IndusInd Bank, Karnataka Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank, RBL Bank, South Indian Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, State Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India, United Bank of India, Vijaya Bank.
To start using the BHIM app all you need to do is to download the app and register by filling in relevant details like bank name, account number etc. Follow this by generating a UPI pin from the app. In order to do so, you would need to feed the app with the last 6 digits of your debit/credit card and a OTP will be sent to your registered number. Thereafter simply enter this OTP and set up your UPI pin. Apart from that the BHIM app won’t be charging users to making payments using the app, however your bank may deduct nominal charges for UPI transactions. The BHIM app works in a similar way like Paytm. To send money using this BHIM app, you would be required to enter the receiver’s mobile number or payment address or Aadhar number. Then type amount you want to send and your default bank account gets selected automatically. After that simply enter your UPI pin and proceed with the transaction. Alternatively, you can always opt for a paying by scanning the QR code of the merchant or the person you want to send the money to.
The BHIM app may not pose a big threat to Paytm but it indeed emphasizes on government’s commitment towards a near cashless economy. Besides, with this new payment system in place, the unified Aadhar number of Aadhar cards is finally being made to good use.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post BHIM App is an Aadhar Based Payment Portal that Aims to Take on Paytm appeared first on Technology Personalized.
The FBI and DHS have released a joint report into the hacking attempts against the United States, while President Obama announces specific sanctions against Russia.
The post FBI, DHS release report on Russian hacking as administration-ordered sanctions take effect appeared first on ExtremeTech.
Oculus, the Facebook-owned company which shot to fame with the launch of its VR headset has now acquired an eye movement tracking startup The Eye Tribe. The startup’s claim to fame is a $99 tracking device that can bring gaze-based interfaces to smartphones.
The virtual reality segment has been seeing a major spike in the last few years. Oculus, which was once among the handful of players in the VR segment now faces competition from smartphone first OEMs like Samsung and HTC. With eye tracking now being deemed as the potential way forward for Virtual Reality headsets, the latest acquisition by Oculus couldn’t have come at a better time. The Eye Tribe’s budget eye tracking device is a rectangular shaped bar that can be connected to any device including tablet, laptops and smartphone to enable gaze based navigation.
The device basically tracks your eye movements and navigates through the screen depending upon your action. Just think of a situation where you are browsing a web page and you want to scroll down the page. In normal conditions, you need to grab hold of the mouse and scroll down, however, with The Eye Tribe’s device connected to your computer, a simple gaze at the bottom of the display would help you scroll. Well, that’s how simple it is!
With that said, The Eye Tribe’s recently developed foveated rendering technology that allows Virtual Reality based devices save computational power by generating graphics of only those parts you are looking at. It tries to imitate the way we look around and finally focus on a single object. This eye tracking ability will also help provide a near real life experience to users. The acquisition of The Eye Tribe may result in Oculus including their gazed based focusing technology for their upcoming wireless standalone headset dubbed Oculus Santa Cruz. Besides, it would enable the headset to render more complex scenes at higher frame rate despite its mobile form factor.
Although, Oculus has officially confirmed that a deal between the two firms has taken place, but it refused to divulge information regarding the monetary aspect of the same. The Eye Tribe recently raised around $3 million from investors including Startup Bootcamp, apart from taking a $2.3 million grant from The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation. In recent times, the startup was even rumored to be acquired by Facebook. The Oculus acquisition comes at a time when the entire technology world is running after eye-tracking startups. Very recently, Google bought an eye-tracking firm in the form of Eyefluence. That said, with the Oculus deal in place it is still not clear what will be happening to The Eye Tribe’s current team or its existing users.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post Oculus Acquires The Eye Tribe, the Eye-Tracking Startup appeared first on Technology Personalized.
The Android play store already has thousands of productivity apps you can employ to get things done. However, Samsung thinks there’s a place for another and hence, they’ve launched a new one called “Focus” today. Samsung Focus mainly exists because of two things – a unified view of your contacts, emails, calendar and a universal search for all of them.
Exclusively available for Samsung phones running Android Marshmallow or higher, Samsung Focus does sound quite appealing especially given its wide support for backend services which include IMAP, POP3, and Exchange ActiveSync. Therefore, it can satisfy requirements of most consumers and enterprises which rely on platforms like Office 365, Outlook, IBM Notes Traveler and more.
Advertised as a “unified productivity application”, Samsung Focus features five primary pages. The main view which combs through everything and displays detailed cards in a Google Now-inspired feed with appointments, emails. There’s even a floating action button if you’d like to compose a new message or meeting and you can also execute some quick actions such as replying to emails, deleting events and others. The rest of the tabs serve as dedicated views for email, calendar, memos, and contacts. It even supports automatic calendar events and multiple accounts. Furthermore, you can configure keyword alerts, so Focus will alert you when it’s matched in any emails.
Samsung Focus definitely looks quite interesting, unfortunately, it’s limited to the company’s own lineup. In case you own one of Samsung’s phone, head over to the Play store and give it a shot as it’s entirely free. It’s also possible Samsung might include this by default in their upcoming smartphones such as the Galaxy S8 which is rumored to sport an entirely new AI-powered digital assistant.
© Raju PP for Technology Personalized, 2016. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us, so we can take legal action immediately. If you are on Twitter you can follow me @rajupp! | Permalink |
The post Samsung’s New Focus App Brings Email, Calendar and Contacts into One Unified Hub appeared first on Technology Personalized.
Windows 10 is getting a new Game Mode in its upcoming Redstone 2 update, but Microsoft is keeping quiet about what the new mode means or offers for PC gamers.
The post Windows 10 may get new dedicated gaming mode in upcoming Redstone 2 update appeared first on ExtremeTech.
It can be hard to sort through all the options available for home security cameras. We've rounded up some of the leaders in each segment to give you a starting point to choosing one.
The post Choosing a security camera: A roundup of options appeared first on ExtremeTech.
If you're interested in learning how to program, you won't want to miss this awesome package on StackSocial. Simply pay more than the average price for the bundle, and you'll get ten online courses that are designed to make just about any of us into competent coders.
The post ET deals: Save hundreds with the learn to code 2017 bundle appeared first on ExtremeTech.
