Author
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
At-a-glance banking ease on smartwatches is hereWhen you have banking on the smartphone, it’s only natural that it should make its way over to the smartwatch. India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi made a reference, in his Digital India speech announcing government initiatives, that banks would one day not just be paperless but premise-less. Currency too would shed its paper guise.Choosing “Digital India Week,” the government’s awareness week for planning and kicking off projects, HDFC Bank launched an app for the Apple Watch or its “watchbanking” service. For busy people who are multitasking and in too much of a rush to keep pulling out their phones, the smartwatch will come to the rescue with glanceable information and quick actions. In fact, the Apple Watch hasn’t yet arrived in India and there aren’t even likely to be huge numbers of users for the watch app. But HDFC Bank is pretty clear about being ready for more digital times. “The Apple Watch should be in India very soon now and we’re also waiting for it,” Nitin Chugh, head of Digital Banking at HDFC Bank told me, “When Apple first made their watch we decided right then that we would also be in this space.” Apparently HDFC Bank selected the Apple Watch because they felt it was built “from the ground up” and because it would give their own app a better chance of evolving with a ground-up understanding of what features customers need most. Mala BhargavaThe bank also plans for an Android watch app very soon, which of course is only sensible, Android being the more common platform on mobiles in India.The WatchBanking app will let customers check the status of their account – or accounts, if they have several, make up to 10 transactions, order checkbooks, make bill payments and recharges, request statements, and more banking basics. The app will also tell the user where the nearest ATMs are and allow for a quick reporting of a lost card, without having to key in numbers. The watch app can be launched from the mobile banking app and shares its security framework, according to HDFC Bank which is confident of how securely the watch app will work. The Apple Watch of course, can be passcode or fingerprint-protected and on top of that, there’s a pin the customer can set for the watch app. The watch app is tied to the smartphone and can’t be used independently of it.It was in 2014 that HDFC Bank launched its “Go Digital” campaign, encouraging customers to consider digital ways of accessing their services. And the bank has many other undisclosed digital plans. Nitin Chugh said HDFC Bank believed strongly in moving everything to devices in the near future, including the idea of going paperless.ICICI Bank has launched its apps for both Apple and Android watches in April earlier this year. “iWear” as it is called is available on the stores though it doesn’t enjoy a very high rating. On Android, users have complained about difficulty logging in and alerts saying actions can’t be performed. Users also feel there aren’t enough options though it also allows for bill payments, recharge, account information and basic transactions. Checking the last three transactions and other similar info can be accessed as with the HDFC Bank app. More features are to be added as usage increases.With the digital push in the country, wrist banking has every chance of becoming an everyday thing, just as mobile banking has begun to, for people on the go.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India speech paints a compelling picture. One that I so badly want to believe in. Listening to him, one cannot help but be impressed with the sheer understanding of how much the world has changed today because of technology. Much like the invention of electricity and the industrial revolution, the technological revolution and the internet have changed the world forever. Except they haven't finished yet, as each day there seem to be more revolutionary advances centering around mobile. Pointing out that mobile access had barely touched the surface in India, the Prime Minister issued a loud and clear warning about how the country would be irrevocably left behind if it didn't immediately prepare to go digital in every way. Even war, he warned, would now be fought in a bloodless way in the digital domain. No Indian leader in recent times has had such a visionary and large-scale plan for the betterment of the country - and one that is actionable. Rather than empowering ordinary citizens, leaders have been concerned with solely their own empowerment. IT corporations and the country's biggest companies immediately pledged massive amounts in the building of this digital India. And why not. It's an opportunity beyond all opportunities. Some components of the Digital India initiative have already kicked in and may not be so difficult to achieve as other aspects. The Digital e-locker, for example, and the paperless initiatives that extend to school text books, hospital records, identity documents, and more. So is the accessibility of civic authorities to the common man.Except that the common man in India is an uncommon mix, living in widely varying circumstances, as we all know. The biggest piece of the jigsaw puzzle that will come together to make Digital India is connectivity, reaching the furthest corners of this vast land. And that's where I find myself stirring awake from this dream. Because, after all, the implementation of the backbone that is needed for a country strongly connected by information highways, is still in the hands of those who are responsible for the existing mess. Today, nearly 20 years after mobile phones came in, I have had to reactivate my landline. This is in the heart of the capital city, not in a challengingly remote hilly village where fiber hasn't reached yet. Flitting between our two largest cellular service providers has been to no avail. While everyone worries about call drops, I find myself mirthlessly joking that I don't have that problem - I can't get or make calls for them to drop in the first place. Internet connectivity is a distant second to that. All the same, the speech, the intention, the understanding, all give me hope that we will achieve at least some of that digital life that will make things easier, provide jobs, and create transparency and accountability in the way all business is done. While exemplary smart cities may be a way off yet, at least some of the digitisation that will be empowering is beginning.
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When you talk about Twitter today, you see one side of the picture. The side that’s given ordinary citizens a voice, the part that has made customer truly the king, the we-won’t-take-this-lying-down aspect that has governments worried. It’s on Twitter that outrage became a verb, allowing anyone to speak their mind. Or did it? While governments, CEOs of companies large and small and customer service departments may have adapted to the idea of netizens having the right to express their opinions, the “trolls” haven’t. Express a religious view one way or the other and you’ll attract a spate of accusatory comments, practically abusing you for daring to have a view at all. You’re either for us or deserve to be dead, seems to be the message. Mala BhargavaAs someone who watched social media take root from the very beginning and had great hopes for how it would transform society for the better, I find it unsettling that it has also exposed, belly up, the ugly side of society. And this has been amply demonstrated in the recent case of the SelfieWithDaughter campaign taken up by none other than the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. It will take much more than a Twitter hashtag and people posting photos with their daughters to even put a dent in the gender inequality that seems to have become apparent afresh in the country, but the campaign would have at least done no harm. It’s a message, a small gesture of support. But it’s the Prime Minister’s own professed followers who negated the gesture. If you missed it, look for Kavita Krishnan on Twitter and her timeline. You’ll soon encounter vicious verbal attacks on her, calling for her to be gangraped, suggesting she was ‘retarded’ and should not have been allowed to be born, and other shockingly disturbing comments. Actor Alok Nath lost his cool and was first off the mark to abuse Ms Krishnan. The attack gathered enough momentum to have become a trending topic rather quickly and it stayed there for at least a day. Kavita Krishnan’s crime? She believed the SelfieWihDaughter campaign to be rather hollow and she made a reference to the expose the PM’s alleged stalking of a young woman, popularly referred to as Sahebgate or Snoopgate. Ms Krishnan did not refer to something that was not known. She wasn’t polite, not at all. Yet, the attack on her was out of proportion prompt, intense, and widespread. There was a similar attack on actress Shruti Seth who suggested the Prime Minister leave aside selfies and try some reform. Ironically, the trolling attacks come from those who purport to be supporters of the Prime Minister and the BJP. In one fell swoop, their attack had the effect of derailing the Twitter campaign as the abuse began to assume a greater traction than the selfie surge. It’s dying down now, but not without leaving any Twitter user with a bad taste and the distinct feeling that social media isn’t that wonderful after all. It’s obvious that users of social networking are as quick to unleash malintent as they are to participate in positive change. In the end, the trolls who tried to defend the Prime Minister and the SelfieWithDaughter campaign only laid out before us just how widespread the intolerance for women and their opinions is in India, cutting across all social levels.
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Facebook has just launched its 2G-friendly app on Android. The social giant says demand for the app is strong in India and many have downloaded through workarounds even before it’s been available officially on the Play Store. Facebook Lite’s Vijay Shankar talks about how Lite is different from regular and Facebook’s plans for the app.
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Facebook has just launched its Lite app in India and the Philippines. The app is now available for download from the Play Store on Android devices. It makes sense that it isn’t on iOS as owners of Apple devices are in any case unlikely to be in low connectivity zones for any length of time. Facebook Lite is meant to pull in more users in places where good internet connectivity is not a given – that is to say, it’s 2G-friendly. The Lite app downloads at top speed and is quick to set up. The user gets the works – the News Feed, photos, events, groups, and notifications. It even has Facebook chat. What it does not have though, is video. You can select the quality of photographs so that get faster rendering in really low connectivity situations. However, the images are slow to download even when tested on Wi-Fi. The app also refreshes often and creates an interruption of several seconds. It looks like Facebook’s new users will have to have a lot of patience as they join the giant social network. The look of the interface on Lite is similar to the main app and website which is a good thing as users will not feel they’ve been saddled with a compromised experience. However, the font is rather small even at its highest setting and will be quite a strain on small devices. India is Facebook’s second largest market after the US and it is where the social network wants to focus its energies on expanding its already gigantic user base.
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Android users now have a properly usable version of Microsoft Office available to them for free. That includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. There was a preview version earlier but now properly optimised apps are there for the taking. Users of large phones and tablets should find they can comfortably use Word, Excel and PowerPoint as separate apps, making their devices much more work-friendly than before. They're even available on the Web though the proper desktop software is still a paid package. Users must log in With their Microsoft account and connect their favorite cloud service including Dropbox. And they’re ready to go. You can see straightaway that Microsoft has really worked on ease-of-use and vindictiveness. Once you have logged in to one of the apps, the other two will log you in automatically. The apps themselves also function smoothly with everything being quite evident. Old users of Microsoft Office will see the old familiar basic features and menus. For Word, for example, you have the main menu on the left and top to open a new document, save, print, share etc. On the top you have a button to roll out the formatting menu, Save, share, undo and toggle between text wrap view and non-wrapped view. The formatting features include text size and style, font, colour, bullets and numbering, bold, italics etc. This features are good enough for basic work. On opening a new document you also have templates So that you don’t have to start from scratch for a PowerPoint presentation. At all times though users will see the upgrade button which calls for a subscription to Office 365. If one is working without intensive collaboration and doesn’t require high-end features the basic versions will suffice. Microsoft Office being available in a usable format on Android and on iOS will strike quite a blow to all of the workaround apps that people have been using as a substitute. Don't be surprised to see office apps preloaded on your next new phone or tablet.
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When he visited India for the first time in March this year, I thought Twitter CEO Dick Costolo looked none too happy — for a former comedian. The “Digital Samvad” initiative with the government and the acquisition of ZipDial to encourage non-active users to get tweets with a missed call had their fifteen minutes of fame and then evaporated to leave Twitter stewing in its own troubles.What troubles, many Indians may well ask, because if you’ve ever watched television in India, you won’t be able to escape hearing what Twitter thinks about every piece of news. Anchors switch between television screens and tweets as they announce their stories are now trending at #1 on the social network. Our current government and Prime Minister, of course, took to Twitter like fish freshly introduced to water — so ironic when you look back to how much fun was had by politicians at the expense of the first tweeting minister, Shashi Tharoor. Twitter has, more than anything else online, been a lifeline during disasters and has played no small part in making and unmaking governments. It’s also taught businesses a thing or two about who really owns companies.But none of this has helped Twitter grow enough or fast enough to satisfy its inventers and the company is trading lower than its stock price at IPO in 2013. Shares jumped about 7 per cent when Costolo announced he was stepping down from July 1 with Jack Dorsey taking over as interim CEO. As Twitter searches for a new CEO, there are speculations of whether it could be Adam Bain, Twitter’s current president of global revenue, or even co-founder Jack Dorsey himself. Whoever it will be, he’s got a job ahead of him because everyone agrees about one thing — Twitter doesn’t have enough users to be attractive to advertisers.In the years since Twitter started in 2006 as a “microblogging” site, social media has become a game for numbers. Twitter has 320 million active users, but the more staggering figure, said to be about a billion, is the people who signed up, took one look, and fled. If you were to look around you, you’ll find that while journalists, politicians, activists, and of course businesses and social media marketers, are comfortable on Twitter, young people are not. They flock to their Snapchats and other messengers and it doesn’t help that Twitter has finally now tried to become a bit of a messenger by removing its 140 character limit from direct messages. By now, there are too many other options. The incentive for young people to be on Twitter is low. It’s like a cocktail party where you don’t know anyone and they’re all talking rubbish at the same time anyway. “It’s too many opinions and topics and very tedious to keep abreast of everything that’s flying around,” said one young girl I asked. An active user said she loved Twitter because so many odd and bizarre ideas could be shared freely, “You can talk as much as you like about your interests and no one cares,” she said. But obviously she is in the minority and the greater number consists of those who find Twitter too chaotic and the onboarding so difficult that it makes them feel like they’re the only ones too dumb to follow conversation. The intimidating trolls, the speed with which content randomly streams past is just too overwhelming to keep users involved — which is just what Twitter needs.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 13-07-2015)
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It Comes RecommendedThere are now groups on Facebook, such as Gurgaon Moms, in which members help each other find all sorts of stuff, including local businesses. Now a new app, Toost, takes a similar approach. Download it free on an Android device and when you open it, it reads your contact list and flags unknown callers. Then it picks up whatever numbers it thinks are businesses or services — your electrician, a doctor, plumber, etc. — and presents them to you to recommend or ignore. If you recommend them or give a rating, others in your contact list using the app can benefit from this. If everyone keeps this up, you soon have a network of people reviewing and recommending local businesses —and that can be most useful. Toost also flags spam numbers and gives you caller ID.A Viral PasstimeImgur, an app on both iOS and Android, aims to be a sort of Instagram of viral images. You can post and browse through an endless stream of pictures, GIFs and memes whiling away time and having yourself a laugh.It’s a fuss-free sign-in and nothing much to do after that but swipe through the stream. While Instagram focuses on photos of things as one wants them to be, Imgur is irreverent, in-your-face humour — at least according to a young majority online.And that’s a reason why anyone who wants to market to this generation should have a look. Virality is a strange beast that no one has been able to quite pin down, but flipping through images will give you an overall picture of what this mobile-first generation has on its mind.Making Short Of NewsA snazzy little app called News in Shorts makes short work of news while at the same time looking nice and visual to prevent you from getting bored. You have one half of the screen taken up by a photograph. The bottom half has the short headline and a para summarising the news it relates to. If you want to know more, just swipe to get the original and full article from the originating source. If you’re done with an item, flick from bottom to top and you get to the next item. This is really great for news “snacking” when you’re busy, or otherwise want to be aware of the top stories. You can select from among several subject categories. The app also has a card-based widget. Sharing from News in Shorts however, leads back to the app, which is downright annoying.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 13-07-2015)
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Teens are no doubt going to want to jump right into the Figo Aspire and make off with it, but if they’re aiming to zip around unchecked into the crowded streets of India’s cities, they can think again. The keys to this snazzy beauty can be programmed to set a speed limit and any attempt to rev up beyond that just won’t work. “MyKey” as this feature is called, is one of the features Ford is putting in to encourage safe driving in India. The volume of the in-car music system will also be restricted so that the tendency to drive with pounding dangerously loud music is also controlled. Less fun for some — but safer for everyone.That’s one of the smart tech features in Ford’s new Figo Aspire which will be launched sometime close to August. Ford won’t let us in on the price just yet, but the various models are estimated to cost between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 8 lakh. It’s in the same segment as the Swift Dzire, Hyundai Xcent, Tata Zest and Honda Amaze. The Figo Aspire is the first Ford to be manufactured out of the American car maker’s Gujarat plant, so yes, a “Make in India” product. It’s the first of three new products Ford plans to launch in India over the next twelve months.This sub four-meter compact sedan has managed to merge style with economy rather well. Best in plush red, it has an Aston Martin style grill and long swept-back headlamps. The styling, unlike so many other cars, isn’t squat and stolid but streamlined, giving a look of momentum. There are echoes of the Ford Fiesta and popular Ecosport here and there and overall, it’s not a departure in design but very much unmistakably Ford. The interiors are sporty, leathery and rich with enough headroom and legroom though squeezing in more passengers will be uncomfortable.Other safety features include warnings on the seat belt not being on, but unlike other cars that do the same, the Figo Aspire has an additional surprise up its sleeve: you won’t be able to play the music unless the seat belt is on. This way, those who ignore warning beeps and get used to them, the withholding of music should be enough encouragement to belt up. The car has six air bags and their deployment in case of an accident will call for emergency help, using the phone. There are also smart warnings on fuel level, with enough time to act on the alert.Built into the familiar dashboard are controls for a smartphone and music system. MyFord Dock lets you dock your phone (no matter which one, Ford says) and charge it or use it to connect to the entertainment console or use apps in a more safe way, using voice controls. A button on the steering triggers openness to voice commands. Once paired with Bluetooth (no NFC yet), Ford’s SYNC AppLink will let you make calls, control the music and navigate using MapMyIndia maps. You can also get cricket scores via CricInfo. Ford is keen for developers to create apps to use in-car with AppLink and is talking with other partners to enable more apps. Food apps, flight info and other useful apps would make sense in a car like this, but partnerships are not finalised yet. The idea is to reduce distracted driving and drivers looking down at their phones and get them focused on the road more.The connectivity for the tech you will use in-car is borrowed from your smartphone, so you will need a healthy cellular network. Up to ten devices can be paired, in case several people happen to be using the car at different times.The Ford Figo Aspire will come with two engine variants: a 1.2-litre TiVCT petrol and a 1.5-litre TDCi diesel. Both will work with a 5-speed manual gearbox. There are electronically adjustable ORVMs.Bookings have begun for the Ford Figo Aspire, but whether this entry level sedan will be as popular as the Ecosport or even the Figo, we’ll only know over the coming months. The tech features are a beginning, but old habits die hard and we’ll see whether drivers stop glancing at their devices for navigation and communication and change to using the phone while it’s docked into the car’s system instead. Either way, of course, the in-car Wi-Fi comes from the phone. It’s also interesting to see how smartphone-dependent new cars are going to be, going forward.(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 13-07-2015)
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New concierge app Goodservice says just ask – and we’ll deliver It’s a virtual explosion. App after app launched almost every week promising everything from food delivery to groceries to home repair to chauffeurs. The new on-demand economy is becoming crowded with services-via-app startups. But that hasn’t stopped Vipul Aggarwal and Ruchir Jain from jumping right in with Goodservice, an app that saysjust ask – and we’ll deliver. Goodservice, founded in 2014, started out as a website and has only recently gone app and remains invitation-only. An iOS version will come soon but until then, anyone with a demand for a concierge service or indeed anything, can log into http://goodservice.in and register. Customers like it. And so does Sequoia Capital which as just invested $1.6 million seed funding for the company. The Goodservice promise is a tall one: 24/7 requests are welcome to flow in via chat using the app. Want someone to teach you how to cook a diabetes-friendly meal? Just ask. Want an electrician to do a complex job? Just ask. Want to find a dance class for your daughter? The Goodservice team of 40 and counting will search and come back to you with the best options keeping in mind your specific needs and budget. “We’ve been working on this for some time and the challenge with local commerce services is not just that you should now which services to get but that the service has to be finely personalized,” says co-founder Vipul Aggarwal. “So if tomorrow you need a carpenter, you don’t just need to know which carpenter is good but whether he can do the specific job you want and whether he can be available when you want. Unlike an Uber where it’s a specific point-to-point service and charge, with hyper-local services it’s all about specifics. You have a design, you have a budget, you have a time specification – and that’s how you need the carpenter to deliver.” He describes the Goodservice app as being like a virtual personal secretary on your phone, ready to organise your service. “If you come to us and say my tap is broken, I need it fixed, we are not going to give you five numbers and leave you to it. We will find the best plumber and our backend will make sure he reaches on time and that the job is done to satisfaction. If something goes wrong, the backend also makes sure there are backups available,” says Aggarwal. The app is to add a wallet of its own shortly. Goodservice already caters to customer requests worth more than Rs 30 lakh a day and plans to disrupt the highly fragmented local services and local commerce market. To deliver, it obviously needs a robust database of service providers at its fingertips. “It’s not just about having service providers’ phone numbers at hand,” says Aggarwal, “This needs the minutest, most curated research possible, always updating and the exact nature of the services offered in detailed. So, if you need cooking classes, we will know who can do this on-site, who will provide classes at a location, what kind of cuisine is covered, is there certification, do they do special parties etc.” Goodservice has 18,000 service providers mapped out in the top cities of India and plans to use its funds to ramp up technology to capture and track providers and expand. Aggarwal believes that it’s the robustness of the provider database and access to by the dedicated team which will be the key to scaling. Customers beginning to share reviews on Facebook is helping to popularise the service and this feature will soon incorporate this into the app, which is minimalistic at the moment but easy to use. “We’ve found immense customer love for two simple reasons,” says Aggarwal, “First, our promise to get anything done for the user, and second, attention paid to the full experience. All that a customer has to do is type a request -‘send me a cook and we get them the cheapest quote, make the booking, do follow-ups and ensure the job is done well. Backing from Sequoia will be important in helping us expandoperations with a target of Rs 1 Crore per day worth of requests for services and products.” Abheek Anand, Principal, Sequoia Capital said, “Goodservice has been seeing terrific traction, a testament to how their services concierge app is resonating strongly with consumers. We are excited to partner with Vipul and Ruchir as they scale Goodservice and help Indian consumers connect with great service providers across a broad range of categories.”
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