By Hita GuptaIn 2010, mobile payment platform Paytm entered the market with key offerings in the mobile recharge and DTH recharge space but over the course of last five year it has graduated to the ecommerce space with offering ranging from food, fashion to travel. In conversation with Digital Market Asia, Amit Lakhotia, Vice President of Business at Paytm discusses the business model of Paytm and the digital payment scenario in India.Commenting on the business model of Paytm, Mr Lakhotia said, "Commerce and payments happen together, globally. Even in India, it takes time to build trust in the minds of the consumers in the country. Consumer don't shop online only for discounts as it can only initiate action in the market but it cannot be used as a continuous strategy.""So, consumers seek value in convenience, trust, the variety of offering, etc. We have been able to service and achieve consumer confidence as they trust us and keep their money with us. This is what we strongly leverage," Mr Lakhotia added.Unlike other platforms in the mobile payment space, Paytm seeks to establish itself as a platform where the consumer comes and transacts. It does not rely on the services of a third party merchant for fulfillment of the services. Therefore, the consumer can experience the Paytm brand on the platform itself, according to Mr Lakhotia.Paytm covers almost 18,000 online destinations under its umbrella which include the likes of Jabong, Airtel, Idea, bookmyshow.com, makemytrip, Cleartrip, Yatra, IRCTC, eBay, and Groupon, among others, said Mr Lakhotia."A year and half ago all our revenue was coming from recharges, then it became recharges + payments, and today we are recharges + payments + marketplace. So, new categories are always added as stakeholders in the revenue pie," shared Mr Lakhotia.Digital payments In India"The banking regulator in India has been cognizant of the fact that cash in the system needs to reduce. The final agenda for regulators and digital payments platforms is the same - cash needs to reduce. Regulators are looking from the point of view that electronic payments should work to reduce the pressure on cash and we are looking at it from the consumer convenience point of view," said Mr Lakhotia outlining the scenario around digital payments in India."We push for the big ticket items through mobile payment but small ticket items will continue to be transacted through cash for long time," he added.However, the buzz around payment banks and 11 of 41 applicants securing in-principal approval for the same is expected to change the game for lower valued products too as consumers start to see payment banks as a preferred form of payment option.The Reserve Bank of India has granted in-principal approval to some of the industry barons such as Aditya Birla Group, Reliance Industries, Airtel, Vodafone, among others. Paytm also joined the league of payment banks along with famous industry majors.Paytm claims that it is trying to build an ecosystem and a product which helps the consumer understand why electronic payments are convenient against cash. "We are not facing any challenges from the regulatory front," clarified Mr Lakhotia."Once the tax-savvy initiatives are in play for three to five years, we can see more and more consumers adopting digital payments. On the merchant side too, there should be incentives to promote digital payments in India," he added reiterating the positive sentiment around digital payments in India.Competition"More players joining the digital payment ecosystem is an implication that the pipe is becoming bigger. Many players in the ecosystem are changing the market validation which was not there until now. So a lot of people have started believing in the space which is good from the consumer point of view and us as well on back of growth in the market," pointed Mr Lakhotia.Furthermore, Paytm is undeterred by competition from other digital payment options such as Airtel Money, m-pesa, MobiKwik, and Axis Ping Pay, among other. Mr Lakhotia explained, "About 95 per cent of the payments are happening through cash and only three-four per cent via digital wallets. So, our aim is not to fight within the same three-four per cent pie but bring the cash-dependent consumer on the digital platform so there is scope for a lot of players to grow. We are competing with cash, we are not competing against anything else."Many payments merchants are employing social media to gain market share in the India ecosystem but Paytm has decided to stay from the noise in the space. "Social media is important from the point of view of building user rating. But we are not looking only at social media because we seek to expand our business beyond the internet audience in India," he concluded.
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Apple Inc unveiled a new TV set top box that responds to voice commands and fresh iPhones that sense the pressure of a finger tap, changes which underwhelmed many social media commenters and investors.The new 6S and 6S Plus versions of the iPhone, Apple's biggest money maker, are the same size as the previous versions but come with a better camera, faster chips, new colours and the force-sensitive "3D Touch".Speaking before thousands of analysts, journalists and frequently cheering Apple employees, Chief Executive Tim Cook also brought on stage an executive from onetime archrival Microsoft Corp to illustrate the business-friendly credentials of a big new iPad, the Pro.Apple shares fell 1.9 per cent to $110.15 by the close, replicating the recent history of such rollouts but also reflecting the lack of any transformative products that could jumpstart the company's sales ahead of the crucial holiday season.Apple shares have lost an average of 0.4 per cent on the day of iPhone announcements over the past three years, according to BTIG Research data."People love to hate Apple announcements because the expectations are so high and they can never clear that bar," said Kevin Landis, portfolio manager of the $111 million Firsthand Technology Opportunities fund, which has Apple as its second-largest position.Twitter users seemed most impressed by the revamped Apple TV. The product, which the company long called a 'hobby' gets its own app store and will work with Siri, Apple's digital assistant.Fewer celebrated the iPad, which some saw as too big and similar to Microsoft's Surface tablet, and new iPhones, which are outwardly identical to the enlarged smartphones which made their debut about a year ago.“3D Touch not good enough reason to upgrade so far,” Ikechukwu Nwanze wrote of the new phones, which start at $199 with a two-year contract.Apple TV demonstrations showed tricks to make viewing easier: digital assistant Siri, which is behind the voice control, can rewind a video for 15 seconds and turn on subtitles, when a viewer asks something like "What did she say"?"We've been working really hard, and really long," on TV, Cook said, emphasizing the word 'long' in a nod to the time it has taken the company to produce an ambitious TV product.The new set-top box will include an app store and let developers create new software for Apple TV, including video games.“I’m all about this new #AppleTV. Shut up and take my money,” wrote Twitter user Ethan Anderton. Others joked that they would have to buy a TV for the first time to use the Siri remote and app store.Absent from the new TV interface was any agreement for new content despite Apple's efforts to negotiate deals with a wider array of TV networks to provide live or on-demand content.A Stylus?Many of Apple's new features are based on technology that has been around for some time, but never caught on. Apple has a long history of creating successes where others could not.Years ago a Blackberry featured force-sensing touch. The new iPad has an optional $99 stylus, called the "Pencil", which amused many on social media: in 2007 Apple then-CEO Steve Jobs told a tech conference, "Yech, nobody wants a stylus."Apple is coming from behind in the streaming media market. Nearly 20 per cent of US broadband households already own at least one media player that streams content from the Internet, according to research firm Parks Associates.Roku accounts for more than a third of all streaming devices sold in the United States in 2014, followed by Google Inc's Chromecast and Amazon.com Inc's Fire TV, Parks said. The Apple TV box came in fourth.Landis said that while he liked the updated TV product “the numbers are so small that they won’t move the needle because the iPhone is such a big business now.”Facebook Messenger Coming To The WatchCook began the morning by talking up the Apple Watch, saying customer satisfaction for the recently launched product was 97 per cent and that a new version of its operating system would be ready by mid-September. Apple is working with French luxury goods maker Hermes on a new watch collection, and Facebook Messenger is coming to the device, he added.He then rolled out the "iPad Pro" with a 12.9 inch screen and said it had performance similar to a desktop computer. Apple showed off a "smart" keyboard as well as the "Pencil".Dave Meier, who works on several portfolios at Motley Fool Funds, said that the addition of a stylus and keyboard to the iPad Pro, which starts at $799, could lead to a “refresh cycle” that would lift incremental sales.He was “impressed with the gumption” to bring Microsoft executives to demonstrate Office products on the newiPad, he said. “This says that the Surface might be dead and Microsoft understands that they are very good at productivity but not at hardware,” he said.The new phones come a year after Apple rolled out iPhones with larger screens, touching off a frenzy of sales that saw revenue in the most recent quarter increase 32.5 per cent from the same quarter a year ago."It's getting harder and harder for Apple to compete against itself," said analyst Bob O'Donnell of TECHnalysis Research. Apple shares are up about 12 per cent over the last year, although they are down about 14 per cent in the last three months.Fortunately for Apple, most consumers buy smartphones under a two-year upgrade cycle, meaning the company will still likely scoop up a lot of sales, said analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy."The key point of reference is not how the new phone compares to the iPhone 6, it's how it compares to theiPhone 5s," he said.(Reuters)
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Food odering app, TinyOwl, has teamed up with customer interaction management platform expert, Ameyo to power its inbound and outbound food ordering processes.Prior to implementing Ameyo, TinyOwl had got frequent consumer requests on call drops. This led the company to search for an intelligent contact center technology that was capable of automating the entire dialing process, reducing call abandonments and powering customers’ experience.The company’s mission is to deliver seamless experience with low time to turnaround their queries. The app’s elegant and minimalistic interface automatically detects users’ location or gives them the choice to type in another location. From confirming the order to informing the customer about the estimated delivery time, the app does it all for its users.TinyOwl has currently 140 licenses from Ameyo which robust both outbound and inbound call processes of TinyOwl. Ameyo has been successfully customized to sync with TinyOwl’s requirements and has carried out URL-based integration with Tinyowl’s in-house CRM as well which will now enable agents to resolve customer queries quicker.TinyOwl has always believed in customers’ first theory and have reduced the dropped calls drastically with the help of Ameyo. This led to the increment in their business volume. The abandoned calls, if any, get automatically listed on the Ameyo system which makes it easy for the agents to follow up. Faster deployment, rapid and easy scaling-up, and executing a new service request in flat three days are some of the exceptional attributes of Ameyo that reinforced the choice of technology for TinyOwl.(BW Online Bureau)
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Your private online activities are rarely as private as you think: Ashley Madison LessonInternet cheating site, Ashley Madison, is making headlines for the data breach that has exposed very intimate personal information for 37 million users. As with the AdultFriendFinder hack FortiGuard Labs reported back in May, the potential damage to clients is significant. After all, Ashley Madison's slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair."A hacking group known as The Impact Team also stole data from Ashley Madison's sister sites Cougar Life and Established Men. The group were threatening to release the entire stolen database if their parent company, Avid Life Media, doesn't shut down both Ashley Madison and Established Men.According to reports the Impact Team recently published the account details and log-ins for 32 million users of the social networking site in response to alleged lies ALM told its customers about a service that allows members to completely erase their profile information for a $19 fee.According to the hackers, although the "full delete" feature that Ashley Madison advertises promises "removal of site usage history and personally identifiable information from the site," users' purchase details - including real name and address - aren't actually scrubbed.So that's the background for anyone who hasn't been listening to chuckled news reports or skimming headlines. What's the real story? Well, for 37 million people, this story is real enough in and of itself. But there's more here than hacktivists and blackmail. Fundamentally, we need to shift the way we think about privacy and security on the Internet.Some organizations take extraordinary measures to secure their data and their websites. They employ top-notch security pros, regularly test their defenses, and invest in best-of-breed hardware and software. Others, well, don't. As users, it's difficult to know who has their security ducks in a row and who is coming up short. Frankly, this isn't even easy in B2B settings where there is inherently more transparency and service providers are more likely to present security as a competitive advantage. Even the savviest of organizations, though, isn't immune to data breaches, sophisticated attacks, disgruntled employees, or that one staffer who falls victim to a spear phishing campaign.So guess what? Whether it's through new revelations about government spying efforts or the latest hack and whether the attacks are motivated by money, ideology, or espionage, the Internet is neither a terribly secure nor particularly private place to hang out. The internet wasn't designed with security in mind. So what do we do?Never forget that our digital footprints are bigger than we think. The latest social network is one hack away from delivering your personal information to the highest bidder. Or one publicly posted screen shot away from a total lack of privacy. Just as trusted staffers can become disgruntled employees overnight, and friends can quickly become enemies, databases can easily wind up in the wrong hands.That's the user side of this equation. The business side is that security is becoming a differentiator across the board. It already is a differentiator in many B2B settings, although many organizations are still scrambling to back up their claims of iron-clad security. But this is going to continue trickling down to customers as well.Bottom line, users beware. Your private online activities are rarely (if ever) as private as you think. And businesses, security needs to be job one, no matter what your line of work or who your customers are. Ashley Madison is just the latest warning shot from a cybercrime industry that is already incredibly powerful and sophisticated.The author, Rajesh Maurya, is Country Manager at India & SAARC, Fortinet
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Since the 1960s, computing power has been on an exponential trajectory in performance, keeping pace with business needs neatly as 'Moore's law', which effectively states that computing power doubles every 18 months or so, has held absolutely and irrefutably to be true. Storage, which is as essential to enterprise IT as computing power, has, however, held to a much slower performance improvement trajectory for the best part of two decades. Businesses have found, as their applications grow more demanding, that it has been harder and harder to get the storage piece to keep pace with the speedier compute capacity they install every year.Imagine the following contexts: a financial services institution needs to clear a large number of payments in short order, or face regulatory fines. A social network needs to run real-time analytics on advertising effectiveness to remain competitive. A law firm needs to roll out virtual desktops to maintain confidentiality of data whilst enabling a mobile workforce and a bring-your-own-device strategy. All of these applications of enterprise IT face a serious and critical performance bottleneck in traditional disk-based storage, which simply can't keep up with the volume of interactions called for by these applications within acceptable performance parameters.Over the last year flash storage has emerged from use primarily in mobile devices and laptops to the corporate data center, where this burning need for faster storage systems has long been felt. While racks, or arrays, of traditional disk drives are still by far the dominant storage media in the data center, the use of flash continues to grow.However, preconceptions over the historically high cost, apprehension about its scalability and the lack of a track-record of reliability for first-generation all-flash appliances occasionally raise undue concerns with finance chiefs and technologists. Here we debunk three Flash myths that every forward-looking CIO should be aware of:Myth one - Flash costs moreo The absolute cost of flash storage has been coming down, significantly over the last few years that makes the relative cost per TB of storage more attractive than ever in a Flash vs. traditional arrayo Flash arrays have a higher performance throughput, which allows you to use fewer arrays to manage the same workloads, especially when you run sophisticated in-line (with no performance impact) data reduction technologies which identifies and removes unnecessary multiple copies of the same information. Traditional disk doesn't have the performance to run this sort of de-duplication software in real-time so you need more capacity to support the same amount of data.o Additionally, as workload capacities demand higher throughput rates (measured in inputs/outputs per second or IOPS), many enterprises are finding their workloads are perfectly positioned for flash's cost-to-performance ratio.o As well as reducing the need for storage over provisioning, Flash-based SSDs require much less power, cooling and physical space than HDDs, especially once you've run de-duplication and installed less capacity to begin with. With power in the data centre usually in the top three IT operating costs, alongside people costs and datacentre space, any reduction in these generates significant savings to the business. Hitting all of them at once, as you can with Flash, brings manifold returns.o Deploying Flash within storage arrays built significantly to take advantage of flash based media will result in lower storage administration. Revolutionary internal architecture completely eliminates complex set-up and tuning steps, while inherently delivering maximum performance. Given that a single tier of flash based media will be deployed there is no more management of storage tiers and the 'chasing of performance hotspots'.There's more to the enterprise use of all-flash storage arrays than just TCO and OPEX, however; making the financial aspect work simply removes a reason to not consider the change.Myth Two - It is not field-tested, and represents a bigger risk than traditional storageWhilst on the face of it, this is true: enterprise use of Flash is newer than traditional storage platforms, however EMC has been using flash based media in its arrays since 2008. When examining any new technology for deployment you have to evaluate the underlying principles, not its 'newness', or no innovation would ever happen.So, to those underlying principles:o Flash has no moving parts. Physical wear and tear is a key cause of failure in traditional disk. In stress tests, Flash disks failure rates are much lowero The lack of moving parts also makes them less vulnerable to changes in environmental factors, such as temperature, moisture, and so on, which are key points of vulnerability for traditional IT systems. It also makes it better suited for use in more varied scenarios - on 'mobile' computing resources, hence its rapid adoption in mobile phoneso It's higher rate of performance also reduces the risk of in-flight data corruptiono Every bit of the architecture, algorithms, and software implementation is designed to minimise write amplification and write operations to flash, and ensure optimal wear leveling (the process designed to extend the life of solid state storage devices).Myth Three - The performance isn't worth the investment:It should already be clear that there are few applications that would not benefit from the increased performance Flash has to offer. Given that current generation SSDs gives you perhaps 100 times faster performance, it gives you huge flexibility in how you make use of the increased performance.o First, you can use the increased performance to support 'next generation workloads': applications that require extremely responsive systems, running at low latency or high throughput. This could include High-Frequency Trading Systems, Exchanges, Gaming Platforms, Social Networks, virtual desktop infrastructure in any industry, online commerce platforms, mobile banking platforms, data analytics platforms and so on.o Second, you can re-architect your second platform applications for far greater efficiency and performance. The higher throughput means you can run deduplication to good effect, and fit more into less storage and physical space, and bring down your operating costs accordingly.o Thirdly, flash offers unparalleled levels of flexibility. Organisations of all sizes need to deploy new platforms to deal with the abrupt changes they face. They need to ensure that work is delivered at an affordable cost, without leaving them open to uncomfortable risks. Weather they decide to scale up or scale out or both, storage needs to be able to adapt with that change, Using flash minimises the impact and disruption upon the whole IT ecosystem.While these are the three most common misconceptions I hear when talking to customers around EMEA, it's increasingly hard to doubt the argument that flash storage arrays are already presenting new opportunities to businesses that embrace the technology. Put simply, the move to flash is just too logical and attractive. We're entering an era where storage will be software-defined, flash focused, automated and simpler to manage. This will unlock a world of opportunity for businesses, and turn IT from an operational necessity into a strategic function.We are seeing a huge acceleration in interest in the technology from both those needing support with next generation workloads and those grappling with the challenge of operational performance and efficiency from more traditional workloads against a growing data deluge.In my role it's easy to get over excited when we see disruptive technology asserting itself in the industry, but all-flash arrays genuinely have paradigm shift potential. It will transform tomorrow's business, and with advances in software that make flash easier to manage and protect, this transformation is gaining even more support from forward-looking CIOs.The author, Syed Masroor, is Sales Director - Flash Storage Sales India at EMC
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Mobile app company, hike messenger, has launched over 5000 new stickers in 30 local Indian languages. The new sticker packs, which are available for free, are specially designed to make messaging fun and help express emotions better in our very own Indian way.Kavin Bharti Mittal, Founder and CEO, hike messenger, said, “Messaging is undergoing a profound transformation with users increasingly looking at better ways of expressing themselves."The sticker packs have colloquial expressions, playful slangs, movie dialogues, popular expressions used in social occasions, greetings, wishes and much more. The stickers have been bucketed under more than 25 categories including region specific lingos such as Punjab Di Shaan, Hyderabadi Aashiqui, Dhakad Haryana and for various social conversations & age-groups with sticker packs like Prem Amar, Heer Ranjha, O womaniya, Smarty Pants, Hostel Masti, Office Office, Gharwalo ke Taane, Yaariya, Bahanebaazi; making messaging a fun, addictive and really playful experience.Hike has also launched automatic Sticker Suggestions in its latest update hike 4.0, which recommends the perfect sticker for every moment based on what users type making it extremely easy for consumers to discover and use stickers (Watch how it works). Furthermore, the technology for exchanging stickers has also been designed in such a way that sending stickers is consumes minimal data and works extremely well on 2G, making it super data efficient and an attractive proposition for consumers across the country.Mittal adds, "With Sticker Suggestions its takes milliseconds to find the perfect emotion in any moment and with stickers optimised for 2G, more people can enjoy new ways to express themselves in their local ways.(BW Online Bureau)
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Mobile internet software and service provider UCWeb, has updated its mobile browser for Android users. Unlike any other mobile browsers in the market, UC Browser 10.7 for Android is the first of its kind to give its users complete freedom to personalise the way they discover and access web content.It redefines the role of a modern mobile browser as a content aggregator and distributor. The new browser also comes with a new selection of specially designed background images for an enhanced and classy browsing experience.Kenny Ye, Managing Director, UCWeb India, said, “This new update will transform the way nearly half of India’s mobile browsing traffic is consumed.”UC Browser now empowers its 100 million daily active users to discover and access the content with brand new customizable homepage offering various options - to make it easier and faster for users to discover and access content - through a manageable card system. They can rearrange the cards (in-app widgets) - such as Headlines, Top Sites, Jokes, Cricket Match, Cricket Topic, Top Free Apps, Opinion, Trending Video, Shopping, and more - according to their own preferences and pin their favorite one to the top.(BW Online Bureau)
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Apple has ramped up its hiring of artificial intelligence experts, recruiting from PhD programs, posting dozens of job listings and greatly increasing the size of its AI staff, a review of hiring sites suggests and numerous sources confirm. The goal is to challenge Google in an area the Internet search giant has long dominated: smartphone features that give users what they want before they ask. As part of its push, the company is currently trying to hire at least 86 more employees with expertise in the branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning, according to a recent analysis of Apple job postings. The company has also stepped up its courtship of machine-learning PhD's, joining Google, Amazon, Facebook and others in a fierce contest, leading academics say. But some experts say the iPhone maker's strict stance on privacy is likely to undermine its ability to compete in the rapidly progressing field. Machine learning, which helps devices infer from experience what users are likely to want next, relies on crunching vast troves of data to provide unprompted services, such as the scores for a favorite sports team or reminders of when to leave for an appointment based on traffic. The larger the universe of users providing data about their habits, the better predictions can be about what an individual might want. But Apple analyzes its users' behaviour under self-imposed constraints to better protect their data from outsiders. That means Apple largely relies on analyzing the data on each user’s iPhone rather than sending it to the cloud, where it can be studied alongside information from millions of others. "They want to make a phone that responds to you very quickly without knowledge of the rest of the world," said Joseph Gonzalez, co-founder of Dato, a machine learning startup. "It's harder to do that." BEYOND SIRIThe Cupertino-based tech titan’s strategy will come into clearer focus on Sept. 9, when it is expected to reveal its new iPhones and latest mobile operating system, iOS 9. Apple has promised the release will include a variety of intelligent reminders, which analysts expect will rival the offerings from Google's Android. While Apple helped pioneer mobile intelligence -it’s Siri introduced the concept of a digital assistant to consumers in 2011 - the company has since lost ground to Google and Microsoft, whose digital assistants have become more adept at learning about users and helping them with their daily routines. As users increasingly demand phones that understand them and tailor services accordingly, Apple cannot afford to let the gap persist, experts say. The iPhone generated almost two-thirds of Apple's revenue in the most recent quarter, so even a small advantage for Android poses a threat. "What seemed like science fiction only four years ago has become an expectation," said venture capitalist Gary Morgenthaler, who was one of the original investors in Siri before it was acquired by Apple in 2010. PLAYING CATCH-UPWhile Apple got off to a slow start on hiring for machine learning jobs, it is closing in on its competitors, said Oren Etzioni, who is CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and a professor at the University of Washington. "In the past, Apple has not been at the vanguard of machine learning and cutting edge artificial intelligence work, but that is rapidly changing,” he said. “They are after the best and the brightest, just like everybody else.” Acquisitions of startups such as podcasting app Swell, social media analytics firm Topsy and personal assistant app Cue have also expanded Apple’s pool of experts in the field. Apple does not reveal the number of people working on its machine learning efforts. But one former Apple employee in the area, who asked not to be named to protect professional relationships, estimated the number of machine learning experts had tripled or quadrupled in the past few years. Many of the currently posted positions are slated for software efforts, from building on Siri’s smarts to the burgeoning search features in iOS. The company is also hiring machine learning experts for divisions such as product marketing and retail, suggesting a broad-based effort to capitalize on data. Apple’s hiring mirrors a larger hunt in Silicon Valley for people who can help companies make sense of their huge stashes of data, said Ali Behnam, managing partner of Riviera Partners, an executive search firm. Data scientists are the most sought-after experts in the market, he noted. Asked for comment about Apple’s strategy, a company spokeswoman pointed to statements from Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Software Engineering, who described the release at a developers’ conference in June as “adding intelligence throughout the user experience in a way that enhances how you use your device but without compromising your privacy, things like improving the apps that you use most.” But Google and others have an edge in spotting larger trends, meaning Apple's predictions may not be as good, said Gonzalez, echoing a commonly held view among machine learning experts. What’s more, there are some features for which Apple has yet to find an answer, such as Now on Tap, which Google will release this fall. When users press the home button, Google will scan their screens to deliver helpful information – a user reading about an upcoming movie, for example, might receive reviews or a list of showtimes. It would be difficult to deliver such services without sending data to the cloud, experts say. ACCESS TO DATASome techniques Apple and Google are investing in - such as deep learning, a hot field of machine learning that roughly simulates the human brain so that computers can spot patterns and classify information – require massive amounts of data that typically cannot be crunched on the device alone. For machine learning experts at Apple, access to data complicates the work at every turn, former employees said. Siri enjoys some of Apple's most liberal privacy policies, holding onto user information for up to six months. Other services, such as Apple Maps, retain information for as little as 15 minutes, the former employee said. Machine learning experts who want unfettered access to data tend to shy away from jobs at Apple, former employees say. But Apple is strengthening ties to academia to find the talent it will need, attending more industry conferences and discussing its use of tools emerging from university labs, academics say. "They are gradually engaging a little more openly," said Michael Franklin, who directs UC Berkeley's Algorithms, Machines and People Lab, which Apple sponsors. And some machine learning experts might be enticed by the challenge of matching Google's smarts amid privacy constraints, suggested John Duchi, an assistant professor at Stanford University. "New flavors of problems are exciting," he said. If Apple succeeds without compromising privacy, its Mountain View rival may face questions about its approach to analyzing users' data. "People might start to ask Google for more privacy," Gonzalez said.(Reuters)
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Digital service provider IT Partner for the Olympic Games Atos, on Wednesday (2 September) announced the secure, cloud IT infrastructure that will be used for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympic Games and beyond has now been delivered by Canopy – the Atos Cloud – in collaboration with EMC Corporation.The new cloud IT infrastructure powered by EMC, Atos’ strategic partner, will be used to test and run securely the IT applications used to distribute the results to the world’s media. It will also support the core planning systems that are used to recruit volunteers, support workforce management, manage the competition schedule and process accreditations for athletes, media and the wider Olympic Family.Jean-Benoît Gauthier at the IOC said: “Cloud is a perfect fit for the Olympic Games and we are delighted to be working with our long-term Worldwide IT Partner on this important project that will benefit all those who participate in the Games – media, athletes and spectators.The creation of the new cloud infrastructure is built using the Canopy Enterprise Private Cloud and VCE’s Vblock® System - a converged infrastructure solution that can support other businesses on their journey to cloud. It represents a major milestone in the digital transformation of IT for the Olympic Games extending the use of cloud to most applications managed by Atos.The new cloud infrastructure will be first put to use in August to test the Competition Schedule and the Workforce Management systems that will be used by the Pyeongchang Organizing Committee from the end of this year. In September this year, the cloud capacity will escalate upwards for a limited period to perform technical testing proving the solution can support the expected demand through the project, and after this escalate down to support the limited production needs at the early stages of the project. By the time the Volunteer Portal for PyeongChang Games goes operational around two years before the Games, capacity and bandwidth of the cloud will be increased again to cover the high level of demand for thousands of volunteer requests being addressed in a very short period.(BW Online Bureau)
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The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has accused Google Inc of abusing its dominant position in online search, people with knowledge of the matter said, which if proven could force the US company to alter its practices in a key market or even pay a big fine. A preliminary report from the quasi-judicial regulatory body found fault with Google's handling of its online advertising services and search results, said the people. Google, which just last month appointed India-born Sundar Pichai as its new CEO, is already facing a billion-euro fine from the European Union after accusations the company cheated competitors by distorting Internet search results in favour of its shopping service. Google has rejected those charges. The regulator first began investigating Google in 2012, and a preliminary report was submitted to the top CCI officials about six months ago. The findings of that report have been mentioned in the local media in the last few days. The CCI is expected to make a final ruling after a hearing on September 17, where Google will present itself before a seven-person CCI panel, the people said. CCI Chairperson Ashok Chawla was not immediately reachable over the phone for comments. "We're currently reviewing this report from the CCI’s ongoing investigation," a Google spokesman said in a statement. "We continue to work closely with the CCI and remain confident that we comply fully with India's competition laws." The initial complaints of Google abusing its position in online search in India were filed by matchmaking website Bharat Matrimony and a not-for-profit organisation, Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS). Udai Mehta, assistant director at CUTS, said if the final ruling too finds Google guilty, the CCI can either order the company to halt what it deems unfair practices or fine it even as much as 10 per cent of its revenues. If found guilty, Google could challenge the decision in court, he said. Google posted annual revenues of $66 billion for 2014. A guilty verdict could impact Google's growth in India, where it dominates Internet searches among the country's 300 million online users and is increasingly launching its Android phones and other initiatives to get more people on its operating system.(Reuters)
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