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)
Read More
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)
Read More
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)
Read More
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)
Read More
Stronger the marketing intelligence, more effective will be the business strategy and efficacy of a marketing strategy is proportional to success of the product in the market. Accuracy and amount of information determines the effect of decision making, which in return determines market prospects of the product. To roll out a product in the market, an enterprise has to ensure its success and evaluate the best possible RoIe. The idea is followed by careful development of business strategies comprising of methodologies to acquire the market through innovative marketing ideas. To devise such strategic marketing ideas, the enterprise would have to rely on accurate market information and data. Herein emerges the prospects of Marketing Intelligence as one of the most important facets of business.Marketing intelligence has moved beyond the paradigms of physical market surveys and analysis. Internet being the mainstream has become the prime source of new market data and information. This transition from the spheres of physical surveys to internet-based researches has materialized the Cloud Makeover of marketing Intelligence. The underlining idea is, market research is now internet based and online platforms are the dependable source of market intelligence.Market information can be obtained from various sources. Big Data plays a major role in the current landscape of business analytics. Big Data is complicated and an exclusive branch has protruded to deal with it. However, data can be obtained from simpler sources such as Social Media. Social Media Monitoring involves collecting data from post on popular social media platform such as Facebook and ‘tweets’ on Twitter. It can offer the company an insight of customer’s review and their viewpoints on any product or service.Cloud Based CRMs offers a new perspective to this renovated model of research. New CRM technologies are enabled to offer comprehensive sets of information about customers. For instance, the breakthrough technology introduced by CRM developer such as SaleShark , not only offer information about a single customer, but also comprehensive data on related customers and potential business leads forming an integrated network of information. Such technologies are synonymous with the ‘Cloud’ that is inclusive for marketing and sales management.Customer database or the CRM is among the primary sources of market information. Analyzing data from customer databases assist in understanding cross sales and up sale opportunities. This helps to understand the behavior of consumers over long durations. Integrated CRMs offer complete profile view or a 360-degree view of any customer providing comprehensive insights on their purchasing and expense behavior. Additionally, purchasing frequency, recent purchases and value of purchases can be traced out from CRM databases. Therefore, purchasing pattern of the consumers can be extracted from CRM.Cloud-backed technologies are necessary to substantiate the one stop solution to businesses. The Cloud Makeover of CRMs has substantiated them as single windows to gather market intelligence. Augmenting the capabilities of traditional CRMs, these new Relationship Management Applications are offering amicable avenues to obtain market intelligence. Hence, new possibilities of business analysis and market data are unlocked. Enterprises can now leverage CRMs as an inclusive tool for business intelligence achieving more than just mining customer purchase information. These applications can be imperatives in cost cutting by reducing extra investments to obtain market intelligence. CRM being used as a market intelligence tool is not a new idea. However, a new range of CRMs is offering better edges to this particular aspect of business, that is, market intelligence. The cloud makeover of market information is backed up by new this next gen CRM Technology.There is a growing need to understand people first; before making any initiatives to build seemingly promising relationships. In other words, humanizing technology is the real focus for salespeople to authentically connect and engage with their prospects. Not just customer intelligence, but even sales intelligence is the essence to formulate effective new business strategies. However, obtaining real-time and relevant customer information has been a challenge for any enterprise.The market dynamics has grown such that, brands and enterprises will have to catch up with customers to gain advantage over their businesses. Against this backdrop, Market Intelligence materialized to be more sophisticated as well as have grown more crucial for businesses. MI is the set of everyday information related to the business arena of an enterprise. Mushrooming businesses, startups and enterprises have incurred fuzziness in the present market scenario with piled up products and services.The arena of market information is complicated and vast. Moreover, aspects such as Big Data make the domain more convoluted. It is certain that there are no limits to data utilization or to the extents of market intelligence. Technology is meant to develop and new solutions will overlap the old ones. The transformation of CRM technology has been offering better advantages to business. The technology will keep on evolving and offering new avenues for business adding up the profits.The author, Ajay Chauhan, is co-founder of SalezShark
Read More
Ayyadurai says social media will not pose any threat to e-mails, writes Arshad KhanMumbai-born Shiva Ayyadurai created the world’s first email system in 1978, a few years after his family moved to America. “India has been the land of innovations for the past 5,000 years, it’s just we aren’t good in marketing ourselves," he said.On August 30, 1982, the US government recognised Shiva for his innovation and gave him a copyright for e-mail. Thus, he joined the exclusive league of Indian innovators. In an exclusive interview, Ayyadurai gives an insight of his upbringing, success and the hurdles which he easily crossed. Born in Mumbai, Ayyadurai's parents moved United States when he was seven for better opportunities. Good in athletics, Ayyadurai moved to New York University (NYU) with special permission because he had finished Calculus by the 9th grade and there was nothing engaging for him in Morristown. In NYU, he was the only Indian out of forty selected students to learn multiple programming languages. By the time he reached fourteen, he moved to Newark where he was given a challenge by Dr. Leslie Michelson to translate the paper-based interoffice mail and memo system into an electronic communications format. He succeeded in changing the format in 6 months and kept on changing version to ease the process.Finally the first e-mail was sent by him in 1978. Remembering his early days in US, says, “We landed in US post the Vietnam war. The country was going through a rough phase. It was sex, drugs, rock and roll everywhere and living in of the poorest region of US Paterson, New Jersy was difficult.” For the first two years, Shiva worked free of cost. On the thirty-three year long journey of e-mail, he said that things rapidly changed post 1993 when worldwide web (www) originated. “It opened a whole new window of opportunities and the world saw the emergence of e-mail services from Hotmail, Yahoo and Google. From what was an origin for business applications changed to consumer friendly interface,” he said. Ayyadurai currently heads seven companies, most of them deals in Alternate medicine. He also holds ten patents under his name and has hundred plus publications. He is confident that social media will not pose any threat to e-mails as both play important role in the communication cycle. “In future the interface may change but the basics of e-mail will remain the same,” he concludes.
Read More
Internet Industry is booming and one of the fastest growing industries in the country today. With current Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of consumer internet industry being around $10-12 Billion, clocking an average growth of 40-45% CAGR ,we are roughly talking about a $100 Billion GMV in next 5 years if not more. This is a phenomenal growth compared to an average 14 per cent growth rate in a conventional consumer goods industry. To add to our benefit and providing fillip to the industry, India is the second largest market, globally, for internet and smart phone users.Consumer is more aware and comfortable transacting online compared to a decade back. With evolving infrastructure – like a better and safer online payment structure, logistics and innovative customer services like COD (cash on delivery) and hassle-free return policies, e-commerce companies have not only gained the customers confidence but also changed their buying behavior pattern as well by shifting them to adapt to technology as a means of convenience.The evolution of the industry has enabled growth resulting in talent moving in at brisk rate. As a talent specialist, I feel following are compelling reasons for bright minds moving in the consumer internet space:Cash rich industry resulting to acquiring better talent at higher compensation- We are witnessing a robust VC and PE funding activity – roughly $5 Billion was invested last year in consumer internet industry and this year we could see the investment going much higher making the companies financially comfortable to expand in technology and manpower, thus able to attract better talent at premium cost.Stock Options- ESOP’s is a great way to attract a potential employee, especially if the company is growing at 4x-5x on an annually; some of the early tech product start-ups are actually growing at8-10 times YoY resulting in a huge upside to the employees stocks vested. Employees are smarter nowadays, they are no longer interested in a small fixed hike, rather would go in for higher stock options if they believe in the organizations growth, vision, technology and product.Great Learning and Value Add- while there is a huge growth and money in this industry, it also gives a great learning experience from the perspective of building a company from scratch; from product marketing, supply chain, pricing and profit management, customer acquisition, cross-selling, up-selling, customer service and much more.The era of consumer internet is here to stay for at-least a decade. The industry in India is still at a nascent stage and with increasing internet and smartphone penetration, consumer internet will evolve exponentially.The author, Aneesh Passi, is Co-Founder of Basil Advisors
Read More
"Data business is booming and the global data market that is available for data platforms to tap is a whopping $1.6 Trillion. Real companies make real products and real solutions based on data. Microsoft Data Strategy would be to maximise the value derived from all such accessible data. The strategy would be to go Cloud First with other things following. Microsoft data platform is evolved, reliable and people-focused and will be more productive and easily accessible to customers," T. K. Rengarajan, Corporate Vice President - Data Platform, Cloud and Enterprise, Microsoft Corporation, said, at the SQLServerGeeks Annual Summit 2015.The 3-day SQL and Data Conference being attended by hundreds of SQL professionals will run till the 29 August. Organised by SQLServerGeeks.com and sponsored by Microsoft, HP, SanDisk, Melissa Data and S&P Capital IQ.The summit is featuring SQL Star Speakers such as Denny Cherry, Benjamin Nevarez, Praveen Srivatsa, Alberto Ferrari, Joey D Antoni, Dave Dustin, Vic Parmar, Andreas Volter, Stuart Padley, Lara Rubbelke, Scott Klein, Microsoft SQL Data Platform among others. The Data Business at Microsoft manages 1.5 million databases and collects 70 TB of data daily. The key focus for the data platform would be to make data simpler and more capable. Till date SQL has been one of the greatest releases of Microsoft. At Microsoft we have assembled an incredible data platform and this is the beginning of another two decades of impressive data technology' he added.Amit R. S. Bansal, Chairman of the Conference & Director of eDominer Systems, said, “Today, Data is the key to an organisation’s success. With the right data, we can do wonders. Asia has a huge talent pool of data professionals. This summit, for the first time ever, has brought all SQL & Data professionals under one roof and will facilitate skills up-gradation and offer immense networking opportunity.”(BW Online Bureau)
Read More
