Apple Inc said on Sunday it is cleaning up its iOS App Store to remove malicious iPhone and iPad programs identified in the first large-scale attack on the popular mobile software outlet. The company disclosed the effort after several cyber security firms reported finding a malicious program dubbed XcodeGhost that was embedded in hundreds of legitimate apps. It is the first reported case of large numbers of malicious software programs making their way past Apple's stringent app review process. Prior to this attack, a total of just five malicious apps had ever been found in the App Store, according to cyber security firm Palo Alto Networks Inc. The hackers embedded the malicious code in these apps by convincing developers of legitimate software to use a tainted, counterfeit version of Apple's software for creating iOS and Mac apps, which is known as Xcode, Apple said. "We’ve removed the apps from the App Store that we know have been created with this counterfeit software," Apple spokeswoman Christine Monaghan said in an email. "We are working with the developers to make sure they’re using the proper version of Xcode to rebuild their apps." She did not say what steps iPhone and iPad users could take to determine whether their devices were infected. Palo Alto Networks Director of Threat Intelligence Ryan Olson said the malware had limited functionality and his firm had uncovered no examples of data theft or other harm as a result of the attack. Still, he said it was "a pretty big deal" because it showed that the App Store could be compromised if hackers infected machines of software developers writing legitimate apps. Other attackers may copy that approach, which is hard to defend against, he said. "Developers are now a huge target," he said. Researchers said infected apps included Tencent Holdings Ltd's popular mobile chat app WeChat, car-hailing app Didi Kuaidi and a music app from Internet portal NetEase Inc. The tainted version of Xcode was downloaded from a server in China that developers may have used because it allowed for faster downloads than using Apple's U.S. servers, Olson said. Chinese security firm Qihoo360 Technology Co said on its blog that it had uncovered 344 apps tainted with XcodeGhost. Tencent said on its official WeChat blog that the security flaw affects WeChat 6.2.5, an old version of its popular chatting app, and that newer versions were unaffected. A preliminary investigation showed there had been no data theft or leakage of user information, the company said. Apple declined to say how many apps it had uncovered. (Reuters)
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One of the biggest concerns about mobile devices, especially smartphones, is how quickly they consume battery. It is mostly due to the fact that the hardware on smartphones today require a lot of power and with the increase in the demand of faster hardware and data speeds from consumers, device manufacturers are finding it tough to cope up to the battery demands. They have been pushing software and hardware updates faster than we can imagine but somehow there hasn’t been a revolutionary change or a breakthrough that would make a smartphone run longer, without having you to run to your charger after every few hours.Qualcomm, the well-known mobile processor maker, recently announced that it has yet again updated its line of processors for smartphones and these new processors will be more battery friendly thank to Quick Charge 3.0. This is an update to the previous version and the company claims that it will help in charging devices from 0to 80 percent in about 35 minutes compared to the current generation of smartphones and tablets. While this sounds great, it still doesn’t solve the problem. One might be able to charge their mobile devices faster, but what about the rate at which it loses charge?Google is also struggling to make its mobile OS to hog less battery. It announced a brand new feature for its upcoming update, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, called Doze. With this feature the OS will calculate the hours when the smartphone or tablet is not used for longer periods, especially while a user is sleeping, and hibernate the device to save power. Google also claims that the devices with the new Doze feature will get an improvement of up to two-times, which theoretically means you could get a whole day of extra battery. This might sound like a feature that could make the hardware more battery efficient but again it will not be path breaking.Probably looking at the core of the problem might solve the battery woes, which is the battery itself. Smart devices need a battery source which can hold its charge for longer periods. With so much innovation happening around, it seems weird at times as to how smartphone makers are still struggling to come up with a battery that could go on for maybe a week. Or is it that the manufacturers are holding back for certain reasons? The world needs a change and we can only hope that we won’t have to wait for long.
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Crown-it, a restaurant retail cashback app, has raised Rs 34.5 crore in May this year from venture capitalists Accel Partners and Helion Venture Partners. The company, which is a marketplace for local businesses, helps consumers discover local merchants and drives business to those merchants.According to FICCI Grant Thornton survey, the Indian food and beverage sector, which is currently growing at 23 to 24 per cent annually, is likely to touch Rs 3.80 lakh crore by 2017. In an interview with BW | Businessworld's Haider Ali Khan, Crown-it founder and CEO Sameer Grover talks about the company's future plans and many more things. Edited excerpts: The market has changed a lot since your inception in 2014, where do you stand now?We have grown exponentially since our inception in March 2014. Over the period of one year, we now have a presence in 7 cities with over 10,000 listed local merchants, a strong user base of over 300,000 on Android, iPhone and Windows. We are one of the largest curated deals offering company in the market today. What is the size of your company in terms of capital?We had started with angel investments of around half a million dollars. Crown-it then raised series-A funding of $ 5.5 million from Accel Partners and Helion Ventures in May 2015. What is the response of consumers? How many active users you have?The response of the consumers is overwhelming. Customers are having fun collecting and sharing crowns. We have been able to create a habitual set of consumers. We have over 3 lakhs users in Delhi-NCR. Our consumer app metrics are one of the best in the industry today. We have 3 monthly transactions per active user and 9 weekly app opens per active user. Are you going to increase your chain, with more stores and outlets?We have over 10 thousand plus merchants across India and we are definitely going to increase as we enter into new cities and new categories. There are other players like Payback, Foodpanda etc. Why should a customer prefer Crown-it?We provide a curated deal offering to the consumers based on their spending and eating out habits, interests and other social data. The personalized offering is something coupons will never be able to provide. We have a very strong and innovative referral program that is exciting and fun for the consumers. We also provide an avenue for the consumer to spend this saving which is credited to a closed wallet to get mobile talk-time, bill payments, online shopping, movie tickets and charity etc. Any plan to shift outside F&B sector? And your future expansion plan?We have already expanded into the beauty and health segment. We are planning to enter into 7 categories, including weekend getaways, apparels and airlines by the end of 2015. How is your monthly business right now?We are driving a monthly Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) of $ 3 million at present. We have a target to achieve a couple of million users and monthly $ 25 million GMV by March 2016 ($300 million annual run rate GMV). The company is on its path to have 20 million users and drive $1.2 billion of annual GMV across 25 cities in India by 2018.
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The RX100 series by Sony has been one of the best compact cameras around and ever since the first version launched back in 2012, Sony has been making it better with every new iteration. In a matter of just three years, Sony has update the camera three times already and today offers the Mark IV which comes with 4K video recording and a super-fast burst mode of 16fps. But let’s go back where it all began with the first RX100. The camera was no doubt one of the best in business and is still one of the best shooters around considering its size.Size has been the biggest point of attraction for the RX100 series right from the first version. The evolution of the camera has seen a slight increase in weight and thickness but the form factor has remained the same. The jump from the RX100 to the RX100 II saw the inclusion of Wi-Fi and NFC for wireless transfer of pictures and the inclusion of a hot-shoe to attach an external flash or any other accessory. There wasn’t any major overhaul in the picture quality but improvements in ISO performance and a slightly better battery.The RX100 II was succeeded by the RX100 III last year and saw a number of changes like the new 24-70mm lens with an improved f/1.8-2.8 aperture range, a pop-up viewfinder with an OLED display inside, and more support for video formats. Sony also skipped the hot-shoe port probably because it never made sense to attach an accessory on a compact camera anyway. The third gen also included a faster imaging processor, but picture quality didn’t see a massive improvement, but the addition of a variety of video modes made the Mark III a great shooter as well as a video recorder.The RX100 III has now been replaced with the Mark IV which sees a new stacked sensor, a sharper viewfinder, faster burst mode with 16fps, and the biggest update being 4K video recording. The Mark IV is yet again compact like its predecessors but packs in almost everything that its predecessors offered, except the hot-shoe maybe and with the addition of 4K video recording Sony has proved that a compact camera can shoot amazing pictures as well as super crisp 4K videos. RX100RX100 IIRX100 IIIRX100 IVSensor20MP - 1" CMOS Sensor20MP - 1" CMOS Sensor20MP - 1" BSI-CMOS Sensor20MP - 1" BSI-CMOS SensorISOISO 100 - 25600ISO 100 - 25600ISO 125 - 12800ISO 125 - 12800Lens 28–100 mm, f/1.8 - f/4.9 Zoom Lens28–100 mm, f/1.8 - f/4.9 Zoom Lens24–70 mm f/1.8 - f/2.8 Zoom Lens24–70 mm f/1.8 - f/2.8 Zoom LensImage StabilisationOptical Image StabilizationOptical Image StabilizationOptical Image StabilizationOptical Image StabilizationDisplay3″ Fixed Type Screen3″ Tilting Screen3″ Tilting Screen3″ Tilting ScreenContinuous shooting10 fps 10 fps10 fps16.0 fpsVideo1920 x 1080 video resolution1920 x 1080 video resolution1920 x 1080 video resolution3840 x 2160 video resolutionHigh speed videoNoNo120 fps High-Speed Video960fps High-Speed VideoWi-fiNoBuilt-in WirelessBuilt-in WirelessBuilt-in WirelessDimensions240gms, 102 x 58 x 36 mm281gms, 102 x 58 x 38 mm290gms, 102 x 58 x 41 mm298gms, 102 x 58 x 41 mm
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It’s tough to get this voluminous a sound from a device the size of a lunchbox. But Bang & Olufsen does it with the Beolit 15by Mala BhargavaBang & olufsen's Play Beolit 15 Bluetooth speaker is about the size of a really large lunchbox, but much heavier than anything you’ll be able to eat at one meal and certainly much heavier than it looks. It comes in three colours — rose, blue and champagne — and people either love or hate the squat boxy look. There is a beautiful leather strap to add a real touch of class though. Personally, I’m ambivalent and think the look’s way secondary to the sound it produces.The B&O Beolit 15 is supposed to be portable and if you just take it from room to room, that works fine. If you’re thinking of toting it around on a trek, forget it, because it’s too heavy for walking around with for more than a really short distance. The speaker is similar to B&O’s Beolit 12 and BeoPlay A2, both portable Bluetooth speakers. The Beolit 15 is the heftiest of the three.It’s a simple device in terms of usage. Open the flap at the back to plug into power and charge the speaker with its thickish cable. That’s the only accessory in the box. The controls, what little there are of them, are on the top of the lunchbox. There are just a few buttons — power, Bluetooth, and volume up and down. And that’s it.And now for the sound. It’s massive and deep and comes from two amplifiers putting out 240 watts. For years now we’ve been unsurprised at the full sound you get from really small speakers — with a subwoofer tucked away somewhere. But this is just a lone speaker and it’s Bluetooth on top of that.It’s not easy to get as powerful a sound as you get from a speaker this size. The high frequencies are sharp and clear with a whisper or a tinkle travelling well across a room with the full voluminous bass rolling out deeply. Basically, your neighbours will hear this bass.A unique feature of this and several other speakers from B&O is that it’s got 360-degree sound. You can get room filling sound because of this and how it’ll sound depends quite a bit on where you place the speaker. All the same, I found something wanting in the overall experience. Perhaps finesse of some sort.I happen to own the smaller BeoPlay A2 and it often raises eyebrows when people hear the quality of the sound. People have often asked me if it is attached to something external. But the BeoLit 15 has a little bit of closedness about it. Something wanting for its hefty price tag of Rs 35,000. All the same, you will be able to use it for a party where you want the music to be really loud while for intimate and personal listening, especially one-person listening, I would recommend the BeoPlay A2 if you’re interested in a Bang & Olufsen product.What I can’t comment on is the amount of time it takes to charge the battery and how long it lasts because the review unit seems to have been an old one or perhaps one that had its battery die out cold. The device took a few days to recover enough to finally give me a green charged light. When it finally signalled a complete charge, I played it nonstop at a good loud volume — maybe just short of objectionable. The battery lasted about four and a half hours before it pinged a warning and dipped volume to low — meaning, charge me, please. Plugging in the power should have brought the sound back up (as it does in the BeoPlay unit I own) but this wasn’t the case.I fully expect a new unit not to have this problem, but on the other hand, if this is what happens to an older speaker on which the battery has been allowed to die out completely, that’s something to watch out for.The Beolit 15 competes with several other powerful speakers such as the SoundLink 3 from Bose, a Marshal Stanmore speaker, and Harman Kordon Aura, all available in India. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 05-10-2015)
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Remarkable noise cancellation finds its way into another entrant to the QuietComfort series of earphones from Boseby Mala BhargavaIstill remember sampling the very first QuietComfort set of earphones. I was sitting in at a demo with them in my ears, when I felt a startling strong vibration everywhere, including the chair I was sitting in. I looked around in horror and couldn’t see or hear any reason for the powerful vibration. I pulled out the earphones and to my shock, the sound was of an oncoming train — but on a huge loudspeaker.I couldn’t understand how it was I wasn’t able to hear it. The new QuietComfort 20 (often just called QC20) retains that remarkable noise cancellation that makes it possible not to hear even an oncoming train. Or the air conditioner right next to you. Or, when the music is on, not even the television blabbing loudly. For this, you have to switch on the acoustic noise cancellation because you can also listen without that — with a bit of a reduction in volume and some subtle change in the “intimacy” if I may use that word here, in the music. It seems to distance itself slightly.The amazing thing is that you can hear, in the device’s “aware” mode, sounds like announcements at an airport or someone talking to you. But you do have to be in that mode or you can quickly get to it by touching a button on the inline controller.The in-ear earphones have a signature soft jelly-like feel to them and are actually very comfortable and cushioned in your ear canal. For me, it wasn’t a fabulous fit but I may have small ears because that happens often with earphones. There’s a funny curved tip sticking out of the earbud to stabilise it and stop it falling out, but that doesn’t quite work with me. There’s another set in the box in case that works better for a user. Normal ears have nothing to worry about.The QC20 comes in two variants — one for Apple devices, with more controls, and one for Android devices, though the box I got actually specified Samsung Galaxy phones.There’s an inline controller in the usual place along the wire. This lets you control volume, on and off, and noise cancellation. It also has a mic for calls. Further down, right close to the 35mm jack, you have another controller and this also has the two-stage noise cancellation button and indicator lights.Other than that, this thin, light, rubbery rectangle also houses the lithium ion battery. You can recharge using any USB cable though a nice short cable is given along with the product.That little slab can be a bit of a nuisance as you figure out whether to put it into your pocket along with the phone or let it dangle, pulling on the wire.The sound you get from the QC20 is fine. Not thrilling, but fine. It’s good for pop, rock and contemporary music. It has rich bass but I don’t find the highs and mids sparkling. But unless you go test with formal audio tests, the experience is really subjective. I find the sound good enough but not memorable.The QC20 is really best for those who often have to contend with a lot of noise around. If not, there are plenty of other options. If you listen a lot where there’s noise of construction, machines, loud air conditioning, people and traffic in the street, noisy co-workers etc., and all that noise bothers you a lot, the QuietComfort 20 is worth your attention.However, all this is available for a staggering Rs 25,200. (This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 05-10-2015)
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It is a known fact that smartphones and tablets are selling way more than laptops and desktop PCs according to a study the next five years will see an increase of more than double the number of mobile devices that are currently available globally. However when it comes to typing documents or long texts, people still prefer a physical keyboard. While some can opt for dedicated keyboard dock and cases, there are many tablet and even smartphone users that do not get the luxury of such dedicated keyboards.In comes the Logitech K480, a recommended product if you are looking for a single solution for all your keyboard needs, well except gaming. The keyboard offers a similar layout like any other laptop keyboard and offers keys for controlling your media as well. Best of all it has a large slot where you can slide in your tablet, a smartphone, or even both. The keyboard can connect to three devices at the same time via Bluetooth and has a dial which you can rotate to switch between these devices. This is very useful if you wish to use a keyboard with more than one device. The K480 supports almost every smart device running either on Android, iOS, Windows, Chrome OS or Mac OS.The K480 comes with an all plastic build and has a very neat finish to it with rounded edges and rounded keys. Everything is neatly placed and well-spaced and the keys offer a slightly higher key-travel than a laptop keyboard, giving a more desktop keyboard feeling. It is comfortable to use, although it is slightly bulky, weighing almost as much as a 10-inch tablet. Also, the plastic body somehow doesn’t feel solid as you can hear a bit of creaking. The keyboard is powered by two AAA batteries which can be inconvenient for some, but in a world where we charge our smartphones, tablets and smartwatches every day, having a device less to charge is always good. The connectivity is quick and seamless and there is no delay in the characters to pop up on your mobile device and even switching between devices is quick and fast.Apart from the K480 being a bit on the heavy side and having a slightly cheap plastic body, it is quite a handy keyboard to own if you like to do a lot of typing especially on your smartphone or your tablet. It performs flawlessly and is very comfortable to type on. For the price it’s not a bad keyboard but is it the best? Probably not.
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Sonal KhetrapalHas my child reached school safely? Is my wife safe at the party? I wish if I could track my ailing father during his evening walks. With the increasing crime rate, these are the everyday worries that concern us about our family and friends. To ease this pain point, Delhi-based provider of digital maps and GPS navigation devices MapmyIndia, launched SafeMate on Wednesday (16 September), a personal safety device for women, children and families. SafeMate is match-box sized portable device that can fit easily in a school bag, purse or pocket. It has built-in GPS and internet connectivity that shares the location in real time with the mobile phone or computer through its app. In case of an emergency, the user can press the SOS button, which will send email and SMS alerts to designated people. The GPS enables one to see the user’s exact location through its house-level maps and get directions to them. Rashmi Verma, co-founder, MapmyIndia, said, "The alarming increase in crime against women and children in India spurred us into thinking about how we could use our expertise in digital maps, GPS navigation, tracking and location apps to provide safety to individuals. We wanted to keep things simple so that the technology can be used in the most stressful situation. The result is SafeMate.” SafeMate does not require the user to carry and pair an accompanying mobile phone and its battery lasts easily for three to four days. Also, it can be charged quickly in a couple of hours. The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store for Android users, Apple App Store for iOS users, and http://safemate.mapmyindia.com for web browser users. The product is available for purchase exclusively on Flipkart at Rs 6,990.
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