An Android app Lookup, the one-stop destination for all the needs, has tied up with Nite Out, a midnight delivery service in Bangalore, to assist all the insomniacs.Bangalore, a city which is more alive when the clock strikes 11 p.m., can now order anything post 10 p.m. and get it at their doorstep via Nite Out.Bangalore's midnight delivery service that relieves you from those hunger pangs or even a bad headache, Nite out delivers food, beverages, munchies and even ODC (over the counter) medicines, contraceptives and sanitary napkins through the night. Lookup is partnering with Nite Out to keep you from cooking, starving or experience a no-popcorn movie night!All you need to do is download Lookup, search and chat with Nite Out post 10pm, make an order from Sunday 10 p.m. to Thursday 3:30 a.m. (Friday & Saturday Nights: 10 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.) and say adios to the midnight cravings.(BW Online Bureau)
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P Sundarajan, better known as Sundar Pichai (43), was named chief executive officer of the Silicon Valley behemoth on Monday (10 August), as Google unveiled a mega plan to restructure its company and house everything under a new holding company called Alphabet. His appointment makes him the latest Indian to earn a massively high-profile job in the US technology industry. Microsoft's Satya Nadella is the other notable example. Here are 10 notable things to know about Sundar Pichai, the big thinker Google CEO 1) Pichai was born in Chennai, and completed his schooling from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan. He later earned the Bachelors of Technology (BTech) degree in metallurgical engineering from IIT- Kharagpur. After graduating, he went to the United States to study at Stanford University — the alma mater of the Google founders and so many other early Googlers. 2) Before joining Google, Pichai worked for McKinsey & Company in management consulting. He got his start at Google in 2004, building the now defunct Google toolbar. Pichai had already emerged from a management reshuffle late last year as Google’s most powerful engineer below co-founder and chief executive Larry Page. Pichai has been given full control of an internet business whose expected revenues of $74 billion put it on top of the internet world. 3) Subdued and generally quiet, Pichai is admired at Google not just for his obvious engineering talents but also his general likability. Pichai is popular for having led product management and innovation of Google’s client software products such as Google Chrome and Chrome OS. He is believed to be the man responsible for driving Google’s Chrome OS and browser forward. 4) When he introduced Chrome to the world in 2008, the world reacted with puzzlement: How could it compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox? Yet Chrome eventually became the world's most used Web browser. Chrome even became a successful operating system for Chromebook laptops, used mostly by schools, according to a report in CNN Money. 5) As CEO of Google, he gets one more feather in his cap and adds a few more products to his now giant empire — search, ads, maps, apps, Android, Chrome and YouTube will now all be under his purview. YouTube will continue to be managed day to day by Susan Wojcicki, the long-time executive whose garage was where Google’s founders set up shop. 6) Pichai’s emergence as head of Google’s internet businesses follows a series of high-level departures which have reshaped management of the operation. They have included the resignation of Nikesh Arora, the company’s top business executive, who left to become number two at Japanese internet investment company SoftBank. 7) Pichai is believed to be the man responsible for keeping smooth ties with partners like Samsung. He recently also launched the Android One initiative in India by teaming up with local manufacturers like Micromax, Spice and Karbonn. 8) According to a profile in Bloomberg Businessweek, Pichai's upbringing was humble. His family lived in a two room apartment. Pichai didn't have a room -- he slept on the living room floor, as did his younger brother. The family didn't own a television, or a car. But Pichai's father planted the seeds of technology into his boy's mind, partly thanks to his job at British conglomerate General Electric Company. 9) According to a report in The New York Times, during his rise at Google, Pichai had suitors. In 2011, Twitter tried to lure Pichai over to run the company’s consumer product division, according to two people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because the talks were not made public. And last year, Pichai was rumored to be in the running to replace Steven Ballmer as chief executive of Microsoft. 10) In a letter to investors on 10 August, Google co-founder Lary Page said he feels “very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations...I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation—continuing to stretch boundaries...”.
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A low-key style and an unusually firm handle on diplomacy propelled new Google chief executive Sundar Pichai to the top of the search engine giant, former colleagues said, cementing his successes such as creating the Chrome browser. As part of a major overhaul of its operating structure, Google said on Monday it was creating a new holding company called Alphabet. Google co-founder Larry Page will step down as Google's chief and Pichai was appointed as head of a "slimmed-down" version of the company. Pichai joined Google just before its 2004 initial public offering and several colleagues who worked with him in the years following said he never seemed annointed for the top job. Instead names that came up as potential future Google chiefs included longtime product executives Salar Kamangar, Merissa Mayer and Susan Wojcicki. Back then, he was one of a small group of product managers, but his responsibilities escalated from working on new versions of the Google tool bar to overseeing the building of Chrome. Chrome's rise since its 2008 launch to become the world's dominant browser made Pichai's reputation, and he started overseeing apps like Gmail. He later became head of Android, Google's mobile-phone operating system. Pichai aided his ascent by never trying to steal the limelight and advancing his agenda through quiet advocacy, according to former colleague Keval Desai. "He's a very very strong opinionated person who has clear point of views about where product and initiative might go, but he's very good at letting other peoples' opinions emerge before he gives his own," Desai, now an investor, told Reuters. As time went on, Kamangar was replaced as head of the company's YouTube division last year by Wojcicki. Mayer left in 2012 to run technology company Yahoo . Tony Zingale, the executive chairman of Jive Software, said Pichai was "incredibly insightful and direct", acting as "the quiet yet thoughtful outside director" when he served on the board of the collaboration software maker for several years until July 2013. Pichai excels at managing relationships, wrote longtime Google product manager Chris Beckmann in a post last year on the question-site Quora. "Google has politics like any other large company, and Sundar navigated those politics to make his team successful while inflicting the least possible damage on any other team," Beckmann wrote. Such diplomacy could come in handy as Pichai continues to oversee some big challenges for Google, including navigating an often difficult relationship with partners like South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the top Android smartphone maker. He must also contend with Apple Inc, which has made bigger inroads with its music services and in wearable devices. Wall Street appeared to recognize Pichai's talents, with the stock heading up as much as 7 percent in after-hours trading. "He's a very capable operator, and he has a lot of buy-in from the business side as well as from the engineering side," said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer. A soccer fan who hails from Tamil Nadu state in southern India, Pichai holds a master's degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. (Reuters)
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India-born Sundar Pichai will be the new CEO of Google under a major restructuring at the technology giant, as co-founder Larry Page lauded the IIT alumnus' "progress and dedication" and said it is "time" for him to take over the company's reins. In a surprise and significant re-organisation, Page announced the formation of a new parent company Alphabet Inc which will replace Google as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet, which will have Page as CEO and co-founder Sergey Brin as President. The move appeared to be an attempt by the search engine giant to focus on its more creative and ambitious projects, while investors cheered the potential for more financial disclosures of its disparate business segments. "It suggests that in all likelihood, Google is not going to slow the pace of their experimental processes like self-driving cars," said Michael Yoshikami, head of Destination Wealth Management. The surprise news sent shares of Google up as much as 7 percent to $708 in after hours trading. The new structure could also give Wall Street better insight into Google's investment in moonshot projects like Google X, a secretive lab that produced the unpopular Google Glass wearable device. Pichai, 43, who was previously in-charge of product and engineering for Google?s Internet businesses, will be the CEO of the "slightly slimmed down" Google. He received a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and holds an M.S. in Engineering and Materials Science from Stanford University and an MBA from the Wharton School. He had joined Google in 2004 as its vice president of product management, where he led the team working on Google's Chrome browser and operating system. Page lauded Pichai for his work at the company and said he feels "very fortunate" to have someone as "talented" as Pichai to "run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations". "This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai," Page said. Waxing eloquent about Pichai, Page said, "Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I've been tremendously enjoying our work together." "He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our Internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google," Page said. Pichai joins a gradually growing list of Indian-origin technology and business executives working their way up to head multi-billion dollar worth American giants. In February last year, Satya Nadella was named Microsoft CEO, becoming the tech giant's only third chief executive after Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates in its 40-year history. PepsiCo's CEO is also India-born Indra Nooyi and MasterCard is headed by Ajay Banga. Last year, New Delhi-born Rajeev Suri was made CEO of phone company Nokia. Anshu Jain was till recently the co-CEO of Deutsche Bank. (Agencies)
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China's Xiaomi Inc has joined forces with Taiwan-based tech giant Foxconn to start assembling phones in India, seeking to cut costs and grab a bigger slice of the world's third-largest smartphone market. The factory, in Andhra Pradesh, is a fillip for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has championed a campaign to turn India into a manufacturing powerhouse to boost economic growth and create much-needed employment. India is the world's fastest growing smartphone market, but so far a lack of good suppliers and infrastructure have hampered efforts to manufacture phones in the country, forcing most of India's more than 100 different phone companies to import from China and Taiwan. From Monday, the south Indian assembly line will roll out Xiaomi's first locally made smartphone, the Redmi2 Prime, an India-specific upgrade to its best-selling Redmi2 budget smartphone. It will be sold at Rs 6,999 ($109.58), company executives said. Neither Xiaomi nor contract electronics maker Foxconn disclosed the size of their investment or future production capacity. The Indian market, which Xiaomi entered in July 2014, has fast become its second-largest, as the company's low-priced phones find favour with young and cost-conscious customers. In the April-June quarter, Xiaomi ranked seventh in terms of smartphone shipments in India — a segment that is dominated by Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and India's Micromax Informatics Ltd, according to Counterpoint Research. Manu Jain, Xiaomi's India head, said that apart from bringing tax benefits, the new facility would help the company better manage inventory and reduce lead times from three to four weeks to under two weeks. "Over time, most Xiaomi phones sold in India will be made in India," Jain said, though that could take some time given the lack of development of the local supply chain. Xiaomi, battling slowing sales in China, is betting on emerging markets such as India and Brazil, where it began manufacturing in late June, to fuel growth. The number of smartphone users in India stood at around 140 million in 2014. It is expected to reach 651 million by 2019, according to a study by Cisco. The assembly line marks a return to India for Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. The world's largest contract electronics manufacturer was forced to shut up shop in Asia's third-largest economy last year after client Nokia stopped making phones at its plant. As individual Indian states increasingly vie for investment, Monday's opening is also a victory for Andhra Pradesh and its charismatic leader N. Chandrababu Naidu, who oversaw the development of tech hub Hyderabad, now in a different state. Foxconn, a key supplier to Apple Inc, has been among the firms making the most of Indian states' newfound competitive streak. It signed a $5 billion investment deal with the western state of Maharashtra on Saturday.(Reuters)
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‘Make in India’ is certainly catching on as a number of device makers have already committed to the program. Big names like Samsung, Sony, Lenovo and Motorola have shown their interest and have already started or are planning to locally manufacture products in the country. The newest name to hop on the boat is the Chinese device maker Xiaomi as the company today announced its first manufacturing unit in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The company has partnered with Foxconn which has already started producing the Redmi 2 Prime, which will be the first handset to come out of this new unit and will also be Xiaomi’s first ‘Made in India’ smartphone.“Redmi 2 Prime is the first smartphone from Xiaomi to be assembled in our facility in Sri City. We would like to thank Andhra Pradesh government for helping us to start local manufacturing within just six months. Initial talks started in February and today we have already started to sell the Redmi 2 Prime,” said Xiaomi Global Vice President, Hugo Barra.Xiaomi will be initially importing components from China and will be assembling smartphones at the new facility but plans to completely produce the handsets locally. The new facility in Andhra Pradesh is Xiaomi’s second production unit, apart from Brazil, which will be based out of China.The Redmi 2 Prime will look at exactly like the Redmi 2 but will have double the memory and storage. The smartphone will feature a Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a 4.7-inch 720p HD IPS display, Android 4.4.4 KitKat with MIUI 6, an 8MP rear camera, a 2MP front camera a 2,200 mAh battery and dual 4G SIM card slots. The smartphone is priced at Rs. 6,999 and surprisingly will be available without any flash sales on Flipkart as well as the Mi store from today. The smartphone will also hit retail stores in the coming months as Xiaomi wants to increase its outreach.
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If you remember last year, Google announced Android One with an aim to provide low costing Android smartphones starting at $100 (Rs. 6,500) with the latest and quickest updates. The response didn’t turn out to be any good as Google failed to provide timely updates to the first similar looking lot of smartphones from Karbonn, Micromax and Spice. Apart from that, the devices were also disappointing as soon after the launch, better and much powerful smartphones flooded the market at a similar or lower price range. Google recently managed to launch a slightly better featured smartphone under the programme made by Lava last month, but the chances of that smartphone being successful are certainly low.To cover up the mistakes, the company is getting ready to reboot the program and is expected to cut down its goal to provide smartphones from as low as Rs. 3,200. According to Rajan Anandan, Managing Director, India and Southeast Asia, “Google is very committed to the program and agrees to the fact that Android One did not deliver to expectations as there were supply chain issues and it is like any company when you try to launch a new initiative, there are certain hiccups in the process. The company wants to target a much lower price to assure mass adoption of these device. In the comping years, Google will be bringing in high-quality, affordable devices ranging from Rs. 3000 to Rs. 6000. “Under the Android One program, the company provides hardware standards to smartphone makers and also gives them software support which includes stock Android OS just like on its Nexus devices. Yes, a low price helps but even if consumers do manage to buy high-quality smartphones at a lower price, there are some concerns for such devices to be successful, one of which is internet access. There are still a number of regions in the country that are struggling to gain access to fast and stable internet. This kills the whole idea of getting a smartphone to stay connected. Google plans to tackle this by developing products that are suitable for slower connections. Another concern is language, where Google has said that it will be increasing localized content for the country.Android One is definitely a very important initiative from Google to provide a true smartphone experience to consumers in tier-three markets, especially to someone who wants to buy his or her first ever smartphone. If done right, this could serve to millions of users globally especially in the tier-three markets.
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Digital platforms for parenting help to track activities of their child and safeguard them from malicious channels, writes Saurabh ThakurParenting is an obligatory commitment for many in our society, pressures of which seem to be daunting for many young parents who have a juggle a regular nine to six job with attending to their little ones who, after a long day at kindergarten and the day care need much attention, evaluation on their day's learning and activities and recreation apart from love and affection. This is increasingly becoming unaffordable for many for want of time in the parents' lives. Digital parenting, hence is the call of the times which is emerging as a necessity in today's world full of pace and desire to raise kids the enriching and nourishing way.The evolution of digital productivity tools and platforms can help the new-age mothers and fathers to manage their lives around the demands of their little kids. These digital tools can facilitate tracking of the kids' progress, problem areas, their learning and exploring new avenues within learning and also serve as meeting places with other parents and also counselors who can help guide them on the course- with a simple application installed on their mobile phones. With tools such as these, in the complete hold of a parent's hand, like a mobile phone, new-age digital parenting can be a boon for the modern day parents to comply efficiently with responsibilities of raising young ones with their hectic lifestyles.It can be argued that digital information could be inadequate to meet the solutions for the complications faced by parents, but with the advent of advanced and more evolved platforms like- Kidss app, the users can avail the modern technology without worrying about its side effects that concern kids' usage of the phone beyond what is advised and permitted as per guidelines by the experts and the concerns about security within the internet/digital universe. Infact, digital devices and technology can help build a better relationship between the kids and their parents and a better, more connected community of people with similar goals of raising kids in a busy world since technology is growing to be relavant for young kids as well, these days.Internet is both a boon and a bane for children. Digital platforms for parenting also help to track activities of their child and safeguard them from malicious channels. As unrestricted access to internet can affect a child largely, precaution for their safety is an obligation for parents. Only technology would aid to solve problems that are created by technology itself.Since kids are anyway going to spend time on smartphones, it is natural to wonder if that could be made fruitful for all who are involved by crafting measurable learning experiences from mobile moments of exploration. This serves twin purpose: 1. Bridges the gap between the kids and their busy parents who are struggling to keep pace with the challenging demands of parenting, and, 2. Makes kids learn new things that aid in their school learning in a more effective way without compromising on the pressures of time involved in entertainment or safety and security.The author is founder of Kidss, a digital-age parenting app
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