GetVee Technologies has launched hyper-local interest based discovery and networking platform 'Vee'. Available on Android OS, primarily targeted towards the age group of 18-24 this first of its kind application enables youth to connect with other relevant people on the basis of their specific interest or need.With powerful and precise location-based features, this application offers innovative features such as ‘Conversations’ and ‘Tribes’. These features enable users to connect with each other and expand their social connections as per interests, thereby making their social experience more meaningful, real, personal and multi-dimensional. Conversations enables the user to engage with interesting and relevant discussions around their respective college, office or locality. Tribes enable the users to discover and join specific need based local communities owned and driven by similar minded individuals.Nitin Gupta, CEO & Founder, GetVee Technologies, said “According to a report by ‘we are social’, there are approx 2.078 billion social media accounts globally, now imagine the data that is being created every second, minute, day without us even noticing it. For an average consumer, this growing circle of connections can represent a huge data conundrum. Vee is specifically positioned to address this challenge. Developed to provide a relevant experience and help people connect to what matters to them, Vee helps discover and stay connected to relevant people, discussing relevant and common topics of interest helping form a strong community foundation. Vee aims to provide a platform where individuals can break away from the clutter and chat on a platform where they can find ‘their kind’ through a one-on-one connection.Currently available on Android OS, the application is free for download from Google Play store. The company is planning to launch iOS and Windows versions soon. Vee has grown substantially close to around 500,000 downloads. It gets opened as high as 12 times in a day and more than 40 per cent of the overall monthly active users are active daily. Users spend as much as 12 minutes daily on an average on the app. There have been 500,000 connections, 47 million+ interactions and 6.5 million+ messages exchanged on Vee till date.(BW Online Bureau)
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Laptops are clearly not at par with desktops when it comes to high-end gaming because the hardware limits the capability to churn out enough power. However, most of the gaming laptops today are still great for someone who is looking for a machine that can run all the latest games, but they can cost a fortune.Asus, with its premium gaming line of laptops ‘Republic of Gamers’, has launched its most affordable laptop in the series called the GL552 and it is actually one of the most affordable gaming laptops available in India. The laptop has an all plastic design with a rubber-like matte finish all around and a strip on the lid which feels like brushed aluminum, but is actually plastic. For the ones who like their gaming laptops to be lit up with LED lights, the lid on the laptop comes with the ROG logo which lights up when the laptop is turned on, even the full sized keyboard is backlit. The LED lights under the keyboard can be adjusted with three levels of lighting or can be just turned off in case you don’t need it. The keyboard is comfortable and gives a decent feedback. However, the large touchpad can take some time to get used to as there are no separate left and right buttons, rather the whole touchpad is a single button which frankly speaking is not impressive. The overall construction looks solid, but it is a bit subtle when compared to high-end gaming laptops like the Alienware 14. The laptop has a good looking 15.6-inch matte display with a full HD (1920x1080) resolution which is sharp and offers a good amount of brightness. There are three USB ports, two video out ports (HDMI and VGA), a DVD combo drive, a full sized LAN port, an SD card reader and of course the headphone and mic jacks. For a 15-inch gaming laptop it doesn’t feel very heavy, in fact it feels as big as any good and powerful laptop of the same size. The laptop runs on a 4th generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor with 8GB of RAM (expandable to 16GB). To provide power for games Asus has put in a GTX 950M which is the lowest graphics processor in the latest series from Nvidia. For storage, there is a 1TB standard hard drive, but can be replaced with a SSD as well.The laptop manages to run super-fast and smooth thanks to the high-end hardware. Games run perfectly fine, however the hardware cannot support games on the highest graphics settings, still one can enjoy games on medium on low settings. The laptop also works as a brilliant everyday machine and doesn’t slow down at any point of time. Watching movies is great on the bright display and even the stereo speakers offer a decent amount of volume.The Asus GL552 is value for money product. If you are looking for an entry-level gaming laptop or just a high-end multimedia machine, this is a recommended product. At just above Rs. 70,000 you get the above mentioned features along with a backpack, a pair of gaming headphones and also a gaming mouse as a part of the whole package.
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The industry has responded with a newer class of enetrprise grade messaging entering the market and many industry leaders are beginning to see mobile productivity through the advances of messaging, writes Ram MenonWith almost every employee in an organisation owning a smartphone, the industry is witnessing a major trend where instant messaging apps have a quicker response rate than an email. Business leaders who are embracing the digital route are finding themselves grappling with a new set of demands: learning how to transform business processes around the potential of technology and to address the challenges associated with the evolution of messaging apps in the workplace.According to a recent report by Mary Meeker's Internet Trends 2015 messaging apps are now dominating the industry, with six out of 10 of the most used apps providing messaging services. India being the third-largest Internet market after China and the US, with 232 million users in 2014 is still far behind when it comes to number of Internet users (pegged at 232 million) compared to US and China. However, it was the top country for new user additions at over 63 million users in 2014. There are enough studies to validate why new internet user growth is only going to accelerate from here on.The Gap In EnetrpriseThe enterprise buyer is still wrestling with this change. A new employee portal built at a great expense and rolled out with fanfare stays unused whereas most employee continue to use the consumer message app to communicate instantly with their co-workers. Company emails have a read rate of 1 per cent but a WhatsApp message elicits a response within 90 seconds. This behaviour comes with its own dangers such as complaince, security. A CXO at a bank recently told me he has unearthed over 300 WhatsApp groups exchanging company specific infromation on what is essentially an open messaging network with no verification of identity or complaince with company policy.Instead of clamping down on this as one executive suggested and outlawing consumer messaging on company phones, a business leaders needs to dig deeper. 54 per cent of all emails are replied within 24 hours, 90 per cent of instant messages are replied with 3 minutes. How do we convert this into an effective tool to enhance employee productivity? How do we provide users with a slick messaging interface, which satisfies their needs but at the same time provides the administration, security and compliance?Enterprise Compliance and Security - It's different.Much is made of the current security scenario, or lack of it in consumer messaging apps. However, the enterprise view is broader and more holistic. It goes beyond mere encryption. It needs to include to data retention policies on an export all data into the corporate retention and eDiscovery tool of your choice for compliance. It includes controlling the access, add and delete employees based on time, need, and current employee status, as well as create managed groups to restrict data access.Enterprise Messaging As A Business ToolOn a recent business trip I spent a fair amount of time with a retail company. I was excited with the enthusiasm and commitment to a discussion on omni channel retail, improving Store loyalty, POS information inventory optimization. A few weeks later, I ended up visiting the store and talking to a retail associate who works in women's section of the store and asked her about the technology she uses. The answer: "I use WhatsApp to communicate with other employees for inventory lookup and to talk to my warehouse." This is perhaps indicative to a culture that has moved beyond email, portals, company newsletters and business leaders need to take advantage of this to improve employee productivity.The industry has responded with a newer class of enetrprise grade messaging entering the market and many industry leaders are beginning to see mobile productivity through the advances of messaging. To quote an unnamed BFSI CIO - "Messaging has been already voted by the business user the new enterprise communciations back bonefor instant communication, Our job is deliver on this need with a enetrprise grade platfrom -but make it useful, safe and secure"The author is founder and CEO of Avaamo, enterprise messaging company
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Along with the Moto G 3rd Gen launch, Motorola announced two new versions of the Moto X simultaneously in London and New York on the 28th of July. The two new versions are the Moto X Play and the Moto X Style, both of which offer a similar design but offer vast differences when it comes to features.The Moto X Style is the more premium version while the Moto X Play comes in as the more affordable version. The Moto X Style comes with a 5.7-inch 2K display (2560x1440), is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor with 3GB of RAM, a 21MP camera, 3000mAH battery and will come in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants along with memory expansion options of up to 128GB. The Moto X Play on the other hand has a 5.5-inch full HD display (1920x1080) and features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor octa-core processor with 2GB of RAM. The Play will come in two storage options which include 16GB and 32GB along with a microSD card expansion of upto 128GB. There is also a 21MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, a 5MP front-facing camera and a rather larger 3630mAh battery. Both of the handsets will run on Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box.The official pricing for India as not been confirmed but as far as the international pricing goes, the Moto X Style has been priced at $399 which is about Rs. 26,000 and the Moto X Play for $299 which comes down to about Rs. 19,000. Motorola hasn’t confirmed as to when the two new Moto X smartphones will arrive in India, but the company has confirmed that it should be in the coming few months.
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With an estimated 160 million smartphone users, growing at a CAGR of 26 per cent from 2013 to 2017, India is the fastest growing smartphone market. This boom in the Indian smartphone market, is primarily being propelled by Indians under the age of 25 years, with 63 per cent of users fall in that age bracket, according to Smartphone User Persona Report (SUPR) 2015. The report was released by Vserv, the smart data platform for mobile marketing and commerce. The report findings are based on a study conducted by Nielsen Informate Mobile Insights on usage patterns of Indian smartphone consumers. As per the study, smartphone users spend on average 169 minutes per day on their devices. The persona report segments Indian smartphone users into different user personas and delves into their usage patterns. Six smartphone user personas that emerged are — App Junkies, Social Stars, Conversationalists, Entertainment Buffs, Utilitarians and Dabblers. App Junkies are nearly 25 per cent of the total smartphone users who download 18.5 mobile apps and games every month. Nearly 20 per cent of the smartphone users that spend over 2 hours a day using chat and social networking apps are classified as Social Stars. 15 per cent smartphone users that spend almost an hour each day playing games, listening to music or watching videos on their smartphones are segmented as Entertainment Buffs. Only 10 per cent people use their smartphones infrequently, seldom accessing apps and sites. “Today, it is imperative for marketers to move beyond demographic data and embrace smart data based targeting to stay ahead in the game. Marketers need to formulate their strategies focused on user personas and their intent,” says Pranab Punj, associate vice president, global marketing, Vserv. SUPR is based on an automated usage data collection from over 12,000 smartphone users in India, over a three month period. The study was conducted using innovative smartphone metering technology installed by opt-in panelists on their smartphones.
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Seagate is well known brand when it comes to digital storage and the company offers a variety of storage devices in the market. Be it internal hard drives, high capacity portable drives or super-fast SSD storage, the company has it all. One of their latest products is the slim and sleek portable drive called the Seven.It is one of the world’s slimmest hard drives to date and as the name suggests, it is just 7mm in thickness and weighs just as much as a smartphone at 178gms. It is also as big as a smartphone, but slightly wider, thus it can easily slip into a small pocket in your backpack. The hard drive as a full steel finish with a USB 3.0 port and an LED indicator light. The hard drive is a simple plug and play device which means that it doesn’t require any softwares to be installed. Just plug in the drive and you are ready to go. Inside the metal shell, there is a 500GB hard drive and it is pre-formatted to support Windows and Mac PCs. The hard drive is fast and when plugged on to a USB 3.0 port, it offers speeds around 110MBps and around 25-30MBps when connected to USB 2.0.The hard disk comes loaded with a Seagate Dashboard backup software which helps you get more out of the hard drive and it offers three features: PC backup, Social and Mobile backup. With the PC backup feature, the software allows you to select whatever files and folders you want and then backup is done automatically when there are any changes made to those files. The Social feature lets you share your stored media to social networking websites. The mobile backup lets you store all the data on your smartphone to the hard drive, via the Seagate Mobile Backup app which is available for iOS and Android.The Seven only comes in a 500GB storage option and is priced around Rs.9,500 which is almost Rs. 5,000 higher than a standard 500GB portable hard drive. This is quite a price to ask for since the only added advantage is the sleek and striking design, but if design is one of your top priorities then the Seven is a great product to have.
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Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, on Friday (31 July) announced a direct access to Amazon Web Services (AWS) via GCX’s Cloud X Fusion in Sydney, with the ability to establish additional interconnections across multiple locations and offer enterprise customers fast, flexible access to the cloud. “Secure, private and reliable connectivity to cloud services is always a key concern for enterprises as they embark on their cloud adoption journey,” said Bill Barney, CEO of Global Cloud Xchange. “Using Cloud X Fusion, businesses can take advantage of our enterprise grade connectivity from 90 countries to securely connect their on-premise environments directly into an AWS Direct Connect port over our global infrastructure.” Through GCX’s extensive global network and its comprehensive product portfolio, Cloud X Fusion provides seamless, low latency connectivity across developed and emerging markets in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia, which gives enterprises the security, the reliability and predictability as they connect to the AWS cloud services while tapping into the bandwidth dynamically on a usage-based consumption. Cloud X Fusion is part of GCX’s Cloud X portfolio, a proprietary platform designed to seamlessly combine the speed and power of fiber optics with the agility, flexibility and cost-efficiencies of “pay-as-you-go” cloud computing; available globally and controlled by a simple-to-use user portal.
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Data theft is big business. More than 1.3 billion records have been exposed in the last two years. The threat evolution is faster than ever – we are, on average, discovering more new threats every day than identifying already known malware. Today’s most damaging attacks are Advanced Persistent Threats (APT). Cybercrime is no longer random or about brute force, it’s more subtle - aiming to infiltrate, stay hidden, and extract data without detection. If security controls cannot detect the malware during this period, then it’s a matter of time before you become a statistic. Too many of these breaches occur because of a lack of focus across the spectrum of possible threats or attack vectors. Rapid innovation on the malware front, the exploitation of new zero-day vulnerabilities, and emerging evasion techniques can all render any single approach ineffective. A deeper, more comprehensive approach is needed to counter these increasingly sophisticated attacks. Although covering a broad set of advanced and traditional tools for overall network security, here is a simple framework for combating APTs; Patrick GrilloPrevent – The Known ThreatsLots of malware is already known. The cybercriminal might be highly creative but they exhibit the same human flaw shared by us all: laziness. Last year, nearly a quarter of malware was more than ten years old and almost 90% discovered before 2014. Known threats should be blocked immediately through the use of next-generation firewalls, secure email gateways, endpoint security, and other similar products leveraging highly accurate security technologies. It’s incredible how often network professionals don’t start with the basics. Doing simple things, like keeping security patches up-to-date, and continually testing and re-testing the security of your IT infrastructure, are the building blocks of a strong network. Previously unknown malware and targeted attacks, however, can hide themselves from these measures. Traffic that can’t be swiftly dealt with here gets handed off to the next point of your multi-layered defence… Detect – The UnknownMany new approaches can detect previously unknown threats and create actionable threat intelligence. Sandboxing allows potentially malicious software to be handed off to a sheltered environment so its full behaviour can be directly observed without affecting production networks. Headlines have lauded it as a perfect solution. While a critical component in the overall defensive scheme, don’t be fooled: sandboxing alone is no panacea. We know how attackers respond to new technologies: they figure out how they work, then find ways around them. We already have examples of how the cybercriminal is circumventing sandboxes. That’s why it’s important to stay updated: just as criminals evolve, your system needs to too. Mitigate – Taking ActionThe prevention of threats into the network is the first priority for any security system. But a clear detection and remediation process is key when, not if, they do. Once an intrusion has been validated, users, devices and content should be quarantined, with automated and manual systems in place to ensure the safety of network resources and organisational data. Previously unknown threats should be forwarded and analysed in depth, resulting in updates being fed back to the different services in the network providing every layer with the right mix of up-to-date protection. It’s not one particular technology that’s the key to Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), but the notion of the integration and collaboration between them. ATP relies on multiple types of technologies, products, and research, each with different roles and each working in concert with one another. We can expect to see continued cybercriminal innovation with an even greater focus on deceiving and evading existing solutions. While there is no “silver bullet”, deploying a multi-layered approach with established and emerging technologies, which work together, will help you break the kill chain of Advanced Persistent Threats.The author is, Patrick Grillo, Senior Director, Product Strategy, Fortinet
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