How crowdfunding can help you fulfil your dreams

Once upon a time, dads were large hearted. They would merrily invest in their children's dream projects, without any fear of losing out on the money. It didn't really matter if the venture bombed or flourished.

Sadly, times have changed. Dads have become smarter (cautious would be a better word) these days; they will not invest a penny without scrutinizing the idea left, right and centre. Blame it on the recession! Why just dads, everyone is judicious about investments nowadays. To fund a project is tougher than belling a cat, though not completely impossible. Here's an alternative that will fuel all your dreams... sane ones only.

Crowdfunding

That's where all the money lies. In short, it entails the art of raising small funds (mostly a few lakhs) over a small period of time (30 days or so) from multiple investors. If you want to cut an album, launch a neighbourhood radio station or make a film, instead of begging, borrowing or stealing, visit a crowdfunding website (Catapooolt, Wishberry, Milaap and Igniteanintent etc), showcase your project and let the money flow in.

The best part is, the commercial viability isn't very crucial, the idea is. People have got their racing viability isn't very crucial, the idea is. People have got their racing cars, political campaigns, Instagram photo printing platforms, books and disaster relief initiatives financed through crowdfunding.

Anshulika Dubey, co-founder of Wishberry.in, says, "It's very important that the project is pitched well. If not, people won't pay. With a success rate of 60%, we have raised Rs 3 crore for 600 projects from 8,000 funders globally!"

The investors

Broadly, there are three categories of crowdfunding. The biggest chunk is of rewards-based funding, where contributors get tangible or experiential rewards from the projects. No other financial returns are involved.

Then there is peer-to-peer lending, wherein contributors loan to a cause and get their money back with some interest. Lastly, there is equity-based funding, where investors actually come in and get equity in the startups/projects they put their money on.

In the beginning, there may be very little or nothing for the investor. At the most, a thank you note, a mention on the crowdsourcing platform, a free pass to the premiere of the movie or a few prints at discounted rates from the photo printing platform. The contributors don't really expect anything in return because people invest in ideas they believe in, or it's friends or relatives who raise funds.

Satish Kataria, founder of Catapooolt, says, "Thirty per cent of people crowdfund projects of someone they already know or "trust (person cause) and another 20-25% lend money because the completion of the project is a sort of fulfillment of their own dreams."

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has recently proposed a crowdfunding framework for India in a consultation paper recently. "Right now, 50% of the market share belongs to rewards-based crowdfunding but if Sebi's guidelines come into force, it will majorly based funds," adds Dubey.

Facebook friends can pay too

You can ask for crowdfunding even if you do not know how much money you need for an ongoing project.

Delhi-based filmmaker Pawan KY Shrivastava crowdfunded his film Naya Pata through his Facebook page. "I sent emails to my 500 contacts, with a synopsis of the film and asked them to contribute anywhere between Rs 5,000 and Rs 35,000. I raised close to Rs 8 lakh from 350 people!"

A bigger success story is that of 29-year-old IAS officer Armstrong Pame, who built a 100-km motorable road in 2013 to connect a remotely located n village, Tousem, with the rest of Manipur and with neighbouring states Assam and Nagaland. The entire money (Rs 40 lakh) for this road, popularly known as People's Road, was raised online.

The catch

Time consuming. Needs intense planning in limited amount of time. Before you approach a platform on which your a project will be published, you must have something substantial to prove your commitment. The websites first run a background check and scrutinize the idea. As an investor, you need to evaluate the progress a client has already done towards the goal. So, if it's a charger he has built, a prototype has to be shown.

Crowdfunding time machine

The Statue of a Liberty was crowdfunded by the French and Americans. Those who contributed got a model of the statue.

Shyam Benegal's Manthan (1978) was one of the world's first crowdfunded movies, for which more than 5,00,000 members of the Gujarat Milk Cooperatives gave Rs 2 per head.

The modern crowdfunding phenomenon started in 1997, when a British rock band Marillion crowdfunded their reunion tour to the US online.

Writer-director Mark Tapio Kines's feature film Foreign Correspondents released in 1999 was crowdfunded for $1,25,000 by 25 online donors.

ArtistShare became the first dedicated crowdfunding platform in 2003.

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Now, computers are turning authors

Computers are writing novels and getting better at it. It probably won't help your 'robots are stealing our jobs' fear. And it casts doubt on the idea that creative professions are safer than the administrative or processing professions.

Right now, in a play on a human literary contest, around a hundred people are writing computer programs that will write texts for them, The Verge says. It's a response to November's National Novel Writing Month, an annual challenge that gets people to finish a 50,000-word book on a deadline.

The Verge explains the futuristic version was started by developer and artist Darius Kazemi, who encouraged creations made entirely by code. These computerized novels are becoming more sophisticated.

Computer fiction

One of the first computer-generated works of fiction was printed in 2008. The St Petersburg Times reported at the time that True Love, published by the Russia's SPb publishing company, was the work of a computer program and a team of IT specialists. The paper says the 320-page novel is a variation of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but worded in the style of a Japanese author called Haruki Murakami. It hit Russian bookstores in the same year.

Two years ago the BBC noted that Professor Philip Parker at the Insead Business School created software capable of generating more than 200,000 books. They cover topics like the amount of fat in fromage frais; there's even a Romanian crossword guide.

But the research, ultimately, was designed to help the publishing process and looks at the likes of corrections and composition. The books simply compile existing information and create new predictions using formulas. Still, they led to Professor Parker experimenting with software that might one day actually automate fiction.

Do you buy AI books?

Alan Turing, currently a hot topic due to the new Benedict Cumberbatch film of his life, asked in 1950, "can machines think?" It's his test that is the real basis for determining whether AI has reached new bounds — the point where computers might actually take over.

He looked at literature specifically. Turing's literary test for computer generated fiction is this—

Soft test: Human readers can't tell it's not human generated.

Hard test: Human readers not only can't tell it's not human generated, but they will actually purchase it.

As Future Perfect Publishing remarks though, neither of Turing's have yet been wholly passed. It points out that, while AI is evolving, it's not quite ready to perform "linguistic processing capability"; definitely not without human coding and drawing on established text to mash text together into new algorithms or sequences.

However, when you read something like Irritant by Darby Larson, it highlights the fact that things are moving forward.

Larson's project, reports Vice, "takes the utilization of computer-generated speech to the next level."

It consists of a 624-page paragraph and is made of sentences that "morph and mangle" together. While it's not yet a fully-formed piece of fiction, it edges closer to the necessary creative aspect of producing an interesting work of literary art.

Breakout novel of 2013

Indeed, 2013 was a big year for AI novels. The Verge reports Nick Montfort's World Clock was "the breakout hit of last year". He's a professor of digital media at MIT, and used lines of a code to arrange characters, locations, and actions to construct his work. It was printed by Havard Books.

Here's the opening from Montfort's website preview— It's not bad, but it's unlikely anyone would go out and buy the book for literary appreciation over curiosity.

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'70% of e-commerce sales to soon come via smartphones'

MUMBAI: Shopping online through smartphones is expected to be a game changer shortly and industry experts believe that m-commerce would contribute up to 70% of their total revenues.

"In India, the mobile internet traffic now outweighs personal computer traffic. With increasing penetration of smartphones, India is all set to be a massive market for m-commerce. The marketing strategies for e-commerce companies will increasingly be tailored to suit the rising adoption of smartphones, social media and improving customer experience across touch points and platforms," Amazon India vice president and country manager Amit Agarwal said.

He said that more than 40% of their traffic comes from mobile devices.

Mobile internet users in India are estimated to be 120 million compared to 100 million users logging online on their personal computers.

"Close to 60% of our orders are coming over mobile now. It is growing really fast. We get more traffic on the mobile than we get on personal computers. Within the next 12 months over 75% of our orders will be on mobile," Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl said.

Fashion portal retailer Myntra.com expects close to 70% of revenue coming through mobiles this fiscal.

"Myntra.com has witnessed phenomenal activity on the m-commerce front, with smartphones gaining prominence as the preferred mode to access and shop for fashion brands in the country.

"Currently, close to 50% of our business is driven by m-commerce and with the launch of our Mobile App across all platforms (Android, iOS and Windows), we expect this figure to grow to 70% by end of this fiscal," Myntra chief product and technology officer Shamik Sharma said.

M-commerce is estimated to be 30% of the $3 billion e-tailing industry and is likely to grow to nearly 40% of the industry that is expected to be $32 billion by 2020, according to Technopak senior vice president, retail and consumer products, Ankur Bisen.

Flipkart senior director of marketing, Mausam Bhatt said e-commerce industry is gradually progressing to be a m-commerce industry.

"I think the way e-commerce industry is evolving it is becoming more of a mobile-commerce industry. If you look at Flipkart a year ago, less than 10% of our orders, transactions and visits used to come from mobile commerce. Now those numbers are greater than 50% for us. It is accelerating at a very rapid pace. We are seeing more than 2 times or 3 times growth from the mobile front compared to desktop, where Flipkart is growing overall but mobile is growing at a much faster pace," he said.

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Game review: Far Cry 4

Far Cry 3 marked a big jump forward in the series and it's understandable that Ubisoft does not want to stray away from that formula, which is to take the player to paradise, a veritable heaven on earth — and then unleash hell in the form of a madman with his own small army. In Far Cry 4, you get more of the same mayhem you loved in Far Cry 3, but instead of the sunny blue waters, you now have the cold blue mountains. Did we mention, this game is set in India?

Story and world

Welcome to Kyrat, a beautiful little country nestled deep in the Himalayas. Don't fall off your chair yet, adding Kyrat to your summer travel itinerary. Firstly, it's fictitious; secondly, it's run by a megalomaniac despot Pagan Min.

You play Ajay Ghale, a NRI who has returned to India on the final wishes of his mother to scatter her ashes. Things go horribly wrong for him as he has a pretty scary face-off with Pagan Min. Luck's on his side though, as he is rescued by the rebel group, called Golden Path, in a very cool car chase sequence with some cheesy Bollywood music playing on the car radio, as Pagan Min's men are trying to blow him to kingdom come. As they say, right out of the frying pan and off the mountainside.

The story for most part is okay, with a signature ham attached to it. Just a device meant to acclimatize you to Kyrat, to make you hate the bad guy and to introduce you to all manner of characters. From brave Golden Path members to mad hatters all strewn about the place — all of whom have one purpose in the world: to keep you on a steady supply of missions and things to do and blow up. The interesting part is watching Ghale's background unfold as he finds out the truth about his parents. There's no NRI coming back to India love story unfolding in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge style here — just visceral first person shooting action from beginning to end.

As an Indian playing Far Cry 4, there's a lot to connect with the game and the world of Kyrat, which feels part rooted in north and northeast India as well as parts of Tibet and Nepal as inspiration points. What's interesting is the art style, which employs colorful Indian rangoli art, combined with minimal typography. Little touches like loading screens have "Ek Minute" in Hindi, and many of the conversations or threats are in Hindi too.

You will notice the choicest Hindi profanities thrown in parts. All in all, Far Cry 4 is like being home. Of course, Kyrat is not without it's tropes, meant to make the world more palpable for western audiences. Like monkey heads, lots of elephants, incense and other elements, which mostly brings Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to mind.

One thing is for certain though. Pagan Min is a refreshingly mad villian, who should make it into your villains hall of fame scrapbook. Highly entertaining.

Gameplay

Far Cry 4 is a sandbox shooter, which means you can explore the country of Kyrat from edge to edge. Which you can set about doing either on foot or in one of the vehicles, including killer rickshaws and in some cases on the backs of the local fauna. There's even a whimsical gyrocopter. Driving in Far Cry 4's mountain roads are as tricky as driving in North India, so if getting behind the wheel lets you see the game over screen so often, the game has included a helpful autodrive option so that you can enjoy the scenery or shoot enemies without distraction.

If you play through the game's straightforward campaign, Far Cry 4 will get over pretty fast. However, Kyrat throws in a lot of distractions. Taking over the various enemy outposts is a lot of fun and you can do this either in stealth or with carefully planned mayhem using assortments of guns and gadgets at your disposal. Full guerilla tactics. In addition to that there's a wealth of side missions for you to complete, including a weird Shangri La like hallucination mission.

Being an action game and all, there's lots and lots of guns. You can either go silent tribal style bow and arrow, or fill up your arsenal with some of the home made, souped up guns of the region. Not to mention the sheer destructive power of the elephant. You level up roleplaying game style and you earn money, which in turn buys you a lot more implements of destruction.

For those who have played Far Cry 3, you know the drill. It's more of the same, though Ubisoft has tightened the gameplay and experience. Though you will not get bored, after the Himalayan odyssey feeling wears off, you're just left with a feeling of deja vu.

Graphics

In this department Far Cry 4 will make your collective jaws drop. Ubisoft has just created a stunning, beautiful Eden that borders on the mythical. If there was a heaven, it would look like Kyrat, minus the mad despot of course. There are times where you will stop to just admire the vistas, or auto-drive just to idly look at the great mountains whiz by like giants. With mists hugging the distant peaks and sunrays shining down, the grass gently sways in the wind.

While the game does look decent on older generation consoles, everything truly shines on the next-generation consoles, but it is the PC version that takes the cake, especially if you have an Nvidia card for which the game has special settings. Be wary though, like most of the releases this gaming season, Far Cry 4 does have a few bugs, which no doubt Ubisoft is hard at work fixing.

Worth a mention are the stunning character models, which are some of the best we have seen. Just take a look at the picture below of Amita, a Golden Path warrior and judge for yourself. Kyrat sure has some beautiful people. Even Pagan Min has a certain whimsical charm about him.

Note: Far Cry 4 has a deep muliplayer and co-op system, something we were not able to test. So this is primarily a review of the games single player. You can, however, play through this campaign with a few friends in co-op.

Conclusion
Far Cry 4 is a fantastic game, especially if you're new to the series. With it's razor sharp signature style, beautiful open world filled with things to do and lots of mayhem to take part in, this game is one you will be savouring for a long time. Highly recommended.

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Understanding call drops and how to reduce them

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Apple readying Bluetooth version of Beats Solo2 headphones

Beats released a pair of headphones, named Beats Solo2, just as Apple was buying the company earlier this year, and now a follow-up appears to be in the works.

But while there's been a lot of speculation over the various ways Apple might change what Beats is about, a just-uncovered FCC filing suggests the iPhone 6 maker actually won't change much at all.

The FCC documents show a Bluetooth-enabled version of the Beats Solo2 released earlier this year.

But other than the addition of wireless capabilities, these headphones don't seem much altered from the earlier, wired Solo2.

Lightning doesn't strike
There's also been some speculation on whether future Beats headphones will adopt Apple's Lightning tech, but for now these appear to be sticking with microUSB so they can remain open-platform.

That may still change in the future, or Apple might even come out with iOS-exclusive variants on otherwise multi-platform headphones, thereby trying to please everyone.

Either way, while this new headset may carry Apple's branding, it appears the new Beats Solo2 will still definitely have the Beats DNA.

There's no clue as to when these will come out, so keep an eye out for announcements from Apple while we do the same.

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Windows 10 features that will make your PC safer

Every new Microsoft operating system release is both a cause for celebration and a cause for serious consternation and concern among IT folks. New features tend to resolve persistent problems and make things a little easier for end-users. We already know the new Start menu is going to make workers more productive, and there will be a clearer divide between desktop and touch users (the OS will know which one you are using).

Thankfully, in terms of security, there's always a few new features to protect not only employees from would-be hackers but to protect the company from a data breach. Still, there's always a possibility that the new OS will provide new attack vectors, especially related to phishing and viruses, that are as yet unknown.

With Windows 10, it's clear Microsoft wants to bolster security without opening up any new holes. For the most part, after testing the preview build, it's clear most of the changes are related to usability and solving that Start menu issue for end-users. The tech giant is not trying to reinvent the wheel again with a dramatically new UI, which is good news for security pros.

Fewer weak points
Brenden Vaughan, a threat research manager at Webroot, says it's a big step in reducing security threats. "With the release of Windows 10, Microsoft is introducing a number of security improvements that should make the world of computing a significantly safer place. All things considered, the security improvements Microsoft is making for Windows 10 sound very promising. Much of it still relies on IT admins and end-users to use the tools at their disposal correctly, but Windows 10 should provide hackers fewer weaknesses to exploit."

In examining the features in the preview build for Windows 10 and the early Microsoft reports about features, the experts agree that the security upgrades look like a major win for those who worry about data breaches. Here are the top new enhancements to ward off hackers.

1. Multi-factor authentication
We already know that Microsoft will add new methods of authentication. IT analyst Charles King says the most important change is that the user will have a few flexible and workable options. For example, if you use a Windows Phone smartphone, you can enable a feature that requires the device to be connected over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in order to gain access. (This feature has already been available on HP laptops for some time, but now it's baked into the OS).

King says the other options include the requirement to have a biometric device such as a fingerprint reader used as a second authentication in addition to a password. As we've already seen with enhancements to Mac and iOS devices, having a second form of authentication can radically change how easy or hard it is to break into a device. Having these features baked into the OS means it will be easier to deploy and manage them.

2. Separation of corporate and personal data
We've seen this trend already on smartphones like the BlackBerry Bold and the Samsung Galaxy S5 where corporate data is locked down and encrypted in a separate portal from all personal apps and data. King says this will be a feature in Windows 10 and will occur "on the fly" without the end-user even knowing (or understanding) what is happening.

"All apps, data, email, website content, etc. defined as 'corporate' will be automatically encrypted without user intervention. Windows Phone will support the same technology so that protected documents can be accessed via the phone," says King.

3. Trusted apps
Ask any IT pro about a typical cause for headaches when it comes to end-user computers and you'll likely get an earful about unauthorised end-user apps. Employees sometimes browse to unknown sites and see a prompt to install an application that looks helpful, or purposefully try to install their own app that's not approved for enterprise use. Then the problems start.

Fortunately, Microsoft is taking action on this security issue as well. Trusted apps will be those that are approved by IT to run and must be authenticated first.
"Microsoft also hopes to make it easier for users to stay free of malware with Windows 10 by providing the ability to lock down devices, allowing only trusted applications to be installed and executed," King says. "These trusted applications must be signed by a Microsoft authorized signing service and organizations will have total flexibility to decide which applications they deem trustworthy."

Derek Tumulak, the vice president of product management at Vormetric, notes that the operating system is making a reach beyond OS functions, logins/authentication, and user access control into a fuller security infrastructure platform that addresses the reason security threats arise in large companies.

"Extending the capabilities to 'lock down' the software set used on PCs and mobile devices by prohibiting installations of software that aren't specifically authorised is something that would really have helped prevent the many recent retail POS breaches on those dedicated machines," Tumulak says, referring to recent data breaches at companies like Target.

More in the pipeline
In the end, adding these improvements should help admins and executives at large companies that need to manage a complex IT infrastructure and maintain security. "These are all features that should help businesses attain better security by gaining greater control over the company endpoints used by employees," King observes. "With the escalation of cybercriminal activities against corporations, businesses need to be more proactive in the ways they protect themselves. These initial Windows 10 security options should help them do just that but I expect we'll see additional features as Windows 10 continues to evolve."

Of course, only time will tell if the new OS, set to debut next year, lives up to these claims of enhanced security, and if data breaches start occurring less frequently for end-users.

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Vodafone sends wrong bills to 1.5 lakh users in Delhi

NEW DELHI: As many as 1.5 lakh of Vodafone India's customers in Delhi were charged wrong amounts in October owing to technical errors, with the problem further accentuated after the country's second largest telecom operator followed up with text messages to its subscribers quoting the erroneous figures.

The company had under-invoiced some of its subscribers in the Delhi circle, which led to the users paying less than their actual amounts. However, even after Vodafone's customer care staffers said the system had been rectified, the subscribers continued to receive messages with the erroneous amounts and would be greeted with a voice message reminding them of "outstanding dues" each time their tried to make a call.

"Due to a technical fault, some of our customers in Delhi circle were charged for lesser number of days than the 30-day billing cycle typically followed.The fault was identified and corrected immediately. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused due to this," a Vodafone spokesperson said in response to an ET query.

Vodafone subscribers said they faced glitches in the service even after paying the amount billed to them and sent through an SMS.

"I had problems making calls. The pre-recorded message kept saying I hadn't paid my bill which was irritating and embarrassing as well," said a subscriber, who did not wish to be identified. When she checked with the customer care, she was told that she had a certain outstanding amount that had to be paid.

"They refused to admit that there had been a problem at their end and kept telling me until I repeatedly called the customer care and asked them for details," she added.

Vodafone, with 9.3 million users at August end, has been striving to close the gap with market leader Bharti Airtel — with 10.6 million subscribers — in the lucrative Delhi circle, but such service issues may prove a damper, say experts.

More so as Idea Cellular, India's third largest telecom operator, is close to starting its 3G services in the national capital, which will intensify competition for netting users, mainly users of data.

"Quality of service, including call centre responses, today plays a huge role in customer retention, especially when MNP (mobile number portability) is a big play," said a Mumbai-based analyst at a foreign brokerage, requesting anonymity.

MNP allows subscribers to change operators while retaining their numbers.

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Irish minister expects EU case against Apple to fail

DUBLIN: Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said on Friday that a European Commission case against Ireland over tax breaks given to Apple is likely to fail.

The European Commission said in June it was making in-depth inquiries into tax arrangements reached by Ireland with Apple to see whether they represented unfair state aid.

"My legal advice is that the Irish authorities will win the case quite easily and that there isn't a very strong case by the Commission," Noonan told journalists after a meeting in Brussels. His comments were broadcast on RTE.

"It's more likely that investigation will be dropped rather than there being further investigations," he said.

A US Senate committee investigation revealed last year that Apple had cut billions from its tax bill by declaring companies registered in the Irish city of Cork as not tax resident in any country.

Apple has denied receiving any selective tax treatment from the Irish authorities.

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Twitter gets tool that lets women report harassment

NEW YORK: The microblogging site has launched a tool that will allow women to report abuse and harassment on Twitter and get the issue resolved within 24 hours.

Developed with the help a non-profit organisation known as Women, Action and Media (WAM), the tool ia another weapon in Twitter's fight against online trolls and bullies.

WAM will monitor incoming reports and bring them to Twitter, as well as track Twitter's responses to help the company improve its policies around harassment, Wired.com reported.

"We are using this pilot project to learn about what kind of gender harassment is happening on Twitter, how that harassment intersects with other kinds of harassment (racist, transphobic etc) and what types of cases Twitter is prepared (and less prepared) to respond to," a post on WAM website read.

"We are not Twitter and we cannot make decisions for them. We are going to do our best to advocate for you with them, though," the post added.

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Brokerages wake up to e-commerce boom

As the Indian e-commerce story begins to play out and the hunt is on to find India's next Alibaba, brokerage houses are quickly doing a mid-course correction and rushing to cover e-commerce stocks such as Just Dial and Info Edge.
Foreign brokerages such as Goldman Sachs, CLSA, Credit Suisse, HSBC, JPMorgan and UBS have all started tracking these stocks, as they sense the potential of the e-commerce space, and its big-bang impact on Dalal Street.

Sample this: Last July, only three brokerage houses were covering Just Dial, which has jumped to 23 at present, even as the stock has surged nearly three times since its listing in June 2013. Similarly, Info Edge is currently tracked by 24 brokerage houses, against 16 in July last, while the stock has jumped 120% in one year, according to Bloomberg data.

"The e-commerce space is the next big emerging theme in the markets, and brokerage houses don't want to miss the bus. We expect many success stories to unfold in the listed space, and currently we are at the beginning of an e-commerce boom," Kunj Bansal, ED and chief investment officer at Centrum Wealth Management, said.

Analysts believe that in the e-commerce space, there are multiple enablers for explosive growth, including a rapidly growing number of internet users, steady rise in the proportion of online shoppers within the internet community, growth in the per-shopper transaction value, and continuous flow of capital investments, making these firms attractive bets.

"The money which has been raised by Flipkart and Snapdeal has grabbed everybody's attention. The trend of online shopping by Indian retailers hold great promise in the e-commerce space," said Dipen Shah, head, private client group research, Kotak Securities.

Online shopping in India of physical goods is estimated to reach around $4 billion in 2014, and will multiply by over 11 times to hit $45 billion by 2020, according to MOSL report. "We have initiated coverage on Info Edge with a buy rating and Rs 1,100, as we see the comprice target of company in direct and high-quality play on the exploding e-commerce opportunity," said Rajat Rajgarhia, managing director, institutional equities at Motilal Oswal Securities.

One of the reasons why brokerages are gung-ho is India's growing internet population, which is estimated to grow to 400 million by 2016, making it the second largest in the world.

"On Just Dial, we have a buy recommendation with a target price of Rs 1,800, as the company is the leader in local search engines with a strong e-commerce presence, which is a winning formula," Rajgarhia added.

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Samsung Galaxy S5, S5-LTE get price cuts in India

NEW DELHI: Samsung has cut the prices of its Galaxy S5 and S5-LTE smartphones in India yet again.

READ ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S5 review

The Galaxy S5 smartphone, which was launched in April this year at Rs 51,500, is now listed at Rs 34,900, marking a drop of Rs 2,600. In October this year, the smartphone's price had been reduced from Rs 43,250 to Rs 37,500.

The smartphone features a 5.1-inch Super AMOLED display with Full HD resolution and runs on Android 4.4 with TouchWiz UI. It is powered by the 2.3GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor with 2GB RAM and sports a 16MP rear camera on the back. It was the first Samsung smartphone to feature the fingerprint scanner and heart rate monitor.

Samsung Galaxy S5-LTE, which features support for faster 4G data downloads than Galaxy S5, now costs Rs 36,900. This marks a reduction of Rs 3,400 from its previous price tag of Rs 40,300. The South Korean manufacturer had given a price cut to Galaxy S5-LTE in October as well.

READ ALSO: How Samsung Galaxy S5 4G is different from Galaxy S5

The two smartphones face increasingly tough competition in the market, not just from rivals like HTC One (M8) and Sony Xperia Z2 but also from their own siblings like Galaxy Alpha and Note III.

Samsung is the leader in the Indian smartphone market, but companies like Micromax, Motorola and Xiaomi continue to cut its lead at a fast clip, market data suggests.

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Acer swings back to profit in Q3

TAIPEI: Taiwanese personal computer (PC) maker Acer swung back into profit in the third quarter, beating analyst estimates, thanks to cost-cutting and recovery in the overall PC market.

Net profit reached NT$651 million ($21.31 million) in July-September, versus a T$477.5 million average estimate of 13 analysts in a Thomson Reuters poll.

The result compared with a T$13.1 billion loss in the same period a year earlier, and T$484.7 million profit in April-June.

Revenue fell in August and September from a year earlier but at a much slower pace than the double-digit declines of much of the first half of 2014.

The PC market has been sluggish since the advent of tablet,computers and smartphones. But it has shown signs of growth in recent months, with PC chip leader Intel predicting healthy fourth-quarter revenue thanks to heavy replacement of old PCs by businesses.

Shares of Acer closed down 2.66% ahead of the earnings release, versus a 0.80% fall in the benchmark TAIEX index.

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Iraq's cellphone operators to pay $307 million for 3G airwaves: Regulator

BAGHDAD: Iraq's mobile phone network operators have agreed to pay $307 million each for radio spectrum, enabling them to launch higher-speed 3G mobile internet services in the war-torn country in two months, a senior official at the national regulator told Reuters.​

Iraq is one of the few Middle East countries still reliant on 2G networks, which mostly carry voice calls and SMS texts and only the most basic online services, while fixed line internet connections are expensive and unreliable.

The three mobile network operators — Zain Iraq, a unit of Kuwait's Zain, the Ooredoo subsidiary, Asiacell, and Orange affiliate Korek — have been waiting for several years to begin 3G services.

In October sources familiar with the matter said the government wanted the companies to each pay $307 million for the spectrum, much to their dismay.

But the companies have now agreed to this fee and made downpayments of $73 million a few days ago, Ali al-Khwaildi, chief of the commissioners' council at the Communications and Media Commission (CMC), told Reuters.

The companies will settle the remainder in four installments over the following 18 months, the first of which will be paid at the signing of the 3G contract on November 10, said Khwaildi.

There will be a two-month testing period before the commercial launch of 3G, he said.

"We hope that this service will offer job opportunities for a high number of people," said Khwaildi.

The operators each paid $1.25 billion for 15-year licenses in 2007. These permits were technology-neutral, meaning they did not require a separate 3G license, only the spectrum, so the operators were opposed to paying extra fees, especially when their profits are in retreat.

Zain Iraq's nine-month profit to September 30 fell 14% to $224 million, outpacing a 4% drop in revenue to $1.24 billion, as it suffered from temporary network shutdowns and higher network operating costs due to the civil war.

Zain's subscribers are concentrated in Baghdad and southern Iraq, so the company has suffered less in the tumult since Sunni Muslim militant group Islamic State seized much of the north and west of the country this year.

Asiacell grew from its base in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah. Its fuel and security costs have increased, transmitter tower maintenance is more difficult and the government's periodical blocking of social media and some websites has affected its data business, parent Ooredoo said in reporting its third-quarter results.

Asiacell's nine-month revenue fell 9.5% to 4.8 billion Qatari riyals ($1.32 billion) and its net profit dropped 38% over the same period to 868 million riyals.

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China lifts ban on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube at APEC meet

BEIJING: China has presented its best face at APEC summit by lifting ban on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter for the first time and even allowing web search of the Dalai Lama at the conference venue.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum media centre has allowed reporters to access social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and video-sharing website YouTube. Access to such sites is essentially restricted by the Chinese government elsewhere in the country.

This is the first time China has loosened its internet restrictions for a major international event.

As the APEC's officials began their meetings here at newly built conference centre, ahead of November 10 leaders meeting to be attended by US President Barack Obama among others, Beijing shed its heavy pollution overnight and glowed in the autumn weather providing a big relief for smog weary people.

The clean weather was ensured after shutting down thousands of factories all around Beijing and nearby cities cutting down the sources of pollution.

But a big surprise awaited the international media as all controls on the internet were lifted at the massive APEC media room fitted with scores of laptops which connected with high-speed internet unlike the excruciatingly slow connectivity in the rest of the city.

Scribes could easily log into Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google which can not be accessed in the country without the help of VPN (Virtual Private Network) connection to be procured from outside.

Media personnel could even freely search for the Dalai Lama news over Google which otherwise is totally banned on the internet.

China controls its internet with massive firewalls to block the international social media from having a negative impact on the population.

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Cognizant Q3 net up 11.2%; raises 2014 revenue forecast

NEW YORK: IT services major Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation said its net profit has grown 11.2% to $355.6 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2014, on the back of growth in financial services and emerging countries.

This is against a net profit of $319.6 million in the corresponding quarter last year, Cognizant said in a statement.

The US-based firm saw its revenues rising 12% to $2.58 billion in the quarter under review from $2.3 billion in the same period last year.

Cognizant expects its revenues in the October-December 2014 quarter to be between $2.61 billion and $2.64 billion.

The firm has also revised its revenues forecast for the year to be between $10.13 billion and $10.16 billion (higher by 14.5-14.9%), excluding any impact from the acquisition of TriZetto.

While announcing its first quarter results, Cognizant had forecast its 2014 revenue to be at least $10.3 billion, higher by 16.5% from 2013. However, at the end of June quarter, it lowered its outlook to at least 14%.

In fiscal 2013, Cognizant's revenue stood at USD 8.843 billion, up 20.4 per cent from 2012.

"Our overall demand environment remains strong and our results this quarter highlight that we are competing, winning and executing transformational engagements for clients in various industry segments globally," Cognizant President Gordon Coburn said.

Cognizant added about 12,300 people during the quarter. "There is a tremendous opportunity in the marketplace as the advent of new digital technologies, global economic pressures, and an evolving regulatory environment force businesses across all industries to change and adapt faster than ever before," Cognizant chief executive officer Francisco D'Souza said.

Cognizant is ideally positioned to help clients worldwide address these competitive challenges with end-to-end solutions that address their dual mandate of improved efficiency and of innovation using the latest social, mobile, analytics, cloud and sensor technologies, he added.

"Our balance sheet remains strong as cash and short-term investments increased during the quarter by almost $500 million to $4.6 billion," Cognizant chief financial officer Karen McLoughlin said.

Later this quarter, Cognizant anticipates utilising $1.7 billion of this cash, in addition to $1 billion of floating rate debt through a syndicated term loan, to fund the previously announced acquisition of TriZetto, McLoughlin added.

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New Born Fame, a toy that lets babies take selfies

LONDON: Your baby could post his or her first selfie with the help of this device. Called the New Born Fame, the stuffed toy looks like a mobile dangling over a baby's crib but it lets the newborn post pictures and videos online.

Some of the apps attached to the mobile are Twitter and Facebook which post videos when the baby touches them, MailOnline reported.

It also has a "selfie-ball" camera that snaps and uploads pictures each time it gets rotated after being touched by the baby. The device is developed by Laura Cornet, a student at Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

"Suppose if the baby is at the creche or with the babysitter, the 'selfie ball' can send pictures to his/her working parents to see that everything is alright," Cornet was quoted as saying.

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9 apps you should be using right now

ET Bureau/ Hitesh Raj Bhagat & Karan Bajaj / November 05, 2014

Apps are one of the best things to have happened to mobile phones. No other feature of the phone has made our lives as simple and easier as apps. From paying telephone bills, to checking your bank account to monitoring your BP, you can do all this and much more, courtesy the wide world of apps.

However, with thousands of apps available, picking the right app can be a challenge. Here is a list of some of the most quirky and useful apps that you should be using right now.

1. Shots

November 05, 2014

Shots is a photo-sharing and social networking app that is all about sharing selfies. Justin Bieber invested in Shots early on as an angel investor.

Price: Free (iOS, Android)

2. Frontback

November 05, 2014

Frontback is a fun camera app that keeps things fresh by letting you snap a picture using the rear as well as front cameras of the smartphone. You can explore other people's photos and leave a 5-second video response on a friend's photo if you want.

Price: Free (iOS, Android)

3. Yik Yak

November 05, 2014

Yik Yak is a location-based newsfeed that allows users to anonymously upload their thoughts for others nearby to view. Yik Yak shares similarities with Reddit by allowing users to up-vote and down-vote submissions to keep a fresh feed.

Price: Free (iOS, Android)

4. Songza

November 05, 2014

Songza allows you to choose from playlists built around your current activity, mood, genre, or decade. Examples include "Working (no lyrics)," "Having Fun At Work," "Coding," or even "Grinding at a Nightclub."

Price: Free (Web)

5. Afterlight

November 05, 2014

Afterlight is a photo-editing app that offers 59 filters, including 14 from guest Instagram users, and 66 textures.

Price: $0.99 (iOS, Android)

6. Kitestring

November 05, 2014

Kitestring calls itself "your virtual overprotective mom," and isn't an app. All you have to do is text a time frame to Kitestring, and the service will send you a message checking up on you after a specified amount of time. If you text back, all is well, if not, you can set up Kitestring to send out a customized emergency message to your friends and family.

Price: Free (Web)

7. Toggl

November 05, 2014

Toggl is a great tool for tracking and recording how you spend your time. You can quickly type in what you're working on, start the timer, tag your tasks and see a nifty breakdown of your time at the end of the day.

Price: $5/month with 30-day free trial

8. Represent

November 05, 2014

For $9.99 a year, Represent helps you quickly create a professional resume that can match your industry and personality with various designs and colours. Your resume is also stored online for easy sharing, and you can even see your resume's analytics to check how many times it's been viewed.

Price: $9.99/year (Web)

9. Stoodle

November 05, 2014

Stoodle is a great way to collaborate online in a virtual workspace. Students and teachers can write and draw in realtime on a virtual whiteboard, and built-in voice conferencing and messaging makes working together easy. The best part is that all of your work is saved permanently so you can always circle back on your work.

Price: Free (Web)

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Samsung Galaxy S6 specifications leaked online

NEW DELHI: Samsung usually unveils its flagship Galaxy S device early in the year. With 2014 almost coming to an end, rumours related to the company's next flagship have already surfaced.

According to SamMobile, the South Korean tech giant has been working on the Galaxy S6 under the codename 'Project Zero' as it aims to start from scratch in order to make it 'the best Galaxy S flagship yet'.

Although the screen size was not mentioned among the rumoured specs, the device is expected to feature a Quad HD (2560x1440p) display, just as Note 4. Another similarity between the two devices will be the camera sensor, IMX240, which could be either a 16MP or 20MP lens. The front camera will be upgraded to 5MP in alignment with the recently launched Galaxy A series.

In terms of storage, Samsung Galaxy S6 will come in three variants — 32, 64 and 128GB, doing away with the 16GB model. The report did not mention the amount of RAM that the model will have.

The device is expected to be powered by Exynos 7420 octacore processor, which will include four Cortex A53 and Cortex A57 cores, each. The device is also said to come in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor variant. Both models will feature 64-bit chipset architecture.

The report also says that Samsung Galaxy S5 will be more battery efficient than other smartphones in the market as it will use a Broadcom chip that puts the GPS as well as other sensors on the same chip, letting the phone process data faster.

Samsung Galaxy S6 is still in the early stages of development and there have been no leaked images of the device yet. The smartphone is likely to be unveiled globally late February or early March next year.

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Samsung widens lead over Micromax in smartphone market: Study

Samsung Electronics expanded its lead over Micromax in India's smartphone market in September while Nokia retained its third spot, significantly ahead of Lava and Karbonn, data from research firm Gfk showed.

Gfk data for July, August and September showed South Korea's Samsung had achieved a 33% market share at the end of the period after gaining over a percentage point from August. Home-bred Micromax came in second with more than 18% share, adding a tad over the previous month while Finnish handset maker Nokia, now owned by Microsoft, managed to keep itself going at No. 3 with 12% share. ET has reviewed the research firm's data.

In the wider market that includes feature phones, Samsung led with about a fourth of the market share while Nokia continued to be No. 2 at about 21%.Micromax, however, came in a distant third at 13.5%, data showed.

The smartphone market in India is surging, as a drop in prices tempts more people to switch from feature phones to smartphones.

The trend revealed in these Gfk figures — which are based on actual sales — contrasts those brought out in the April-June data published by Counterpoint Research, Cybermedia Research and International Data Corporation (IDC), which suggested narrowing of gap between market leader and its closest challenger.

Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research had said that Micromax was the leading overall handset vendor with 16.6% market share in the April-June period, overtaking Samsung, which garnered 14.4%. The other two had noted that while the Korean company was still the leader, the Indian vendor was fast catching up. Counterpoint's director of research, Neil Shah, stuck by the agency's second-quarter findings, adding that its preliminary data for the July-September period also showed the same trend — Samsung trailing Micromax in the overall market, but the reverse in the smartphone segment.

"We track shipments, i.e. what is sold into the channel from the OEM and that is pan-India and not sell through in our quarterly Market Monitor programme," Shah said, explaining the difference in methodology compared with Gfk.

GfK did not comment on the figures sourced by ET. IDC chose not to comment on these numbers as the research firm is expected to come out with its third-quarter data next week.

About 71% of more than 924 million mobile phone users in India still use feature phones, offering a massive opportunity for global as well as Indian players to increase their footprint in this pricier segment.

Most handset makers, including new entrants, are focusing on the Rs 5,000-15,000 category, in which a far larger number of smartphones are sold compared with the premium price brackets.

According to Shah, preliminary Q3 2014 data from Counterpoint shows that Samsung still leads the India smartphone market with 26% share, having improved from the 25.3% it had in the previous quarter. Micromax comes in a close second with 21% share by shipments.

A spokesperson for Samsung India did not comment on market share figures specifically, but reiterated that Samsung is a clear leader in the mobile handsets business across price categories.

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Apple may discontinue iPad Mini: Report

NEW DELHI: Not even a month has passed since the launch of the latest iPads and the tech world is surrounded by speculation over the next line of Apple products.

According to a report by Taiwan's Economic Times Daily, Apple will no longer produce 7.9-inch iPad mini series starting next year. Instead, it will concentrate on the long-rumoured iPad Pro model.

This means that iPad mini 3 will be the last of Apple's small-screen tablets. This could be a major reason for the lack of major improvements in iPad Mini 3 compared to its predecessor. iPad mini not only faces competition from the big-screen iPad Air, but also from iPhone 6 Plus.

According to a recent report, iPad Pro has a 12.2-inch screen, while earlier reports had claimed that it will have a 12.9-inch display. The big-screen iPad is also rumoured to be as thin as iPhone 6 and have two additional speakers and a microphone located at the top of the device.

It was earlier rumoured that iPad Pro will have many productivity-focussed features and may even replace Macbook Air in Apple's portfolio. With the big screen iPad, Apple is likely to be aiming at business users and help revive iPad sales.

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Apple may discontinue iPad mini series: Report

NEW DELHI: Not even a month has passed since the launch of the latest iPads and the tech world is surrounded by speculation over the next line of Apple products.

According to a report by Taiwan's Economic Times Daily, Apple will no longer produce 7.9-inch iPad mini series starting next year. Instead, it will concentrate on the long-rumoured iPad Pro model.

This means that iPad mini 3 will be the last of Apple's small-screen tablets. This could be a major reason for the lack of major improvements in iPad Mini 3 compared to its predecessor. iPad mini not only faces competition from the big-screen iPad Air, but also from iPhone 6 Plus.

According to a recent report, iPad Pro has a 12.2-inch screen, while earlier reports had claimed that it will have a 12.9-inch display. The big-screen iPad is also rumoured to be as thin as iPhone 6 and have two additional speakers and a microphone located at the top of the device.

It was earlier rumoured that iPad Pro will have many productivity-focussed features and may even replace Macbook Air in Apple's portfolio. With the big screen iPad, Apple is likely to be aiming at business users and help revive iPad sales.

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10 new features in Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

TOI Tech/ Anupam Saxena / November 04, 2014

Google has started the rollout of Android 5.0, Lollipop to select devices. The new OS brings with it a number of visual changes and adds new features. Here's a look at 10 new features of Android Lollipop.

1. Material design

November 04, 2014

Lollipop introduces the new 'Material design' which is flatter, cleaner and more colourful. Google has also updated native apps to follow the same design language. The UI design gives the impression of moving paper strips stacked over each other.

2. Redesigned navigation keys

November 04, 2014

The on-screen navigation buttons at the bottom now consist of simple shapes. The back button is triangular, home button is circular and the open apps button is now square in shape.

3. New app switcher menu

November 04, 2014

With Android Lollipop, the OS now also displays open tabs in Chrome with recent apps. Instead of a vertical app switcher, the new menu is similar to a carousel. One can disable open Chrome tabs from showing up in this menu.

4. Overhauled notifications panel

November 04, 2014

Notifications and quick setting toggles are part of a single screen. Notifications appear as white strips that display dark text. You pull down once to display notifications, pull again and settings toggles are displayed.

5. New lockscreen notifications

November 04, 2014

Notifications now also appear on lockscreen. These notifications are also actionable. So you can reply to a message without unlocking the phone.

6. More control over notifications

November 04, 2014

Lollipop offers more control over notifications allowing users to prioritize them. In the Settings menu, you can choose to allow only important notifications.

7. New Dialer app

November 04, 2014

The Phone dialer app in Android Lollipop also gets a makeover. The borders that separate each key have been removed and there's more white space with numbers bearing blue colour.

8. Multiple user profiles

November 04, 2014

Android Lollipop brings multiple user profiles to Android phones. You can set up multiple user profiles in Lollipop for sharing the phone with others without giving them access to your personal apps and data.

9. Fitness hub

November 04, 2014

Android Lollipop also offers Google's new fitness tool, Google Fit. Similar to Apple's Health app, the app allows you to bring all stats from various fitness apps and track them in a central location.

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Facebook may tie up with Indian mobile payment startup

Users may be wary of using credit cards or internet to buy digital goods, but JunoTele lets people pay through their mobile talk time.
Most new-age, mobile-first companies from Silicon Valley find it easy to attract consumers in emerging markets such as India but hit a wall when it comes to getting them to pay for products and services.
So when a Bengaluru-based startup offers a payment solution — and one that doesn't require credit cards or the internet — large players including Facebook are bound to be interested.

"They (Facebook) have shown interest in using our product," said Sekar Rao, chief executive officer of JunoTele, which has patented a way for users to pay for digital goods from their mobile talk-time account. Rao, 49, said executives from Facebook's Singapore office had spoken to him about aspects of his company's product, including the core offering — direct billing from carriers. Facebook declined to comment.

JunoTele bypasses credit cards and the internet by using a telecom operator's signal to carry out transactions — the same one that's used to make regular phone calls.

While other companies offer a similar solution, they depend on a robust internet connection to car ry out a part of the transaction. JunoTele's technology, which sits within the fortress of telecom operators, was granted a US patent this year.

The product may fill a critical gap in emerging markets, where a large segment of the population does not own credit cards. Even when there are transactions, the high processing fee on credit cards ensures that developers earn little on the products they sell.

"The opportunity of payments is significant in the emerging markets," said Mohammad Chowdhury, telecom leader at PwC India.

But he pointed out that the technology is not new and that mobile operators such as Airtel have used this form of billing to charge customers for selling ringtones.

JunoTele contends that operators had the ability to do that because they possessed a user's number. "But when I move to Wi-Fi, Airtel or Vodafone cannot deduct from my balance, as they don't have my number. We help them identify that. That's the real value," said Rao.

Rao, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management in Bengaluru, set up JunoTele in 2011 after a four-year stint at Luxembourgbased telecom exchange Mach.

Headquartered in Bengaluru, JunoTele's 30-member team has five global customers and is eyeing a turnover of $3-5 million (Rs 18-30 crore) next year. The company declined to identify the clients.

Research firm App Promo said in a report in 2012 that 59% of the apps don't generate enough revenue to break even on development costs. Rao claims JunoTele increases an app developer's addressable market by 10 times — expanding its scope beyond just smartphone users.

Globally, there are a few precedents in the larger direct carrier billing space. Italy-based Onebip and CaliforniaZong and Boku are a few instances. More recently, Estonia-based Fortumo Payments ventured into Singapore and after having established offices in Mumbai and Delhi.

While Fortumo has enabled oneclick mobile payments with operator billing in 81 countries, JunoTele is exploring the clickless payment arena, by allowing users to authenticate transactions by voice or SMS.

Innovation in the payments space is likely to continue. Alternative payments as a group are forecast to account for close to 60% of the total online transaction value by 2017 — up from 43% in 2012, according to GPBullHound, an England-based technology research firm.

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Microsoft Lumia phone without Nokia branding leaked

NEW DELHI: Microsoft recently announced that it is dropping the 'Nokia' name from its Lumia series, and now we can see what the phones will look like without the Nokia branding.

The first sans-Nokia Lumia phone's image (now deleted) has appeared on Chinese social networking site Weibo, wherein the phone sports the Microsoft logo where the Nokia logo has been positioned till now. The phone is being developed under the codename RM-1090.

Supposedly leaked from China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the images show a phone that looks similar to other phones in the Lumia series. The phone sports a front facing camera and a flash on the back and is rumoured to have a 5-inch qHD display and 3G support.

There is no word on other details about the upcoming Microsoft Lumia RM-1090, including pricing and launch date. However, since Microsoft has said that it will be unveiling its first non-Nokia phones soon, it is likely that details will emerge shortly.

This is, of course, not the first time a Microsoft phone without Nokia branding has been leaked. In September this year, the image of a big-screen smartphone sporting the Microsoft name was leaked online.

READ ALSO: First Microsoft smartphone without Nokia branding leaked

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Myntra founder Mukesh Bansal gets more responsibilities in Flipkart rejig

BANGALORE: Flipkart has rejigged its top management, handing over more responsibility to Mukesh Bansal, the founder of fashion portal Myntra which was acquired by India's largest online retailer earlier this year. The reshuffle will also result in a higher profile for Ankit Nagori, the marketplace head who will also now oversee general merchandise and book-retailing, the business Flipkart began life with.

The moves are part of a larger organizational rehaul, according to two people with direct knowledge of the process.

In one of the first moves Mukesh Bansal, who was so far heading fashion, will also head marketing. His role has also expanded and he will take care of additional categories like computers and consumer electronics. Ankit Nagori, senior vice president in-charge of Flipkart's marketplace operations, will have additional responsibility over books and general merchandise. As reported by ET on October 17, the marketplace team is also being expanded and restructured as the number of merchants on the platform grows.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy, interim chief financial officer at Flipkart for over a year, is going back to Tiger Global. Krishnamurthy, who is director of finance for portfolio companies at Tiger, had taken on the interim CFO role after Karandeep Singh quit as head of finance at the company in January last year.

In an email sent out to employees on Monday founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal wrote that Krishnamurthy will be moving back to Tiger Global and will be transitioning out of his current role, as senior vice president of retail, over the next three weeks. In September Flipkart had hired Tata Communications CFO Sanjay Baweja to be its new finance head.

The email sent out states: "Kalyan came on board full-time in Jan 2013 as our interim CFO. We were facing multiple challenges in business and finance at that time and Kalyan has was (sic) instrumental in fundamentally changing the business trajectory for us with his passion and drive."

The email goes on to detail Mukesh Bansal's and Ankit Nagori's additional responsibilities and the senior managers who will now report into them.

Michael Adnani, vice president of retail and head of strategic alliances, will report into Mukesh Bansal, who is also on the board of Flipkart. Adnani has spearheaded Flipkart's exclusive and successful partnerships with Motorola and Xiaomi. Amitesh Jha, who heads electronics and computers at Flipkart, will also report into Mukesh Bansal.

In a related development, Ravi Vora, who was handling marketing, will now take care of development of new in-house brands. "While Flipkart has digital brands like Digiflip, no major marketing initiative has been done around them," said a person with direct knowledge of the development. "The idea is to create new brands especially in the consumer durables space and focus on making large brands out of them."

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Small e-tailers benefit from Flipkart, Amazon's success

October was a good month for Flipkart, despite the controversy surrounding its Big Billion Day sale. The e-commerce company clocked over 8 million shipments last month; 3 million more than its usual 5 million shipments a month. Also, it added 2 million registered users in October, taking the total number to 28 million. Average visits to the portal shot up to 10 million from 6 million in September.

Now, here's a quick guessing game. What did people buy online during this festive season? Clothes? Electronics goods? Mobile phones? If these were your guesses, you are probably right. But that's not all what they purchased. They also bought packets of Kanpur's famous Thaggu ke Laddus, Lonavala chikki and Agra's famous pan pethas and other sweets online, according to Radhika Ghai Aggarwal, co-founder and chief marketing officer of ShopClues.com, an online marketplace on which 75,000 merchants from all over India sell 10.5 million products.

Rooted to local needs
"Unlike the big players (like Flipkart and Snapdeal), which are more like malls and focus on big-ticket items like electronic goods, we are more like a typical Indian marketplace," says Aggarwal. So, during Diwali, the portal sold everything from disco Diwali lights to local sweets to gifting items like silver coins embedded with images of Ganesha and Lakshmi. And the bestseller was? "A gold-plated set of playing cards," says Aggarwal.

Overall, ShopClues saw orders peaking to about 1,30,000 per month in September and October from about 75,000 per month during the rest of the year. Some 70% of ShopClues's orders come from Tier II and III cities. As a result, the buying patterns are also different. For instance, one of the topselling cellphone models on the portal is a brand called Josh, a dual-SIM handset that costs Rs 999.

Selling as much local merchandise as possible seems to the mantra for other e-tailers too. Paytm, a two-and-a-half-year-old Noida based start-up, started as a portal offering mobile recharging and facilitating utility bill payments. Soon, the company realized that customers had spare cash lying around in their online wallets, which it calls Paytm Cash. The sums varied between Rs 400 and Rs 700.

So, Paytm started selling other stuff: jeans, t-shirts and USBs, among others. "During Diwali, we introduced local sweets, which did pretty well. We also sold lights and some seasonal clothing like ghagra cholis. USB sales also went up," says Pratyush Prasanna, vice-president at Paytm. The portal has 20 million registered users and six lakh orders a day.

Furniture e-tailer Pepperfry launched its first ever television commercial in late September to coincide with the festive season. Pepperfry chief executive Ambareesh Murty says business is up 70% month on month. "In general, during the second half of the year, people tend to buy more of everything from home furnishing to FMCG goods. There is a positive attitude towards consumption," says Murty. "People spend more on their homes — from getting them painted to buying new furniture. In October, our business has gone through the roof," he adds.

A mixed bag for some
For some, the festive season is a mixed bag. Take Mumbai-based grocery e-tailer Local-Banya, for instance. "People tend to travel during this time and take a few days off. As a result, some amount of grocery shopping comes down," says Amit Bhartiya, cofounder of LocalBanya. "At the same time, there is an uptick in gifting-related shopping. The ease of online shopping makes the process of shopping for gifts, especially sweet or chocolate hampers, a lot easier," adds Bhartiya.

Lingerie e-tailer Zivame's sales peak in February, around Valentine's Day. But Diwali brings its own joy. "The category does well all year round but there is a spike around the festive season as people usually tend to buy apparel," says Richa Kar, co-founder and chief executive of Zivame.com, adding that sales are up 40% this season.

Founders of such niche verticals have a special 'thank you' for the big boys of e-commerce. "Thanks to some of the big advertising spends of large e-tailers, consumer awareness and willingness to shop online has increased. It has helped everybody that the likes of Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal of the world spend as much as they have in publicity," says a founder of an e-commerce vertical who preferred to be off-record on this one. Over to the next Big Billion Day sale.

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Steve Jobs's ideas used to leave employees speechless

Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs is regarded as one of the greatest visionaries in the technology industry. Few people know this side of him better than the employees that worked directly under him.

Ken Rosen, a managing partner at consulting agency Performance Works that previously worked with Jobs at Apple and NeXT, described Jobs's ability to come up with solutions to problems almost instantly.

Rosen worked most closely with Jobs at NeXT, the company he started in 1985 when he was temporarily ousted from Apple.

People would frequently ask NeXT employees why they would put up with someone like Jobs, who had a reputation for being harsh on his workers.

"The answer for me always went back to these meetings at NeXT," Rosen told us.

The meetings would usually consist of between six and eight people, and would take place every several weeks or so.

"Steve would walk in the door and say, 'Alright, what's going on?'" Rosen said. "Somebody in the room would say we're trying to figure this out, maybe go to a whiteboard, and say we couldn't figure out what to do."

Jobs had a talent for honing in on the problem and finding an answer immediately.

"And [Steve] would say, 'What about doing this?'" Rosen said. "And you could look around the room and you could just see people dumbfounded, their jaws dropping, because it was a really good idea."

Often times, other employees were annoyed because they couldn't come up with such a great idea on their own.

"You'd have this instant mixed reaction from people," he said. "First of all, they were really pissed that they didn't have the idea. I just always said, being able to hang out with someone like that and being near that decision making process is worth a whole lot of problems."

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Nokia's 5 most iconic phones ever

ET Bureau/ Hitesh Raj Bhagat / November 03, 2014

For a long time, Nokia made smartphones that ruled the world. The Symbian smartphone platform became synonymous with Nokia and even as recently as 2010, Symbian devices formed close to 50% of the total global smartphone market. Between 2002 and 2010, Nokia released at least 20 blockbuster smartphones, each one unique in design and appeal. We take a look at Nokia's five most iconic phones...

1. Nokia 7650

November 03, 2014

The oddly designed (by today's standards) Nokia 7650 was the first ever Nokia smartphone powered by the popular Symbian Series 60 platform. It was officially released in 2002 and even then, the phone boasted of VGA camera (the first in any Nokia phone), Bluetooth, infrared remote, installable applications and a web browser.

The icon-based user interface could be navigated using the 5-way joystick while the sliding keyboard kept the overall size in check. The 7650 marked the start of Nokia's dominance in the smartphone world. Even though the same Symbian Series 60 platform was used by other brands like Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung — it was Nokia that has the most successful run with it.

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

2. Nokia 6600

November 03, 2014

This 'soap shaped' Symbian S60 smartphone was wildly popular the world over. It had a shape that felt comfortable in the hand and some of the design innovations included placing the answer/end buttons on either side of the screen.

It was launched in 2003 but importantly, this was the first S60 device to very quickly sell over a million units — it continued selling well in many parts of the world till 2007. Some of the highlights were an easily interchangeable outer shell (to make it look like new again if it got scuffed), Bluetooth, infrared remote, camera, compatibility with thousands of apps and the ability to expand the memory using an MMc card.

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

3. Nokia N-Gage series

November 03, 2014

Identifying the need to attract a younger audience and recognizing the vast potential of the thousands of games on offer, Nokia introduced the N-Gage series in 2003. This was designed to be held sideways (like a gaming controller) and the buttons and D-pad on either side of the screen meant that you could use it to play games for hours without fatigue.

Although the hardware was nothing significantly better than other S60 phones of the time, the oddball shape is what made it popular — it was the forebearer of the mobile as a gaming platform. There were multiple versions of the N-Gage and they sold almost 4 million units in total.

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

4. Nokia Communicators

November 03, 2014

Even before the QWERTY-equipped BlackBerry became popular, there was a need for productivity phones. These business behemoths could barely fit in a pocket but still became powerful status symbols. The Communicator range (the first designs actually appeared way back in 1996) was marked by a peculiar design — they had a small screen numeric keypad on the outside but opened up to reveal a super-wide display and QWERTY keypad inside.

The idea was that they could be used as normal phones without opening the flip – but when the extra productivity was needed for a spreadsheet or long email, the device could be opened up and propped on a table – just like a mini laptop. The 9500 Communicator (2004) and the E90 (2007) were huge favourites.

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

5. Nokia 808

November 03, 2014

In 2012, Nokia 808 became the last of the Symbian smartphones — it was primarily a camera with a phone tacked on and even today, it can beat most of the smartphones around when it comes down to the image quality stakes.

Ten years of camera innovation led Nokia to this device, which featured a 41MP sensor, PureView technology (which used data from the 41MP sensor to create a better, lower resolution image), Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics.

Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

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Apple Watch launch delayed

It appears that the wait for the Apple Watch could get longer.

According to Apple's senior vice president of Retail and Online Stores, Angela Ahrendts, the smartwatch will not hit the stores before next spring.

She made this announcement in a video, in which she said, "we're going into the holidays, we'll go into Chinese New Year, and then we've got a new watch launch coming in the spring."

This implies that the launch of the watch would be later than what was expected by most people. Until now, Apple had said that the Apple Watch would ship in "early 2015" but the company had maintained a silence on the month of the launch.

After the watch's unveiling in September, most people expected it to be available around Valentine's Day, but now that Ahrendts has mentioned the Chinese New Year, it is certain that the watch will only be launched after February 19.

The Apple Watch will be available at a starting price of $349, and will work in tandem with the iPhones. There are three variants of the smartwatch: Apple Watch, Apple Watch Sports and Apple Watch Edition. The last variant is made of 18-carat gold, according to Apple.

Calling Apple Watch a comprehensive health and fitness device, CEO Tim Cook had informed that the smartwatch features a custom user interface and has a dial called "digital crown."

By twisting this crown, which is essentially the control centre of the smartwatch, users can zoom in and out of maps, and scroll through lists among other tasks. Pressing the digital crown exits all the apps and takes them to the Home Screen, much like the Home button on iPhones and iPads.

There is also a Force Touch feature that lets users customize the watch-face.

There are a number of sensors on the back of the Apple Watch, which let it track the wearer's health and fitness data. LEDs on the device can monitor the wearer's heart rate and can connect with iPhones to take note of GPS readings.

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Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 review: SuperResolution

Nvidia has always been right up there on the graphics card foodchain. With solutions not only for gamers but also for creative professionals who work with intensive graphics, 3D or video editing. Now, Nvidia has just launched the GeForce GTX 980, a mighty graphics card with a whole host of new features.

Design and build
The GeForce GTX 980's looks can only be summed up as industrial. The PCI express card is completely clad in a black and silver metal jacket, with a fiberglass finish along sections, protecting the powerful internals. On the jacket is a high speed fan as well as heatsink ribs on the side and a triangular cut duct on the IO panel to dissipate heat. All of these details are designed to follow the same industrial theme set.

Specifications

At the core of GeForce GTX 980 hums a second-generation Maxwell GM204 GPU consisting of 16 streaming multiprocessors and 64 render output units capable of upto 5 Teraflops and 144.1 GigaTexels/sec at a power consumption of 165 Watts with a transistor count of 5.2 billion in a 28nm die size with a 2MB L2 Cache.

The base clock speed of GeForce GTX 980 is 1126MHz and can go up to a boost clock of 1216MHz when games or applications demand it. GeForce GTX 980 has 2048 CUDA cores and it also comes with 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM with a 256-bit pipeline capable of 7GB per second — useful for loading up games fast, as well as making sure you have very high-resolution textures.

As GeForce GTX 970 too has 4GB of GDDR5 VRAM, the 980 could have done with a gigabyte or two of extra VRAM, especially when you consider the Titan Z has 12GB of VRAM.

Installation and setup
Installation was quite easy, though a fair warning: this card is massive at 10.5-inch in length, so you will need a large cabinet. As compared to GeForce units of past, the new Maxwell technology is extremely power efficient, and GeForce GTX 980 is the most powerful in the new architecture's fleet, requiring a 500 Watt power supply.

To power up the card you will need two 6-pin power connectors. Just plug it in and the GeForce GTX 980 logo lights up in green, too handsome to lock away under the hood of your cabinet.

Features
The GeForce GTX 980 is choc full of new graphical features, one of them being an Anti Aliasing algorithm called MFAA, which switches between various AA modes to do away with jagged edges on graphics smoothing pixels, and is 30% faster than 4x MSAA, currently one of the best modes for reducing aliasing out there today.

Also introduced was a dynamic lighting engine only used by the 980 called VXGI, Voxel Global Illumination, as shown in a nifty moon landing demo, with real time light sources being switched between.
The 980 is also ready for the Virtual Reality headset wave like the Oculus Rift, with VR Direct which makes sure the left eye and the right eye displays are both in perfect sync, thereby cutting down on nausea cause by motion sickness.

For gamers who love streaming on the popular gamestream network Twitch, which has been gaining popularity, Nvidia's ShadowPlay now lets you record and save QHD videos, not to mention you can also record and stream at the same time, while using your microphone to give real time commentary as you play.

Dynamic Super Resolution benchmarks

Rather than benchmark a card we already know is the fastest out there, we focus on one of it's biggest features, called Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR) and make that the crux of this review.

Dynamic Super Resolution has been around for a while, a technique otherwise known as Superscaling or Downscaling, which allows you to run higher resolutions on your base resolution display. Therefore, you can run a Quadruple High Definition (QHD) resolution on a regular 1080p (Full HD) display.

Earlier, you had to tweak your system quite a bit based on math calculations of the resolution, so you get the least amount of aliasing. Now, Nvidia has offered 2 QHD resolutions for you to upscale to, so you can run your games, movies, programs at higher resolution. The DSR is, sadly, a Maxwell-only feature.

We tried a host of games as well as normal desktop uses on a HDTV as well as monitor using the upscaled resolutions. GeForce GTX 980 offers you a choice of two resolutions, 3840x2160p and 2715x1527p, both available from Nvidia settings and GeForce Experience panel as well as from within the games themselves. We tested the games on an Intel i5-3580k, 16GB RAM and Asus Sabertooth Z77 motherboard in a closed NZXT Phantom 420.

Desktop mode on a 27-inch monitor in 2715x1527p was quite usable, and though there was a bit of aliasing here and there, it was not too much. However, with Windows Aero enabled on Windows 7, there was a bit of aliasing on the mouseovers. 3840x2160p was a bit extreme as it made icons etc appear very small.

However, both resolutions on HDTV's worked superbly. 2715x1527p on a 40-inch monitor just did the trick, while 3840x2160p made everything too small; However, if you do have a bigger HDTV, about 55-inch plus, this resolution would work perfectly.

In order to push the new Maxwell to the max, we used the highly detailed open world of Chicago. At 1080p with maximum crown, vehicles and rain particles the game ran flawlessly at above 60fps, not even a hint of slowdown. We upscaled it to 1527p and the game was still playable at 30-32fps.

At 2160p (the highest possible currently), the game crawled along at 17fps. However, the image quality got a bit muddled. Since Watchdogs packs very high detail textures into their game already, the upscale and then condensation into a smaller resolution resulted in detail loss. However, the game looked absolutely gorgeous at 1080p and 1527p. All these settings are running in ultra.

Battlefield 4 is now almost a year old, but the Frostbite 3 engine it uses is the most malleable in the gaming world. Its destruction and particle effects is a test for any GPU, and it's old enough to benefit from the upscaling process.

We cranked all settings to ultra and the game was perfectly playable on all three resolutions, yielding in excess of 90+ fps on 1080p, 1527p gave about 53fps and 2160p ran smooth at 32fps. The game looked absolutely gorgeous on the highest resolution, with the textures and graphical fidelity bringing the game on par with what we've seen of games coming out later this year.

Metro: Last Light Redux is a beautiful and dark game, with an almost God-like level of detail in each stage, which will bring most GPUs to a crawl. We got 50fps at 1080p, 34fps on 1527p and just 6fps on 2160p; however, like Watchdogs, this game looks and plays fantastic on 1527p.

On Uniengine's Heaven benchmark, which tests overall performance (including how fast textures load, the Physx engine as well as temperature), we got 62.2fps and a score of 1568 at 1080p, while 1527p yielded an average of 32.7fps. Through all these tests, the card remained cool at about 55-60 degrees.

So what does all that mean?

To summarize the above tests, the Dynamic Super Resolutions increases the quality of your gaming, media, desktop exponentially. However, if you want to use DSR on a daily basis you can use the 1527p setting. The 2160p setting is useful when you have an older title that needs the upscaling without you losing the performance. Not only that, it's especially useful in real-time strategy games like StarCraft II or DOTA 2, which render a larger map space and give a larger area of view.

Those running this card on native QHD monitors will get silky smooth frame-rates, as the GPU is just rendering one frame on the native resolution. So, if you have a 2560x1440p monitor or HDTV, you will see a good performance boost.

Conclusion
Gamers on a budget can go for GeForce GTX 970, which has the same architecture and VRAM but has scaled-down specs. It retails for Rs 28,000, which is almost half of GeForce GTX 980's price.

However, If you are a gamer who has been holding out, saving up for a rainy day, then the 980 is that thundercloud on the horizon. Sure, it may cost a pretty penny at Rs 46,000, which is what most smartphones and consoles cost nowadays. However, you're getting a powerful addition to your PC that not only lets you turn your 1080p monitor or HDTV into a QHD beast, but also has enough pixel pushing power if you're a graphic professional, 3D artist or video editor.

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