With Inbox, can Google reinvent email again?

Google has launched an email service, called Inbox, which claims to help you better manage your emails and prioritise important tasks. Though it runs alongside Gmail, Inbox will include new, polished features, which give it a more modern take on the 2004-born email service.

According to Google’s official blog post, Inbox includes a feature called Highlights, which gives you key snippets from important messages, such as flight itineraries, event information, and photos and documents emailed to you by friends and family. Inbox will even display useful information from the web that were not part of the original email, such as the real-time status of your flights and package deliveries.

Similar to Categories in Gmail, Inbox includes email bundles that groups similar messages together. For example, all your purchase receipts or bank statements are grouped together so that you can quickly review them when you need to.

Other features include the ability to add reminders, create to-do’s or snooze away tasks when you just can’t be bothered with constant reminders. It includes Assist, a feature that provides handy pieces of information you may need to get a particular job done. For example, if you write a Reminder to call the hardware store, Inbox will supply the store’s phone number and tell you if it’s open.

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Facebook Rooms app lets you create virtual chatrooms

A frustrated app developer is claiming Facebook ripped off his idea for the social network’s chatroom style app, Rooms, which launched last week.

“Facebook is taking our lives away,” said app developer Damien Rottemberg, who launched the app, Room, in September.

Both apps were inspired by chatrooms popular in the early days of the Internet.

Rottemberg said he and business partner Frank-David Colon have been developing Room since December, and met with venture capitalists in New York and Silicon Valley in March. Rottemberg applied in March for a trademark for Room, and the application is still pending.

The app is described on iTunes as “the first mobile application that enables you to create and join mini private chatrooms up to 500 people. Each room is private, secure, protected and confidential.”

But last week, Facebook announced Rooms, and developer Josh Miller wrote on FB’s blog, “One of the magical things about the early days of the web was connecting to people who you would never encounter otherwise in your daily life. Forums, message boards and chatrooms were meeting places for people who didn’t necessarily share geographies or social connections, but had something in common.”

Several of the app features are different, but Rottemberg insists: “The description is exactly the same, the name is the same. The whole thing is the same . . . I don’t think it’s a coincidence. ”

He added, “We want Facebook to take down their app and to apologize to us, saying that we are the real app Room and they made a mistake by copying us.”

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Popular retailers are not supporting Apple Pay, working on a new mobile payments app

One of the biggest announcements from Apple at its iPhone 6 event has been the new mobile payments service – Apple Pay. Looks like, some retailers already consider it as a threat and have started pulling out support for the service.

According to TheVerge, giants like Walmart, Kmart, 7-Eleven, and Best Buy have no intention to support Apple Pay, and have teamed up to build their own mobile payments app – CurrentC.

In another report, Eric Slivka of Daring Fireball points out that pharmacy chain Rite Aid is also facing public ire for  stopping support for the Apple Pay and Google Wallet mobile payments systems. The reports states, “Rite Aid was not an official Apple Pay partner, but the payments system generally works with existing near field communications (NFC) payment terminals anyway, and many users had had success using Apple Pay at Rite Aid stores early in the week.”

“It now appears that fellow major pharmacy chain CVS is following suit and as of today is shutting down the NFC functionality of its payment terminals entirely, a move presumably intended to thwart Apple Pay,” further adds the report.  Needless to say, this has also affected Google Wallet services.

These retailers working on the new CurrentC are a part of the a group called Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) that was founded in 2012. It includes about 59 participating retailers and several Tier 1 merchants who want more control of payments and want to keep  more of the consumer data, instead of relying on tech companies.

The CurrentC app is likely to hit markets next year, but currently it is not backed by a single bank. TheVerge reveals, “The system is designed to cut out the middleman — and credit card processing fees. The app, when it launches next year, won’t replace your plastic credit card. Instead, it will withdraw directly from your checking account when you pay at the cash register with a QR code displayed on your Android or iOS device.”

On the other hand, Apple has teamed up with various banks to launch the Apple Pay. It is betting big on the popularity of its iPhones and the convenience and security of its payment system to prompt customers and retailers to make the shift. The technology will allow iPhone users to pay for anything from office supplies to burgers at the tap of a button, using their American Express , Visa or Mastercard cards. However, Apple first need to swiftly add more retailers, which now seems to be the biggest challenge.

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Government aims to make $15 bn IoT industry in India by 2020

The government is working on an ambitious plan to create USD 15 billion ‘Internet of Things’ industry in the next six years.

Internet of Things, or IoT, can be loosely described as a network of inter-connected devices that can be accessed through the Internet.

For instance, with IoT, street lights will automatically go off when they sense no traffic on the roads and consequently save power. Another application could be a smart band that will automatically alert physician when body vitals go to abnormal levels.

“Among other things, IoT can help automate solutions to problems faced by various industries like agriculture, health services, energy, security, disaster management etc. Through remotely connected devices,” the draft IoT policy document says.

Some of the proposed concepts under the policy include development of tools to monitor quality of water flowing in taps and levels in reservoirs, smart environment to monitor quality of air, technology to monitor changes in body vitals and send alerts to hospitals.

Human role will be limited to setting up parameters for alerts and other activities expected from the objects.

The policy has the objective “to create an IoT industry in India of USD 15 billion by 2020. This will also lead to increase in the connected devices from around 200 million to over 2.7 billion by 2020.”

The number of internet-connected devices (12.5 billion) surpassed the number of human beings (7 billion) on the planet in 2011, and by 2020, Internet-connected devices are expected to number between 26 billion and 50 billion globally, the draft policy document said.

The proposed policy is in line of government’s plan to develop 100 smart cities in the country, for which Rs 7,060 crore has been earmarked in the current year’s Budget.

Devices or objects under IoT, will be connected seamlessly on networks and communicate with least human intervention. The IoT policy excludes phones, tablets and personal computers.

The Department of Telecom has already floated a draft policy on technical communication among machines but is yet to finalise guidelines.

To boost IoT, the government has plans to fund creation of resource centres and test-beds as a common experimental facility to conduct experiments with an allocation of Rs 18 crore as 100 percent fund with Rs 1 crore for each partner and Rs 3 crore for nodal agency over a period of five years.

The government will set up incubation centres that are proposed to be called National Centre of Excellence in partnership with IT industry body NASSCOM and other industry associations at an estimated cost of Rs 35 crore for 5 years to execute a centre with capacity of 40 people.

“Total five centres should be aimed which should include labs, office infrastructure and other necessities. Government would provide Rs 100 crores of funds. The rest of the funding would be sourced through industry by NASSCOM or any other appointed association,” the draft policy document said.

There is a proposal to set up a project named ‘International IoT Research Collaboration scheme (IIRC)’ under which government will collaborate and initiate treaties with other countries to generate joint projects for R&D in IoT on 50 percent contribution basis.

“IIRC scheme will disburse fund to IoT industry in the form of loan, grant and equity for approved projects after analyzing the capabilities of the bidder,” the document said.

Among other strategies, IoT Curriculum will be introduced at M.Tech and B.Tech level and Research Activity and PhD

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After IAF alert, Xiaomi is moving Indian users’ data to servers outside of China

Hugo Barra, who is the face of Xiaomi or Mi in India, has finally reached out to users after allegations about the lack of user security made against the Chinese phones. Talking about the reports earlier this week that claimed Xiaomi phones steal user data and send it to remote servers in China, he wrote to Firstpost and explained some key points.

Firstly, he clarified how Xiaomi takes user privacy very seriously. Barra goes on to explain that ‘users will always be notified beforehand in situations when we require your personal information, and will have to approve the request.’

He adds, “We offer various Internet based services such as Mi Cloud and Cloud Messaging which require data to be stored in the cloud. We take rigorous precautions to ensure that all data is secured when uploaded to Xiaomi servers and is not stored beyond the time required. Mi Cloud and Cloud Messaging are opt-in services which users can turn on and off at any time, giving users complete control.”

Moving to the concerns raised by Indian Air Force and F-Secure, Barra said that the issue has been addressed. Earlier this week, an Indian Air Force (IAF) alert note disclosed, “F-secure, a leading security solution company, recently carried out a test of Xiaomi Redmi 1s, the company’s budget smartphone, and found that the phone was forwarding carrier name, phone number, IMEI (the device identifier) plus numbers from address book and text messages back to Beijing.”

IAF has suggested its air force officers and their families to refrain from using Chinese mobile devices. Previously, the Indian Army had issued a similar security alert against Chinese mobile applications.

“We believe the advisory circular issued by IAF is based on events about 2 months back.  It refers to the F-Secure test done on the Redmi 1S in July 2014 about the activation of our Cloud Messaging service (which enables users to send text messages for free). We immediately addressed the concerns raised, which was directly acknowledged by F-Secure four days later,” Barra explained.

Barra has also put up a post on Facebook stating the company has begun moving Indian users’ (along with other non-Chinese users) data to servers outside of China. Click here to see how the whole process will work.

Earlier in August, the Taiwanese government had also started investigating whether Xiaomi is a cyber security threat and said it will make a decision within three months. The government had begun performing independent tests on Xiaomi phones after reports about some models automatically sending user data back to the firm’s servers in mainland China surfaced.

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Well positioned in India with enterprise solutions-BB

Canadian handset maker BlackBerry believes it is “well positioned” for the multi-billion dollar Indian enterprise market armed with smartphones across multiple price points and end-to-end mobility solutions.

“Today, BlackBerry offers an unparalleled global infrastructure, a combination of assets that deliver security at every level and across multiple platforms and an array of value-added services like BBM. We see great opportunities ahead of us, and BlackBerry has an aggressive plan to continue to lead the enterprise mobility market,” BlackBerry Executive Chairman and CEO John Chen told PTI.

The Waterloo-headquartered firm is the clear leader in this market, with the most secure devices, software, servers and network, he added.

On the Indian market, Mr. Chen said: “We are also well positioned to provide our enterprise customers with the best, most secure end-to-end enterprise mobility solutions.”

Mr. Chen said BlackBerry is aggressively targeting enterprise customers in India.

“In India specifically, we are aggressively targeting large, mid-level and small businesses alike. Late last year, we announced the opening of BlackBerry Enterprise Solutions (BES) Centres in Mumbai and Gurgaon as part of our focus on the enterprise mobility market,” he added.

These centres will cater to the needs of the enterprise customers and provide them with a walk-in experience of BlackBerry’s robust enterprise mobility management solutions, including BES10, Mr. Chen said.

“BlackBerry has a strong base in India, and we are continuing to build share in this priority market by listening to our customers and delivering the devices and mobile solutions they want.”

For the quarter ended August 30, 2014, BlackBerry posted revenue of $916 million with about 46 per cent coming from the hardware business, 46 per cent from services and 8 per cent from software and other revenue.

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Google Earth View Extension for Chrome Brings Satellite Imagery to New Tabs

Google has introduced a new extension for its
Chrome browser that lets users move away from
the stereotypical new page on opening a new tab,
and instead view different Google Earth images.

"Open a @googlechrome tab, win a prize! And by
"prize" we mean #EarthView image," tweeted
Google Maps.
Google also made the announcement on its
Google+ page for Google Maps, saying, "+Google
Chrome tabs, meet #EarthView images. This is
the beginning of a beautiful satellite-enhanced
friendship."
The extension called 'Earth View from Google
Maps ' shows different satellite images as the
tab's background image every time a user opens
a new Chrome tab.

The images range from forest
landscapes to aerial views of cities and oceans.
Users can explore more locations by clicking on a
globe icon on the bottom-right corner of the
screen and view user-clicked images of the
particular place within Google Maps.
A downside of the extension, first spotted by
Engadget, is that Earth View from Google Maps
deletes the user's recently viewed pages and
quick tabs.

Last month, Google also announced that it is
rebranding its Google Maps Engine Lite custom
maps app to My Maps. The company further
revealed that it will upgrade all maps created in
classic Google Maps Engine Lite app to the new
My Maps by end of this year. However, users can
get started right away by upgrading to the new
My Maps.

The new My Maps Android app is available for
download on Google Play and the app's What's
New section lists that the new app name and
logo My Maps in place of the old Maps Engine,
apart from improved search and marker adding.

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Finally AT&T finishes rollout of 1Gbps connection

 

AT&T has completed upgrading its fiber-network in Austin, Texas, to 1-gigabit-per-second broadband speeds, the carrier said Monday.
The Dallas-based company, which started the Austin upgrade in August, has been working to increase the speed of its U-Verse with GigaPower fiber network from 300 megabits-per-second to 1Gbps. AT&T is racing to bring faster Internet to customers before its competitors.
AT&T announced in April 2013 that it would bring 1Gbps broadband speeds to Austin -- within a week of Google's announcement that it would bring the 1Gbps Google Fiber broadband service to the city.
The race to get cities 1Gbps broadband services at affordable, sub-$100 pricing, was started by Google, which first introduced its Google Fiber broadband service in Kansas City, Kansas, in 2012. AT&T and other companies have answered the challenge. And it looks as though AT&T, more than any other incumbent broadband provider in the market, is moving aggressively on its deployments.
In January, AT&T committed to doubling the reach of its fiber network around Austin by the end of this year. That expansion was completed in September -- three months ahead of schedule -- and now reaches tens of thousands of additional homes and small businesses in Austin and surrounding communities.
All current GigaPower customers in Austin have been upgraded to the faster speed at no additional cost. Both the Google and AT&T services will be available for $70 a month, though Google's project is still under construction.
AT&T plans to expand its 1Gbps service to up to 100 candidate cities and municipalities across 25 markets nationwide. So far, the company has confirmed its plans to deploy the service in 27 cities across 11 markets. These cities include Raleigh-Durham, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Charlotte in North Carolina; Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio in Texas; Nashville, Tenn.; and Overland Park, Kansas.

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Hackers hold 7 million Dropbox passwords

 

            Hackers are threatening a major breach in Dropbox security, having claimed to have stolen the login details of almost 7 million users, and promising to release more password details if they're paid a Bitcoin ransom. However, Dropbox has denied it has been hacked, saying the passwords were stolen from third-party services. An entry on Pastebin, posted on October 13 at 4:10 p.m. CDT, shows a list of 400 emails and matching plain text passwords, claimed to be part of a large-scale Dropbox hack.

            The login details for the 400 email addresses, each one starting with the letter B, have been labelled as a "first teaser...just to get things going". The perpetrators are also promising to release more details if they're paid for the information. it is unclear how the account details were accessed and, indeed, whether or not they are actually legitimate. However, the hackers claim to have accessed details from 6,937,081 individual accounts and are threatening to release photos, videos and other files.

However, a Dropbox spokesperson has denied the hack:

            Dropbox has not been hacked. These usernames and passwords were unfortunately stolen from other services and used in attempts to log in to Dropbox accounts. We'd previously detected these attacks and the vast majority of the passwords posted have been expired for some time now. All other remaining passwords have been expired as well. 

     If one thing can be learnt from the alleged breach, it's that passwords should consist of more than two letters, and should probably not contain your own name.

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