DIGITAL SANKALP

Android app by Indian developer caught mining bitcoins

Android app by Indian developer caught mining bitcoins

Songs, an app probably used by a few million Indian Android users, was among the two apps recently caught covertly using smartphones for...

3:44 am

Google: No more sexy and naughty apps in Play store

<div class="stname arttitletxt" style="font-size:1.75em;line-height:28px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;float:left;margin:0px;padding:10px 0px 5px 10px"><img border="0" src="http://images.photogallery.indiatimes.com/images/spacer.gif" style="color: rgb(111, 111, 111); font-family: arial;" width="5"><br>  </div><div class="photo" style="padding:10px 0px 10px 10px;font-size:0.75em;font-family:arial;color:rgb(111,111,111);line-height:14px"><img border="0" src="http://m.timesofindia.com/thumb.cms?msid=33026526&width=283&resizemode=4" style="width: 286px; height: 209px; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left;"><div class="clear" style="clear:both;height:3px">  <br></div></div><div class="storycontent_outer" style="font-size:0.91em;line-height:20px;font-family:georgia;margin:0px;padding:1px 5px"><div class="storycontent" style="font-size:16px;line-height:normal;margin:0px;padding:5px">  NEW DELHI: After years of ignoring apps that promise users "sexy" pictures or "desi stories", Google is finally cracking down on objectionable content in the Play store. The company has revised its guidelines for app developers and has added "erotic content" to the type of material that it will ban within the apps distributed through the Play store.<br>  <br>Earlier, only the "sexually explicit" content was banned.<br><br>The move is aimed at stopping the rising number of apps in the Play store that promise users sexy pictures or adult stories. Most of these apps are free, serve shady advertisements and are quite popular, especially among the first-time smartphone users.<br>  <br>Interestingly, Google is not only targeting the apps that serve "erotic" or "sexually explicit" content but also the apps that use inappropriate "icons, titles, or descriptions". This is likely to target some of the phone editing apps or games with titles like "Tear Clothes" (see the image).<br>  <br>Google has also updated its policy regarding advertisements within the apps. According to TechCrunch, the changes put the onus on app developers to make sure that no ad networks or affiliates they're using for app promotion is engaged in shady or deceptive practices.<br>  <br><img class="gwt-Image" src="http://m.timesofindia.com/photo/33030564.cms" style="width: 288px; height: 208px;"><br><br>The changes to the developer policies make it clear that an Android app must not use the SMS feature without explicit permission of a user and must not impersonate any other app in any way.<br>  <br>It also seems that Google is now actively curating the Play store, or at least making more efforts to check the apps that it deems objectionable. Until a few months ago, it was easy to find the list of "popular free apps" or "popular new apps" full of apps that promised users photos of "sexy Indian girls" or something similar. However, such apps no longer find a place in the popular categories anymore.</div>  </div>

Google: No more sexy and naughty apps in Play store

NEW DELHI: After years of ignoring apps that promise users "sexy" pictures or "desi stories", Google is finally cr...

3:42 am

World's slimmest smartphone, Gionee Elife S5.5 launched at Rs 22,999

World's slimmest smartphone, Gionee Elife S5.5 launched at Rs 22,999

Gionee is all set to launch the world's slimmest smartphone, Gionee Elife S5.5 on March 31, in the Indian market. Gionee has launc...

3:40 am

Computer maps 21 distinct emotional expressions

<div style="border:0px;margin:0px 10px;font-family:Arial;font-size:medium"><h2 style="margin-bottom:0px"><span style="color:rgb(85,85,85);font-size:14px">Researchers have found a way for computers to recognise 21 distinct facial expressions - even those for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as 'happily disgusted' or 'sadly angry'. The study by Ohio State University more than triples the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis. "We've gone beyond facial expressions for simple emotions like 'happy' or 'sad'. We found a strong consistency in how people move their facial muscles to</span><br>    </h2></div><div style="border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-bottom-style:dotted;border-bottom-color:rgb(101,101,101);margin:0px 10px;font-size:medium;font-family:Arial"><p>Researchers have found a way for computers to recognise 21 distinct facial expressions - even those for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as 'happily disgusted' or 'sadly angry'.</p>    <p>The study by Ohio State University more than triples the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis.</p><p>"We've gone beyond facial expressions for simple emotions like 'happy' or 'sad'. We found a strong consistency in how people move their facial muscles to express 21 categories of emotions," said Aleix Martinez, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State.</p>    <p>The resulting computational model will help map emotion in the brain with greater precision than ever, and perhaps even aid the diagnosis and treatment of mental conditions such as autism and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).</p>    <p>Until now, cognitive scientists have confined their studies to six basic emotions - happy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised and disgusted - mostly because the facial expressions for them were thought to be self-evident.</p>    <p>But deciphering a person's brain functioning with only six categories is like painting a portrait with only primary colours, Martinez said.</p><p>The study photographed 230 volunteers - 130 female, 100 male, and mostly college students - making faces in response to verbal cues.</p>    <p>In the resulting 5,000 images, they tagged prominent landmarks for facial muscles, such as the corners of the mouth or the outer edge of the eyebrow.</p><p>They used a method used by psychologist Paul Ekman, the scientific consultant for the television show "Lie to Me". Ekman's Facial Action Coding System, or FACS, is a standard tool in body language analysis.</p>    <p>They searched the FACS data for similarities and differences in the expressions, and found 21 emotions - the six basic emotions, as well as emotions that exist as combinations of those emotions, such as "happily surprised" or "sadly angry."</p>    <p>The researchers referred to these combinations as "compound emotions." The model was able to determine the degree to which the basic emotions and compound emotions were characterised by a particular expression.</p>    <p>For example, the expression for happy is nearly universal: 99 per cent of the time, study participants expressed happiness by drawing up the cheeks and stretching the mouth in a smile.</p><p>Surprise was also easily detected: 92 per cent of the time, surprised participants opened their eyes wide and dropped their mouth open.</p>    <p>"Happily surprised" turned out to be a compound of the expressions for "happy" and "surprised."</p><p>About 93 per cent of the time, the participants expressed it the same way: with the wide-open eyes of surprise and the raised cheeks of happiness - and a mouth that was a hybrid of the two - both open and stretched into a smile.</p>    </div>

Computer maps 21 distinct emotional expressions

Researchers have found a way for computers to recognise 21 distinct facial expressions - even those for complex or seemingly contradictory e...

3:38 am

To keep search relevant, Google aims to bridge gap between apps and web

<div class="stname arttitletxt" style="font-size:1.75em;line-height:28px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;float:left;margin:0px;padding:10px 0px 5px 10px"><br></div><div class="photo" style="padding:10px 0px 10px 10px;font-size:0.75em;font-family:arial;color:rgb(111,111,111);line-height:14px">  <img border="0" src="http://m.timesofindia.com/thumb.cms?msid=33111596&width=283&resizemode=4" style="width: 286px; height: 209px; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left;"><div class="clear" style="clear:both;height:3px">  </div>If Google has its way, soon Android users will be able to search the content stored inside apps using the Google Search app. </div><div class="storycontent_outer" style="font-size:0.91em;line-height:20px;font-family:georgia;margin:0px;padding:1px 5px">  <div class="storycontent" style="font-size:16px;line-height:normal;margin:0px;padding:5px">If Google has its way, soon Android users will be able to search the content stored inside apps using the Google search app. Currently, the search app only hooks into data collected from websites and cannot look inside apps like Wikipedia or Flixter. But Google is working on a feature called "app indexing", which was announced last year in October, to give app makers ability to connect their apps to Google search engine.<br>  <br>If developers choose to use app indexing, relevant search results linked to their apps will appear on the web page of the Google search along with normal web links. If a user clicks on the app link, it will not open in a web browser. Instead, it will open in the relevant app.<br>  <br>"Wouldn't it be cool if you could give your users the choice of viewing your content either on the website or via your app, both straight from Google's search results," Lawrence Chang, a Google product manager asked developers in a blog post. "Today, we're happy to announce a new capability of Google search, called app indexing, that uses the expertise of webmasters to help create a seamless user experience across websites and mobile apps."<br>  <br>In a separate post, Chaesang Jung, a software engineer with Google, explained, "Let's say that a user is searching for a movie. With app indexing, Google will begin to include deep links to apps in Android search results. When the user taps on the 'open in app' deep links, the app opens up directly to the movie in question."<br>  <br>Google has announced that it is already working with several app makers including those who manage AllTheCooks, AllTrails, Beautylish, Etsy, Expedia, Flixster, Healthtap, IMDb, moviefone, newegg, OpenTable, Trulia, and Wikipedia apps. But the company wants more app developers to join the app indexing programme.<br>  <br>Initially, search results based on app indexing will be available to Android users in the US.<br><br>While the app indexing has some obvious benefits for users, it is very important to Google and its future. Google dominates the world of web. It has over 70% share in the worldwide web search market, and consequently gets lion's share in money spent on web advertising. But in the world of mobile, Google is not dominant.<br>  <br>"Apps are like walled gardens. Google's search engine cannot crawl the content stored within an app. The app indexing is a way for Google to stay relevant in the future when most of the users will not search for the best restaurant through a search engine but within an app that lists restaurants and their details," says Rohith Bhat, CEO of Robosoft, one of the leading app developers in India.<br>  <br>While Google, which owns world's most used mobile operating system Android, has done well to gain traction among tablet and phone users, it doesn't have the dominant position that it enjoys on the web and personal computers.<br>  <br>According to a report by Flurry on Tuesday, smartphone and tablet users in the US spend only 14% of their time on the mobile web. The figure last year was 20%. In comparison, 86% time users are inside apps.<br><br>"Both Google and Facebook have very well established franchises on mobile, but the market is still very fragmented. In fact, Google and Facebook combined probably command less than 25% of the total time spent by the average US mobile consumer," noted the Flurry report. "It is still too early to predict the trajectory apps will take in 2014. But one thing is clear - apps have won and the mobile browser is taking a back seat. Now every company in the world including Google is adjusting to that reality."<br>  <br>For Google, consequences of users spending most of their time within apps may turn out to be disastrous. This is one of the reasons why the company has beefed up its Search app on mobile phones to pull in answers that way Siri on iPhone does instead of just showing web links. The company has also introduced Google Now, which shows the "right information at the right time" in a bid to keep the search app relevant. Google has also beefed up Maps, YouTube and Gmail apps.<br>  <br>But for a company with a mission statement that reads "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", not being able to index stored in apps that majority of people use may result in an existential crisis.<br>  <br>Bhat believes that in terms of technology, app indexing is a sound idea. "Google has good traction with Android and the company will not have much problem attracting app developers for its project. Also, I am sure the API it will offer to developers will be simple to use," he says.<br>  <br>The problem, however, is related to the use cases.<br><br>Bhat says that these are early days for app indexing and in the coming months app developers will surely find some good use of it but currently his company is not thinking of integrating the Google search with its apps. "We haven't really figured out a use case for it so far. We mostly deal in games and utility apps. Developers who are working on apps with interactive content can make better use of app indexing," he says.</div>  </div>

To keep search relevant, Google aims to bridge gap between apps and web

If Google has its way, soon Android users will be able to search the content stored inside apps using the Google Search app. If Googl...

3:34 am

Oracle beats IBM to emerge world's second biggest software company, shares soar

Oracle beats IBM to emerge world's second biggest software company, shares soar

A Gartner report has proclaimed Oracle as the world's second biggest software company, after Microsoft, based on 2013 revenues. ...

3:31 am

Silicon Valley is no country for old men

Silicon Valley is no country for old men

The home of technology has been called the most ageist place in the world. Dr Seth Matarasso is a cosmetic surgeon in San Francisco. W...

3:25 am

Wipro in talks with colleges to launch analytics courses

<div class="stname arttitletxt" style="font-size:1.75em;line-height:28px;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-weight:bold;float:left;margin:0px;padding:10px 0px 5px 10px"><br></div><div class="photo" style="padding:10px 0px 10px 10px;font-size:0.75em;font-family:arial;color:rgb(111,111,111);line-height:14px">  <img border="0" src="http://m.timesofindia.com/thumb.cms?msid=33024310&width=283&resizemode=4" style="width: 286px; height: 209px; display: block; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); float: left;"><div class="clear" style="clear:both;height:3px">  </div>Wipro Technologies is in talks with several engineering colleges and universities to introduce courses in data analytics.</div><div class="storycontent_outer" style="font-size:0.91em;line-height:20px;font-family:georgia;margin:0px;padding:1px 5px">  <div class="storycontent" style="font-size:16px;line-height:normal;margin:0px;padding:5px">As demand for talent in niche technology areas such as data analytics gets fierce, some software companies are turning to universities and colleges to keep up with the digital revolution. Wipro Technologies, India's third largest software provider, is in talks with several engineering colleges and universities to introduce courses in data analytics as part of their curriculum. <br>  <br>Its goal: to expand analytics talent pool in the country and adapt to the changing business and technology landscape in India's $108-billion information technology industry. "The reality is that Indian companies are scrambling for good talent in areas such as analytics, cloud and mobility," said an industry source with direct knowledge of Wipro's initiative, which is expected to be in the final stages of approval. <br>  <br>Once introduced, the programme will help Wipro introduce tailored courses in topics that are important to its ongoing business and reach out to a wider talent pool at the time of campus placements. <br><br>"It's the first of its kind in the Indian software sector, although students who undertake the programme are under no obligation to work for Wipro," the source added. The initiative is an extension of the company's Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE), where it offers science graduates an opportunity to do a Masters degree from the Birla Institute of Technology in Pilani. <br>  <br>ET couldn't independent verify the names or number of colleges where Wipro will offer courses. The move comes at a time when India's top software outsourcing companies are trying to build expertise in "Smac" - the acronym for social, mobility, analytics and cloud - that is expected to be a major source of their revenue in the coming years. <br>  <br>Partnering with startups to expand expertise As traditional outsourcing services such as application development, maintenance and testing gets commoditised, these companies expect their clients in the US and Europe to step up investments in new technologies, but the dearth of talent worries them. <br>  <br>A 2011 Mckinsey report predicted that IT industry will face a significant shortage of analytics talent, particularly of people with deep expertise in statistics and machine learning. The consulting firm said it expects a 50% to 60% gap between the supply and demand of people with deep analytical talent. Over the past few quarters, software services companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and HCL Technologies have been partnering with startups and running in-house training programmes to expand their expertise in these technologies. While Wipro recently partnered with Chennai-based startup Orangescape, Noida-based HCL Technologies, India's fourth-largest technology firm, works with several startups. <br>  <br>Technology advisory firm Gartner estimates that the global business intelligence — which includes analytics — market will be $17.1 billion (Rs 1,02,000 crore) by 2016. TCS, India's largest software provider, recently organised a two-day gathering with college deans and principals to speak to them about what the industry wants from academic institutions. <br>  <br>Infosys , HCL Technologies and Mindtree said they do not have such partnerships at the moment, while a Wipro spokeswoman declined to comment. In a note last week, Mumbai-based brokerage firm Kotak said Wipro is working on three large analytics contracts, each with potential to return $50-100 million over 3-5 years. <br>  <br>Wipro gets 7.2% of its nearly $7-billion (Rs 42,000) revenues from analytics practice, the brokerage said. Data analytics company Mu Sigma in 2012 set up the Mu Sigma University that picks fresh engineering, computer science, and science grads from Tier-1 & Tier-2 colleges across India and the US and puts them through a training programme in analytics. "The kind of talent — people with the right skill set, tool set and mindset — that are required to address the challenges businesses face has been hard to find," said a Mu Sigma spokesperson. </div>  </div>

Wipro in talks with colleges to launch analytics courses

Wipro Technologies is in talks with several engineering colleges and universities to introduce courses in data analytics. As demand fo...

1:46 am

Amazon to open bookstore on International Space Station

<p class="mobile-photo"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtlY4vWZ0WntJF76OCxbfAWEauuR9ncIQUOVOe-OmmLWsvx8mJqHtFe0SvC6xB3BDbXFXtUorRfr1RrDzLCWJJlhhuQzgmKA6SnKzBg_lRA7qMxxTFgYsymTJ48PSmcAode0UnoxR3q-nC/s1600/iss-700581.jpeg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5997242367457935618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtlY4vWZ0WntJF76OCxbfAWEauuR9ncIQUOVOe-OmmLWsvx8mJqHtFe0SvC6xB3BDbXFXtUorRfr1RrDzLCWJJlhhuQzgmKA6SnKzBg_lRA7qMxxTFgYsymTJ48PSmcAode0UnoxR3q-nC/s320/iss-700581.jpeg" /></a></p><p style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"><font color="#35405d"><span style="font-size:20px"><b>A</b></span></font><span style="color:rgb(51,51,51);font-size:26px;line-height:31.75px">mazon is to open a bookstore selling physical books on the International Space Station (ISS).</span></p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">NASA announced the historic agreement in Houston this morning. The shop, which is expected to open in time for the busy summer season on the ISS – when international crews come and go every 50 days – will stock around 2,000 titles in hardback and paperback, curated by Amazon’s buyers working in conjunction with ISS Mission Control in Houston. Its aim is to make the downtime for the crews on the spacecraft more pleasant and provide welcome distraction in one of the ‘world’s’ most isolated of work environments.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">The historic deal is the culmination of a long-held dream of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.  He has been fascinated by space travel for many years and in 2000 established <a href="http://www.blueorigin.com/" style="border:0px;font-style:inherit;margin:0px;padding:0px;text-align:inherit;outline:none medium;line-height:1;color:rgb(255,80,36)">Blue Origin</a>, a “human space flight start-up company”, with the aim of developing “space hotels, amusement parks and colonies for two million or three million people orbiting the Earth”.  The bookshop on the ISS is the first stage of that dream.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">It will be the first time that the company has opened a physical bookstore.  It already has collection lockers in a number of cities and some see the move as a natural, if unexpected extension of that– a locker in the sky, some have dubbed it.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Bezos himself is now in training to make the three-day journey to the ISS where he will perform a space walk for one of the book industry’s most extraordinary ribbon cutting ceremonies.  He once said: “I am awed by the prospect. If you’ll forgive me, this will be one small step for a bookseller; one giant leap for bookselling.”</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">But, inevitably, there are detractors. One agent warned: “Is space an open market?  How do we know publishers have the rights for the territories the International Space Station will be above?” In France publishers were up in arms about pricing.  “I want to know that when the Space Station is over France, there will be no discounting,” said one.  </p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">But Amazon has acted to allay these fears. The bookshop will use a special sensor to detect which territory is below, and a bank of computers will indicate whether a particular publisher has rights or not. Similarly, when the ISS is above France, or any other territory that has fixed prices, all the stock will revert back to full RRP. This will happen every 91 minutes – the time it takes the ISS to orbit the globe.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Bezos plans to host trips to the ISS for editors and there is talk of author tours, with freeze-dried white wine and vacuum-sealed canapés the order of the day.  Interestingly, there will be adjustments to the standard categories in the store.  Thus titles set on earth and normally filed under Fiction will now be Science Fiction, and vice versa. Astronomy will become ‘Local Interest’.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">Amazon is opting for physical books because Kindle’s Whispersynch technology is believed to interfere with the ISS’s navigation equipment. “Besides,” Bezos observes, “in space, even a book the size of <em style="border:0px;margin:0px;padding:0px;text-align:inherit">Ulysses</em> doesn’t weigh anything”.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">As high streets go, this will definitely be one of the highest. The ISS orbits the earth at height of around 250 miles and travels at 17,200 mph – these will be the most well-travelled books in history.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">But a spokesperson for the US Indiebound movement of independent booksellers is not impressed.  “Not content with taking over earth, Amazon now wants to take over space as well.” In the UK Waterstones was believed to be readying a response for 2024.</p>  <p style="border:0px;font-size:26px;margin:0px;padding:0px 0px 1em;line-height:31.75px;color:rgb(51,51,51);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">However, there is one piece of good news for those battling the online behemoth – at least in space, no one will be able to hear Bezos laugh.</p>

Amazon to open bookstore on International Space Station

A mazon is to open a bookstore selling physical books on the International Space Station (ISS). NASA announced the historic agreement in H...

1:43 am