You Have To Think About The Jiophone!

You Have To Think About The Jiophone!

• The new Jiophone will be powered by Qualcomm 205 SoC(205 MObile Platform)
• 4G LTE connectivity(incl 4G VoLTE) for an entry-level feature phone.
• The Qualcom 205 SoC has a dual-core CPU  clocking 1.1GHZ and  can support up to 3MP rear & selfie camera, and can boast of a VGA display at 480p.
• NFC tech,voice command,TV cable connect.

Facebook can tell when teens feel insecure

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook knows when teens are feeling "insecure," "worthless," "stressed" or defeated" — and it quietly shared that information with an advertiser.

The social media company says it made a mistake handing over its research to an advertiser, and it says advertisers cannot target its nearly 2 billion users based on their emotional state. But the incident sheds new light on how companies like Facebook regularly mine our our daily lives, and it raises privacy issues for young people whose emotions are being monitored and studied.

According to documents leaked to The Australian newspaper, two Facebook executives prepared a report for one of the country's top banks describing how Facebook gleans psychological insights into the mood shifts of millions of young people in Australia and New Zealand by monitoring their status updates and photos.

The 23-page report showed Facebook's ability to detect when users as young as 14 are feeling emotions such as defeat, stress, anxiety or being overwhelmed. It was prepared by two of Facebook’s top Australian executives, David Fernandez and Andy Sinn, and provides other information on young people's emotional well-being such as when they exhibit "nervous ­excitement" as well as feelings connected to "conquering fears."

Not only is Facebook able to track these emotions, it can track how they fluctuate during the week. "Anticipatory emotions are more likely to be expressed early in the week, while reflective emotions increase on the weekend," the report said. "Monday-Thursday is about building confidence; the weekend is for broadcasting achievements."

Facebook says it fields requests from advertisers to conduct research on its users. This research was done about a year ago to help marketers in Australia and New Zealand understand how people express themselves on Facebook and no ad campaigns resulted from it, it said.

Opening up about our lives on social media can provide much needed support and advice when people feel upset or isolated. But, while people are unburdening themselves, vast amounts of data are quietly being collected and analyzed in the background, some of which is relayed in anonymous, aggregated form to marketers so they can more effectively target advertising dollars.

"People experience social media as a place to share their ups and downs. To show themselves. Now, we must revise our expectations or demand a new standard of practice from Facebook," Sherry Turkle, professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, said in an email. "Is our emotional state something that should be 'sold' as a new commodity?"

That's a subject that may concern this next generation of consumers and their parents. "The idea that a child's depression could be turned into a commodity shocks us now, but these things become the 'new normal' very quickly," Turkle said.

Sentiment analysis is commonplace on the Internet. Computer algorithms regularly take our emotional pulse, sifting through mountains of data collected from our daily online expression in real time. This kind of analysis can be used to gauge how people feel about a political candidate or about a particular company or product. Social sentiment analysis analyzes feelings expressed on social media such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

Gauging sentiment is a tricky business. Researchers say algorithms will need to become more sophisticated before they can read our feelings or predict our behavior. But Facebook's global girth gives it a distinct advantage. It employs teams of data scientists to crunch the massive quantities of data it has on its users, parsing it at highly granular levels.

That machine analysis can yield important insights such as detecting and preventing suicidal behavior. But Facebook has also come under heavy scrutiny in the past for secretly conducting research that manipulated the emotions of users by altering what they see in their News Feed without their consent.

When conducting consumer research Facebook says it carefully analyzes whether it would be beneficial to users or if it would have adverse effects on them. It also looks at whether people would be surprised if they knew the research was being conducted. All research is aggregated and anonymous, Facebook says.

Advertisers cannot target individuals based on how they are feeling or how they say they are feeling on Facebook. So someone feeling happy would not necessarily see a different ad than someone feeling sad. But advertisers can target ads to certain age groups and they can time them to run on a certain day.

Facebook critics like Jeffrey Chester want technology companies to provide lawmakers and regulators more insight into their data collection practices, and how that data is used to peddle ads, particularly in the vulnerable teen years, an anxiety-laden transition to adulthood filled with social, emotional and developmental challenges.

"The Australian leak reveals that Facebook continues to view its users — even young ones — as nothing more than cash cows that can be manipulated for marketers," said Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit watchdog group in Washington. "Facebook appears to be engaging in its own form of 'psyops' where it can use the immense power of its platform to manipulate young people."

Over 130 mn Aadhaar numbers may have been leaked due to the govt.’s poor security policies: Report

A new research report has now pointed out that up to 135 million Aadhaar numbers may have been exposed. The research report which was first reported by The Wire points out that the central government and a state government may have exposed up to 135 million Aadhaar numbers due to bad information security practices.

We have been hearing about several Aadhaar data breaches in the past couple of months. According to Center for Internet and Society (CIS) that studied four government databases which were accessible through government portals, an estimated 130-135 million Aadhaar number and 100 million bank details may have been exposed due to the lack of security measures.

While the government’s objective behind providing these online dashboards, was to make the details more transparent and accessible to other government and trusted organisations, the security measures that were put in place, were outdated and could easily be bypassed without much effort.

Add to this a data download option on the NSAP website, that allows for downloads of massive chunks of data. “This feature allows download of beneficiary details mentioned above such as Beneficiary No., Name, Father’s / Husband’s Name, Age, Gender, Bank or Post Office Account No. for beneficiaries receiving disbursement via bank transfer and Aadhaar Numbers for each area, district and state,” the report states.

“While the details were masked for public view, someone with login access could get the details. When one of the url query parameters of website showing the masked personal details was modified from “nologin” to “login”, that is control access to login based pages were allowed providing unmasked details without the need for a password.” added the report.

Authors or the research Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali also pointed out that the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) takes little responsibility.

“While the UIDAI has been involved in proactively pushing for other databases to get seeded with Aadhaar numbers, they take little responsibility in ensuring the security and privacy of such data.With countless databases seeded with Aadhaar numbers, we would argue that it is extremely irresponsible on the part of the UIDAI, the sole governing body for this massive project, to turn a blind eye to the lack of standards prescribed for how other bodies shall deal with such data, such cases of massive public disclosures of this data, and the myriad ways in which it may used for mischief,”

The government schemes that hosted millions of Aadhaar number along with banking and financial details have been listed below.

A. National Social Assistance Programme, Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India
B. National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India
C. Daily Online Payment Reports under NREGA, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh
D. Chandranna Bima Scheme, Government of Andhra Pradesh

The report further states that “it is staggering that while these databases have existed in the public domain for months, while framing the Aadhaar Act Regulations in late 2016, the UIDAI did not even deem these as important matters to be addressed by way of regulations or standards.” The authors also noted that in the process of completing the report, some of these websites had masked the pages with sensitive personally identifiable information (PII).

7-year-old who wrote adorable letter to Google CEO continues to crush it with new tech job

Chloe Bridgewater is only 7 years old but she's already getting paid to test products for a computer company. 

Her new side hustle comes only a few months after she wrote a letter asking "Google boss" Sundar Pichai for a future job in tech. 

Since her adorably honest and earnest letter went viral, Chloe and her family in Hereford, England, have gotten a lot of attention.

"It's been absolutely bonkers," her mom, Julie Bridgewater, said in a video call Thursday. Chloe's letter got even more attention when Pichai responded with a signed letter and encouraged Chloe to stay interested in coding, computers, robots, and math. 

So now Chloe and her 6-year-old sister, Hollie, are keeping up with the latest innovations in tech at Kano, a computer kit company. Over the Easter holiday, the family took the three-hour trip into London to check out company headquarters. Kano had reached out to Chloe via her Twitter — naturally — after hearing about her Google letter.

Just this week it was announced that the young sisters are the newest board members for Kano's product innovation board, which means they'll be testing out new products and giving the company feedback before they go to market. Already the girls were sent a kid computer kit to build and play with.  

"She's having fun experimenting on her own," Julie said. 

The sisters will have to work out sharing computer time, since their mom said fights are already brewing over who gets to play with the device. 

"Hollie's a bit miffed on Chloe getting all the attention," Julie said, but it helps that both girls are both included with computer kit testing, so they both feel involved and excited. 

Meanwhile their parents, Julie and Andy, are still overwhelmed by the attention stemming from Chloe's letter. 

"We both have our moments when we say, 'Crikey, this is really happening,'" Julie said. 

Back in class this week — the girls haven't missed any school during all this — a teacher played Kano's promo video of the girls playing and Andy talking about his daughters' relationship to technology and computers. 

"The teachers are really proud of her," Julie said about Chloe. And because of the success of her Google letter, her friends have taken inspiration and are writing their own, too.

All this for a 7-year-old, who at this rate, as her mom noted with a chuckle, is poised to have an "amazing CV by the time she’s 10."

Facebook launches Messenger Lite app in over 100 more countries today

Facebook today announced a new global expansion of Messenger Lite, a low-bandwidth version of its messaging app designed for Android smartphones with limited memory and processing power. The expansion, which is adding more than 100 new countries on top of the existing launch markets and other additions since last fall, means Facebook’s more stripped-down version of Messenger is now available to millions of more users around the world. The service originally landed last October in Kenya, Tunisia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela.

That’s bad news for Snapchat on a number of levels. For one, Snapchat is an intensive app now almost wholly focused on videos and augmented photography that relies on cloud processing to add masks, filters, and other real-time effects. The end result of all this computational load is that Snapchat isn’t really a viable piece of software for mid-tier and budget Android phones outside the US, where smartphone owners routinely grapple with hardware constraints and poor network coverage.

For Facebook, which has in recent months aggressively added Snapchat-like features to its main app, Instagram, and Messenger, the expansion of its Lite versions gives it another advantage over its rival. Neither Facebook Lite nor Messenger Lite contain the the kinds of augmented reality and camera effect features that Facebook’s main apps have. But it’s only a matter of time. Just yesterday, the company announced that it’s adding reactions, geofilters, and other subtle camera effects to Facebook Lite. You could imagine these features coming to Messenger Lite soon.

Considering the fact that Facebook Lite just surpassed 200 million users back in February — that’s 40 million more than Snapchat’s most recent monthly milestone — these lightweight apps could become a bigger threat to Snapchat down the line. Facebook may not be able to curtail its competitor’s popularity here in the US. But if it can keep international users from ever signing up for Snapchat the first place, by offering a viable and lighter replacement, then it will have won the war for attention nonetheless.

DJI likely to unveil new drone at event in May

The company has been on a hot streak

DJI just sent invitations to media for an event in New York City on May 24th. The email didn’t offer many clues, offering journalists a chance to “seize the moment.” But if rumors are correct, the next consumer-facing drone from DJI will be its smallest unit yet, shrinking down the form factor of the very popular Mavic Pro unit it released last year.

Images of a drone called the Spark leaked on DJI’s Chinese forums earlier this month. DJI recently trademarked that name, adding more weight to this rumor. The prototype didn’t appear to have the foldable arms of the Mavic, although that could easily change as the design gets closer to its final production form.

If DJI does release a drone this size at its upcoming event, look for it to try and hit a price point well below the $999 its been charging for the Mavic. A cheaper, smaller unit would compete with gadgets like the Hover Camera, Dobby, and other so called “selfie” drones.

Google Maps Now Helps You Find Your Parked Car

Google Maps has introduced a new feature that will help you remember where you parked your car in case you forgot.

All that Android users have to do is tap the blue dot and then tap "Save your parking" to add their parking location to the map.

This will show a label on the map itself identifying where you parked your car.

Users can add additional details about their parking spot by tapping the label to open the parking card. They can also save an image of their parking spot and send parking location to friends, Google said in a blog post late on Tuesday.

For iOS users, the steps are similar except that the after the tap on blue dot, the label will read, "Set as parking location" to the map itself.

"This is in addition to the automatic parking detection you might have already noticed in Google Maps for iOS. If you connect to your car using USB audio or bluetooth, your parking spot will be automatically added to the map when you disconnect and exit the vehicle," the blog added.

Also read: Apple Watch 3 Might Sport Micro-LED In Place of of Samsung OLED

Instagram will work on your phone even if you have spotty connectivity

Facebook is working on a way for Instagram to work offline on Android.

At a session at Facebook's F8 developer conference on Tuesday, titled "Building Offline Experiences for Instagram," a software engineer described the new offline mode for Android. 

80 percent of Instagram's users are outside of the U.S. — many in emerging markets where the cellular internet can be slower.

"For people in low-bandwidth regions, we’ve begun testing offline experiences that keep the Instagram experience consistent and let people consume and engage with content, even if they don’t have service," the company said in the session's description. 

The company has not yet announced the feature, but at least parts of it are already deployed in various regions. I was able to use the "like" feature in New York City, but none of the others. Instead of preventing you from liking posts when offline, the app now updates your likes when you're connected to the internet again.

Instagram is currently extremely network dependent, meaning that there is very little you can do without being connected to the internet.

Offline mode features include: much more cached feed content, liking and commenting offline, visiting profiles, unfollowing and includes support for the explore, activity and profile tabs.

The feature is currently being tested on Android, with iOS likely to come next. Offline mode could be a big boost for time spent in the Instagram app especially for users in emerging markets with spotty internet .

This is Google Jump’s next-generation VR camera rig

Yi might be a fly that GoPro can’t swat, but the Chinese company’s weakness so far has been everything beyond specs. Its action cameras aren’t as user-friendly, even if they’re typically cheaper. And, in the case of Yi’s first attempt at a mirrorless camera, they can sometimes be so frustrating that they don’t seem worth the savings. The Yi 360 VR will be available in limited release in June, so we’ll have to wait until at least then to find out of the trend continues.

Both cameras, meanwhile, will come to the US before making it to Yi’s home base of China. Yi CEO Sean Da tells The Verge that, while he expects Chinese VR viewership to boom in the coming years, this is because the majority of “high performance, high quality video creators are still US or European creators.”

To that end, the Yi Halo will be available starting today as part of a limited access program called Jump Start. As part of the program, Google will take applications from filmmakers to receive access to a Jump camera rig and unlimited use of the its Jump Assembler cloud service. Google plans to give out 100 of the Yi Halo cameras to help boost VR filmmaking, and the application process will be open until May 22nd.

Nokia Revives Its Indestructible Candy Bar—and Shows Off Three New Phones

BEFORE THERE WAS iPhone, there was 3310. After its launch in 2000, Nokia sold more than 125 million models of its indestructible candybar, turning Snake into a cultural icon and searing that tinkling ringtone permanently into the back of your mind. If you didn’t own one, you probably knew someone who did. And you were probably jealous.

It’s been almost 17 years since the 3310 first came out. In that time the Nokia brand has been bought, sold, and stripped for parts. At one point the 3310 even made a comeback, in the form of a wonky Windows Phone device with a huge camera bump that didn’t exactly excite the buying public. The company now making Nokia phones is HMD Global, a private equity-backed firm created explicitly to make new Nokia phones. For their first act, the new owners set about restoring the 3310 to its former glory, while bringing the beloved old phone into the new era.

Today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company re-launched the phone as a “One More Thing” at its press conference. The intro was swift: HMD Global CEO Arto Nummela held up the phone and said the only three things that matter. Its battery lasts a month, it has Snake, and it has the Nokia ringtone. And then he was gone.

Still, HMD didn’t just open up the warehouse doors, grab the old 3310s, and ship ’em to Best Buy. The company pulled and tugged and tweaked things a bit. (My editor suggested the phone should be called the 3311 to signify this, which I think sounds pretty cool.) The new 3310 has a camera, for one thing, a 2-megapixel shooter. It also has a 2.4-inch, 240×320 screen, which is hilariously small and low-res but still a huge improvement over the original. That model’s resolution was listed as “five lines.” It feels weird that this is worth mentioning, but it has colors now! The handset comes in white, blue, red, and yellow, and its edges round smoothly, more like a polished pebble than a chunky brick.The 3310 is still very much a feature phone. It has a web browser, but only barely—it’s a dumbed-down version of Opera, basically there for emergency tweeting. It exists for you to make phone calls, send texts the way you did a decade ago (T9 FTW!), and play Snake. The 3310 weighs less than three ounces, and its battery lasts an absurd 31 days in standby time, or up to 22 hours of talk time.

When it launches in Europe, the 3310 will cost 49 Euros, which is about $51. It’s almost a grocery-store checkout purchase, or something you throw into your In Case of Apocalypse bag and never worry about again. HMD figures some people will buy it as a second phone, a way to get away from the tyranny of your dinging iPhone and buzzing Apple Watch without fully disconnecting.

However, the market for feature phones is far bigger than the novelty buyers. In emerging markets, where money, data, and battery life are precious commodities, a device like the 3310 has huge appeal. In Africa, for instance, in mid-2016 smartphone purchases actually declined while feature phones went up more than 30 percent. The feature phone can be for some a burner phone, others a secondary device, and for many a primary means of communication. HMD probably won’t sell 125 million more 3310s, but it’s definitely making a real phone for real people.

Aim For the Middle

HMD’s plan is for Nokia to have phones at all price points, for all users. With that in mind, it’s launching three new smartphones alongside the 3310. The Nokia 3, a 5-inch smartphone made of aluminum and polycarbonate, comes with an 8-megapixel camera and a 720p display. It costs about $150. For $50 more, the Nokia 5 has an all-aluminum body, a 5.2-inch display of the same resolution, a 13-megapixel camera, and a more updated Snapdragon 430 processor.

At the top of the range there’s the $315 Nokia 6 (the numbering scheme seems akin to the BMW 3, 5, and 7 series), which is another all-aluminum device with a 5.5-inch, 1080p screen, and a 16-megapixel camera on the back. It’s been available in China since January, and is now going global. All three phones run a clean, untouched version of Nougat, the latest version of Android, which HMD says will be true for all Nokia phones going forward. No word yet on whether they can also play Snake.

None of the new devices are gunning for Samsung or Apple’s place atop the smartphone heap. But taken together, the three give Nokia a pretty good starting point for new smartphones. The devices are well-designed, as you’d expect from anything named Nokia, and priced pretty competitively. They have at least functional specs, and don’t try to mess with Android. And unlike too many Nokia phones before, they’re not obsessed with camera specs to the point of ruining the phone altogether. Nokia may not even remotely resemble the company it was in 2000, but it appears to be getting some of its swagger back

Report: Samsung to unveil massive Galaxy S8 handset

Samsung is about to release a version of the S8 with an even bigger screen than the Note 7. According to this leaked spec page, the S8+ will have a 6.2-inch curved screen. That’s about the size of a phonebook.

The phone is apparently called the S8+ and is said to be a variant of the the S8 sort of like what Apple offers with the iPhone and iPhone Plus — but Samsung, always the creative type, is apparently using the plus symbol rather than spelling out the word.

The leaked spec sheet also confirms the S8+ will sport an iris scanner like the short-lived Note 7. The sheet also seems to suggest that the phone will have a headphone jack as it notes the phone will ship with “Earphones tuned by AKG”.

Chances are Samsung will reveal the phone in the coming weeks and maybe as soon as this weekend at Mobile World Congress.

View image on Twitter

Govt to bring free Wi-Fi in over 1000 villages with new pilot project

Indian government's new pilot project dubbed 'Digital Village' plans to wirelessly connect over 1000 villages through Wi-Fi

India’s government is gearing up to provide Wi-Fi and internet access to its rural citizens. Previously, Google and Facebook have undertaken the task of bringing internet connectivity in India. According to a report by CNN Money, the government plans to provide free wireless Internet to over 1000 villages across its vast expanse in a new pilot project called ‘Digital Village.’

The government plans to setup Wi-Fi hotspots (mounted on special towers) in these villages. CNN Money reports that Indian as well as global Internet providers are queuing up for the project, which aims at connecting more than 900 million people in the country. The government is allocating $62 million (over Rs 400 crores) in the initial phase of the project, before it is expanded to the entire country.

The aim of the government is to use digital technology to provide basic development services to rural areas, according to Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology official, Aruna Sundararajan as reported by CNN Money. The project will also bring interactive education and give basic Internet access to villages.

In the budget today, the government also announced a boost for the BharatNet plan of installing fibre-optic internet lines across the country. In its Union budget, Finance minister Arun Jaitley has said high-speed broadband (via optic fibre) will become available to over 1.5 lakh gram panchayats.

Under the Bharat Net project (with a Rs 10,000 crore allocation of funds) optical fibre cables will be laid across 1,55,000 kms all over India.

Google is currently providing free Wi-Fi at 100 railway stations across India. According to Google, the free service is available to over 10 million people passing through these stations everyday. The company has also claimed its free Internet service sees over five million monthly users, with 15,000 first time users connecting each day.

India’s Internet penetration is at 27 per cent (343 million) according to Deloitte-Assocham study, growing thanks to the growth of 3G and 4G connectivity – however the Wi-Fi penetration remains low. The report has suggested India will have close to 600 million Internet users by 2020.

Apple’s iPhone 8 Will Be All Glass

iPhone 8 will not be similar to iPhone 7 and Apple iPhone 8 will have fully front and back Glass, iPhone 8 Release Date will be shared soon.

After a successful history with iPhone 7 launch, everyone is looking forward to the Apple’s future discovery which is to be released presently this year. In iPhone 7, Apple had made a massive modification like jackless headphones and the company want to carry on the same thought in iPhone 8. On the other hand, the company went back to iPhone 4 to bear witness in iPhone 8.

The information tells us that the iPhone 8 will be same in the looks of iPhone 4 which will include a stainless steel frame and will have a full glass. The DigiTimes report that the previous statement fixed in a KGI note in April of last year which was carried by reports from Foxconn. The Chief Design Officer (CDO), Sir Jonathan Paul “Jony” Ive of Apple Inc. This man was in charge for iPhone designing on a single slab of glasses in the style of iPhone.

Apple iPhone 8 will be having Home Button and Touch ID sensor into the screen in a bordering on the bezel-free project. The statement also shows the backside of the iPhone 8 would also be fully glass. The noticeable achievement in Jet Black iPhone 7, Apple is also functioning on a fully Jeg Black glossy black iPhone 8.

The Apple is in the condition to give long-distance wireless charging for buyers. The iPhone 8 is launching date is thought by reporters to being a tenth-anniversary special launch. The other noticed that Apple is not considered to product anniversaries in history. The agreement will be shown on Wall Street is that the iPhone 8 will generate a ‘super-cycle’ beyond the sale in the first larger-screened models, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

The board of adjudicators, on the other hand, separated the characteristics of iPhone 8 will be a curved screen or a flat-sided design next to appearance of the iPhone 4 and 5, return with the iPhone SE. Some news reporters advise that the curved screen strengthens the top level model.

iPhone 8 will not be similar to iPhone 7 and Apple iPhone 8 will have fully front and back Glass, iPhone 8 Release Date will be shared soon.

Get free Jio SIM, and a smartphone too

  New Delhi:Online marketplace Snapdeal on Friday announced some lucrative offers on Chinese smartphone maker LeEco's device Le 2 where users can get free Jio SIM delivered at home.

The offers on 64GB and 32GB variant of Le 2 includes 10 per cent discount on all credit and debit cards, flat 8 per cent discount on flight bookings (economy class) on Jet airways and free home delivery of Jio SIM (users will receive a registration link after a week of phone delivery on email). 

Three-hundred lucky customers purchasing the 64GB variant of Le 2 will get the additional benefit of a free CDLA headset, the company said in a statement.

Le 2 comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display and powers Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor. The device also sports 16MP rear camera and 8MP front camera.

LeEco has recently started retailing the 64GB variant of Le 2 on Snapdeal. (IANS)