10 Things in Tech You Need To Know Today [1-6 Jan'17]

The first working week of the year 2017 has finally come to an end, and it has been a pretty busy week in the world of tech. In order to give you a quick recap of the top happenings, we at www.indianweb2.com have come up with the Top 10 things that happened in the tech world this week.

1) Apple To Manufacture iPhones in India

According to some recent reports, Apple supplier Wistron Corp is looking to expand its factory in Bengaluru city and has applied for a fast-tracked approval for the same.

Wistron has recently been added as Apple’s third manufacturer for Apple’s 2017 iPhone, iPhone 8. Prior to this, the company had gained experience and credibility as an Apple supplier on secondary iPhone handsets.

The interesting thing to note here is that the Wistron news comes just a few weeks after it was reported that Apple is currently in the midst of talks with the Indian government regarding the possibility of assembling its products in India, one of the world’s biggest smartphone markets, wherein the US-based tech firm accounts for less than 2 percent.

2) Soon IoT Enabled Fridges and Washing Machines Will Gather Evidence From Crime Scenes

The 'Internet of Things’ in which more and more devices are connected together in a world of ‘smart working’ holds the potential of providing a helping hand to police/detectives in terms of gathering important clues for crime scenes. A number of US detectives are currently undergoing training to be able to search for gadgets and white goods that could provide a ‘digital footprint’ of victims or criminals involved in a crime.

According to a statement given by Mark Stokes, the head of the digital, cyber and communications forensics unit at the Metropolitan Police to The Times, wireless cameras within a device, such as a fridge, might soon be able to record the movement of owners and suspects.

He further added, “Doorbells that connect directly to apps on a user’s phone can show who has rung the door and the owner or others may then remotely, if they choose, to give controlled access to the premises while away from the property.”

“All these leave a log and a trace of activity. The crime scene of tomorrow is going to be the internet of things,” he concluded.

3) After Wearable, Smell Based IoT Its Time For Eye-Tracking Internet of Thing

After a Chinese study recently concluded that humans very soon might be able to send scented odours in their online messages, it’s now time to welcome eye-tracking Internet of Things.

Even though human eye is considered as the fastest moving organ in the human body, still the eye-tracking technology represents a nascent market all around the world. Though new and comparatively smaller, the market has a number of participants making an entry into the space by bringing with them a good range of new, innovative solutions to provide users with more intuitive, immersive, and glanceable experiences, something which they expect the fourth screens to deliver.

Currently, there are a number of companies trying their hand at capitalising this great notion by bringing eye-tracking technologies to wearable augmented reality and virtual reality devices. The list includes California-based startup Eyefluence, which was acquired by Google last year, and Copenhagen-based The Eye Tribe, which was just recently acquired by Oculus (Facebook).

4) Google Aims To Bring India’s 51 Million SMBs Online With Its New Digital Unlocked Program

This week saw Google’s Indian origin global chief executive officer Sundar Pichai unveiling Google’s Digital Unlocked program, a program aimed at getting all of India’s 51 million small and medium businesses (SMBs) online.

Google’s new initiatives for the SMBs include a training program, tools to build their websites, and a support service to help such businesses get online.

The Digital Unlocked program is a free training program that aims to teach SMBs the basic digital skills required to get online and how they can start using the Internet to grow their business. While the online training under the program consists of 90 self-paced training video tutorials, created by the Indian School of Business, FICCI and Google itself, the offline training comprises of an eight-hour classroom training programme created in partnership with FICCI. By 2020, Google plans to successfully conduct as much as 5,000 such workshops in 40 Indian cities.

5) BHIM App will be Available on iOS in 10 Days

The BHIM app, which has been developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), is expected to make its iOS debut in about 10 days from now. Along with the iOS version, the app, which is currently only available in Hindi and English, will also come out with several more multilingual versions.

BHIM, the unified app for UPI-based payments launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 30th last year, has crossed over 3 million downloads in just five days since its launch with over 500,000 transactions successfully accomplished.

The app allows payments via the United Payments Interface (UPI), which makes sure that money is debited or credited directly to a user’s bank account. For those users who don’t have UPI on their bank accounts yet, BHIM also supports transfers via MMID and IFSC code.

6) An Ex Stock Exchange Employee Launches Blockchain-Powered Cybersecurity Startup ‘Block Armour’

Narayan Neelakantan, a former chief information security officer at NSEiT, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSEIL), has decided to counter the alarmingly growing incidents of cybersecurity in the world by leveraging the power of the swiftly growing Blockchain technology. Neelakantan has recently launched a startup powered by blockchain technology for cybersecurity called Block Armour.

The Mumbai-based startup will be effectively making use of blockchain and other emerging technologies of the world for the purpose of providing software-defined perimeter for digital signature based authentication for devices, data and humans in an effort to curb growing cybercrime cases in the digital world.

With a goal of providing the world with easily deployable, scalable and cost-effective next-generation enterprise-grade cybersecurity, the startup is also looking to address the growing concerns over the security of Internet of Things devices and is working towards safeguarding connected devices and networks in the Internet of things (IoT).

7) The Next Generation Of HDMI Will Support 8K Video With HDR

This week witnessed the HDMI Forum, which is the industry body responsible for HDMI announcing its first draft of the standard’s next set of specifications. According to the draft, the HDMI version 2.1 — which will be backward compatible with the current HDMI devices — will support 8K (7680 x 4320 or 33 million pixels) video with HDR at a 60Hz refresh rate, or 4K (3,840 x 2,160 or 8.3 million pixels) video at a 120Hz refresh. The HDMI Forum’s Technical Working Group believes that this new capacity will allow for more “immersive viewing and smooth fast-action detail.”

8) The Basslet Wearable Lets You Feel The Music Like You're At A Real Club

Meet The Basslet, a new wearable device that not only lets you just hear the music, but feel it in your body too. The device is a small, flat black box that one has to wear on their wrist. The device contains a miniature actuator that pulses in time with the music the user is playing, giving the user a localized version of the bone-rumbling beats that real subwoofers push out.

In order to make the $199 device function, a user is required to plugin their headphones into a small, passthrough box on the way to their music source (phone/laptop/iPod), which samples the music as it goes through and wirelessly communicates to the wearable how to vibrate in time with the bass of the music being played. The buttons present on the side of the wearable are used to control the intensity and also double up as magnetic charging contacts.

9) Honda Unveils First Electric Ride-Sharing Concept Car

Honda has become the first major automaker to unveil a concept vehicle especially designed for the ride-sharing market. Announced at CES, Las Vegas, The NeuV, which is is an acronym for the New Electric Urban Vehicle, has been built to explore the potential that self-driving, electric cars can be delegated to do some concrete work rather than just sitting idle nearly all the time.

The two-seat vehicle has the ability to be programmed to pick up and drop off passengers when its owner isn’t using it, or to even sell back the remaining energy to the grid. According to Mike Tsay, principal designer, Honda R&D Americas, the company has designed NeuV to become more valuable to the owner by optimizing and monetizing the vehicle’s down time.

10) Amazon Adds Voice-Order Restaurant Delivery to Alexa

Amazon Prime members can now use voice commands to order food through Amazon Restaurants, the e-commerce giant's popular online food-delivery service, on Alexa-enabled devices like its Echo speakers.

10 Top Things in Tech This Week [26-31 Dec’16]

The final week of 2016 came to a conclusion yesterday. So, we at Indianweb2.com decided to provide you with a quick recap of all the important tech related news that took place in the last 2016 week.

1) India Has Its First Laser Technology-Based Check-Post

India’s very first laser technology-based advanced Automatic Vehicle Monitoring System(AVMS) equipped interstate RTO check post was inaugurated by Gujarat Chief Minister, Vijay Rupani at Shamlaji of Aravalli district near Gujarat-Rajasthan border.

Carrying a heavy cost of Rs 4.72 crore, the check-post comes equipped with advanced ray technology. It’s state-of-the-art automatic system is capable of checking overloaded vehicles and fining them.

The new AVMS RTO check post come well-equipped with laser technology and advanced tools for making the entire process transparent and eliminating the influence of middlemen and mafias at the check posts.

2) Smart electricity meters can be dangerously insecure, warn experts

According to security experts, Smart electricity meters, of which there are more than 100m employed all around the world, are dangerously insecure. The absence of security in these smart utilities can lead to a single line of malicious code cutting electricity to a house or even causing a dangerous overload leading to exploding electricity meters and house fires.

While the physical security of the smart meters is still strong, it is the wireless protocols that are problematic. A majority of the smart meters make use of GSM, the 2G mobile standard to communicate with the utility company. GSM's weakness wherein an attacker with a fake mobile tower can instruct devices to “hand over” to the fake version from the real tower, simply by providing a strong signal, is a well-known thing all around the world. Since in GSM, devices authenticate with towers, and not the other way round, this allows the fakemast to send its own commands to the smart meter.

3) Twitter may finally let users edit their tweets

The famous 140-characters social networking site is finally considering providing its users a feature they have been longing for too long. Twitter is finally looking at ways it could allow its users to edit their tweets.

According to Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey, since Twitter is seen as the public record for high-profile figures, so allowing them to edit posts retrospectively would require a history/log of all the changes made to the tweet. Twitter is currently working on how to make the same possible.

4) Amazon's flying warehouses to dispatch drone deliveries from the sky

Internet retailer Amazon has designed an innovative floating warehouse that would be placed thousands of feet up in the air, from which the world famous retailer plans to dispatch an army of delivery drones to metropolitan areas.

The e-retailer has patented its futuristic plans for humongous "airborne fulfillment centres" that would be make up as bases for aerial deliveries to homes. Flying at up to 45,000 feet up in the air, the warehouses would be suspended by cables from zeppelin-style airships, and stocked with all popular Amazon items. This way, whenever a customer would make an order, an onboard drone from the warehouse will come into action and deliver it without taking much time. After the delivery, the drone will be sent back up to the station by a shuttle that will also be capable of restocking and refuelling the floating warehouse whenever needed.

5) Toilet paper for smartphones now on offer at Japanese airport

While a majority of us were thinking about it, a Japanese mobile company actually went ahead and did it. Our smartphone is a basic tool of survival for many of us which stays with most of the times; even during eating, sleeping and working. Hence, the Smartphone runs the high risk of carrying germs. In order to make our phones germ free, we need to clean our phones on a daily basis, a simple thing which many of us just don't do.

NTT Docomo, Japan's largest mobile operator, decided to do something about the issue, and installed dispensers for "toilet paper" to be used on smartphones in the conveniences at Japan's Narita International Airport.

According to the company, the service in response to a finding that smartphone screens have carry more than five times the amount of germs found on a toilet seat.

6) Bitcoin price at record high against Pound and Euro

The week saw Bitcoin's reaching a new all-time high against the pound, with the virtual currency now well above the previous record levels of late 2013. One bitcoin was worth £782.49 on Wednesday this week, above the £694.65 it had reached on November 29 2013.

The rise in trends has been attributed to the steady devaluation of the Chinese yuan. Since a lot of bitcoin trading takes place in China, so financial conditions in the country have a huge impact on the currency's price.

7) 'Bionic eye' implants offer hope for blind NHS patients

Ten people with an inherited form of blindness will be fitted with "bionic eye" implants in a procedure that will be funded by NHS England. The selected 10 will be provided with a pair of glasses mounted with a camera which will capture light and send wireless signals to an implant in the retina. The implant will then send information to the brain to help the patients regain some sight.

The Argus II Bionic Eye by Second Sight, has been trialled and tested to treat those suffering from age-related macular degeneration, which is the most common cause of sight loss in the developed world.

8) Eco Wave Power turns wave power into electricity

Eco Wave Power, a Tel Aviv-based firm is capturing the ocean's untapped energy by making floats that attach to coastal infrastructure to harvest wave power and convert it into electricity.

The firm's floats are attached to quays and jetties via the flexible arms. As the ocean swells move in, the firm's floats' rising and sinking motion ends up creating intense pressure that's harnessed by the hydraulic cylinders and transmitted via the subsea cables to the land, where it spins a generator to create electricity.

9) Ford reveals its latest autonomous car

Ford unveiled its second-generation driverless Fusion Hybrid just a week before it is scheduled to show the car off at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The second generation of the vehicle shows the company doing away with the pipe organ-style suite of sensors on the roof and going in for a more streamlined look.

10) Twitter launches 360-degree video streaming on Periscope

Twitter has decided to bring live 360-degree video streams to Periscope. In order to do the same on desktop, a user is required to click and drag around on the screen to rotate the camera. For mobile, one can twist and turn their phone to change their perspective.

10 Top Things in Tech This Week [12-17 Dec'16]

Another weeks comes to a wrap. Here's Indianweb2.com giving you quick recap of all the important things that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Bluetooth 5 Coming To An IoT Near You

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has finally confirmed that the Bluetooth 5 standards have been finally been successfully adopted. It was during the beginning of the year that Bluetooth SIG had officially announced Bluetooth 5 in a formal press release.

The updated Bluetooth is twice the speed and four times the range of its predecessor, Bluetooth 4.2, with speeds of up to 2MBps. With a 8x broadcasting messaging capacity, Bluetooth 5 is capable enough to carry data/information to “low energy” devices such as smartwatches, headphones, and other Internet of Thing (IoT).

2) Meet ‘Jinie’ – India’s First HR Chatbot By PeopleStrong

PeopleStrong, India’s leading human resource solutions and human resource technology company, has launched India's first HR chatbot “Jinie“.

Through Jinie, PeopleStrong aims to shift HR from a transactional interface with employees to a conversational interface which is much for engaging and impactful. It is like an employee’s personal worklife assistant who can help in solving any HR related query. Be it completing employee data, applying leaves or managing any kind of employee transactions – Jinie is there for an employee every time.

3) B2B Commerce Company Moglix Launches GST Technology for the Manufacturing Sector

This week saw Moglix, which is a leading B2B commerce startup, announcing the launch of its GST (Good and Services Tax) technology for the manufacturing sector.

With its new GST technology, Moglix aims to empower SME to large suppliers and buyers through its GST technology (business.moglix.com) to file indirect taxes seamlessly, while maintaining a close tab on the 100% reconcilability of the entire value chain.

4) Postman Announces Postman Pro: Complete API Toolchain for Developers & Developer Teams

The week witnessed Postman, provider of the most popular API toolchain currently available, announcing a major update to its innovative developer product, Postman Pro.

With its new update, developers will now be able to leverage the power of Postman at every stage of their API workflow, from development and testing, through collaboration, documentation and publishing, to API monitoring.

Postman began as a simple tool to make API testing faster and easier, and has expanded into a powerful, collaborative and user-friendly toolchain, allowing Postman customers to streamline and simplify every aspect of API development.

5) Google Now Lets You Control Netflix using Google Home

With the holiday season just around the corner, here's an announcement by Google to add to your holiday cheer. Google has now announced added Netflix support to its home assistant Google Home. With the update, one can now ask Home to play specific series, pause and resume playback, turn on captions, and even rewind the shows one is watching if they miss what was just played out.

6) Virgin Launches World’s Most Affordable Solar-Light

It had been a decade since Virgin company started selling their solar lights in Africa. Even though the price tag of the solar lights have come down drastically from $25 to $10 over the ten years, they still have failed to appeal to families that depend on kerosene lights and candles. This is why Virgin decided to kick off its own light project called SolarAid, along with renowned designers Yingli Solar and Inventid.

After a couple of years of research and hard work, the first 1,000 samples of the new, improved and more affordable solar light made their way to UK whilst another 9,000 samples were sent to Africa as part of a field trial to asses the new product’s quality and gather constructive feedback. Named the SM100, the new solar light will retail for just $5 in Africa.

7) Amazon Makes First Drone Delivery to House in Cambridge

This week saw Amazon delivering its first package using a drone. This marked the onset of a trial that will involve Amazon customers in Cambridge receiving their orders via air mail.

The short distance drone ended up taking just 13 minutes to deliver an Amazon Fire TV and bag of popcorn to a customer from the moment of order. The successful delivery brought Amazon's boss Jeff Bezos' dream of a fleet of drones delivering Amazon packages to customers a step closer to coming true.

8) Oculus Make Gear VR More Social with Voice Chat and Virtual Living Rooms

Oculus has launched two new features for the Samsung Gear VR headset with an aim of encouraging users to interact with one another in a virtual hangout.

The first feature is called Parties. It's a simple chat system that lets you jump into a voice call and talk with others while wearing the headset. The second feature is called Rooms, and is a new of interacting with others in Virtual Reality.

9) Wi-Fi services in Indian flights might soon be a reality

DoT, Union Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju recently moved a proposal for allowing in-flight Wi-Fi services in India. In order to make this a reality, amendments will have to made to the provisions of Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 as well as Indian Telegraphy Rules made thereunder.

10) Kickass Torrents is back in business, run by original staff members

According to a report published TorrentFreak, Kickass Torrents’ original staffers have managed to bring the defunct website back to business under a new domain name, and with all its old content intact.

For the unaware, Kickass Torrents had close its business earlier this year after the popular torrent site founder Artem Vaulin was arrested in Poland and the domain name was seized by the US Justice Department

10 Top Things in Tech This Week [5-10 Dec'16]

With another week coming to a close, here's www.indianweb2.com giving you a quick roundup of what are the top 10 things that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Breakthrough Invention in IoT: Now Each Smart Device Can Start Its Very Own Network

A Finland-based connectivity startup Wirepas has successfully developed a communication protocol that has the potential of revolutionizing the whole of IoT by turning smart devices into routers and giving each device the ability to start their own network and route traffic.

This will result in making IoT easier and cheaper for all type of businesses, including any product manufacturers or service providers as they will be able to maintain and grow their network once it has been successfully deployed.

2) Meet COO-Paisa – A Digital Currency Launched By An Indian Co-Operative Bank

In order to help out the Indian cooperative sector during the current cash crunch period, Thenhipalam Cooperative Bank, a primary cooperative bank in Malappuram, Kerala, has come up with its own digital currency app CooPaisa. With the app, the bank is directly taking on the currently visible hegemony of e-payment wallets in the country which requires a smartphone and internet connection to operate.

The CooPaisa mobile application facilitates e-payment service to hundreds of people who have accounts at the Thenhipalam Cooperative Bank. In an effort to provide a smooth experience to its customers, the Malappuram branch of the bank has made arrangements with taxis, local shops, autorickshaws, and fish vendors within a 20 km radius of the bank.

3) Credit Card Giant MasterCard Files 4 New Blockchain Patents

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently published four applications filed by the credit card company relating to its work with the nowadays in trend blockchain and distributed ledger technology.Published on 24th of last month, all the four applications published lay their focus essentially on transacting and payments.

This recent development from MasterCard clearly suggests that the credit card giant is looking into ways to integrate the blockchain-based digital currencies into its own in-house systems.

4) Portronics Launches ‘Yogg X’, A Detachable Dial, Water-Proof Smart Fitness Watch

Portronics has enhanced its wellness series by launching “Yogg X” – a slim and elegant smart fitness watch with a touch-enabled detachable dial and a water proof design (IP67).

According to Portronics, even if Yogg X accidentally falls and stays in a bucket of water 1 meter / 3 feet deep for 30 minutes, it will still come out working normally. The smart fitness watch brings with it the benefits of wearable technology for style and fitness conscious people, at home, at office or in-between.

Yogg X enables one to easily set their daily fitness goals, track their activity levels using state of the art in-built sensors, and sync the data with their Smartphone using the Yogg X app. It even alerts one when they have successfully achieved their goals.

5) Hyperloop Technologies In Talks With Indian Govt. To Perform Trial Runs

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop — a super-high speed pod-like vehicle, is in talks with Indian government to perform trial runs in the country.

According to a top executive at the Hyperloop One (earlier known as Hyperloop Technologies), the company is eager to come to India and begin trials for their high-speed transportation technology in the country. The company is currently in the midst of seeking a nod from the Indian government for the trail runs.

6) List of Old Smartphones WhatsApp Will End Support For, By End of 2016

In the beginning of 2016, WhatsApp had announced that it will stop supporting older smartphones by end of 2016. And now, as the end of the year is approaching, WhatsApp is all set to follow its announcement and end its support for some of the older devices.

WhatsApp will end its support by the end of 2016 for those running on Android 2.1 and Android 2.2, Windows Phone 7, the iPhone 3GS and or any other iPhone still on iOS 6.

7) Future Tech: Apple To Build Driverless Cars While Bill Gates Has Backed A Waterless Toilet Project

Recently, Apple gave a near clean indication about its ambition of joining the global race of driverless cars makers.

According to a news report by Reuters, a five-page letter from Steve Kenner, Apple’s director of product integrity, to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is the company’s most comprehensive statement yet about its interest in self-driving vehicle technology. The Nov. 22 letter followed more than a year of industry speculation about the computer and iPhone maker’s plans for expanding into transportation.

In addition to Apple, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is a private foundation founded by Bill Gates and his wife in year 2000, is also doing its bit for future tech. It has funded a project called – “Nano Membrane Toilet” or Waterless Tiolet which will be able to treat human waste on-site without external energy or water. The waterless toilet is being developed by developers at Cranfield University.

8) Adadas, Fuma, Naik, Rebok: How Blockchain, IoT Can Help Beat Counterfeiters

One of the main reasons for the ever-growing counterfeit market, valued at a whopping $1.77 trillion last year, the unavailability of basic infrastructure for easy and instantaneous detection of fake products. While there are many platforms which the authorities make use of to authenticate and verify goods, but their huge reliance on centralized databases ends up making these platforms exposed for easy target for data alteration and tampering.

Seeing this lack of infrastructure, Riddle&code, a Blockchain-based Internet of Things platform provider, decided to develop a Blockchain-based IoT platform that will give goods manufacturers power to embed intellectual property and digital fingerprints of their products onto a public ledger, which can be easily accessed to any party involved in the network. Since Riddle&code’s Blockchain technology is decentralized in nature, it ends up making the ledger tamper proof, which in return maintains the proper security measures of the Blockchain-based IoT platform.

9) Bad News: Wearable Devices Have High Drop-out Rate, Says Gartner Report

A recent Gartner survey has found out a rather shocking fact. According to it, the current drop-out rate of smartwatches comes out at a high 29 percent, and the abandonment rate among fitness trackers is even higher at 30 percent.

The survey by Gartner’s personal technologies study was taken online by a total of 9,592 respondents from the UK, the US and Australia between the period of June to August this year. The survey aimed to track the respondents true feelings/attitudes towards wearable tech, especially know about their buying behaviours when it comes to spending on fitness trackers, virtual reality glasses, and smartwatches.

10) Microsoft and Intel's Project Evo Will Up the PC Game

This week saw Microsoft and Intel announcing their highly collaboration to create the next generation of personal computers in the form of Project Evo. With the project, the tech giant aims to revolutionise four key areas of the Windows 10 experience—artificial intelligence, mixed reality, advanced security and gaming. Though its ultimate goal is to make Windows PCs the central hub of home entertainment by the year 2017.

10 Top Things in Tech This Week

If during the week you were too busy to catch up on your tech news appetite, here we're to your rescue. Here are top 10 things that happened in tech this week:

1) Samsung Considering Splitting Into Two: Report

According to reports going around in the South Korean tech market, South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is considering splitting itself into two. The idea has reportedly been proposed by Elliott Management, the United States based activist hedge fund.

A split has been suggested because it would allow the company’s founding Lee family to strengthen their position in the global Smartphone leader brand, which is considered as the crowing jewellery of the humongous Samsung Group business empire. The split was suggested last month by the Elliott Management so as to boost their shareholder value.

2) Milestone Achievement As R3 Blockchain Opens to All

R3 CEV, the financial technology firm led by former ICAP electronic broking CEO David Rutter, is the latest to make its Blockchain, which is a kind of distributed ledger that has the potential to completely revamp the banks’ back offices with modernised software, open to all.

Speaking to Forbes about the company’s move to open source its Blockchain, Richard Brown, R3’s chief technology officer said, the main intention of the company in taking this step is to encourage other people in the community to contribute to it, to build on top of it, to drive its design and adoption. He also said that he is quite hopeful that a lot of people will be downloading it and making a substantial use of it.

3) Just Eat In London Is Replacing Delivery Men With Robots

Just Eat, Europe’s biggest online takeaway food company, has recently delivered its first take away via its delivery robot to a customer residing in Greenwich. The delivery marked the launch of Just Eat’s pilot project that involves transporting food all around the city by employing autonomous vehicles.

It was only in July this year that the food company had announced about its partnership with Starship Technologies, the firm behind the slow moving pavement droids, and its plans to make delivering food via robots on the London streets, a reality soon.

4) Soon You Could Send Scented Odors In Your Online Messages

Recently, a Chinese study was carried out which involved 54 people and aimed at studying whether humans can express their emotions with scent during digital communication. The researchers have named the concept “odor emoticon.”

Published in The International Journal of Human-Computer Studies in April this year, the study basically took place in three main phases. It involved selecting separate groups of participants, reviewing them, and then corresponding them with one another by making use of scents.

5) Bangalore Based Entropik Launches World’s First Patented Technology That Predicts User Emotions Based On Smartphone Touch Gestures

This week saw Entropik Technologies, a Bangalore-based tech startup launching ‘Chromo’ — a patent pending technology breakthrough invention. Chromo has the ability to predict user emotions based on their touch gestures on smartphone/digital wearables/IoT sensors.

Chromo.io is the startup’s first product that machine learns on mobile touch data and Smartphone Motion/ Gesture sensor data to predict Emotion Sense, Motion Sense, Semantics and Gestures as the user makes use of the app. These rich insights are then fed to help businesses trigger relevant actions on recommendation and notifications. Further, they simulate this sequence of emotions and activity to predict the propensity of outcome that includes sales, customer engagement, sharing etc.

6) UCI Student Accidentally Creates A Rechargeable Battery That Lasts 400 Years

Mya Le Thai, a doctoral student at the University of California, Irvine, accidentally ended up discovering a rechargeable battery that can last up to 400 years, while playing around in the lab. For the humans, this discovery could lead to longer-lasting laptops and smartphones. In addition to this, it would also result in fewer lithium ion batteries piling up in the landfills.

7) This Aerospace Startup Is Getting A PSLV From ISRO To Launch India's First Private Moon Mission

TeamIndus, an aerospace startup founded in the year 2011, recently signed a verified commercial launch contract with Antrix Corporation, Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) commercial arm.

This made TeamIndus the first startup ever to successfully contracting an entire launch vehicle for a space mission from ISRO. The deal finally came to a conclusion almost two years after the startup had first approached Antrix for the launch in the year 2014. During the two years time, the organisation was busy doing its due investigation in order to make sure that the spacecraft completely met its specifications.

8) Apple strongly hints that it’s working on a self-driving car

Apple enthusiasts might be aware that tech giant Apple has been kind of secretive about its workings when it comes to talking about its self-driving car efforts. But, the giant recently gave its strongest clue ever about its self-driving car project, reportedly called Project Titan.

In a letter that Apple had recently submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it clearly stated that it is “investing heavily in the study of machine learning and automation, and is excited about the potential of automated systems in many areas, including transportation.”

9) Introducing Smart duvet: the bed that makes itself

How about owning a bed that can make itself after being slept in? Sounds an amazing thing to own, right? While this could soon be a possibility. A person in Montreal, Canada has developed a smart duvet, which is a grid of inflatable tubes that can be concealed inside a bedspread. The invention can considerably provide a helping hand to people with limited mobility.

10) Fake news detector plug-in developed

The recent much controversial US elections ended up mounting pressure on tech giant's like Facebook, Twitter, and Google etc. to do more to tackle fake news on their respective platforms. Some of these firms are finally taking things into their own hands to tackle this issue.

Daniel Sieradski, a renowned technologist, has now developed a new plug-in - known as BS Detector - that has the ability of flagging up "questionable" websites on popular social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

The plug-in makes use of a list of fake news sources as its reference point to mark fake stories. It can be easily added to Mozilla and Chrome browsers. Whenever it detects a false story, it flags it with a red banner reading: "This website is considered a questionable source."

10 Top Things in Tech This Week

Here's www.indianweb2.com once again with its Top 10 tech news for this week. So, no need to dig or surf anywhere else, statiate your tech hunger for tech in this week roundup article.

1) Meet Lakshmi, India’s First Robot to Be Appointed as Customer Care Executive at a Bank

Kumbakonam-based City Union Bank recently debuted Lakshmi, India’s very first banking robot. It took the bank more than six months of hard work to develop Lakshmi, an artificial intelligence powered robot that is the country’s first on-site bank helper. The robot is capable of answering intelligently on more than 125 day-to-day bank related subjects.

Whether you want to know about the current interest rates on home loans or even know your current account balance, Lakshmi can tell you all. Apart from this, it has also been programmed to connect to the core banking solution.

All around the world, very few banks have employed robots at their branches to help both their staffers and customers. With Lakshmi, City Union wants to bring a whole new experience to India.

2) This Tiny WiFi Device Developed By Stanford Engineers Supplies Missing Link For the Internet of Things

Conceived by a Stanford University research team led by Sachin Katti, an associate professor of electrical engineering and of computer science, and Pengyu Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher, HitchHike is a tiny, ultra-low-energy wireless radio that promises to be the thing that the Internet of Things was looking for since long.

The 2 in 1 Hitchhike prototype is a processor and radio all in one. Although it is about the size of a regular sized postage stamp, but its engineers still feel that it can be made smaller so that it can be easily implanted in bio-devices like a wireless heart rate sensor.

HitchHike is being termed by its developers as the first and only self-sufficient WiFi system that has the power of enabling data transmission by making use of just micro-watts of energy—almost zero. Further, one of its many plus points, is that it can be used as it is with the existing WiFi without any additional equipment or any major modification.

3) Google, Microsoft and Others Create Guidelines For Improving IoT Security

Nowadays, personal computers are no more the only devices connected to the internet. A variety of devices embedded with Internet connectivity and functions have also joined the party. This very class of devices, famously known as the Internet of Things or IoT, and has ended up giving birth to a new level of security and privacy risks.

In order to curb these, the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group or the BITAG- an alliance formed by world technology giants Microsoft, Google, Verizon, Intel and a number of other players in the tech industry- has laid out a set of guidelines so as to improve the security on Internet of Things devices.

They are as follows:

a) IoT Devices should make use of the best current software practices. This should include a strong mechanism for secure, automated software updates.

b) IoT Devices should use strong authentication by default and not use common or easily guessable user names and passwords (e.g., “admin”, “password”).

c) IoT Devices manufacturers should follow best security and Cryptography practices by securing communications using Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Lightweight Cryptography (LWC). If devices rely on a public key infrastructure (PKI), then an authorized entity must be able to revoke certificates when they become compromised, and manufacturers should take care to avoid encryption methods, protocols, and key sizes with known weaknesses.

d) IoT Devices should be restrictive rather than permissive in communication.

e) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the internet connectivity is disrupted.

f) IoT Devices should continue to function even if the cloud back-end fails

g) IoT Devices should ship with a privacy policy that is easy to find and understand.

The report has also recommended that IoT devices manufacture should make sure that the devices are not reachable via inbound connections by default. Since BITAG is just an advisory group, it can’t legally enforce any of its recommendations on IoT device manufacturers, but can only give them crucial points to think on and act.

4) Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017, By Gartner

Gartner’s Vice President and a Gartner fellow himself David Cearley has come up with top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for the year 2017. Mesh, intelligent and digital-are the three main themes that forms the basis of Cearley’s list, which he announced at the recently held Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2016 in Orlando, Florida.

5) Its Official, Facebook Internet Drone Aquila Is Not For India, Says Facebook India Chief

The Mark Zuckerberg led company has decided not bring its unmanned solar-powered drone, Aquila, to the Indian subcontinent. Aimed at providing infrastructure for affordable internet connectivity in remote areas all around the world, Aquila could have made substantial difference in India’s below-average internet connectivity scenario.

The social networking decision to not bring Aquila to India was recently confirmed by Facebook’s India and South Asia managing director, Umang Bedi to a website.
Though Aquila might not be coming to India, Facebook is still looking at a sustainable development effort in the country via one of its new initiatives called the Express Wifi. The project is in its early stage pilot, with the social networking giant working with telcos and entrepreneurs.

Express Wifi is going to allow users to purchase internet from local data providers, and according to a leading daily, it has already successfully been offered at 125 rural Wifi hotspots as part of the pilot. As soon as the pilot materialises, we can expect more details on the project.

6) This New Technology Could Light The World Using Gravitation

Gravity is the miracle that keeps us grounded on this very planet Earth, but years pass by that we even acknowledge its presence. But, did you know this marvelous downward force also has the potential of lighting the whole wide world?

The GravityLight Foundation is focused at bringing a safe and bright future to all those areas of the world with limited or no electricity access through its innovative GravityLight lamps, which make use of the power of gravity. The Foundation, which is a UK Registered Charity, is working towards alleviating poverty and protecting environment through innovative designs.

Developed by designers Jim Reeves and Martin Riddiford, GravityLight is a simple, low-cost gear-train and generator that makes use of a descending weight to power a perpetual light source. The lamps give people who are currently living in a dark after the sun goes down a possibility to add new possibilities and dimensions to their lives.

7) The supercomputer of the future is nearer than we thought

Scientists at the prestigious Sussex University have recently claimed that they are almost close to building a large scale quantum computer. According to the Professor Winfreid Hensinger, the technology can prove to be a real game changer since quantum computers could be capable of solving in milliseconds the problems that are estimated to take even the fastest supercomputer millions of years.

8) Dutch scientists make use of color-changing graphene bubbles to create ‘mechanical pixels’

Researchers from Netherlands' Delft University of Technology have discovered what could one day most possibly give birth to a new type of display technology: bubbles of graphene that change color as they keep expanding and contracting.

According to the researchers, these ‘mechanical pixels’ could have the potential of making screens that are more durable, flexible and energy efficient than the current LED technology in the market.

9) Google’s AI has developed more proficiency at lip reading than humans after watching thousands of hours of TV

Researchers from tech giant Google’s Artificial Intelligence division DeepMind and the University of Oxford have used artificial intelligence to create what they claim is the most accurate lip-reading software that the world has ever seen.

By making use of thousands of hours of BBC TV footage, the scientists have successfully trained a neural network to annotate video footage with a decent 46.8% accuracy. Though that might not seem very impressive at first, but when the same footage is tested on a professional human lip-reader, he can only get the right word 12.4% of the time.

10) China's LingLong launches DingDong smart home speaker to take on Amazon Echo

LingLong, a China based tech firm, has launched the country's first voice-activated smart home speaker, DingDong, which tech experts consider can give Google's Home and Amazon's Echo a run for its money.

The device, which understands Mandarin, Cantonese and basic English, makes use of voice interaction to do various tasks such switching on home appliances and playing videos/music.

10 Top Things in Tech This Week

Busy is the way a majority of the world is living nowadays. If you ended up missing up on your tech updates this week due to the busy life that you're living, here we're to bail you out and give you all the things you must know that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Microsoft Joined Linux, Exactly 15 Years After Calling it a ‘Cancer’

Yes, this happened. A news that caused a major shock in the tech industry all around the world, tech giant Microsoft ended up joining forces with its once archenemy Linux. The news is particularly shocking because in the year 2001, Microsoft’s previous CEO Steve Ballmer Ballmer called Linux a cancer. He said, “Linux is cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.” But, now it seems, Microsoft has come a long way from this, under the leadership of its new CEO Satya Nadella.

2) Imperva Introduced an Anti-Mirai Tool That Makes Your IoT Device Hack Proof

Considering the havoc that Mirai, the malware, was causing, an anti-Mirai tool is a necessity that every IoT device owner was looking for since long. For the unaware, Mirai has be responsible for single-handedly causing one of the worst distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks that the world had experienced in the last few years, and it has now spread and infected internet-connected devices in over 177 countries all around the world.

Seeing this, Imperva decided to come to the rescue of IoT device owners and developed a way through which they could easily come to know if their IoT devices were vulnerable to malware like Mirai. The USP of the tool is, that you don't have to physically buy or install anything to use it — all that you have to do is to visit the scanner website on the IoT device that you want to check. The scanner meticulously analyses the IP address and smart products details used for internet access.

3) Happy Finish Launches AI Technology Prototype Ahead of Crowdfunding

This week saw Happy Finish, the company known for its VR content and global production studio, announcing the launch of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, Shoegazer.

The AI, which is currently in the proof of concept (PoC) stage for the fashion and retail industry, makes use of image recognition and transfer learning technologies to identify brands and models of trainers in real-time, that too with a remarkable 95% accuracy. In order to support the full launch of Shoegazer, the company, which is renowned for its work in virtual and augmented reality and boasts of an impressive portfolio of commercial VR and AR experiences, is also gearing up to embark on a capital fundraising round for a whopping £395,000.

4) Google Teams Up With Indian Govt. To Solve India’s Infamous Toilet Problem

India's toilet problem is famous all around the world. According to data, about 60 percent of the total population in the country still defecate and urinate in the open. Not only is this figure really sad for the country with the second largest population on Earth, but it is also leading to serious sanitation issues in the country.

While the governments over the years have been trying to tackle this problem in their own way, the Modi government has decided to take the help of tech giant Google to solve this problem. India’s Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) and Google have joined hands to give people in India a toilet serach or toilet locator facility, that will give them the power of searching for toilets within the Google Maps by typing relevant words in English or in their native language, like “toilet,” “lavatory,” “swachhata” and “shulabh.”

5) WhatsApp Rolls Out Video-Calling Feature

Finally, one of the most-used messaging app gave its users a feature they have been vying for a quite a long time-the power of video-calling. Starting now, people will no longer have to have a separate app for instant messaging and a separate app for video calling because Facebook owned WhatsApp will now be able to provide us the best of both worlds. However, However, so far the update has been only rolled out to Windows Phone users.

6) Snapchat’s Snap Inc Files for IPO

Starting its journey in 2012, Snapchat is being termed as one of the fastest growing company that the world has seen in the recent times. And now, Snap Inc, which is Snapchat’s parent company, has filed for an initial public offering (IPO).

According to reports, the company could go public by March next year, and will be valued at $20-$25 billion. This will make it one of the largest technology IPO since the Chinese e-commerce major Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s went public two years ago valued at a whopping $170.9 billion.

7) Demonetisation Effect: Google India helps Indians find an ATM nearby

In order to help Indians who are now on the streets constantly looking for a functional ATM, a scenario which is almost similar to the ones being witnessed a few months ago during the peak of Pokémon Go popularity, tech giant Google has decided to help the common man in their this search.

Google India’s homepage now has a ‘Find an ATM near you’ link, which when clicked takes one to Google Maps with a list of ATMs marked their surrounding areas.

8) Apple Contemplating to Integrate Augmented Reality into iPhone Camera App

According to a report in the BusinessInsider, Apple’s much famous iPhone's camera app could soon come with Augmented Reality integration, which allow users to point their phone at a real-world object and have it be recognized. Interestingly, the AR mode in the app could also allow app to recognise faces and add filters to it, something very similar to what Snapchat currently does. In 2015, Apple had acquired FaceShift, a company that was working on such a technology.

Tim Cook's passion for virtual reality and augmented reality, and how much potential he sees in the these two emerging computer platforms isn't unknown. In an interview earlier in the year, he had said, "There's virtual reality and there's augmented reality - both of these are incredibly interesting. But my own view is that augmented reality is the larger of the two, probably by far."

9) US Researchers Develop an e-device that can Monitor Heart, Recognise Speech

Researchers from the University of Colorado-Boulder and Northwestern University in the US have successfully developed a tiny, soft and wearable acoustic sensor that has the ability to measure vibrations in the human body. In addition to this, it even allows monitoring of human heart health as well as recognises speech. The device, which weighs less than one-hundredth of an ounce, and resembles a band-aid, can be mounted on almost any surface of the human body.

10) Intel pledges $250 million for autonomous driving tech

Considering that autonomous driving was declared as one of the top 5 Hottest Emerging Technologies of the year 2016 by the World Economic Forum, it comes as no surprise that Intel Capital has pledged to invest $250 million in autonomous driving over the next two years. The announcement was made by company’s CEO, Brian Krzanich, at the recent held Los Angeles Auto Show‘s Automobility event.

10 Top Startup Business News From Last Week

As we gear up to embark on a new week, let's have a quick recap of the top 10 things that happened in the Indian Startup sector last week.

1) Snapdeal and FreeCharge Launch “Wallet on Delivery"

Last week saw one of India's largest Online marketplace Snapdeal announce the launch of a new and first-of-a-kind feature, Wallet on Delivery (WoD), which will allow Snapdeal and FreeCharge users to pay on delivery by using their FreeCharge wallet.

WoD provides a quick and effective solution to all the users currently having concerns regarding Cash on Delivery (CoD) because of the physical currency crunch due to the demonetisation drive by the Modi government.

2) ShopClues Launches a One-Stop Shop for all Your Wedding Needs – ‘The Wedding Store’
In order to cash-on on the incoming wedding season, ShopClues is making sure that it becomes the top-most preferred e-commerce destination for brides and grooms to fulfil all their wedding shopping desires.

The e-commerce site has launched, ‘The Wedding Store’ that will help brides and bridegrooms shop for all the occasions associated with their wedding, right from their Sangeet ceremony to Bachelorette party to the D-Day. In an offer to offer them the most unique shopping experience, the platform has also tied up with multi-jewellery brand Gitanjali to provide flat 50% discount on diamond and gold jewellery and 70% discount on silver jewellery.

3) IFMR Capital Raises $25M Funding from Eight Roads Ventures

Chennai based IFMR Capital, which is currently at the top of the ladder when it comes to providing capital market access to financial institutions serving the bottom of the pyramid, has successfully raised funding from Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Limited which will be investing up to $25M in the company.

The current funding round is IFMR Capital’s second round of institutional funding. The fresh round of investment will help the company escalate its existing business to a whole new level and even allow it to explore other opportunities across new products and sectors.

4) Razorpay Introduces One-Hour ‘Express Activation’ to Enable Online Payments for Small Businesses

Razorpay, an online payments platform, announced about the launch of ‘Express Activation’ for all offline businesses in India. The main aim behind this move is to provide immediate relief to thousands of small businesses currently facing the brunt of the surprise demonetization drive undertaken by the Modi government.

‘Express Activation’ allows small merchants to get their account approved and activated within just 1 hour of submitting all the relevant documents. With Express Activation, Razorpay has become the only payment gateway in India to onboard merchants in an hour. The initiative will come as a great respite to small merchants who have been primarily transacting through physical currency until now.

5) Square Yards Raises $12M from Reliance Group

One of India’s top-most online to offline (O2O) real estate transaction player, Square Yards, has successfully raised a whopping $12 million in investments from the Private Equity arm of Mr. Anil Ambani led Reliance Group.

This is startup's first institutional investment after it had raised $11Mn from a clutch of HNW investors in the year 2015. With the money, Square Yards aims to target a double digit market share in Indian Real Estate distribution, expand to more than 25 countries on the ground advising on global real estate, become largest mortgage advisory and developer marketing firm in India, and strengthen its distribution network across Indian and global markets.

6) Unocoin Reveals Robust API To Power New Business

Last week saw Unocoin, a young India based bitcoin company, successfully implementing its Application Programming Interface (API) that allows companies from all around the globe to access the world’s largest potential market for Bitcoin and to take advantage of all of Unocoin’s extraordinary set of features.

The startup's API provides companies and individuals in India the power to generate bitcoin wallets; buy, sell, send and receive bitcoin; securely store bitcoin; receive notifications when payments arrive; retrieve real-time or historical price information, and accept and request bitcoin payments for merchants. It even allows companies to remit bitcoin to India and to submit the KYC details of their beneficiaries.

7) JustRide Raises $3M in a Bridge Round by Y Combinator Partners and Others

JustRide, an emerging self-drive car rental company, has successfully raised a capital of $3 million from marquee YC partners and major global investors. The funds will be put to use to bolster the startup's car sharing platform JustConnect and Yabber, an IoT device for cars which is built on the company’s innovative Smart Vehicle Technology. JustConnect is a car sharing platform that helps in monetising the cars of the individuals, when they're not in use.

8) Organic Farmer and Social Entrepreneur Dharamvir Kamboj Secures Financial Backing from Investors

A one-of-its-kind show in India, The Vault has has had a great track record in providing financial support and national visibility to innovative business ideas. A recent episode of the show saw saw organic farmers and entrepreneurs Dharamvir and Prince Kamboj winning the amazement and praise of The Vault Keepers with their idea of a multipurpose machine that processes farm produce.

9) GO-JEK Buys Pune-Based Mobile App Developer Leftshift
Indonesia’s largest startup, GO-JEK, has acquired Pune-based mobile application developer Leftshift that specialises in designing and engineering mobile apps for popular startups such as Walnut and BookMyShow. With the acquisition, GO-JEK aims to strengthen and upscale its product development, design and engineering platforms so as to support the unicorn’s rapidly growing Indonesia operations.

10) TiE and HAX Join Hands To Accelerate IoT and Hardware Startups In India
The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) have come together to work with Shenzhen and San Francisco based HAX to provide a forward push to Internet of Things (IoT) and hardware startups in India. HAX is the first and largest global accelerator and seed investor for hardware startups.

With its great experience and expertise in incubating a string of startups across the globe, HAX will provide the selected startups, with best-in-class prototype in manufacturing and access to global markets.

10 Top Things in Tech This Week

If you're one of those tech enthusiasts whose week went in by a blur of a second, all thanks to standing in long queues at banks and ATMs because of the sudden demonetisation drive that the Modi government has sprung us on, here's www.indianweb2.com giving you a quick recap of some of the most important happenings in the tech sector this week.

Here are the Top 10 tech news you must know from this week:

1) Forget Bitcoins, Meet Zcash – A New Harder-to-Trace Virtual Currency

Zcash, a new virtual currency, has made its debut and has managed to grab quite a few eyeballs within a few days of its debut. The new digital currency has been conceived and executed by meticulous university academics to be entirely untraceable. In order to make the currency untraceable, Zcash developers have made use of advanced cryptography, unlike the now in-famous Bitcoin.

Zcash developers have used zk-Snark, a method developed by a team of top cryptographers at M.I.T. and in Israel– that allowed the Zcash transactions to be confirmed by the network without any recording of the involved Zcash addresses. There is also an option to opt out of this privacy function.

2) Revolution of 3D print heart on chip by Researchers of Harvard

A Harvard team has successfully developed six custom 3D-printable materials that could have the potential of reorganising the structure of a human heart tissue with embedded soft strain sensors. These are printable through continuous and automated processes and separate wells in the chip host of different tissues.

3) Indian Government is Preparing for a Cyber War, Says IT Minister
Indian Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad recently revealed that his government is currently in the process of preparing for a bloodless war, by strengthening its cyber security measures. In order to achieve in the same, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-Inc.) has been strengthened.

According to Prasad, "National Cyber Coordination Centre has been set up to provide near real time awareness on situations and response rapidly as such Rs 9.85 Billion project to be completed in five years."

The phase I of the project has already been tendered and expected to be operational by March next year.

4) Gaana launches india’s first music streaming chatbot

The week saw popular music-streaming app Gaana debuting its Facebook Messenger chatbot, the Gaana Facebook Messenger chatbot. The chatbot is the world’s first music streaming chatbot inside the FB messenger app.

With the chatbot, Ganna offers the following features to its users:

a) Receive instant updates about all the fresh content on Gaana's official website.
b) Search for music on its official website.
c) Share their favourite content with their Facebook friends.
d) Send feedback to Gaana.
e) Go straight her to the app/website from the FB Messenger.

5) The 5 Hottest Emerging Technologies of 2016

The World Economic Forum has announced a list of the top 5 hottest emerging technologies of this year. They are as follows:

a) Next Generation Batteries as per renewable energy: Advancements in energy storage using sodium, aluminium and zinc-based batteries has now made it possible to have mini-grids that could provide round-the-clock, clean, reliable energy sources to an entire village.

b) Open AI ecosystem: With the advancements made this year, humans have reached a few steps nearer to smart digital assistants that will be able to help them with a vast range of tasks, right from keeping a track of their health, finances and even advising on what and what not to wear.

c) 2D Materials: With the production costs escalating at a great rate, 2D materials like Graphene are now being used in a wide range of applications, right from water and air filters to new generations wearables and batteries.

d) BlockChain Impact: Blockchain, the distributed electronic ledger behind the much famous online currency bitcoin, has the potential of having great economic and social impact. In fact, with the pace that it is developing, it could even fundamentally change the way the governments and market function.

e) Self Driven Cars: Autonomous vehicles had a field day in this year. Though not legal in various countries yet, the technology has the potential of boosting economies, saving lives and cutting pollution by a great deal.

6) Manipal Student Wins Prize for Designing Waterless, Odourless Loo for Railways

Vinod Anthony Thomas, a student of Manipal University, has designed a waterless and odourless toilet in order to solve all the toilet issues currently being faced by the Indian Railways. In fact, Vinod has won himself a second prize for his this very invention. The competition was held by the Indian Railways keeping in line with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s much ambitious Clean India initiative.

The award-winning design takes care of the old, unhygienic way of disposal of human waste on the railway tracks by introducing a system of waste management that replaces the system of flushing with water and generation of foul smell with a conveyor system carrying waste in a hermetically sealed pocket to a large collection bin to store waste. This is run manually by a crank wheel. The bin effectively reduces the amount of waste by way of forced ventilation, and decomposition.

7) Ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes makes E-wallets go mainstream

The Modi government's sudden move to withdraw Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from being legal tender has spelled good times for the all the digital payment solutions startups in India. These startups had been facing tough times after a period of dramatic growth since their launch, and the demonetisation has been able to add a breath of fresh lives to these startups.

For example, India's largest mobile payment wallet, Paytm, saw its app downloads swell by three times and payments for offline transactions grow by five time in the first two days following the government's announcement. Another mobile payment wallet, MobiKwik, saw a solid 100 percent growth in its customer numbers day-on-day in the past week. The trend is similar in all other digital payment solutions startups.

8) Facebook is now testing new ‘Rooms’ feature in Messenger chat app

Social networking giant Facebook is now testing its new 'Rooms' feature in its Messenger chat app. It was in the year 2014 that Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook had first tried its hands on Rooms as a semi-anonymous social networking app, but it abruptly shut it down a year later in 2015.

FB is testing the integration of a the 'Rooms' feature in its Messenger chat app. Currently, the feature can also be used in Canada and Australia. Rooms are meant for public conversations about interests and topics. Reportedly, each of the room has a link that can be shared with anyone on the Messenger app so that anyone can join-in in the conversation.

9) Researchers develop 'smart' material that can de-ice any surface

A team of researchers have meticulously worked towards discovering a`smart' material that can be applied to any surface to repel ice. The discovered material, magnetic slippery surface (MAGSS), is able to outperform all the others ones that are currently in usage to repel ice.

While one side of MAGSS is coated with a magnetic material, the other side is a thin layer of magnetic fluid -a mixture of fluid and iron oxide nanoparticles. The magnetic fluid is on the outer side.

10) Hong Kong banks testing new biometric technology

Two Hong Kong banks are interested in testing the use of biometric authentication of securities trading under the Hong Kong's banking regulator's new regulatory regime, said information given out by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). It was in September this year, that the authority had launched a new regime that allowed banks to use a "sandbox" to test new technologies on a limited basis before deploying them to the general public.

10 Things in Tech You Need to Know from This Week

The tech sector had a buzzing week. If you had a busy schedule and missed out on your readings, here's IndianWeb2 giving you a quick recap of the top 10 things that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Facebook Introduced ‘Wedge 100’, A New Open Source Technology To Make 100GB Internet Access A Reality

In order to further increase the popularity of Facebook and enhance the experience of its existing users, Facebook through its Wedge 100 project aims to make 100-Gigabyte data connection a reality via a new state of open source technology.

2) Banks open-source the Blockchain Platform developed by them

A group that includes more than 70 of the world's biggest financial institutions has developed a new blockchain platform named Corda. The code, which has the potential of becoming the industry standard for the nascent technology, is now available publicly. New-York based financial technology company, R3 CEV, brought the consortium together and made Corda possible.

3) Self-driving cars won't work in India

nuTonomy, a MIT startup which had recently decided to put self-driving cabs on the roads of Singapore, has predicted the concept might not work in India. The traffic situation in India is quite dense which makes it unfavourable for self-driving technology to deal with since the brains behind autonomous vehicles are computers, which function on a set of rules.

4) Telangana government planning to come up with IoT, Smart Technology Policy To Encourage Startups

In order to encourage IoT based product development companies and other innovations in Telangana, the state government has come up with a unique IoT and Smart Technology Policy.

5) Visa Open Sources Its Blockchain Platform

San Francisco-based Chain has released an open source version of its Chain Core software. The source code of Chain’s proprietary blockchain can be accessed on the startup’s webpage on the famous code-sharing website, Github. With its this initiative, the startup aims to transform the blockchain narrative from the PowerPoint presentation to the prototype. Prior to this, anyone wanting to use the Chain Core software had to join hands with one of Chain's collaborators, which includes names such as Nasdaq, Visa, Fidelity, Citigroup, and Capital One.

6) Indian Smartphone maker Karbonn is making use of Artificial Intelligence to boost e-commerce

While world’s top smartphone manufacturers are working on bringing Artificial Intelligence into smartphones, Indian Smartphone maker Karbonn has decided to use the technology to aid commerce. The company's new Fashion Eye smartphone allows users to click the photo of whatever garment they like after which the AI engine gets to work and gives the users information about where they can buy that particular garment or a similar one across online sellers.

7) New Open Source Tech May Soon Bring Free Calls For Everyone In The World

Free audio calls to everyone in the world might become a reality in the near future. All thanks to a man named Mikeal, who has been doing Open Source for over a decade now. The project, Roll Call, aims to give everyone in the world a power to make Free Calls for Everyone in the world.

As of now, the project offers the following features:

a) It offers reliable audio-only calls between multiple participants.

b) Users can drag audio files into the call window and play into the call.

c) It offers built-in call recording, with podcast quality recording of every participants local audio sent continuously to the recorder.

d) It has almost no reliance on infrastructure, the app is hosted in gh-pages on GitHub.

8) Internet of Things Takes Down the World Wide Web

The largest International platform, Internet, recently came under a attack caused by a large distributed denial of service (DDoS). The attack was facilitated by hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected devices—from Web cameras to routers—that had been hacked to contribute to the attack. This detail made many industry experts term the attack as the onset of the doom of the Internet.

9) IBM Acquires Sanovi Technologies to Expand Disaster Recovery Services for Hybrid Cloud

IBM has signed an agreement to acquire Sanovi Technologies, a privately held company that is known to provide services such as cloud migration, hybrid cloud recovery, business continuity software for enterprise data centers and cloud infrastructure.

According to industry experts, all these capabilities of Sanovi along with advanced analytics will enable IBM to bolster its Software Defined Resiliency strategy and delivery of Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery services for clients currently in the midst of a digital and hybrid cloud transformation.

10) ICANN Introduces .Google, .Apple,.ibm, and Other Branded Internet Addresses

Recent changes in the two-year old internet rule which had limited the use of top-level domains has now brought .xyz, .movie and .paris into existence in email addresses and websites.

The new rule is capable of giving brand names a whole new importance in their internet addresses. In fact, tech giant Google has already paved the way for companies to flaunt their brand names in the digital realm. The company recently published a new website, blog.google, that makes use of the .google domain name, rather than the commonly used .com.

9 Richest Indian Tech Billionaires

While being rich might not have been a priority for them, but it is for sure an excellent byproduct of being super successful that these 9 Indian tech honchos are currently enjoying.

Forbes recently announced its annual list of World's Billionaires, which is a well-known guide to the richest people on planet Earth. The list which has seen Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates sitting comfortably at the numero uno position for several years now, saw 9 Indians making the cut this year.

Here are the Indians who made India shine on the Forbes World's Billionaires 2016 Annual list.

1) Azim Premji

Ranking on the list- 55
Net worth - $15 billion

The first Indian visible on the list. He is the man behind India's third-largest software exporter, Wipro. Premji Invest, his family office, has made strategic investment in some of the biggest companies like PolicyBazaar, Cyanogen, Snapdeal and Myntra, to name a few.

2) Shiv Nadar

Ranking on the list- 88

Net worth - $11.1 billion

Acquiring the 88th global position, the 2nd Indian on the list is Shiv Nadar, the founder and chairman of India's fourth-largest software services exporter, HCL. Nadar also doubles up as a philanthropist with his much famous Shiv Nadar Foundation.

3) NR Narayana Murthy

Ranking on the list- 959
Net worth - $1.9 billion

The 3rd Indian on the Forbes list is Narayana Murthy, the man who co-founded India's second-largest software services exporter, Infosys. He served as Infosys' CEO from the year 1981 to 2002 and as its chairman from the year 2002 to 2011. Apart from being the brains behind the conception of Infosys, Mr. Murthy has a private investment firm Catamaran Ventures, which has invested in companies like Coverfox, Hector Beverages, Innoviti and Yebhi etc. The firm has also launched a joint venture with e-commerce giant Amazon called Cloudtail, which has been acknowledged as the largest seller on Amazon India.

4) Kris Gopalakrishnan

Ranking on the list- 1121
Net worth - $1.6 billion

Following the footsteps of his Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy is, Kris Gopalakrishnan. The co-founder of Infosys served at the company as its chief executive for four years from the year 2007 to 2011. He has reportedly contributed a whopping amount of Rs 225 crore for the setting up of the Centre for Brain Research at the IISc in Bengaluru city.

5) Nandan Nilekani

Ranking on the list- 1121
Net worth - $1.6 billion

Another Infosys co-founder has made the cut. Nilekani who is currently the chairman of EkStep, was Infosys chief executive for five years from the year 2002 to 2007 and chairman of UIAI until March 2014. He's said to have backed companies like Juggernaut, Systemantics, Team Indus, Power2SME, Fortigo and Mubble, to name a few.

6) Binny Bansal

Ranking on the list- 1476
Net Worth- $1.2 billion

The sixth Indian making waves on the list is the co-founder of India's largest e-commerce company, Flipkart. Binny was recently appointed as Flipkart's chief executive in January this year after his co-founder Sachin Bansal gave up the position. As a CEO, he's overlooks all of the company's business areas and is responsible for taking care of its operations.

7) Sachin Bansal

Ranking on the list- 1476
Net Worth- $1.2 billion

Sachin Bansal, co-founder of Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce startup, gave up his role as the company's chief executive in January this year. Since then he's providing his services to the company as its executive chairman. Along with Binny Bansal, Sachin has made some major investments in startups with huge potential like InShorts, Ather Energy, Tinystep and Tracxn, to name a few.

8) K Dinesh

Ranking on the list- 1476
Net Worth- $1.2 billion

Another Infosys legend on the list, K Dinesh is the co-founder of the software company and was its board member from the year 1981 to 2011. In 2011, he decided to retire from Infosys as its head of quality, Information Systems and the Communication Design Group.

9) SD Shibulal

Ranking on the list- 1577
Net Worth- $1.1 billion

The last Indian on the list, Shibulal also owes his fortune to Infosys, India's second-largest software services exporter. A co-founder of the company, he worked as its chief executive for a period of three years from 2011 to 2014. Post that, he launched a startup incubator Axilor Ventures along with Kris Gopalakrishnan, another Infosys co-founder.

Top 10 Disruptive Technologies To Watch In 2015, In India

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology.

Technology is one such thing which keeps evolving and changing every second, every minute. The year 2014 saw many breakthroughs in high-tech, space-tech, clean-tech, wearable tech, cyber tech, biotech etc. and 2015 seems to be even more promising on the technology front.

India hogged the limelight last year with its inventions like futuristic mass transport, smart shoes, IoT devices Water ATMs and a devicet hat turn breath into words etc. This year, the country has plans of taking forward the previous year’s momentum and is all set to give out some amazing inventions to the tech world.

We, at IndianWeb2.com have put together a list of ten disruptive areas in which the country’s companies can make a mark in the next 12 months.

Here we go!

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  Immunotherapy

  
  
  
  Pharmaceutical companies all around the world are investing heavily in it. Immunotherapy tries to modulate one’s immune system to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases. It does so by enhancing the immune response and suppressing an overactive immune system respectively. Immunotherapy is an extremely promising field and various Indian companies already established a base for themselves in this field.
  
  Bangalore-based drug discovery services company Aurigene Discovery Technologies has started one such example which has started working in this hot new area of immunotherapy. Although several global Big Pharma and biotech start-ups have immunotherapy molecules, Aurigene has a completely different class of them and is the only company in the world developing peptides against immune checkpoints, natural mechanisms that cancers hijack to evade the immune system.
  
  Delhi-based firm Curadev has a few molecules under development, including for cancer immunotherapy, for which it has filed patent applications. The area of immunotherapy is so hot that Curadev had already got enquiries for acquiring this asset, but the company is pressing on to develop it on its own. With all these programmes now accelerating, no one should be surprised if an Indian anti-cancer molecule hits the market in a decade.
  
  Other companies like Biocon, Invictus Oncology and Apac Biotech are some of examples which can contribute to the field in a large way in the coming years.


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  Ecommerce Optimization & Security

  
  
  
  The ecommerce market has seen a phenomenal growth in the past few years. This growth in the online commerce has also led to an increase in the need for technologies to optimize the online experience for buyers and sellers. Various Israeli companies are already providing the world with ecommerce solutions and the year 2015 will see these companies moving into software for mobile commerce, affiliate commerce, social-network commerce and various other forms of integrated online business.
  
  A related aspect of this is the user authentication software. The software will enable users to find out if someone’s online profile is fake or real. This software will be of great help to the users of online dating and services websites like Airbnb and eHarmony.
  
  In India, startups like TargetingMantra, TookiTaki and Lytkraft are some of examples which can contribute to the field in a large way in the coming years.


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  Computer Vision

  
  
  
  As Wikipedia explains - "Computer vision is a field that includes methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing, and understanding images and, in general, high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions." Computer vision has also been described as the enterprise of automating and integrating a wide range of processes and representations for vision perception.
  
  Countries like US, Japan and Israel has always remained ahead of the rest of the world in teaching computers how to make sense of what they "see" by making use of smart algorithms. The country is considered as a world leader in this technology.
  
  Not much of promising Indian companies are working in computer vision industry, so its one of a field that requires attention from Indian companies and start-ups to grab this one of the hottest disruptive technology in the world.


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  Cyber Security

  
  
  
  In today’s world, where most of our time is spent online, cyber security is one of the major concerns. In the past few years, many Indian companies have come forward with detection tools for cyber attacks. The year 2015 will see the companies focusing on smart analytical and big-data security systems so as to prevent the detection-fatigue caused due to false alerts and manage the existing detection tools in the market.
  
  In India, Data Resolve Technologies, Secugenius Security solutions, Lucideus Tech, Pristine InfoSolutions, Valancy Networks and Mirox Cyber Security & Technology are some of the companies to watch out for in the Cyber Security area this year.


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  Advertising & Monetization

  
  
  
  India is becoming popular all around the world for algorithmic advertising, also known as programmatic advertising to some.
  
  Ad solutions based on the wisdom of ad agencies and creative content are a thing of the past. Nowadays computers play an important role in the execution and planning of ad campaigns. In 2014, Israel earned a whopping $3 billion in exports in the advertising and monetization market. This year will see a massive growth in algorithm buying and real-time advertising and placing of advertising space. Mobile advertising will acquire the centre stage in 2015 and Israel will have an important role to play in it.
  
  In India, InMobi,Komli, Tyroo and Pubmatic are among key player in advertising space whereas Mobobeat is a brand new Goa-based company involved in algorithmic ad serving. ReduceData and AdPushup are other key player in monetization space.


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  Mobile Productivity

  
  
  
  India companies have plans of taking your Smartphone’s productivity to a whole new level in the year 2015. Personal assistance mobile applications will combine crowdsourcing and big-data crunching capabilities with sophisticated prediction technology in order to take the user to the next level of efficiency in everything from finding a parking space to planning a meeting and reaching there on time.


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  Wearable & Mobile Health Devices

  
  
  
  Wearable Technology and mobile health devices will achieve new heights in the year 2015. The year could see face and eye tracking devices made in Israel being embedded into smart watches or other wearables in order to measure sobriety and diagnose medical conditions ranging from concussion to ADHD to Alzheimer’s. 2015 could also see Israeli knowhow being packaged into more and more mobile devices that could double as monitoring, diagnostic and treatment tools.
  
  In India, Cochin/Kerala-based RHL Vision Technologies Pvt. Ltd. developed wearable ring called Fin that make your palm as numeric keypad and gesture interface. Another India based startup Ducere Technologies has come up with smart-shoe called Lechal shoes which helps wearer to navigate, tag location, counts your steps, and tracks your calories burnt. Bangalore's Koramangala startup 2mpower Health Management Services Pvt. Ltd. has built a wearable wrist-band called 'GetActive Tapp' which syncs with your smartphone to


• 
  

  Smart Data Storage

  
  
  
  A lot of money was invested in the Indian data storage companies last year. The investment was the result of the growing demand for solutions in storing big data and high-definition, real-time content.
  
  India made innovative storage products are expected to shake the market this year. The market will see the launch of hybrid software solutions which will allow the combing and management of old and cheap magnetic storage with the very new and slightly costly flash storage.
  
  Chennai-based MyEasyDocs, Delhi-based Digiswitch Infotech and Bangalore-based CloudByte Technologies are some of examples which can contribute to smart data storage space in India in a large way in the coming years.


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  Machine-Machine & Human-Machine Interface

  
  
  
  This year will see more and more Indian companies introducing operating platforms, security systems, sensors and detectors for bringing out the Internet of Things revolution in machine-to-machine connectivity, as well as stirring a parallel revolution in human-to-machine interface.
  
  In India, the most promising startups working in human-machine interface field are - Fin Robotics, GridBots, nKonnect and Solfice. In Machine-Machine interface area CarIQ is key player which looks promising too.


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  Internet of Things

  
  
  
  Internet of Things (IoT) as a vertical is still in its early stages. Experts feel that IoT has the potential to disrupt in a similar fashion as the internet and mobile did. Global giants like Apple, Google and Samsung have sniffed big opportunities early on and are set to launch their consumer-focused smart devices like smart glasses, smart-watches and health monitoring devices.
  
  India saw many IoT based startups in last one year, CarIQ, RHLvision Technologies, 2mpower Health Management Services, smart-shoes creator Ducere Technologies, Connovate Technology, Ineda Systems and Altizon Systems are some of examples which can contribute to Internet of Things space in India in a large way in the coming years.