YouTube for Kids is launching today!!!

0
Posted on by

image

YouTube is releasing a new app for children , called YouTube Kids, which will run on smartphones and tablets and focus on kid-appropriate content.

The free app from Google’s online video service will be available for download from Today (Feb 23) and will feature kid-friendly design, with big icons and minimal scrolling, according to details seen by Reuters.

The app, which will be separate from the mainstream YouTube mobile app, will also feature parental controls such as a timer that can be used to limit a child’s screen time.

image

The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the launch, saying the company is planning to announce the new app on Monday at a children’s entertainment industry conference.

A YouTube spokeswoman confirmed the information.

In December, USA Today reported that Google was planning to roll out child-friendly versions of its most popular products in a bid to be “fun and safe for children.”

Internet companies such as Google and Facebook do not offer their services to children under 13.

– Shariq Kazi

WhatsApp starts rolling out calling features to android users!!!

0
Posted on by

image

NEW DELHI: After testing the feature with select users, it appears mobile messaging service WhatsApp is now rolling out the much awaited internet calling functionality to a wider set of people.

Earlier on Friday, a number of users of WhatsApp’s Android app were able to get the voice calling feature activated by simply receiving a call from a user who had the service turned on. This meant that initial testers were able to extend it to their friends who further helped other WhatsApp users join the club. However, this invite system is not working for all users.

We were able to get the voice calling feature activated on our Android phone after receiving a WhatsApp call. Although, we were able to make voice calls to other Android and BlackBerry 10 users with the latest version of the app, the feature was not being activated for all users. It’s possible that WhatsApp may have set a limit to the number of users one could invite or is only allowing a limited set of users at this time to test its networks.

The feature is not available yet on the iPhone although WhatsApp’s recent iOS update had introduced a calling button within the chat window. The feature also doesn’t work on Windows Phone hadsets, at the moment.

After activation of the feature, WhatsApp’s user interface changes to feature separate screens for dialing a voice call to WhatsApp contacts, call logs and ongoing calls. The chat window also displays a calling button (represented by a phone icon). The active call screen sports buttons for turning on the loudspeaker, switching to the chat window and for muting the call.

image

It’s worth pointing out that WhatsApp has not officially announced the rollout of the feature yet.

The voice calling feature will bring WhatsApp in direct clash with apps like WeChat, Viber and Line that already allow users to make calls and send messages. WhatsApp is the biggest instant messaging app in the world, with 700 million active users in January 2015.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com

By: Shariq Kazi

Downloaded ‘3’?? You may be punished

0
Posted on by

This may be a first of its
kind as the Kolaveri star
Dhanush’s film 3 is all set
to take on online piracy.
Harish from Copyright
Labs, which is working to curb the online piracy of
the film, is all set to move
to the Madras High Court
today to send a legal
notice to all the offenders.
“We had previously sent out warnings against
downloading to the ISP
addresses and individual
offenders. While we have
been 90 per cent effective,
there are still some who defied these warnings.
Since these warnings
were based on the orders
that we had obtained from
the Madras High Court,
we are now going to register contempt of court
cases and send orders to
all of them,” he says.
The idea behind this is to
ensure that these
offenders get the idea that piracy is not right, Harish
informs us. “While we can
provide the technological
support to films that sign
up with us, the rest of it is
left to the law. With this example, where we work in
tandem with the court, we
want to show that it isn’t
easy for pirates to
survive.” Let’s wait and
see if it will curb piracy.

source : http://timesofindia.com

posted by: Shariq kazi

‘Apple to become world’s first $1 trillion company’

0
Posted on by

LONDON: Apple will
become the world’s first
trillion-dollar company
when its shares top $1,000
each, Wall Street analysts
have predicted. The technology giant’s
shares were worth $633.38
last week as its stock price
rose above Google’s for
the first time, the Daily
Mail reported Friday. Brian White, of Topeka
Capital Markets, then
claimed Apple’s sky-high
share price will hit four
figures within 12 months –
making the company worth $1 trillion.
He said in his report:
“Apple fever is spreading
like a wildfire around the
world.”
Gene Munster, of Piper Jaffray, followed that up
by claiming Apple stock
will hit $1,000 – but by
2014.
The company, based in
Cupertino, California, is already the most valuable
company in the world
currently valued at $
590.82 billion, according to
the newspaper.
Just a year ago the shares were changing hands at $
341. In January, Apple
revealed it had more than
doubled its profits to $
13.06 billion, compared
with $6 billion for the same quarter in 2010.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief
executive who took over
from the late co-founder
Steve Jobs, said: “We
could have sold more if we’d had more supply. We
could not be happier.”
Apple’s growth is
expected to be driven by
sales in China, where
January’s launch of the iPhone 4S triggered a
near riot in Beijing, the
Mail said.
Earlier this year Morgan
Stanley analyst Katy
Huberty predicted Apple could sell 40 million
iPhones in China this year.
Apple is also expected to
move into the TV market
after the launch of its set-
top box Apple TV.

Source: http://timesofindia.com

Pay by phone: More merchants embrace direct mobile billing

0
Posted on by

Charge it to my phone. It’s the shopper’s new mantra as wireless carriers increasingly let users tack on charges – racked up at other online stores – to their phone bills. BilltoMobile, Boku and
Zong (owned by PayPal)
are luring online
businesses to try their mobile payment software as an option for customers
who don’t have a credit
card or can’t be bothered
with punching their credit card digits on a Web page or an app. Hundreds of businesses,
including Facebook,
Zynga and dating website
Lavalife, are among
merchants that now accept
direct-phone-billing payment. And that’s
despite the high
commission rates – 10
percent to 20 percent of
the transaction – that the
billing companies charge merchants. (Much of that
goes to wireless carriers.) Direct-phone-billing is
much more prevalent in
Asia, Europe and the
Middle East, where
wireless carriers have
more sophisticated billing systems. The companies’ payment
systems are similar. You
get an option to pay with
your phone at the buy-now
page, where you type in
your phone number. Users of BilltoMobile and Zong
must punch in a secret
code that’s texted to the
phone immediately.
Charges show up on the
phone bill. “There no need to type any credit card numbers,” said Jim Greenwell, CEO of
BilltoMobile, a Korean
company whose system is
accepted by about 300
merchants in the U.S. You can’t buy a couch on
Target.com, however. U.S. wireless carriers only allow online purchases of
songs, videos and data
products, such as
Facebook credits and
imaginary plants for
“FarmVille,” an online game. The purchases are
limited to about $100 a
month because the
carriers don’t want
customers facing bill
shock, said David Yoo of Boku. To grow domestically, the
companies will have to
convince skittish
consumers who’ve been
victimized by fraudulent
and unitemized billing in the past from fly-by-
nighters that sold
ringtones and wallpapers,
said Chetan Sharma, a
mobile analyst. “The
industry has learned from the experience, and
there’s more vetting of the
merchants,” he said. Zong audits merchants by
verifying executives and
addresses, as well as
visiting the site, said Hill
Ferguson, PayPal’s head
of mobile. Security concern from
users who lose their
phones is also a lingering
issue. If a phone is reported lost to the
carrier, the payment
function is cut off
immediately, Greenwell
said. “We see very little
fraud.” Merchants, carriers and the companies will also
have to convince
customers that charges
will be itemized clearly
and that refunds will be
handled properly and quickly, said Steve Mott,
an industry analyst at
BetterBuyDesign. “They
have to accept some sort
of liability. Whether that’s
as good as credit cards remains to be seen,” he
said.

Source: physorg.com

Taiwan’s HTC says first quarter profit down 70%

0
Posted on by

Taiwan’s top smartphone maker HTC said Friday net profit in the first three months of the year plummeted 70 percent, to the lowest since 2006, owing to falling demand. Net profit in the first
quarter came in at Tw$
4.46 billion ($148 million),
compared with Tw$14.83
billion a year ago and Tw$
10.94 billion in the October-December
period, the company said. Revenue in the period fell
35 percent to Tw$67.79
billion year-on-year, it
said in a statement. The losses come as the global economy slows, with key markets in the United
States and Europe mainly
hit. HTC sells its own
smartphones and also
makes handsets for a
number of leading US
companies, including
Google’s Nexus One. The company has recently
unveiled a new series of
smartphones as it looks to
compete in the huge
market against Apple’s iPhone and Samsung Galaxy. “While HTC’s operation is
likely to turn around in the
second quarter with its
launch of new ‘One’ series
smartphones, there are
uncertainties over its shipment momentum from
the third quarter as
Samsung and Apple are
expected to launch new smartphones,” said Bonnie Chang, analyst at Yuanta
Securities.

Source:physorg.com

TWITTER Takes Spammers To Court

0
Posted on by

SAN FRANCISCO:
Twitter filed a lawsuit on
Thursday in a US court
against five websites that
it accuses of creating tools
for spamming, as the social media firm battles a
wave of automated tweets
barraging real users with
anything from Viagra ads
to virus-ridden links. Often billed as a service to
help a Twitter account
gain followers, websites
can take control of an
account, known as a bot,
that follows or sends automated tweets at real
users in the hope that some
will follow the bot back or
click through links the bot
has sent out. “As our engineers continue
to combat spammers with
strong safeguards and
technical efforts, today
we’re adding another
weapon to our arsenal: the law,” Twitter said in a blog
post. Twitter now claims 140
million active users. As its
user base has grown, so
have bots and spam,
emerging as a problem
that Twitter fears could dilute the online
conversation and irk bona
fide users. Litigation isn’t a novel
approach: both Facebook
and Google have taken
spammers to court in
recent years with success. The defendants listed in
the suit filed in the US
Federal Court in San
Franciso are
TweetAttacks,
TweetAdder, TweetBuddy, James
Lucero of justinlover.info
and Garland E Harris of
troption.com. The defendants could not
immediately be reached
for comment by Reuters. “We’ve focused on tool
providers; They have
willfully created tools that
enable others to propagate
spam on Twitter,” Twitter
said. “With this suit, we’re going
straight to the source. By
shutting down tool
providers, we will prevent
other spammers from
having these services at their disposal. Further, we
hope the suit acts as a
deterrent to other
spammers, demonstrating
the strength of our
commitment to keep them off Twitter.” In its blog post, Twitter
noted its recent acquisition
of Dasient, a web security
company that Twitter says
represents a part of its
“larger investment in security and fraud
protection.”

source: Times Of India

Google-branded tablets set for july launch

0
Posted on by

It looks as though Google is, in fact, still planning on putting out a Nexus tablet this year. Initially thought to be launching in May after production was set to kick off in April , Now sources have told The Verge that it won’t go on sale until July. That lines up nicely with my suspicions that Google would take the wraps off their co-branded tablet at I/O 2012, which takes places from June 27th through the 29th. The reason for the delay? It’s not because they’re waiting on Android 5.0 Jelly Bean. Apparently Google and Asus are trying to figure out how to tweak the hardware in order to drive the price of the tablet down a bit more. It was previously thought that the first big-screen Nexus device would hit the streets at $249, though there’s been no official confirmation of that — or any — figure. The Kindle Fire is still selling like gangbusters, though, at $199. Amazon and Google are on even footing as far as brand recognition goes, so the $ 50 difference in price might not be enough to win customers over — even though the Google tablet reportedly packs a quad- core processor. If Google and Asus can come up with a hardware combination that allows them to reduce the price by $20 to $50, things could get very interesting in the tablet world. And don’t forget about those rumors of an iPad mini that continue to surface. There’s now talk that Apple is playing with a 7.85-inch prototype in Cupertino. Depending on what price point they’ve got in mind for the mini tablet, getting the Nexus tablet on sale for a price below $249 could be even more critical to its success. Source: http://www.geek.com

BlackBerry To Cut Prices

0
Posted on by

Blackberry-maker
Research in Motion (RIM)
which recently cut prices
of some of its smartphone
devices expects this move
to boost its sales by about 25-30 % in a competitive
Indian handset market.
The troubled Waterloo-
Canada based mobile
handset maker, which is
struggling to compete internationally with
Apple’s iphone and
Android-
basedsmartphones ,
considers India as one of
focus markets where lowering prices will help it
reach more customers.
Sunil Dutt, MD, RIM
India who took over the
company just a few months
back said in an exclusive chat with TOI that more
price cuts could not be
ruled out as the brand gets
the benefit of economies of
scale through increased
sales. However,leaders in the smartphone market –
Samsung and Nokia – said
they are not looking to
slash prices and will
instead focus on
broadening their product portfolios.
“The objective is to reach
out to more consumers and
therefore make our
devices affordable for
both the consumer segment as well as for our
enterprise customers,”
Dutt said.