WhatsApp testing new ‘Status’ tab; lets you share photos like Instagram ‘Stories’ or Snapchat ‘Snaps’

By Rehan Hooda /  04 Nov 2016 , 11:39

WhatsApp is currently testing new interface with ‘Status’ updates tab to the interface after adding a ‘Camera’ tab to the interface along with Video Calling. ‘Status’ updates is not a new addition to WhatsApp and has long existed with the launch of WhatsApp in 2009. But this new addition will introduce sharing images with your contacts for a limited period, just like ‘Stories’ in Instagram and ‘Snaps’ in Snapchat.

The new hidden WhatsApp ‘Status’ feature in latest Android Beta

On checking the new user interface, the new ‘Status’ tab will co-exist with the old ‘Status’ section in the Settings Menu. Facebook, the owner of WhatsApp, seems to have introduced the ‘Snaps’ like functionality in all its products, right from Facebook Messenger’s ‘Messenger Day‘ to Instagram’s ‘Instagram Stories‘ to the new ‘Status’ tab in WhatsApp. Earlier the company introduced a Camera Tab to click photographs or record videos and send them to multiple people without leaving WhatsApp or going to individual chat and using the camera icon to the ‘Type a message’ area.

Camera Interface to add a new ‘new’ WhatsApp ‘Status’

Currently, the functionality is only available as a hidden feature in the latest WhatsApp public beta for Android and iOS. You will need a rooted Android or a Jailbroken iOS device to enable the hidden functionality. WhatsApp is testing the feature and feedback to implement the UI changes for a wider rollout down the line. One thing to note is that there is no direct way to delete the ‘Status’ images or videos shared in the ‘Status’ tab.

Status recipients and ‘Status’ Message info

There are no options to set the timing of the image or video except the app asks you to set ‘Status recipients’ at the beginning. After the initial setup, you can change the recipients of the status using the three dot menu on the top right corner of the app when in the ‘Status’ tab. You can add a new status using the add ‘New Status’ tab on the top right options in the ‘Status’ tab. After clicking the photo or recording the video, you will be presented with a preview screen where you can crop the video or add emoji’s, text overlays, and scribble using the pencil tool on the image or video.

WhatsApp New Status section along with the old (existing) status section

Facebook is pushing to counter the popularity of Snapchat by replicating the functionality of ‘Snapchats.’ In the limited testing of Instagram ‘Stories,’ the main issue with the implementation is the number of people that are sharing the images, depending in thousands on the number of people that you are following. There is no easy way to manage the long horizontal scroll list of ‘Stories.’

Google introduces new tools for increasing user engagement on the Play Store

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 12:19

In a bid to help developers better monetise their apps and increase user engagement, Google has announced plans to rework the Google Play Store model.

Speaking to Android developers at Google’s Playtime event in San Francisco, Google outlined the following changes:

Subscription promos

Subscriptions are apparently the “fastest growing business model” on the Play store and Google claims that spending on subscriptions has gone up 10-fold in 3 years. Keeping this in mind, Google would soon like to give developers the option of offering promotional subscription offers. Say, Netflix for $1 a month for 3 months and then full price later on.

Pre-registration and Early Access

Apple and Google have already tried this model with some apps (Allo and Super Mario Run spring to mind), but now all third-party developers might have this option at their disposal. Adding to this, Google intends to build on and enhance its existing Early Access program, which gives users a chance to experience pre-release apps and games while they’re still in a developmental phase.

The other changes that Google announced include an API that lets developers know which users requested a refund and a mention of Google’s intention to place a heavier spotlight on indie games.

Do head to the Android developers’ blog for detailed information on any of the above features.

Adobe reveals an app that lets you add words that were never spoken into an audio file

Image: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 12:11

Technology has been mesmerising and slowly it is becoming incredibly unpredictable. Adobe is said to be working on software that will somewhat be like Photoshop but for audio. Codenamed Project VoCo, it will offer the ability to add words that are originally not in the audio file.

While it is still not confirmed whether or not it will release as a commercial product, an Adobe representative did confirm the existence of the project to The Verge. It was apparently , shown off as part of a sneak peak program at the MAX conference. It is said that the project is in development as part of a collaboration between members of Adobe Research and Princeton University.

Project VoCo is being touted as a high-end audio editing application where beyond standard speech editing and noise cancellation features it will have the ability generate new words using a person’s recorded voice. Basically the software will understand the makeup of a person’s voice and try to replicate it. However it does need about 20 minutes of speech recording.

An official Adobe statement says “When recording voiceovers, dialog, and narration, people would often like to change or insert a word or a few words due to either a mistake they made or simply because they would like to change part of the narrative. We have developed a technology called Project VoCo in which you can simply type in the word or words that you would like to change or insert into the voiceover. The algorithm does the rest and makes it sound like the original speaker said those words.”

If Adobe manages to pull this off, it’ll be one of the most important and crucial softwares of all times.

BMW’s first compact sedan is called the 1 Series but it will only sell in Chinese markets

Image: TopSpeed

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 09:42

Yes, BMW is building its first compact sedan. It will be called the 1-Series but there’s little reason to be excited about it as it will join the ranks of those special set of vehicles that will be launched only for the Chinese markets in the coming year.

As per Overdrive, there’s equal parts of Chinese and German engineering and input that go into this new segment. This is because the compact sedan has been developed by BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd that is a joint venture of the BMW Group and the Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd.

According to BMW, the 1-series has been built from the ground up, keeping the needs of Chinese customers in mind, which is why it will be produced solely for that particular market. The development and testing of the vehicle however, has been done in the BMW headquarters for which inputs came from Chinese engineers.

Image: Overdrive

The BMW 1-Series compact sedan is based on the UKL platform which also shares its underpinnings from the BMW X2 which was showcased at the Paris Motor Show. So far all that has been revealed is an image of the interior.

Coming to the stuff that matters, Overdrive states that BMW 1-series is expected to include the 118i, 120i and 125i. The 118i will feature a 1.5-litre engine that will churn out 136PS of power while the 125i engine variant at the top end will deliver 231PS of power. Let’s hope that BMW changes its mind and decides to bring this compact sedan to India.

The BMW 1-Series in all probability is the outcome of its BMW Concept Compact Sedan which was unveiled at the Guangzhou Motor Show back in 2015.

Expect a slightly enhanced HTC Vive VR headset in the near future

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 12:16

If reports are to be believed, the HTC Vive VR headset is slated for a mild redesign.

Speaking to TechCrunch, HTC’s Rikard Steiber, SVP of VR at HTC explained that we might see an update to the HTC Vive’s form factor. The Vive VR headset was released in April this year, right alongside competitor, the Rift CV1 from Oculus.

The Oculus Rift and Vive have been competing head to head in the PC VR space since their launch and reactions to both have been mixed. The consensus is that the Rift is the better headset, but that the Vive, with its bundled controllers and room-scale VR, offers the better experience.

Steiber’s suggestion that the Vive will see an update, is a welcome one. Oculus has, after all, already announced plans for room-scale VR and touch controllers of its own and it’ll be too bad if the Vive falls behind.

Steiber also told TechCrunch that HTC’s VR plans in countries like China and Taiwan revolves around enhanced peripherals like wheels and weapons. He also suggested that innovation cycles in VR, as far as high-end VR headsets are concerned at least, will be “sort of annual.”

The Rift and the Vive, with all necessary accessories for room-scale VR and motion controls are priced in the same range (around $799). With all accessories included, the two platforms also offer a largely similar gaming experience.

It’s hard to imagine how the two platforms will set each other apart in the near future.

OnePlus 3T expected to launch on 17 November with SD821, 3300mAh battery and a ‘black’ variant

Shown above is the OnePlus 3.

By Sheldon Pinto /  04 Nov 2016 , 11:39

OnePlus 3T has been in the rumour mill for quite some time and the existence of the Google Pixel makes even more sense for it to exist as the smartphone maker has no Daydream-ready smartphone. New coming in from Chinese social networking site Weibo now hints at a 17 November launch of the upcoming OnePlus 3T in London and it also sheds some light on what we can expect from it.

The information comes via Phone Arena from a credible source that has been accurate to some extent in the past. User Reviewer_Well hinted at the launch of the Daydream VR ready OnePlus 3T with refreshed internals. This would include a Daydream-ready hardware which for now stands at the Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset, and 6GB RAM which has been the standard in the currently available OnePlus 3. Also expected is a bigger battery in

Google rubbishes EU claims of Anti-Competitive practices in online shopping

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 09:19

Google has called EU objections to its improved shopping results in searches as baseless. The European Commission had accused Google of using its dominant position to take business away from price comparison and price aggregating sites, based on complaints it had received from these sites. Google contends that the most dominant position is held by Amazon itself, which competes for traffic with price aggregation sites more than Google does.

The counter argument was that as Amazon pays these sites for listings, it should not be considered as a competition. Google provided data to show that a staggering majority of users start shopping online by checking the prices on Amazon, irrespective of whether or not they end up making a purchase from the site. Google came in a second place for users looking for prices, and only a fraction of users opted to check price comparison sites.

Google also alleges that most of the shopping activity is conducted through native apps on smartphones. Google claims that it has improved its search results to deliver ads with pictures and prices, a process that helps Google, its partnered advertisers as well as the end users.

Google claims there is no relation between the evolution of its search engine, and the performance of price comparison sites.

Meizu announces Pro 6s with 10-core processor, 4GB RAM, 12MP camera and more

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 09:14

Meizu has announced an update to its Pro 6 smartphone in the form of the Pro 6s at an event in China. This phone looks like OnePlus 3 and iPhone 7 had a love-child. In fact, the Meizu Pro 6s also features 3D touch, just like the current gen iPhone. The Pro 6s is priced at CNY 2699 (approx Rs 27,000).

The Meizu Pro 6s comes with an aluminum unibody design with rounded corners. The antenna lines are visible on the rear side of the Pro 6s. It sports a 5.2-inch display with Full HD resolution. It houses the 10-core processor sporting MediaTek Helio X25 chipset which has Mali T880 MP4 GPU and is paired with 4GB of RAM. It comes with 64GB of storage which cannot be expanded.

In terms of camera, you get a 5MP front-facing unit whereas on the rear you have a 12MP camera with Sony IMX386 sensor with an f/2.0 aperture. The camera is different from the 21MP unit with f/2.2 aperture that is seen on the Pro 6. The Pro 6s also comes with 4-axis optical image stabilisation. It has a 10-LED dual tone flash ring, just like the Pro 6. In terms of AF, the Pro 6s camera supports phase detect and laser assist autofocus.

The Pro 6s has a 3060mAh battery. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow along with Meizu’s Flyme OS atop it.

There is no news on when the phone will launch in India.

Intel Security outlines strategy for protecting new digital economy

By tech2 News Staff /  04 Nov 2016 , 08:57

Intel Security has announced a new strategy by means of an enhanced unified defense architecture, which has been designed from the ground up, to give more power to organisations. It has done this to increase the effective protection of today’s new digital economy which consists of three main factors: trust; time and money.

Intel says that world’s economy is no longer a physical one and that the growing number of interconnected networks and systems puts everyone (including organisations) at the risk of cybercriminals forcing the users and businesses to go on a defensive.

“Cybercriminals are forcing cybersecurity companies to re-draft the rules of engagement for defending the civilised world; to effectively counteract them, we have to abandon old security playbooks to become more unpredictable and collaborative and make cyber defense a priority,” said Chris Young, senior vice president and general manager of Intel Security Group. “Our strategic charter is simple, yet disruptive: integrate, automate and orchestrate the threat defense lifecycle to drive better security outcomes – ultimately reducing more risk, faster and with fewer resources.”

Intel Security’s new unified architecture is basically enabled by four key integrated systems: Dynamic Endpoint, Pervasive Data Protection, Data Center and Cloud Defense, and Intelligent Security Operations. All of these systems work together in a deeply integrated manner to multiply the effectiveness of the system as whole.

Along with the above, Intel Security also announced its intent to open the McAfee Data Exchange Layer (DXL) to enable the industry with a concrete solution to disrupt the cyberattacker’s advantage.

Google India official: Bhuvan by ISRO is not competition to Google Maps

  04 Nov 2016 , 07:56

Google does not perceive ISRO’s geo-portal app Bhuvan as competition, a senior Google India official said here on Thursday, stressing that such data sharing platforms help bolster the industry. “From our analysis, it’s a great platform for sharing data. We generally don’t look at a different app as a competition as we are trying to solve the same problem,” said Google India’s Maps Lead Sanket Gupta.

“There’s a long way to go… It is something like a great experience and generally great for the industry,” Gupta told the media here. Bhuvan is a software application created by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) that allows users to explore 2D/3D representation of the Earth’s surface. The mapping app is specifically tailored to view India, offering highest resolution in the region and providing content in four local languages.

Asked about the security and privacy concerns regarding live traffic updates, Gupta clarified the company aggregates anonymised traffic data from people using Google Maps apps. “We generally strip out personal identifiable information which keeps it secure and that’s why we can’t identify a particular traffic update to a particular cell phone,” Gupta added.

Vivo to launch V5 with 20MP front selfie camera; set for ‘selfie evolution’ on 15 November

By tech2 News Staff /  03 Nov 2016 , 17:37

Vivo is all set to announce a new smartphone keeping in mind at people who want better selfies with their smartphones. V5 comes after the launch of the current devices, Vivo V3and Vivo V3 Max.

V5 is the fifth device by the company in the V smartphone lineup. It is set to launch on 15 November according to the media invites sent to media companies.

Vivo V5 will sport an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor clocked at 1.8GHz along with Adreno 510 GPU. The device will come with a 5.2-inch Full HD display with an effective resolution of 1920×1080 pixels along with 2.5D curved display protected by Gorilla Glass 3.

It is expected to have 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage to V5 along with expandability to 128GB microSD card. The smartphone will run Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 out of the box which is weird since Android Nougat has been around for some time.

On the design front, V5 will sport a metal body design along with a fingerprint sensor embedded in the home button, 4G LTE support. V5 will sport a 20MP camera on the front for better selfies along with a Soft-LED flash and a 13MP camera module on the back with LED Flash and Phase Detection Auto Focus system.

According to a report by BGR, the company will price the smartphone at around Rs 20,000 to compete with other selfie-centric smartphones like the Oppo F1s and Gionee S6s.

Trai needs to move beyond 512kbps, and overcome FUP and QoS barriers

Representational Image : Reuters

By Nimish Sawant /  03 Nov 2016 , 17:15

Trai released a directive which mandates all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to ensure that customers get a minimum download speed of 512Kbps, even after the fair usage policy (FUP) limit is up. Mind you, this is not an update to the minimum broadband speed, which is still 512Kbps, according to a July 2013 order.

TRAI Direction 31102016 BBPA by Tech2 on Scribd

Yes. I too did a double take when I read ‘kilobits per second’ and ‘minimum download speed’ in the same line. In 2016. The directive to ensure ISPs and TSPs inform users via SMS or email, when their data limit reaches 50, 90 and 100 percent, is laudable. But having an unlimited plan with an unreliable 512kbps speed hardly serves any purpose. The talks of raising the minimum broadband speed to 2 Mbps has still not gone anywhere.

For a country with the second largest number of Internet users, internet speeds are still being measured in kilobits per second in 2016.

India is second largest internet consumer in APAC region, but has the lowest speeds. Figures indicate millions of users (Image: Statista)

FUP in India is a joke

Let’s get one thing out of the way. FUP limits in India are a joke. FUP, that dreaded policy which lets ISPs and TSPs either cut off or downgrade your internet speeds after you have crossed a certain data limit ceiling, is universally hated and more so in India.

This means, that my ‘Unlimited’ 2Mbps plan will switch to 512Kbps after I have exhausted 16GB data within a month. Despite Trai’s paper on transparency surrounding FUP limits, a lot of ISPs still continue to

Google is improving Play Store with AI powered recommendations and more payment models

  03 Nov 2016 , 16:56

Alphabet Inc’s Google is redoubling efforts to help developers of Android mobile apps build their businesses as concerns mount that the app economy has reached saturation. Under the leadership of Sameer Samat, who rejoined Google earlier this year after a spell as president of wearable tech firm Jawbone, the company is sharpening Google Play store recommendations with artificial intelligence and expanding support for various payment platforms, among other initiatives.

Google’s efforts in some way mirror those of arch-rival Apple Inc, which revamped its App Store this year with quicker review times for new apps and an increase in the cut of revenue that goes to developers. Both companies face a chorus of complaints from developers who say they are struggling to stand out in a jam-packed field. Many smartphone users, meanwhile, appear to have tired of downloading apps altogether, especially as messaging services like Snapchat perform more of the functions that once required a separate app.

Games remain a focus of the Google Play store, and Nintendo Co Ltd is building a version of its popular Super Mario Run game for Android, said Samat, who leads product management for the Google Play store. The store is also expanding to new platforms, including wearable devices, virtual reality headsets and Google’s Chromebook laptops. “What we are excited about is giving developers that single entry point for more and more of the computing ecosystem,” said Samat.

Android Wild West

Google has eased the once-complicated process of developing apps for the Play store, said James Knight, a former Google employee who launched Pembroke, a consultancy that helps developers convert Apple-compatible iOS apps to the Android operating system. “The App Store has historically been a little more straightforward, and Android has been a bit more like the Wild West,” he said.

Mirroring the larger smartphone market, the Google Play store sees far more activity by virtue of its placement on the wide range of devices running the Android operating system – but Apple claims more of the profits. The Google Play store accounted for 70 percent of app downloads in the third quarter of this year, but Apple’s App Store logged 65 percent of the revenue, according to App Annie, a mobile analytics firm.

A big part of Google’s new effort involves emerging markets, where Android is stronger relative to the iPhone. The company has steadily expanded its support of direct carrier billing, a popular payment method in emerging markets where consumers often do not have credit cards. Google now offers the payment method in 47 markets. To improve app recommendations for users, the Play store has also made extensive use of machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that gleans insights from vast troves of data. Google’s Play store and machine learning teams began collaborating three years ago, and a partnership was struck last year with Google Brain, a cutting-edge research project.

The jolt of artificial intelligence is welcome as developers hunt for an audience for their apps, said Greg Cohn, chief executive of Burner, which makes an app that provides temporary phone numbers. “The harsh reality is that there are a few apps that get the vast majority of people’s time and attention,” he said.

Reuters