Technology Mania : 12/14/16

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

WhatsApp maybe working on separate app for Business; ability to unsend messages coming soon

Image: AFP

By tech2 News Staff / 14 Dec 2016 , 17:40

WhatsApp is working on the ability to allow users to ‘revoke’ messages using a ‘revoke’ function. Currently, the functionality is limited to the beta version of iOS where you are presented with the option to ‘revoke’ the message when you long press on a message inside a chat. The feature is available in personal chat, but there is no clarity about the feature arriving in group chat.

This new feature has not made its way in the Android beta version at the time of writing this article. After the rollout of video calling feature last month, this is the most significant feature that will make its way to WhatsApp. Once you select the ‘revoke’ option, it removes the message from the inbox of the recipient which will be a saviour for many who previously sent messages in wrong groups or to people other than the ones intended to receive the message.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

The addition of this functionality will enrich the feature-set offered by WhatsApp, and the app shows “Sender revoked the message” in place of the revoked message. The notification of the revoked message makes it useful for people to know that there was some message and makes it impossible to make the conversation seem out of context. Still, it is too early for use to say if the feature is useful, we will have to wait and watch about how the company will strike a balance between the usability of the feature and potential misuse of the app.

Image Credit: WABetaInfo

According to reports by reliable WhatsApp information source on upcoming features WA Beta Info, WhatsApp may be working on a separate app for Business users. The second app is being referred to as WhatsApp for Business aimed at business users. It’s not confirmed if the Business app will be different or WhatsApp will let two profiles, business and personal profiles run in the same app. The profile system will not make sense and WhatsApp will probably keep a check that each device can only use one personal and one business profile.

There are concerns about the app being bloated, but let’s see how that develops. WABetaInfo also pointed out that the company will allow companies to set up Business contacts which will be verified by WhatsApp. Businesses can then use WhatsApp to send advertisements in place of SMSes and you can allow the messages or block the sender.

OxygenOS Open Beta 9 with Android 7.0 Nougat now available for OnePlus 3

By tech2 News Staff / 14 Dec 2016 , 18:56

Another OxygenOS Open Beta is now out for the OnePlus 3, the older flagship from smartphone maker OnePlus. The new update addresses the issues of the previous one and has been improved in several key areas.

The same was announced on the official OnePlus forums where a staff member put out a post pointing out the changes and how users can hop aboard the beta train.

The changelog is as follows:

1 Added Expanded Screenshots
2 Shelf Design Optimizations
3 General UI Optimizations
4 DPI Optimizations
5 Battery Performance Optimizations
6 Stability and Performance Optimizations
7 General bug fixes

Users who have already jumped on to the Beta software, will get the update as via an OTA package. For those who are new, and would like to try out the same, you will need to flash the build via an ADB sideload.

The staff member also pointed out that the Beta software roll out is a limited time program, so the same could be disabled at time once the software team has received enough feedback.

A point to note is that the Beta software is currently only available for the OnePlus 3 and not the new OnePlus 3T model which was launched in India a few days ago.

Video bloggers will now need a license to broadcast in China

14 Dec 2016 , 18:39

Video bloggers in China must register their real identities before publishing anything online from January 1, the Ministry of Culture announced Wednesday. All presenters — including amateurs, many of whom have gained enormous fame on the internet — would be compelled to comply with the new regulations in the new year, Xinhua reported.

The Chinese administration has asked online video bloggers to seek operating licenses from the authorities, as well as identify themselves via interviews or video calls starting 2017, said the report. Foreign video bloggers would require special permission, as well as those coming from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

The new regulation was arrived at after months of censorship on this type of new audiovisual media. The operators of video hosting services “must carry out real-time supervision of performances and keep records of all the shows”, it said. They would also have to create mechanisms for handling “emergencies” such as suspending content that violates the regulations and report any infringement to authorities.

The Chinese Ministry of Culture also announced the creation of a “blacklist” of video bloggers who failed to comply with these regulations in order to “ensure the sector’s healthy and orderly growth”. In recent months, the authorities have suspended video blog accounts and even arrested some of the presenters, claiming that they were broadcasting rude, erotic or violent content.

In April, China removed the online videos of blogger Papi Jiang, who had become famous for her monologues as she joked about daily life in China using sarcastic language. Chinese President Xi Jinping had called for culture and media to be subordinated to the values of the communist regime, which has resulted in high levels of censorship not seen in decades.

IANS

Google is hiring more conservatives for its lobbying arm as Trump convenes tech meeting

Image: Reuters

14 Dec 2016 , 18:29

Alphabet’s Google is racing to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy arm, trying to get a foothold in President-elect Donald Trump’s Washington after enjoying a uniquely close relationship with the administration of President Barack Obama. In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and in-house lobbyists to change the composition of its Washington office, according to three lobbyists with knowledge of the matter.

The company also posted an advertisement for a manager for conservative outreach and public policy partnership, seeking a “liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups.” While the position is not new, it gives Google a chance to make a hire that reflects the new political climate. Conservatives already are represented in the office. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the record for this article.

Chief Executive Officer Larry Page of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is expected to be in the room on Wednesday when Trump convenes a gathering of leaders of some of the largest technology companies in his New York headquarters. The session, organized by Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, adviser Reince Priebus and Trump supporter and tech financier Peter Thiel, is billed as an introductory meeting that would not result in any job or investment announcements, two sources briefed on the talks said.

Others attending are Apple Inc Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla Motors Inc CEO Elon Musk, Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella and Oracle CEO Safra Catz, according to sources familiar with the session plans. The Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group whose members include Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, had a conference call last Friday to discuss policy objectives it could agree on to present to Trump, according to a person familiar with the call.

Trump clashed with Silicon Valley on several issues during the election campaign, including immigration, government surveillance and encryption. His surprise victory alarmed many companies, which fear he might follow through on his pledges. Trump has also opposed the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules, ordered in 2015 by the communications regulator to reclassify broadband internet services to treat them more like public utilities. The rule is now said to be headed for a reversal.

Google bet heavily on Clinton

Liberal-leaning Silicon Valley bet heavily on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton winning the White House, and many technology companies have found themselves scrambling in the wake of Trump’s election. But Google, which forged deep ties to the Obama White House and was the largest corporate contributor to Clinton’s campaign, appears to have been caught especially off guard, Washington insiders said.

Only 33 employees of Google and its parent company Alphabet donated $201 or more to Trump, for a total of $23,300. Clinton received donations from 1,359 Google or Alphabet employees for a total of $1.6 million. Google NetPAC, the company’s political action committee, made 56 percent of its contributions to Republicans in the 2016 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

During Obama’s presidency, more than 250 people moved between jobs at Google or related firms and the federal government, national political campaigns and Congress, according to a report this year by the Campaign for Accountability, a watchdog group. The company notched several wins during the administration, including favorable policies on net neutrality. Google seemed poised to enjoy similar treatment under a Clinton administration. Schmidt was seen wearing a staff badge at Clinton’s election night party, a sign of their close relationship. But those ties are now something of a liability as the company tries to re-position its presence, lobbyists said.

The hiring push will adjust the political makeup of Google’s Washington office, where the team of lobbyists for Congress and the agencies contains more Democrats than Republicans, according to people familiar with the operation. Such a skew is not unusual given that Democrats controlled the White House the past eight years. To be sure, conservatives are well-represented in the company’s Washington office: Susan Molinari, a former Republican congresswoman from New York, has been the top lobbyist since 2012, and Seth Webb, who worked for a former Republican speaker of the house, helps lead Congressional lobbying.

But the company has tended toward moderate Republicans in past hiring. Its previous director of conservative outreach was alumnus of Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, and a number of former staffers for Sen. John McCain have passed through the office as well. But the company still has to reconcile the lobbyists it hires with its liberal-leaning existing staff. Said one lobbyist for a rival tech company, “I think they are going to have a tough time really finding the cultural fit.”

Reuters

Microsoft opens up Cortana to developers and manufacturers with Skills Kit and Devices SDK

By tech2 News Staff / 14 Dec 2016 , 17:39

Microsoft is extending the capabilities of its artificial intelligence assistant, Cortana to new devices and developers. Microsoft announced a Skills Kit and a Cortana Devices SDK. The Skills Kit is to add capabilities to Cortana across the platforms that it is available on, including Windows, iOS and Android. The devices SDK will allow Cortana integration into a new generation of smart devices. Developers and Device Manufacturers can sign up to get access and updates as Microsoft moves the capabilities out of private preview.

The Cortana Skills Kit allows users to integrate capabilities with Cortana using chatbots created for the Microsoft Bot Framework. The web services offered by companies can be published as a skill on Cortana through the Skills Kit. There is also a facility to re-purpose existing code for Amazon’s Alexa. Early partners have already integrated skills into Cortana. These include Knowmail that uses Cortana to prioritise emails based on habits of individual users, Capital One that facilitates money management through a voice interface, Expedia that allows users to book hotels, and TalkLocal that can connect to local services based on user requests.

microsoft-cortana-smart-speaker-harman-kardon

The voice based services can potentially be used by the premium smart speaker by Harman Kardon with Cortana Integration, that is expected to be available in 2017.

The Cortana Devices SDK will allow for third party Original Equipment Manufacturers and Original Device Manufacturers to integrate Cortana into their product offerings. The Devices SDK is platform and device independent, designed to make Cortana unbound, and work on any platform or device. Microsoft is already working with many industries across various hardware categories. One exciting tease from Microsoft is that it is working to get Cortana on at least one connected car. Cortana is included in the Core edition of the Windows IoT platform, which allows the assistant to be embedded in IoT devices.

The Cortana Skills Kit and the Cortana Devices SDK are in private preview as of now, and will be available more broadly in 2017.

Qualcomm follows many others in pointing out vulnerabilities of electronic financial transactions in India

How an ATM attack works. Infographic from Symantec's blog.

By tech2 News Staff / 14 Dec 2016 , 14:41

Qualcomm has pointed out that most banking apps and mobile digital wallets in India do not use hardware-level security measures to ensure that the financial transactions are not compromised. Qualcomm is in the process of approaching the makers of such apps to integrate hardware level security features of Qualcomm chipsets into the applications. The sandboxing approach prevents any malware from affecting financial transactions.

There has been an increased focus on the security of electronic financial transactions, ever since a malware got into the systems of Hitachi Payment Services, which provides back end services to ATM machines and Point of Sale nodes across India. 32 lakh debit cards were compromised including those issued by SBI, HDFC, YES, AXIS, BOB and ICICI.

Security experts and consultants have pointed out various holes in the electronic transaction systems in place in India. ATMs need to implement state of the art encryption. The magnetic stripe cards need to be replaced with newer EMV chip cards, a global standard created by Europay, MasterCard, and Visa. ATM transactions are vulnerable to skimming and cloning attacks because of the continued use of the magnetic stripe cards. The databases of the banks themselves have to be adequately secured.

Intel has also warned that ATM machines in India are vulnerable to malicious attacks. Intel points out that countries in the Asia Pacific region are developing and are particularly vulnerable because of old systems and machines being used. The ATM machines tend to use outdated operating systems such as Windows XP, which makes them a easier target to execute malicious attacks against. Intel has also called for securing ATM machines with multiple levels of authentication and industry standard encryption.

The humans are the weakest link in the security chain, and there is a need for banks to educate users about phishing web sites, frauds, and scam emails. This is particularly important to users who are only starting to use digital wallets and banking apps after the demonetisation. The critical login credentials of users can be compromised by someone merely glancing at the screen and the app being used in a public place, a method of low-tech hacking known as shoulder surfing.

Antivirus solutions installed by users on their devices to protect financial transactions, actually end up making online banking less secure, according to researchers from the Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. The anti virus software intervene in the regular operations of the browser and operating system, and can be used to fool the system with fake credentials. Commonly used security services were tested, and the researchers found that they lowered the levels of security normally provided by the browsers.

The hacking collective known as Legion has warned of weaknesses in the Indian Banking System. The group has said that it has the capability of hacking into financial systems, but has chosen not to do so. Legion has also said that there have been significant breaches in the past, but Banks have not alerted their consumers about it. There is no requirement by law to disclose data breaches to customers, the onus is on the Banks to do so.

However, it is not just amateur hackers who are a threat. There are serious cybercriminals and even the largest financial networks are susceptible to attacks. Swift has confirmed that hackers trying to get into the system have succeeded multiple times, and are continuously using newer and more sophisticated techniques. Swift has warned of consistent efforts by the group that pulled of the Banladesh Bank Heist to compromise the systems.

The laws in place are outdated, and need to be tweaked taking into accounts new developments. Digital wallets in India currently have no prescribed security standards, and are free to implement their own measures. There are no laws to hold the digital wallets responsible if something goes wrong during financial transactions.

Qualcomm senior director product management Sy Choudhury lauded the efforts by Aadhaar. The India Stack, which is a collection of APIs, which are ready to be integrated with applications and services. One of the aims of the India Stack is to ensure smooth and secure financial transactions. Unified Payment Interface (UPI), Aadhaar linked biometric identification, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), e-KYC, Aadhaar Enabled Payments System (AEPS) are all elements of the stack, that can improve security of transactions.

Google Drive now backs up your iPhone; switching to Android has never been easier

By tech2 News Staff / 14 Dec 2016 , 14:01

Switching from an Android device to iPhone has always been easy. Google’s services are all available in the cloud, and if you’re switching platforms, that cloud goes with you.

The opposite has never been the case, however. Apple is fiercely protective of its own cloud platform and transferring contacts, files and photos from an iPhone to an Android device has always been a chore. Until now.

Today, Google has announced an update to Google Drive that will finally make this task easier. The feature, found within the Google Drive app on your iPhone, will let you upload your contacts, calendar and camera roll to Google Drive.

You can now restore this backup to an Android phone of your choosing.

Owing to iOS’ restrictions, backing up your music collection and files from non-Google apps is not possible yet, but it’s a start. As The Verge points out, however, you can plug your iPhone into a Google Pixel to transfer music and text.

The tool comes at a time when long-time Apple-fans are increasingly disillusioned by the company’s offerings. The iPhone 7 has received tremendous backlash for the removal of the much-loved and perfectly functional headphone jack, and also for its lack of innovation.

At the same time, smartphone makers are coming up with compelling, innovative flagships like the Google Pixel, the OnePlus 3 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix.

iPhone sales continue to decline while Android eats into Apple’s marketshare. If it wasn’t for Samsung Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, it’s conceivable that the situation would have been even worse for Apple.