|In: e-commerce|Last Updated:

A common concern for people shopping for furniture is finding the right way to dispose their old furniture. Either they do not know who to dispose their old furniture to or are hassled by the trouble of transporting it to the right person.

To help customers solve this problem, Urban Ladder, India’s leading online furniture and home decor company has tied up with Milaap to launch the ‘Exchange for Good’ initiative in Bangalore.

UrbanLadderLogo

When a customer chooses the exchange offer on the website, they receive a 10% discount on the new purchase and the Urban Ladder  team picks up the old furniture to ensure it is donated to someone in need.

Through Milaap, Urban Ladder has partnered with 11 NGOs across Bangalore who will receive the old furniture. The initiative provides an opportunity to customers to donate their old furniture while purchasing at Urban Ladder and give others a chance to start their life afresh. These NGO’s contribute towards Women Empowerment and are involved in Education, Health and Community development.

Here is how ‘Exchange for Good’ Programme works :

UrbanLadder-Exchange

Currently, the Exchange for Good initiative is active only in Bangalore.

For further information you can log on to https://www.urbanladder.com/exchange-for-good#ngo

|In: Android|Last Updated:

Intel Security has released its McAfee Labs Threats Report: May 2015, which includes revelations on the rapid proliferation of new ransom-ware, HDD & SSD firmware attacks by the Equation Group computer espionage group and a major increase in malware targeting Adobe Flash multimedia software.

Intel_Security

In the first quarter of 2015, McAfee Labs registered a 165 percent increase in new ransom-ware driven largely by the new, hard-to-detect CTB-Locker ransom-ware family, a new ransom-ware family called Teslacrypt & the emergence of new versions of CryptoWall, TorrentLocker & BandarChor.

McAfee Labs attributes CTB-Locker’s success to clever techniques for evading security software, higher-quality phishing emails & an “affiliate” program that offers accomplices a percentage of ransom payments in return for flooding cyberspace with CTB-Locker phishing messages.

McAfee Labs suggests organizations and individuals make it a priority to learn how to recognize phishing emails, including the use of tools such as the Intel Security Phishing Quiz:  Phishing Quiz Link

The first quarter also saw new Adobe Flash malware samples increase by 317 percent,  researchers attribute the rise to several factors

  • The popularity of Adobe Flash as a technology; user delay in applying available Adobe Flash patches; new methods to exploit product vulnerabilities
  • A steep increase in the number of mobile devices that can play Adobe Flash files (.swf); and the difficulty of detecting some Adobe Flash exploits. Researchers are seeing a continued shift in focus among exploit kit developers, from Java archive and Microsoft Silverlight vulnerabilities to Adobe Flash vulnerabilities.

To fully leverage vendor efforts to address vulnerabilities, McAfee Labs urges organizations and individual users to be more diligent in keeping their products updated with the latest security patches.

What can HDD and SSD do

In February 2015, the cyber security community became aware of efforts by a secretive outfit called Equation Group to exploit HDD and SSD firmware. McAfee Labs assessed the reprogramming modules exposed in February and found that they could be used to reprogram the firmware in SSDs in addition to the previously-reported HDD reprogramming capability.

Once reprogrammed, the HDD and SSD firmware can reload associated malware each time infected systems boot and the malware persists even if the drives are reformatted or the operating system is reinstalled. Once infected, security software cannot detect the associated malware stored in a hidden area of the drive.

Detailed insights of McAfee Labs Threats Report[May 2015]

PC Malware Growth : The first quarter saw a slight decline in new PC malware, a development primarily due to the activity of one adware family, Soft Pulse, which spiked in Q4 2014 and returned to normal levels in Q1 2015. The McAfee Labs malware “zoo” grew 13 percent during that time, and now contains 400 million samples.

Mobile Malware :  The number of new mobile malware samples jumped by 49 percent from Q4 2014 to Q1 2015.

SSL-Attacks : SSL-related attacks continued in Q1 2015, although they tapered off in number relative to Q4 2014. This reduction is likely the result of SSL library updates that have eliminated many of the vulnerabilities exploited in prior quarters. Shellshock attacks are still quite prevalent since their emergence late last year.

Spam Botnets : The Dyre, Dridex and Darkmailer3.Slenfbot botnets overtook Festi and Darkmailer2 as the top spam networks; pushing pharmaceuticals, stolen credit cards & “shady” social-media marketing tools

McAfee Labs Threats Report: May 2015 can be downloaded from here

|In: Elearning|Last Updated:

The June edition of “Startup Saturday [Hyderabad]” is planned on 13th June. The theme for the meetup is “Exploring opportunities in the Learning & Education Space“. This is a  discovery format Startup Saturday to uncover some of these new startups coming up in this booming space.
Startup-Saturday

Meetup Agenda

Detailed agenda of the meetup is below:

Introduction

10:00 – Registration
10:15 – Introduction
10:25 – Ecosystem Announcements

Startup Speak

10:30 – OutLife, Founder Diyanat Ali
10:42  – MyRank, Founder-Savinay
10:55 – WeMakeScholars, Founder
11:07 – Kaddy, Founder-Govind
11:20  – TBD
11:32 – TBD

Expert Speak

11:45 – Serial Entrepreneur in Edu space [TBD]

Investor Speak

12:00 ~ 12:15 – Investors from Hyderabad Angels
12:30 Networking

Location & Timings

La Makaan [13th June, 10 AM]. Registration can be done at the following link.

In case, if you wish to nominate an expert speaker or a start-up for the above mentioned theme, you can email the details to the following email-id.

Social Media details – Facebook Event Page
Share/Like/Post/Tweet: hashtag #SSHYD

[Image Credit – BuzzInTown]

|In: Mobile|Last Updated:

Disrupting the nascent 4G market with the best in class technology, Micromax has announced its endeavor to offer fast 4G LTE connectivity to the Indian consumers. To build on to the leadership position in the Indian smartphone market, the company launched its flagship product Canvas Knight 2, the first in the range of 4G smartphones and showcased its upcoming 4G range.

Micromax

The company has been consistently revolutionizing the 3G market since 2012 with the launch of some compelling affordable smartphones and aims to help the Indian consumers unlock the true potential of 4G with this new launch.

Commenting on the launch, Vineet Taneja, CEO, Micromax Informatics said

India is at the cusp of digital revolution and we expect 4G technology to push internet usage to an unprecedented level. Consumer demand is constantly shifting towards devices offering multi-tasking capabilities, 24×7 data connectivity with increased video consumption and real-time mobility solutions. Smartphones always lead any such technology shift, much before full scale network roll-outs are done by operators.

In our estimate, 4G handsets already account for 15% of total smartphone shipments, up from 4% two quarters back. Installed base of 4G handsets is ~5 Mn compared to a 90Mn+ base of 3G smartphones. With the launch of our new device Canvas Knight 2, the first in the 4G range, we are looking at driving the next wave of internet evolution in the country.

Surfing on 4G networks is said to be at least 5 times faster than 3G and enables the consumers to download movies, stream video and music, share photographs, surf internet and achieve much more out of their smartphones with great ease.

The Canvas Knight 2 with its super-fast 4G internet gives the consumers all the tools right at their fingertips to conquer the world be it your presentations or finding the perfect night stops. Heavy web downloading, hard-core gaming, high-quality premium video viewing without any lag ensures the users are on top of everything.

The device is a performance beast as one can push boundaries with 64-bit performance processing data at the speed of light. Power packed with a 1.5 GHz Octa Core processor, the smartphone is perfect for multitasking and efficiently running applications of any kind. Do more things at once on the Canvas Knight 2 with its 2GB RAM that helps you speed things up and lets you access all applications, faster.

The device is a design marvel with a perfect amalgamation of Glass & Metal which is fortified with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on both sides. Glass provides the premium & rich look to the product while the metal sandwiched between the glass on both sides makes the device sturdy and strong. Powered with Cirus Logic Wolfson Stereo WM8998, the smartphone promises the best in class experience for music aficionados and delivers clear, room-filling, deep sound.

Running on the latest Android Lollipop 5.0, the new device promises great benefits like optimized battery usage, improved application performance, refreshed notification system etc. to the neo users.

With a 5-inch Amoled HD Screen the device provides a 16.7 million colour depth, the display catches every colour in its brilliant and spectacular form. One can capture all their moments as perfect as they can be with a 13MP AF rear camera powered with Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor and LARGAN 5P lens. Taking selfies on the go is now even more remarkable with a 5MP FF front camera accompanied with Omnivison OV5648 & LARGAN 4P lens.

Canvas2

With 2G/3G/4G support on both dual SIM slots, one can manage personal and work calls with ease, with intelligent dual SIM features and detailed preferred network settings for each card. Nano SIM card slot can be replaced with the memory card to store more pictures, songs, videos etc

With the best buy price of Rs. 16,299; the Canvas Knight 2 comes with a free 4G SIM and an Airtel 4G Double Data offer which doubles the 4G data amount for any consumer activating the 4G SIM.

The device will be available from June 10, 2015 across India.

|In: Mobile|Last Updated:

Phicomm, China’s leading provider of telecommunication equipment, terminals & services today launched its flagship LTE Android smartphone – Phicomm Passion 660, in India. This versatile and easy to use smartphone based on a Qualcomm chipset has a 5.0-inch IPS LCD display with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution [FHD] and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor with 4G LTE.

Phicomm Passion 660 features a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. With Phicomm’s own EXPECT 5.0 UI, Global 4G Roaming support and its unique pedometer, PHICOMM Passion 660 offers consumers a dream like technologically advanced device aimed to enhance their mobile experience. Phicomm Passion 660 will be available for sale exclusively on Amazon at Rs. 10,999.

Key Highlights

Connect to the world faster

With Global 4G Roaming Support, the Phicomm Passion 660 promises speedy connectivity to the world. You could be on the road or at comforts of your home; Phicomm Passion 660 will seamlessly allow you to stay constantly connected. Qualcomm Snapdragon with 4G LTE offers high-speed connectivity that allow consumers to share their content, browse, game and more, around the world.

Slim, light, and stylish

With a thickness of only 7.3 mm and weighing only 110 grams, Phicomm Passion 660 is one of the thinnest and lightest 4G smartphones available in the region. It has stronger structure on one piece metal body, seamless back cover by unibody process and decoration of metal frame.

Advanced technology

PHICOMM Passion 660 exhibits features based on innovative technology which includes a professional pedometer along with gesture recognition. The pedometer is one of the best features of the smartphone which enables one to track how much you walk in a day and it also the calories burnt! Set a goal and record your growth towards good health.

The built–in step-counter sensor does not require GPS & Network and it has 166 times power saving Capability as compared to a Software Solution. Gesture recognition enables you to access the functions of the phone with hand gestures, making the smart phone a futuristic gadget.

Passion 660 can also record your altitude by the built in barometer. When taking a picture, you can use Geo-tag and Barometer to record your 3D position [That means your latitude, longitude and altitude of your position].

Crystal Clear conversations

Not forgetting the primary function of a phone, the Phicomm Passion 660 employs 2 microphones to enable noise cancellation and suppression using Qualcomm Snapdragon Voice+ technology for superior speech clarity even in noisy environments.

Stunning pictures

The 5.0” FHD IPS screen at 441ppi gives an excellent colour reproduction and contrast. A 13 MP rear camera, armed with IMX 214 sensor from Sony and a 5 MP BSI front camera with super wide view angle [84 degrees] guarantee that your photos will look brilliant with amazing colour & outstanding details whatever taken in a bright or a dull background. The built in memory [2GB RAM/ 16GB ROM] can be additionally expanded up to 64 GB via SD card.

Features in a Nutshell

Phicomm_Features

Video review [Courtesy – GadgetsToUse]

Availablility

Phicomm Passion 660 is exclusively available on Amazon.in. The sales would begin on 9 June 2015

|In: Android|Last Updated:

The world is going mobile and so is Property search. IndiaProperty has been at the forefront of enabling mobile as a tool for property search with innovations like Visual search using Augmented Reality, 3DPanoX etc.

These innovations have driven rapid scaling in mobile app & web usage which is now almost at par with desktop. IndiaProperty has taken property search a significant step ahead by unveiling a revolutionary mobile-first Property search experience – ‘Discover’!

india-property

A property seeker has a multitude of questions in their mind and not many clear answers. Discover makes this process of finding the answers and making a choice easy by ‘automagically’ bringing the answers directly to the user.

Talking about the newly launched product Muralikrishnan B, COO, IndiaProperty said

Property search is not just about seeing a list of Properties, but finding the answers to a multitude of questions that culminate in the final decision. With Discover, we have a mobile first solution that provides all the relevant information that the user wants to help him/her in their Home Buying journey smartly presented in the Feed. We believe this would set new benchmarks in the Home search experience – not just in India, but also globally.

Discover’s proprietary machine learning engine maps user behaviour patterns and intelligently recommends various snippets of content that are relevant to the user. The Discover engine understands the user’s context, what the user is looking for and presents the information / content on the Discover feed as Cards and is regularly refreshed with new information.

The information in the feed includes news articles, market reports, localities of interest, price trends, event information, tip of the day, word of the day and of course properties matching the users interest along with regular project status updates. The product is currently available on the Android, iOS app platforms and also Mobile Web.

The advantage Discover brings to a user is easy access to relevant information which is readily accessible in the Discover feed and over time making traditional search less important.

Innovating on the Mobile to drive category expansion and deeper user engagement is a key theme in Indiaproperty’s strategy. Towards this, IndiaProperty has many more exciting mobile first innovations lined up that would further redefine property search. Some of the projects in the pipeline include – an Intelligent Virtual Assistant which would change the way people do Property Site Visits, Augmented Reality Visualisation of under construction projects, a mobile first CRM Solution for Property Agents etc.

Discover for Android, iOS, WAP are available here, here & here

To know more about Discover click here

|In: Food-Commerce|Last Updated:

With an intention of solving the million dollar question of ‘what’s for lunch or dinner today’ for professionals and metro families, Bite Club, a Gurgaon-based chef-designed virtual restaurant is offering affordable home-style wholesome meals handmade by an expert community of chefs using the freshest ingredients. The guilt-free meals, desserts, and drinks are delivered straight from the kitchens of home chefs, recipe bloggers, ex- restaurateurs, professional chefs and many more.

BiteClub

The unique concept of Bite Club was initiated and implemented by three young engineers Prateek Agarwal, Aushim Krishan and Siddharth Sharma who during their bachelor days had no access to fresh and high-quality food. This prompted them to introduce an exclusive ‘restaurant in the cloud’: a virtual restaurant.

Prateek Agarwal, the CEO and Founder, Bite Club commented

A majority of times, people in metro cities have no access to good food and are left with an unpleasant experience when they order from restaurants. They also end up spending exorbitant amounts for the food they consume, which is mostly unhealthy with no guarantee of freshness or novelty. We at Bite Club celebrate good food and cater to those who are fans of variety and taste. We understand our patrons very well and our purpose is to fix their dilemma of access to delectable and appetizing food made with fresh produce. What’s more! We make sure that there is no minimum value to place an order.

Carrying certain traits of both a restaurant and a Tiffin service, Bite Club is not conventionally one or the other. Instead, it can be termed as a technology and logistics platform that efficiently connects the chefs to the consumers.

Within one year of its dawn, Bite Club has remarkably served over 25000 meals to 2000+ customers. Aiming to take its services beyond Gurgaon, it envisages delivering its sumptuous lunch and dinner boxes to every city of India and possibly even beyond.

Bite Club Android App can be downloaded from here

About Bite Club

Bite Club is a Gurgaon-based chef designed virtual restaurant which facilitates its native presence through android, iOS and web apps. It was brought into existence in November 2014 by three young engineers Prateek Agarwal, Aushim Krishan, merely a year after graduating from IIT alongwith Siddharth Sharma from NTU (Singapore). Bite Club was galvanized to fix the dilemma of access to delectable and appetizing food made with fresh produce. Sticking to their mantra of serving “Wholesome meals handmade by an expert community of chefs using the freshest ingredients,” it veers from regular restaurant fare. Bite Club lauds good and interesting food featuring a daily rotating lunch and dinner menu of sumptuous meals, desserts and drinks designed and prepared by chefs who promise innovation and variety with every meal.

[Image Credit – Bite Club]

|In: SocialMedia|Last Updated:

In the past, there have been several articles on this blog where we mentioned how important “Digital Media” has become to anyone’s business. Social Media is now playing an important role in “customer buying behavior” & customer-sentiment echoes about your brand and might affect “buying behavior of prospective customers”.

Social media marketing is hailed as one of the best ways to promote a start up. It is cheap, relatively easy and pretty effective in helping a company establish its own identity and brand. While there are certainly many benefits to social media marketing, truly benefiting from your efforts requires a certain level of skill and dedication. With the wrong approach, your social media presence could even harm your fledgling business.

How many times have we deleted an item from a cart on e-commerce websites after reading customer reviews or seller reviews etc ? Social Media has become an important tool for ensuring that you get repeat/new customers, solving customer pain-points & getting useful feedback from them. In a nutshell – “Listening to customers & Monitoring your brand on Social Media channels would directly/indirectly affect sales“. It is also a channel to WoW your customers 🙂

social_media_monitoring

In this article, we share some of the tips which would help your start-up in making most of Social Media & maximizing results in Monitoring.

Choose,Focus & Focus

Social Media has evolved rapidly due to which daily we see startups claiming to be the next Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. This indicates that there are options however, choosing the right platform for your brand & it’s nature of business [B2B or B2C] is of prime importance. It would be better to start small, listen, track and than spread your wings. If you are a startup dealing with Jewellery or any product dealing with aesthetics, than instagram is a great platform in which case, instagram analytics would be of prime importance.

Interact, Build relations & increase business

In many cases, the ultimate goal of social media marketing is to increase exposure, drive traffic and create leads. This leads to some misconceptions on how to use the platform. Simply promoting yourself everywhere you can will only find a small level of success. The true power in social media lies in building relationships, establishing authority & offering benefits to subscribers. Monitoring what is being said about your brand & interacting with your subscribers creates a very positive influence. Social Media monitoring tools like ThoughtBuzz can come in very handy in this case. The tool gives detailed analysis & insights into the reach, engagement hence, RoI for different social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc.

Monitor Influencers

Opening a social media account is just the first step for your startup. As a startup, there should be responsible, timely & active participation on the channel. A great way to do this is to find other relevant social media accounts, blogs, sites and services and mention them on your social media feeds. You need to identify the social media influencers – A i.e. identify relevant social media accounts, blogs & services and mention them on your social media feeds.

ThoughtBuzz has a good feature that helps you identify the “social media stalwarts” who matter the most for your brand based on the interactions of the fans with the community.

In a nutshell, Social Media cannot be ignored and at the same time, it needs to be monitored with the right set of tools. In this article, we have a look at ThoughtBuzz which suffices all our requirements.

ThoughtBuzz is an interactive social media management tool which has been launched by ThoughtBuzz, a Singapore based creative digital agency, with office in Delhi, Mumbai in India. We review the tool & mention some of the salient features which would make Social Media Management easier for professionals.

Dashboard

Once we login to ThoughtBuzz it prompts you to enter details about the presence of the brand on different social media channels. Users have the options to add profiles for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. Once added, user can monitor them at periodic basis.

User Feed

The latest ThoughtBuzz interface focusses on “Real Time Communication” where it would give you real-time notifications on the latest user activities across your social profiles on Facebook and Twitter. This can help the brand manager to filter the important messages & also ensure that there is timely communication.

ThoughtBuzz_2_1

Influencers identification & Content Insights

As mentioned before, “Influencers” are the one’s that matter the most for the brand. It could be a positive or negative sentiment that might be generated by the user on Social Media channels. But it becomes necessary to have key insights of your content available on people who are helping taking your content viral on these channels.

ThoughtBuzz_2_1

Conclusion

Just to summarize, there is no special Mantra to achieve success on Social Media. Certain tactics might work for the competitors however, might not work for your startup. Identify the right hash tags, make timely announcements, identify the influencers & convert passive audience into active audience so that you get the most of your social media channels. At every point, use Social Media Monitoring tools to track & re-iterate your online strategy.

Image Source – Web-Live.it