|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

InFocus, a pioneer in projection and display technologies have launched the InFocus Turbo 5 (#InFocusTurbo5) for the power hungry users of India. The special feature of this budget smartphone is the massive 5000 mAh battery. The InFocus Turbo 5 would be exclusively available on Amazon.in from the 4th of July in two different color variants – Mocha Gold and Pure Gold.

The phone comes with a hybrid dual-SIM (Nano+Nano/microSD) support and has a beautiful all-metal design which might make it the ‘most powerful’ smartphone in the prize range of below Rs. 8000/-. It also has a fingerprint sensor at the back for enhanced security and the company claims that the fingerprint sensor is extremely fast & can unlock the smartphone in less than 1 second.

Talking about the specifications, the InFocus Turbo 5 is powered by the 64-bit Mediatek MT6737 processor that can be clocked maximum to 1.25 GHz and has Mali T720 MP1 GPU support. In terms of storage, the phone would be available in two different options – 2GB RAM/16GB ROM priced at Rs. 6,999/- and 3GB RAM/32 GB ROM at Rs. 7,999/-. The InFocus Turbo 5 also has the reverse charging feature i.e. it can act as a USB Host and hence can be used as a power bank for charging other devices.

InFocus Turbo 5 specifications

The smartphone sports a stunning 5.2-inch HD display with a display resolution of 1280*720 pixels with a 2.5-inch curved glass on the top. Though the main USP of the InFocus Turbo 5 is the huge 5000 mAh non-removable battery, the smartphone is extremely comfortable in hands inspite of having a 5.2- inch display as it weighs only 164 grams. The length is 149.5 mm and the thickness is 8.95 mm. The smartphone is also apt for one hand usage since it does not look or feel bulky!

It has 4G or VOLTE support. As far as the cameras are concerned, the InFocus Turbo 5 has a 13-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash with f/2.2 aperture and 5-megapixel front/selfie camera with f/2.2 aperture. The smartphone has Android 7.0 (Nougat) out of the box. In terms of connectivity, the InFocus Turbo 5 comes with 4G VOLTE support, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, FM Radio, A-GPS, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Light sensor and range sensor. It also has 3.5 mm audio jack support.

Without a doubt, the core feature of the InFocus Turbo 5 is the massive 5000 mAh battery pack that makes it an ideal smartphone choice for social-media junkies, watching videos or listening to music, playing games, etc. The super-long lasting battery is 1.6 times more powerful than what is available on other phones. The 5000 mAh battery pack is rated to last for around two days on a single charge and can deliver up to 34 days of standby time, 23 hours of video calling. The InFocus Turbo 5 is ‘Made in India’ product and is manufactured by Foxconn that is a long-standing technology partner with InFocus.

InFocus Turbo 5 pricing and availability

The power-packed InFocus Turbo 5 would be available in a limited edition Mocha Gold variant and Pure Gold variant exclusively on Amazon. The sale starts from 4th July,12 PM. The variant with 2GB RAM & 16 GB storage is priced at Rs. 6,999 and the one with 3GB RAM & 32 GB storage is priced at Rs. 7,999.

According to you, what features would make the InFocus Turbo 5 an excellent smartphone? Do drop your points in the comments section of the article.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Exotel, a leading Cloud Telephony Platform, have announced their partnership with Zendesk to provide end to end multichannel support to Zendesk’s customers in India. With this new partnership, Zendesk will include Exotel’s Voice Platform as a part of its customer support offerings in the region. Exotel will provide these solutions with an aim to extend comprehensive customer friendly solutions that are more meaningful, personal, and effective in the Indian market.

Exotel will be integrated through the Zendesk API to facilitate phone support from the same Zendesk family of products businesses currently use to manage all other channels. With full customer history, automatic ticket creation and call recording, this integration will allow agents to focus on conversations rather than workflow.

Speaking about the association, Shivakumar Ganesan, CEO & Founder, Exotel, said

We are excited to partner with Zendesk to make customer relationships even better. People in Asia love to connect through calls and SMS. So, these channels are crucial for businesses looking to improve customer happiness. To me, Exotel & Zendesk is like Romeo & Juliet: The story is incomplete if software and communication doesn’t work well together.

KT Prasad, Country Sales Director at Zendesk, added

Zendesk India is on a growth trajectory and we have always been open to complementary solutions that can support our growth in the region. Based on industry insights garnered from consumer research and feedback from our customers in India, we felt the need for voice to further empower our customers. We are excited to be partnering with Exotel in an effort to provide more comprehensive solutions in customer support.

As a company, Exotel feels strongly about voice as a medium to engage the masses and believes that every business, irrespective of its size, should be able to utilize features like IVR, call recordings to sound more professional and serve their customers better. Exotel provides the basic building block that helps a company customize customer communication over calls and SMS.

About Exotel

Exotel is the most reliable and scalable cloud telephony platform in India. Founded by Shivakumar Ganesan, Ishwar Sridharan and Siddharth Ramesh in 2011, the company powers voice communication for over a 1000 businesses including brands like Ola, Uber, Flipkart, Quikr, Practo, etc. For more information, please visit Exotel

|In: startups|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Trend Micro, a global leader in cyber-security solutions, have announced the launch of a corporate venture fund to explore emerging technology markets. With an initial investment of $100 million, this venture fund will allow Trend Micro to nurture a portfolio of startups that are incubating ideas and living at the epicenter of hyper growth markets, such as the Internet of Things [IoT]. According to Gartner estimates, 26 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020.

Eva Chen, Founder and CEO for Trend Micro noted

Trend Micro’s vision has always been to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. The explosion of devices is transforming how the world works, thinks and acts. It is clear that the ecosystem is still evolving and there is work to do to ensure organizations and individuals can operate and live safely in this new reality.

Trend Micro’s venture will offer companies financial backing, access to its world-class global threat intelligence, strategic alliances, as well as its channel of more than 28,000 partners. In return, working with these investments will uncover insights into emerging ecosystem opportunities, disruptive business models, market gaps and skillset shortages. These learnings will influence Trend Micro’s cyber-security solution planning across the company.

Eva Chen, Founder and CEO for Trend Micro added

We have a 29-year history of successfully anticipating technology trends to secure all types of environments. The first mega wave we caught was the growth of the PC marketplace; we committed early on to endpoint protection and remain a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms today. The second mega wave was all about the cloud; we made a bet early on to securing the cloud and so far we have secured over two billion workload hours on Amazon Web Services [AWS] alone. Now, we believe the next wave has arrived with IoT; our fund will help us harness this opportunity.

With a strong financial position and 72 quarters of consecutive profitability, Trend Micro is well positioned to invest funds to do research and make advancements consistent with its corporate strategy. The formation of this venture arm allows additional freedom to dive into new areas without disrupting core business resources. 

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cyber-security solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information.  Their innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. With over 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their journey to the cloud.  For more information, please visit Trend Micro

|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

When it comes to smartphones, two features that matter the most are – Performance and Battery. It goes without a doubt when you consider buying a new phone along with these two main requirements, you would also need a phone that sports a good camera, has an awesome display, supports 4G, should be secure and should feel good in your hands. In a nutshell, the phone should have the most sought after features but should also be rightly priced.

Talking about smart-phone and innovation, InFocus is one company that has been at the forefront of it. It is a pioneer in projection as well as display technologies. The main specialization of InFocus is that it offers low-cost smartphones with same high-end specifications as compared to its competitors. It made its foray into the crowded and highly competitive smartphone market in late October 2016 with the launch of InFocus Epic 1. It is back with another beast of a phone called InFocus Turbo 5 (#InFocusTurbo5).

InFocus Turbo 5 comes with a 5.2-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 720 by 1280 pixels. The 4G mobile is powered by Mediatek MT6737 processor that is clocked at 1.25 GHz. It comes with 2 storage options – RAM: 2GB/3GB and ROM: 16GB/32 GB. As far as the cameras are concerned, the InFocus Turbo 5 has 13-megapixel rear camera with 2.2 aperture. The rear camera resolution is 4280*3120 pixels and it also supports 1280*720 pixels video resolution. The front/selfie camera is  5-megapixels. The front camera resolution is 2592*1944 pixels and it supports maximum 640*480 pixels video resolution. It has a fingerprint scanner

The InFocus Turbo 5 runs on Android 7.0 and measures around 149.5mm*74mm*8.95mm [Length*Width*Thickness/mm]. It also supports expandable storage via micro SD Card. All the standard connectivity peripherals like WiFi, Bluetooth [4.0], FM Radio, A-GPS, Sensors [Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Light] are available on the InFocus Turbo 5.

Though the phone looks interesting, according to our initial review these are some of the standout features of the phone:

  1. Powerful Battery – The InFocus Turbo 5 comes with a power packed 5000 mAh Lithium-Ion battery. With such a monster battery, you can expect the battery juice to last at least for a couple of days!
  2. Comfortable Screen Size – There is no specific mantra when it comes to choosing a right screen size for a smartphone. However, the display in InFocus Turbo 5 is rightly placed at around 5.2 inches due to which it is easy to use even in one-hand operation mode. It is one phone that can comfortably fit in your jeans pocket. It also makes reading as well as typing a delight.
  3. Mocha Gold Variant – In today’s time, most of the smartphone owners want to choose the color that suits their personality. This is one of the primary reasons why smartphone companies offer phones with different color variants. In Focus Turbo 5 would be exclusively available in Mocha Gold color that would make the entire phone stand-out in the crowd.
  4. Light in hands yet more powerful – Though the InFocus Turbo 5 sports a 5.2-inch touch display with 5000 mAh battery, it still feels light in hands. The length is 149.5 mm and thickness is 8.95 mm which does not make the phone look bulky. Though the phone has a metal body, it does not add to the overall weight of the phone. The weight of the phone is only 164 gm.
  5. Made in India, manufactured by Foxconn – InFocus and Foxconn leverage each other’s technical know-how and have a long-standing partnership. Production and assembly are handled by Foxconn’s world-class engineers. This is the ‘Seal of trust’ for InFocus Turbo 5!

Is InFocus Turbo 5 the best VOLTE smartphone available in the below 8000 price segment? The InFocus Turbo 5 goes on sale from the 4th of July, 2017 on Amazon.in. What according to you are the major features that excite you about InFocus Turbo 5, do leave your points in the comments section.

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Mastercard announced the list of new startups joining the Mastercard Start Path Program, the company’s global effort to support later-stage fintech and tech companies shaping the future of commerce. Of the six startups, three hail from the Asia Pacific region including ftcash [India], ToneTag [India] and CardUp [Singapore].

As India moves ahead in its journey to a less-cash society, both ftcash and ToneTag will offer platforms that enable consumers & merchants to adopt digital payment solutions. With the significant growth in smartphone penetration, the innovation from the two startups fits into the larger ecosystem.  ToneTag, will allow convenient and secure payment solutions using soundwaves [Tone] or NFC [Tag] technology to enable contactless payments through mobile devices.

On the other hand, ftcash has focused on building the acceptance infrastructure with its solutions for micro-merchants and entrepreneurs that enable them to accept different modes of digital payments.

Porush Singh, Country Corporate Officer, South Asia, Mastercard said

The Mastercard Start PathProgram helps innovative later-stage startups develop the next generation of commerce solutions. We are happy to announce that two Indianstartups ftcash and ToneTag are joining this year’s edition of the program. Mastercard will offer them the technology with reliable and secure financial networks to create an even more rewarding and seamless payments experience for the consumers.

Spanning five countries across the globe, the newest class is focused on bridging the gap between physical and digital retail through a variety of solutions. Several of the selected startups are harnessing insights from in-store traffic patterns and spending habits to create personalized experiences for customers. Others are helping merchants accept payments through SMS messaging systems and bill-paying platforms for large expenses that historically could not be paid using a card.

The latest wave of Start Path participants include:

  • CardUp manages monthly credit card payments for big ticket items such as rent or insurance, while also accessing credit and earning additional rewards.
  • ftcash enables micro-merchants and entrepreneurs to take collateral-free business loans and accept mobile app and messaging-based payments from their customers.
  • ToneTag enables contactless payments on any device using soundwaves or NFC.
  • The ModoPayments platform enables new ways to pay, including the use of loyalty points to buy everyday goods in-store.
  • Movvo provides insights on in-store browsing and shopping patterns.
  • RecommenderX develops cutting-edge data analytics to offer personalized recommendations.

The Start Path team will work with the selected startups against a tailored plan that will deliver tangible value and help these companies to scale. The startups will receive access to Mastercard experts, partners and customers representing leading banks and retailers in all regions of the globe to enable their business development.

Applications for the next six-month virtual program will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, August 1, 2017. The program is open to startups who are rethinking banking, payments and commerce and have raised a significant seed or Series A round of investment. Interested startups can visit StartPath for additional information and to submit an application.

About Mastercard Start Path

Mastercard Start Path is a global effort to support innovative startups developing the next generation of commerce solutions today. Start Pathwas launched in 2014 with an objective to help startups to grow their businesses faster than they could by themselves. Startups that join the program can benefit from the knowledge of a global network of Mastercard experts, access to Mastercard customers and partners, and the ability to innovate on top of Mastercard solutions. Mastercard customers that join the program as partners get connected to the best and brightest startups and gain access to innovations from across the globe. For more information visit www.startpath.com or follow MastercardStart Path on Twitter at @MAstartpath.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Yahoo Mail announced big improvements on desktop including a refreshed design, and a fast, reliable, and intuitive opt in experience. Whether you use Yahoo Mail to communicate with friends and family around the world, as a place to keep your photos and memories from years past, or as a way to organize coupons and receipts from recent purchases – your inbox captures your life online.

Image Source – Yahoo Mail

Design Refresh

The Mail interface is cleaner and easier to use, with many updates to the layout.

Themes: Now you can personalize your inbox by choosing from new colour themes. Each theme also comes with three different layout options. When you find the colour you like, you can also set the interface to a light or dark mode.

Less clutter: Now there is more spacing between important items, so your inbox feels less cluttered, and you can easily view and decipher important information.

Show your emotions: Express yourself using our new emoji set from Twitter’s open source offering, and with new stationery to make your emails more stylish.

A Faster, More Organized Way to Find What You Need

They are also bringing several new features that make it simpler to find the information you need:

Photos and Documents Views: Our new Photos and Documents views allow you to conveniently see all the attachments you’ve ever sent or received. When you want to look at a specific document, use our new side-by-side preview which allows you to view attachments and the email together.

Fast and responsive interface: Every part of the interface is faster and more reliable, particularly for slower connections. YahooMail also behaves smarter in recognizing different screen sizes, no matter how small or how big your screen. The responsive design keeps the key elements of the interface in the right place. To learn more about the modern tech behind this update, click here.

Better Search [Conversation and Preview pane]: Now you’ll be able to view the search results page the same way you’ve specified in your ‘viewing email’ settings. For example, if you use conversation mode, now the search results page will show results in conversation mode instead of in a flat message list. If you’ve selected your preview pane to display on the right, it won’t move when you’re in the search results page.

Rich Preview: Hover over the image icon to view the photos, documents, etc., attached in an email.

Personalize Your Inbox, So It’s Tailored to your Preferences

They have added even more personalization options, so it’s much easier to customize your inbox to fit your needs

Simple and easy settings: Too often in apps the settings are an afterthought, making it hard to customize things just the way you like them. As you change settings, the interface responds instantly, so you don’t have to guess, save or cancel your changes.

Enjoy Yahoo Mail Pro: A few years ago Yahoo introduced Ad Free Mail, giving you the option to opt into a completely ad-free Mail experience with the purchase of a yearly subscription. Now, they are improving this offering with YahooMail Pro, a more cost-effective ad-free subscription plan that comes with priority customer support. Available now on both desktop and mobile. Read more about Yahoo Mail Pro here.

Choose the inbox that suits you best: While Yahoo hopes you’ll love the new desktop experience, if you opted into the new Yahoo Mail experience and want to switch back to classic desktop Mail, you can always go to Settings and select ‘switch to classic mail‘ at the bottom.

Accessible to All Users

Yahoo wants to ensure that all their users can enjoy the upgraded email experience. They have incorporated full inbox access for NVDA and VoiceOver screen reader users, and provided options for light-sensitive and low-vision users, layouts for use with high magnification, and full keyboard navigation for alternative input devices. To learn more about these improvement, visit our Accessibility blog post here.

The new desktop experience is available for global English-language users to opt into starting today, with additional languages to follow. You can learn more about it here.

|In: Education|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Michael & Susan Dell Foundation funded Oliveboard achieved a major milestone crossing 1 million registered users on its platform. Very few edtech companies manage a reach of over 1 million users and Oliveboard has managed this within just few years of its launch.

Image Source – OliveBoard

The company offers courses in both English & Hindi and has a majority of its users coming from Tier 2 & 3 cities of India. The company delivers its courses on both PC & Mobile and its Android mobile app for over 20 exams across MBA, Banking & Government Job exam categories.

Abhishek Patil, Founder – Oliveboard added

We are probably one of the few e-learning companies in India, with a heavy focus on government job and banking exam related curriculum. We believe that our various initiatives such as introduction of vernacular, gamification of courseware, study planners, analytics for feedback and our thrust on smaller cities of India have immensely helped us achieve this milestone within a short period of time.

Founded in 2012 by ex-Inmobi colleagues, Abhishek Patil & Satish Kumar, Oliveboard has received Pre-series A funding from India Educational Investment Fund [IEIF], an early-stage impact investment fund established by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. The company began with a focus on MBA exams before expanding to the Bank & Government job exam segment in early 2014. Since then, it has established itself as one of the most recognized names in the field of Bank & Government Job exam preparation. The company provides its users with complete preparation with Video lectures, online study material, All India test series along with various other practice tests.

Most of its users are 21~30 year old, with a majority [around 70%] of them from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities of India. Oliveboard users span across 1000+ cities & towns of India spread over all 29 states & 7 union territories of India making it one of the most geographically penetrated online services in India. The 1 million users have attempted over 100 million questions on the platform.

About Oliveboard

Oliveboard is an online test preparation platform for MBA, Banking & Government Job exams. Students are prepped for success using Video lectures, Up to date comprehensive course material, Live Group Practice Sessions, Customized Study Planners, All India Test Series, Practice Tests and Analytics for instant feedback. Users can access Oliveboard’s courses on their computers, laptops or an app on their smartphones. For more information, please visit OliveBoard

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

An increasing number of companies across Europe, Ukraine, Russia, and the US are falling victim to another cyber attack after the outbreak of recent WannaCry ransomware attack. This large-scale ransomware attack is reported to be caused by a variant of the Petya ransomware and is currently hitting various users. The ransomware is known to use both the EternalBlue exploit and the PsExec tool as infection vectors and is detected as RANSOM_PETYA.SMA by Trend Micro.

Image Source – Ransomware

Nilesh Jain, Country Manager [India and SAARC], Trend Micro said

Similar to WannaCry ransomware, the Petya ransomware exploits SMB vulnerability, passing through SMB protocol, and exploits vulnerability which lies in Microsoft Operating System. To prevent the ransomware attack, firstly, companies should have proper segmentation of their network, most companies have horizontal network and there is no proper segmentation of network because of which the exploitation spreads very fast.

The critical network and server should be properly segmented so that the penetration does not go beyond the segmentation of the network. Second thing is that companies must deploy host based intrusion firewall. They must enable firewall rule so that they can block the traffic coming from unknown sources. They also should make sure they patch the systems immediately.

Nilesh Jain further added

Companies who have been impacted should segment their infected areas from the rest of the network, so that it doesn’t propagate further. The problem is that, these kinds of ransomware attacks keep on coming and you cannot keep on patching the moment the attack comes in. Our advice to the companies is to make sure that they have a proactive mechanism of protecting from the vulnerability and to deploy Trend Micro Deep Security which works in the same direction. Trend Micro also protects its customers against this threat through Predictive Machine Learning and other relevant ransomware protection features found in Trend Micro XGen security. Also, our technical support representatives are constantly available to resolve customer queries and we are conducting webinars to create awareness among companies and individuals.

Trend Micro discovered that this Petya variant uses an advanced method to extract information from the infected system. Aside from the use of the EternalBlue exploit, there are other similarities to WannaCry. Like that attack, this Petya variant’s ransom process is relatively simple: it also uses a hardcoded Bitcoin address, making decryption a much more labor-intensive process on the part of the attackers. Petya cleverly uses legitimate Windows processes PsExec and Windows Management Information Command-line [WMIC], which is an interface that simplifies the use of Windows Management Instrumentation [WMI].

Below mentioned are some of the detailed steps that organizations can take to reduce the risk of infection by the variant of petya malware:

  • Patch and update your systems, or consider a virtual patching solution.
  • Enable your firewalls as well as intrusion detection and prevention systems.
  • Proactively monitor and validate traffic going in and out of the network.
  • Implement security mechanisms for other points of entry attackers can use, such as email and websites.
  • Disable TCP port 445
  • Restrict accounts with administrator group access
  • Deploy application control to prevent suspicious files from executing on top of behavior monitoring that can thwart unwanted modifications to the system.
  • Employ data categorization and network segmentation to mitigate further exposure and damage to data.
  • Disable SMB (v1) on vulnerable machines – using either GPO or by following the instructions provided by Microsoft.
  • Ensure that all of the latest patches [if possible using Virtual Patching solution] are applied to affected operating systems – especially the ones related to MS17-010.

For more information, please visit the detailed blog by Trend Micro

About Trend Micro

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cyber-security solutions, helps to make the world safe for exchanging digital information.  Their innovative solutions for consumers, businesses, and governments provide layered security for data centers, cloud environments, networks, and endpoints. With over 5,000 employees in over 50 countries and the world’s most advanced global threat intelligence, Trend Micro enables organizations to secure their journey to the cloud.  For more information, please visit Trend Micro