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|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

At the Huawei Developer Conference, Huawei launched HarmonyOS – a new micro-kernel-based, distributed operating system designed to deliver a cohesive user experience across all devices and scenarios.

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Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei’s Consumer Business Group, explained the company’s thoughts behind developing this new OS.

We’re entering a day and age where people expect a holistic intelligent experience across all devices and scenarios. To support this, we felt it was important to have an operating system with improved cross-platform capabilities. We needed an OS that supports all scenarios, that can be used across a broad range of devices and platforms, and that can meet consumer demand for low latency and strong security.

These were our goals with HarmonyOS. HarmonyOS is completely different from Android and iOS. It is a microkernel-based, distributed OS that delivers a smooth experience across all scenarios. It has trustworthy and secure architecture, and it supports seamless collaboration across devices. You can develop your apps once, then flexibly deploy them across a range of different devices.

Traditionally, new operating systems are released alongside new types of devices. As early as 10 years ago, Huawei envisioned a future where intelligence would seamlessly integrate with all aspects of our lives, and it began exploring how it might deliver this experience – one that would transcend the boundaries of physical space and span different hardware and platforms.

HarmonyOS is a lightweight, compact operating system with powerful functionality, and it will first be used for smart devices like smart watches, smart screens, in-vehicle systems, and smart speakers. Through this implementation Huawei aims to establish an integrated and shared ecosystem across devices, create a secure and reliable run-time environment, and deliver a holistic intelligent experience across every interaction with every device.

HarmonyOS – Four distinct technical features

An all-scenario, intelligent experience sets a high bar for connectivity, so HarmonyOS was designed with four distinct technical features to deliver on its promise to consumers.

Seamless – First-ever device OS with distributed architecture, delivering a seamless experience across devices

By adopting distributed architecture and distributed virtual bus technology, HarmonyOS offers a shared communications platform, distributed data management, distributed task scheduling, and virtual peripherals. With HarmonyOS, app developers won’t have to deal with the underlying technology for distributed apps, allowing them to focus on their own individual service logic. Developing distributed apps will be easier than ever before. Apps built on HarmonyOS can run on different devices while delivering a seamless, collaborative experience across all scenarios.

Smooth – Deterministic Latency Engine and high-performance IPC

HarmonyOS will address under-performance challenges with a Deterministic Latency Engine and high-performance Inter Process Communication [IPC]. The Deterministic Latency Engine sets task execution priorities and time limits for scheduling in advance. Resources will gravitate toward tasks with higher priorities, reducing the response latency of apps by 25.7%. The micro-kernel can make IPC performance up to five times more efficient than existing systems.

Secure – Microkernel architecture that reshapes security and trustworthiness from the ground up

HarmonyOS uses a brand-new micro-kernel design that features enhanced security and low latency. This micro-kernel was designed to simplify kernel functions, implement as many system services as possible in user mode outside the kernel, and add mutual security protection. The micro-kernel itself provides only the most basic services like thread scheduling and IPC.

Harmony OS’s micro-kernel design uses formal verification methods to reshape security and trustworthiness from the ground up in a Trusted Execution Environment [TEE]. Formal verification methods are an effective mathematical approach to validate system correctness from the source, while traditional verification methods, such as functional verification and attack simulation, are confined to limited scenarios. Formal methods, by contrast, can use data models to verify all software running paths.

HarmonyOS is the first OS to use formal verification in device TEE, significantly improving security. In addition, because the HarmonyOS micro-kernel has much less code [roughly one-thousandth the amount of the Linux kernel], the probability of attack is greatly reduced.

Unified – Multi-device IDE allows apps to be developed once and deployed across multiple devices

Powered by a multi-device IDE, multi-language unified compilation, and a distributed architecture kit, HarmonyOS can automatically adapt to different screen layout controls and interactions, and support both drag-and-drop control and preview-oriented visual programming. This allows developers to more efficiently build apps that run on multiple devices. With a multi-device IDE, developers can code their apps once and deploy them across multiple devices, creating a tightly integrated ecosystem across all user devices.

The HUAWEI ARK Compiler is the first static compiler that can perform on par with Android’s virtual machine, enabling developers to compile a broad range of advanced languages into machine code in a single, unified environment. By supporting unified compilation in multiple languages, the HUAWEI ARK Compiler will help developers greatly improve their productivity.

Developer plan and ecosystem development

Huawei also announced the evolution roadmap for HarmonyOS and its kernel. HarmonyOS 1.0 will be first adopted in its smart screen products, which are due to launch later this year. Over the next three years, HarmonyOS will be optimized and gradually adopted across a broader range of smart devices, including wearables, HUAWEI Vision, and head units for your car.

The success of HarmonyOS will depend on a dynamic ecosystem of apps and developers. To encourage broader adoption, Huawei will release HarmonyOS as an open-source platform, worldwide. Huawei will also establish an open-source foundation and an open-source community to support more in-depth collaboration with developers.

China is home to a strong app ecosystem and a massive user base. Moving forward, Huawei will lay the foundations for HarmonyOS in the Chinese market, and then expand it further to the global ecosystem. With a focus on providing new and unique value, Huawei will open up and share its core capabilities in areas like connectivity, cameras, and AI. It will work closely with ecosystem partners to deliver apps and services that provide consumers with the best possible experience and bring new life to the industry.

HarmonyOS will bring incredible new benefits to consumers, equipment vendors, and developers. For consumers, it will bring a cohesive and powerful intelligent experience across all aspects of their lives. For equipment vendors, it will help them gain a first-mover advantage in the age of holistic intelligent experience, where 5G, AI, and IoT will see explosive growth. At the same time, HarmonyOS will enable developers to win over more users with less investment, and rapidly innovate services across all scenarios.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Truecaller announced that the company’s brand solutions platform has witnessed yet another milestone of garnering over 500 million impressions in a single day with its advertisers, Zoomcar and Spotify in the country for their mobile advertising campaigns. Truecaller’s proven expertise and innovation capabilities enabled the brands to scale up their brand visibility and engage with millions of users across India. Both the campaigns also received an average of 60 million unique reach from audiences present across all markets.

Truecaller’s programmatic platform facilitates brands with innovative advertising vehicles that are carefully chosen to deliver contextually relevant messages to its over 100 million daily active premium smartphone users in India. To leverage this, Zoomcar tapped Truecaller users across major cities in order to promote their special three day offer of 100% off on bookings made towards the end of May, earlier this year.

Similarly, Spotify capitalized on Truecaller’s holistic brand solutions to maximise brand visibility and yielded 30% more clicks in a single day. Using Truecaller’s contextual capabilities, the Spotify launch campaign [There’s A Playlist For That] delivered a staggering 500 million plus impressions in a day.

Speaking on the occasion, Tejinder Gill, Vice President Global Sales at Truecaller

This milestone is a testament of our massive reach of over 100 million daily active premium smartphone users in India. We are truly excited to partner with new age brands like Spotify and Zoomcar to deliver such impactful campaigns. Our scale and the expertise of our Brand Solutions platform has catapulted Truecaller into one of the leading publishers.

Commenting on his experience, Varun Jha, Chief Marketing Officer, Zoomcar, said

Through Truecaller, we managed to achieve over 400 million impressions for our brand campaign. By tapping such a large quality audience through Truecaller, we were able to generate user interest that led to direct conversions during our campaign. Having witnessed such exceptional metrics, we would surely partner with Truecaller in the future for our brand promotion.

Talking about her experience, Neha Ahuja, Head of Marketing – India, Spotify said

Being recent entrants to the Indian music streaming landscape, collaborating with fellow Swedish app Truecaller truly accelerated our launch campaign in India. It helped us gain scale and connect with potential 1.3M users who clicked on our ads through Truecaller.

Truecaller’s programmatic advertising inculcates the values of providing a safe environment for brands so the focus remains on achieving meaningful impact and constructively sustained partner campaigns. With such a large user base, the platform delivers over 400 million impressions on an average, each day and hosts creative messaging across varied formats.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

In line with its vision to be a complete communication app, Truecaller, launched its voice call feature, ‘Truecaller Voice’ globally. The in-app voice over internet protocol (VoIP) based feature will allow users to make free, high quality [HD], low latency and quick to connect audio calls through WiFi or mobile data connectivity. The launch is the newest addition to the recent stream of updates, that is aimed to provide a full-fledged communication experience to Truecaller’s over 140 million daily active users globally.

The company has already begun the roll out of this feature in a phased manner to all its Android users from 10th June 2019. Truecaller users are making more than 180 million outgoing phone calls per day using the platform’s in-built smart dialer, of which more than half are between Truecaller users. The Truecaller Voice shortcut has been strategically integrated at relevant touchpoints in the app such as call logs, SMS Inbox, contact profile and after call screen. This enables users to seamlessly access the VOIP based call feature anywhere within the Truecaller app without switching to other applications.With this, Truecaller currently offers a one-stop integrated communication platform that hosts a range of key features including Caller ID, Intelligent dialer, Smart SMS inbox, Mobile Payments and Flash messaging. Commenting on the launch Rishit Jhunjhunwala, VP Product, Truecaller, said

We are ecstatic at the launch of ‘Truecaller Voice’. We have been working towards building a full communication suite for our users and voice calling is the next big step in line with this mission. Through this integration, we are looking forward to effectively provide an end-to-end communication experience, where users can call, text, chat, filter messages, block spam and even make digital payments, all in one app. We are also planning to expand this feature to iOS in a few weeks.

|In: AppReview|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Photos have become an integral part of our lives since there are so many memories attached to photos. Though cameras in today’s smartphones come loaded with different camera sensors,  multiple camera setup so that you can beautifully capture the moment, and different filters to edit the photos; there will always be a requirement for third-party photo editors to edit photos. There are a number of photo editors available for Android and the only factor that can keep the user hooked to one particular Photo Editor application is ‘Features Offered’.

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You can obviously edit photos captured using your smartphone by downloading on your machine and editing those photos using photo editing software like GIMP, Adobe Photoshop, etc. but that requires patience & expertise. If you are looking for photo editors on Android that use Artificial Intelligence [AI] and go an extra mile beyond editing photos, you should definitely have a look at Cut Cut – Cutout & Photo Background Editor by Barrier Reef Team. Cut Cut aims to Make Every Moment Count.

Cut Cut Features Set

As the name suggests, Cut Cut photo editing app makes editing photos simple, fun, and memorable. Below are some of the salient features of the Cut Cut app

  • You can edit existing photos which are in your gallery or you can edit while capturing the photo by hitting the Capture button in the app.
  • Cut Cut makes photo editing fun and interesting by providing users flexibility to cut photos and embed them in a different photo or background.
  • Cut Cut has a wide range of ‘background templates’ that are neatly separated in different categories like Travel, Festivals, Luxury, Nature, Romantic, Trends, etc. The free version has a good number of backgrounds that can keep you hooked on to the app.

  • Cut Cut has a number of filters & photo editing tools that can make your smartphone camera smarter.
  • Cut Cut has a number of camera modes like Qunicy, Original, Hefe, Xpro, Romance, B/W, Inkwell, Pixar, etc. Using Face Swap feature you can digitally swap the faces with the subject and create a humorous effect.
  • Cut Cut follows the freemium model, there are a good number of features in the free version of the app. It is ad-supported hence, you can expect advertisements being displayed at strategic locations in the app.

Cut Cut detailed app review

In order to get started, you should download the Cut Cut app from the PlayStore from here. Once installed, the app runs in the background and the editing window would pop-up as soon as you capture photos using your native camera on your smartphone. We observed that there was not much increase in the overall CPU consumption even when it was executing in the background.

Once you open the Cut Cut app, along with the three major options – Edit, Cut Cut, Camera; there is a list of the popular designs so that you need not spend much time in exploring the designs. There is a larger placeholder that contains the link to the Cut Cut Tutorial and explains the app usage in a crisp manner

  • Step 1 – Choose your favourite background.
  • Step 2 – Use the Lasso Tool
  • Step 3 – Create Mirror Effects
  • Step 4 – Add Filter Effects

It would have been better if there was an option to mark ‘Tutorial section as Read‘ since it may not be useful for Cut Cut superstar users since they are already well-versed with the app. A better approach would have been to have another Card that showcases the latest features in the Cut Cut app since that would be helpful to all categories of users [pros, newbies, etc.].

The home screen is simple since three major options [already described above] are displayed upfront. Using the Edit option, you can Edit the existing photos and apply different filters, backgrounds on the photo. The Cut Cut option contains three major sub-options – Photos, Portrait, and Albums. The camera option lets you capture photos and edit them right in the Cut Cut app itself. Hence, you no longer need to leave the Cut Cut app to edit the photos.

There are different options for editing namely Adjust, Rotate, Text addition, Filter addition, Blur effect, etc. Using the Sticker feature, you can create funny stickers from your photos. You can directly upload the captured photographs to your social media and social messaging platforms.

Cut Cut Review – Pros & Improvements

Below are some of the positive points of Cut Cut photo editing app when compared to similar apps available in the market.

  • Cut Cut app is an easy to use photo editing tool. The app makes extensive use of AI to suggest backgrounds that can enhance the beauty of the selected photographs and portion of the photo that you should edit so that the elegance of the photograph is still retained.
  • If you are a good photographer, you can even submit your work (Background) to Cut Cut team and if shortlisted, your photos are added to the Backgrounds Gallery of the app. This is an excellent manner to build a quality database of backgrounds by involving the community.
  • You can add Watermark to your photos and using the Screenshot Window setting in the app, you can edit screenshots with a single click.
  • By default the Cut Cut app runs in the background [with minimal impact on the battery], Quick Edit opens up each time you click a photograph. This reduces the overall time spent in editing the photos.

Below are some of the improvements as far as the Cut Cut app is concerned

  • Needless to mention that the free version of the app uses advertisements [ads] for monetization. However, there are scenarios where a full-screen ad pops up after photo editing is done. We found a few cases where it prompted us to install other apps e.g. Memory cleaner app and such ads ruin the entire user experience. The Cut Cut app is developed by China-based Apus Group which has developed apps like Apus Browser, Apus Launcher, etc. Instead of ads on the home screen of the app, a better approach would be to feature other apps developed by the Apus Group in a card format. Though it is important that the app generates revenue, it should not come at the cost of usability.
In-App ads in Cut Cut app
  • The Premium version of Cut Cut app which is ad-free is not very costly – Rs. 70.70 for 6 months, Rs. 42 for 3 months, and Rs. 20.70 for 1 month. Users of the premium version can cancel the subscription anytime. Though there is a recurring billing option, it would have been better if they also added a one-time subscription model for regular user-base of the app.
  • Though you can connect the app to Instagram, there should have been a feature where users can upload the photos edited/clicked via Cut Cut app to the cloud. It could be Google Cloud for non-Chinese users and Apus Cloud for global users [including users in China] of the app.
  • The size of the app is around 180 MB which might be a bit heavy for smartphone users with limited internal memory. A Cut Cut lite app would have been an ideal app for users that have smartphones with powerful cameras but limited capacity.

Conclusion

Cut Cut is a good app for editing photos. Since the app is simple to use, it requires a minimal learning curve. In order to penetrate the mass market, app usability is of primary importance and annoying ads at random places in the app ruins the entire experience. The product & engineering teams at Barrier Reef Team need to put user experience first (especially in some sections of the app) and limit the number of ads to enhance the overall experience. The app does have stickiness and since the premium version is not so costly, regular Cut Cut app users would definitely migrate to the premium version sooner or later. You can download Cut Cut Photo Editor for Android from here.

If you have used the Cut Cut app on Android, do leave your experience or suggestions in the comments section…

|In: Interviews|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Technology is changing at a rapid pace, whether it is related to mobiles, servers, memory devices, etc. There is an increased level of importance given to the performance & computation power involved with the components used in those devices. As per a report by eMarketer, close to 491 million people in India would own a smartphone by the end of 2022. Smartphones that are priced within the sub 20K range also come loaded with AI-enabled features, excellent performance, varied camera setup, and more to capture the best shots.

Whether it is a hand-held device like a mobile phone or an enterprise device/technology like a server [cloud-based or local], performance is always given a top priority. However, achieving top-notch performance might come at the risk of higher power consumption and this factor becomes more critical in battery-powered devices. Technology companies are tirelessly working on improving the storage memory since faster read-write speeds would equate to better performance. HDD [Hard Disk Drive] is slowly being replaced with SSD [Solid State Drive] in laptops, tablets, and other device categories where there is frequent R/W access. Solid state addresses the I/O [Input/Output] bottlenecks for companies of all sizes. Mobile phone manufacturers are slowly switching from traditional eMMC [Embedded Multimedia Card] to UFS [Universal Flash Storage] since UFS offers more benefits over eMMC. When it comes to storage, Western Digital [WD] is one company that has a wide product portfolio for end-consumers, mobile manufacturers, as well as enterprises.

Today, about 45% of world’s data is stored on Western Digital devices. In India alone, there are about 4 lakh retail outlets which sell WD and SanDisk products. WD is a 20 billion dollar company which came together over a series of M&A that has taken place since the last 5~6 years. We recently had an opportunity to interact with Dr. Siva Sivaram, Executive Vice-President of Western Digital during his brief visit to India. The discussion revolved around the changing technology trends in storage, WD in India, etc. Below are some of the excerpts from the interaction that we had with Dr. Siva Sivaram.

Can you give some top-level insights about Western Digital ?

First & foremost, we think of ourselves as a data infrastructure company. All the major mobile players use storage by WD, be it eMMC or UFS. As far as the company positioning is concerned, WD is uniquely positioned to deliver the possibilities of data today and well into the future. The company has the broadest and deepest portfolio of HDD & Flash-based solutions. It has consistently delivered breakthrough technology innovations in the areas of 64- layer 3D NAND, 96-layer 3D NAND, Microwave Assisted Magnetic Recording [MAMR]. MAMR will enable a new class of ultra-high capacity enterprise HDDs designed to meet the future demands of Big Data.

WD is committed to open compute architectures and RISC-V. RISC-V will accelerate the development of data-centric devices and systems for Big Data, Fast Data & general-purpose applications. As far as India is concerned, it is an important & strategic country for WD since there is a growing talent pool and there is tremendous growth for WD & SanDisk products in India.

A lot of phone manufacturers are shifting from eMMC to UFS. Is UFS going to replace eMMC completely or will there be a gradual decline of eMMC?

The forward speculation on standards conversion is a hazardous game. In the enterprise segment, we talked about Serial Advanced Technology Attachment [SATA] fading for a long time, and it did not go away. We talked about SAAS going away and it is still running around strong. We talked about PCI adoption, which was going to happen so quickly. It did happen dramatically, it was much later than we expected it to happen.

Dr. Siva Sivaram – Executive Vice President, Western Digital

We have these three tiers that we are talking about, MCPs, eMMC, & the latest entrant UFS. We are all betting that UFS is going to happen. But I cannot tell you how it’s going to happen, though it might take a few years before eMMC completely fazes out. I don’t think PCI is going to happen but UFS is surely going to happen.

Do you foresee mid-segment manufacturers moving to UFS ?

It will happen, but not anytime soon. We do expect that given the benchmark set by Apple & Samsung, given the amount of memory that needs to go into overtime, the MCP market will go down, the eMMC market will split. More high-end devices will have UFS and slowly the mid-segment devices will start to taper down.

With the advent of 5G, what type of products can we expect from WD ?

I don’t truly believe 5G volume is happening anytime this year. The mobile market, in general, will have to go through new product migration cycle. 5G will definitely have a huge impact on automotive products, surveillance, AI, smart cities, etc. There’s a lot of growth everywhere.

We thank Dr. Siva for his time and sharing the insights with our readers. If you have any questions for WD team, please leave them in the comments section…

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Microsoft has released a new widget on its Microsoft Launcher for Android devices to enable live cricket action on the phone home screen. This widget updates scores automatically and gets live cricket scores whenever a user unlocks the phone.

Cricket widget launched exclusively for Android users in India is available with Microsoft Launcher. Cricket enthusiasts can now stay top of all action without having to open sports apps or search various websites for latest scores. This widget also supports multiple matches by enabling a user to follow two matches simultaneously. Users can customize the widget by choosing their favorite team.

Existing Microsoft Launcher users can add this widget by clicking on ‘Add Widgets’ page at the bottom of ‘Feed Settings’ or pinch on the home screen and select the cricket widget. Launched in October 2017, Microsoft Launcher enables users to personalize their home page with wallpapers, exciting themes from Bing. The users can also get a personalized news experience in all major Indian languages. Microsoft Launcher works seamlessly with all Microsoft apps, and enables quick access to calendar, to-do lists, sticky notes and timeline.

Download Microsoft Launcher for Android from here.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Microsoft India partnered with The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs [MoHUA] to deploy Microsoft’s Project Sangam [cloud-hosted, mobile-first community learning platform] to train functionaries and officers across India on Swachh Bharat e-Learning Portal. Through this partnership, MoHUA has successfully trained 1,10,000+ municipal functionaries on best sanitation practices across 4000 plus cities in India.

Swachh Bharat Mission [SBM] is a nation-wide campaign in India that aims to clean up the streets, roads and infrastructure of India’s cities, towns, and rural areas. To successfully execute this campaign, MoHUA wanted to standardize, centralize, modernize, and establish systems for knowledge exchange and capacity development to train thousands municipal functionaries spread across cities in India.

Partnership with Microsoft to use the cloud powered Project Sangam, enabled delivery of large-scale, far-spread training programs with high quality and efficiency. The Sangam platform was designed to train municipal functionaries of state sanitation missions, city managers – engineers, administrators, field supervisors and sanitation workers with an aim to equip, assess, measure and accredit training of these officers.

Project Sangam empowered the Municipal functionaries by enabling MoHUA to run custom community training courses and track their process, manage content, users and analytics across the program in one place. It also provided video-based learning for users who have low-bandwidth supporting offline learning for the Swachh Bharat e-Learning Portal users.

Commenting on the partnership Shri V.K. Jindal, Joint Secretary & National Mission Director – SBM (U) said

The objective behind Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has been to improve urban sanitization by encouraging large scale participation and spreading awareness amongst all sections of society. This partnership with Microsoft has helped increase adoption of best practices and equipped the workers with the knowledge they need to perform their tasks much more efficiently. We are already witnessing the phenomenal success of this partnership and the technology support by Microsoft is integral to that.

Anil Bhansali, Corporate Vice President, Cloud & AI, Microsoft, said

As there are different states working towards a common mission of Swachh Bharat, there is a need for having standardized and centralized practices for cleanliness. Project Sangam is a perfect fit for training the municipal workers with skilling content that is simple and easy to consume, ensuring high course completion rates and increased attendance.

It has been designed to enable organizations to reach the length & breadth of their target audience. Irrespective of the end user, the Sangam portal provides an excellent opportunity for a continuous learning process. This is a great example of how innovative use of technology can be leveraged to empower organizations and individuals from all walks of life.

In the phase two of this Swachh Bharat e-learning mission, the Ministry will now roll out Citizen Training program with aim to train citizens of India on subjects like public toilets hygiene, waste management, household hygiene, sanitation practices. The citizen training app can be downloaded from here.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Aimed at bridging the learning gap in education, Google launched a new app ‘Bolo’ that parents can download to help primary grade children improve their Hindi & English reading skills. The beta version of Bolo, launched in India first, is optimized for native Hindi speakers, and uses Google’s speech recognition and text-to-speech technology. It comes with a built-in fun and helpful reading buddy, ‘Diya’, that encourages, aids, explains, and corrects the child, as they read aloud. Designed to work offline, Bolo is available on the Google Play Store, in India, for all smartphones running Android 4.4 [Kit Kat] and higher.

As per the annual ASER 2018 report, of all students enrolled in grade 5 in rural India, only about half of them can confidently read a grade 2 level textbook. Lack of reading ability can significantly impact further education, and ultimately children’s ability to realize their full potential. While the reasons behind the lag in learning levels are varied and complex, limited access to quality material, under-resourced infrastructure, and barriers to learning outside the classroom, are amongst the primary ones.

Nitin Kashyap, Product Manager, Google India said

Bolo is designed as a reading-tutor app that helps primary grade students to improve their reading — anytime, anywhere. With Bolo, we aim to encourage and engage kids so their love for reading grows and it becomes a daily habit. We believe that technology can be a powerful enabler, and we want to ensure that students, parents, teachers and the education ecosystem, benefit from it. We have been piloting Bolo in 200 villages, and the early results are very encouraging.  We are now actively working with a number of nonprofit partners to take it to more people across the country who could benefit from it.

Zohair Hyder, Engineering lead for Bolo said

We all have our own personal experience and know that reading aloud with someone giving 1:1 feedback helps improve reading skills.  Many children, especially those in rural India don’t have this support. With Bolo we wanted to bring a similar experience to anyone who needs it, via their smartphone.

Bolo helps children in many ways, as mentioned below

  • Read all by themselves – Just like a personalized reading tutor, the app assists them at every step, giving both positive and corrective feedback.
  • Choose from a large variety of engaging stories – All the reading material on the app is completely free and the initial catalogue from Storyweaver includes 50 stories in Hindi & 40 in English; with more being added soon.
  • Enjoy as they learn – Children can also play interesting word games and earn in-app rewards and badges, helping reading become both fun, and a daily habit.
  • Improve at their own pace – Multiple children can use the same app, and track their progress separately. Over time the difficulty level of recommended stories adjusts to their reading skills.
  • Understand English better – Diya: the reading buddy in the app can not only read out the text to your child, but also explain the meaning of English text in Hindi.
  • Read without distractions [and without data too] – The app works even when offline, so children can just focus on reading, and is completely ads free.
  • Stay safe and secure – The app has been designed with children’s safety and security in mind and all personal information always stays on device.

Google has been piloting Bolo with over 900 children in 200 villages in Uttar Pradesh, India, with the help of ASER Centre. The results are very encouraging, with 64% of children showing an improvement in reading proficiency in just 3 months. You can read more about the pilot results here.

Google will be working closely with four non-profit partners including Pratham Education Foundation,  Room to Read, Saajha and Kaivalya Education Foundation – a Piramal Initiative, who have extensive experience of working in this space to take Bolo to more children, and further expand their efforts across India. More partners can also join in.

Find out more about Bolo here