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|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, announced a survey, conducted on Indians exploring awareness and perceptions of biometric authentication confirms that consumers continue to have a strong interest in new biometric technologies that make their lives easier. New forms of authentication, such as fingerprint, facial, and voice recognition, can make unlocking accounts and payments much easier and more convenient than traditional passwords or PINs – which are difficult to type onto tiny keyboards, easy to forget, and can be stolen.

Image Source – Password

TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, Visa, India & South Asia, Visa, said

The payments ecosystem is witnessing a rapid change in adoption of new form factors of payments and modes of authentication. For financial institutions, the time has never been better to integrate biometric technology into banking apps and payments experiences for customers. We are excited with the increased popularity of biometrics across Indian consumers.

Today smartphones have advanced features increasing the accuracy and speed of biometrics, such that they can be used for financial transactions. Indian consumers too have discovered the ease of biometric authentication and are open to using this technology for transactions going forward, which augurs well for the Indian payments industry.

Authentication Survey Findings

According to the Visa study conducted of 500 Indians by AYTM Market Research, 99% are personally interested in using at least one biometric method to verify their identity, and 99% are interested in using at least one biometric method to make payments.  Higher income consumers are more interested than lower income consumers in facial recognition. Younger consumers [36 and under] are more interested than older consumers in vein pattern recognition. Findings from the survey illustrate consumers’ desire to see the implementation of biometric tools in payment authentication processes.

Highlights from the survey include:

  • Consumers were most familiar with fingerprint recognition, with 32 percent having used it once or twice and another 63 percent using it regularly. By comparison, about 48 percent have used voice recognition in the past and 26 percent use it regularly.
  • The top benefits associated with using biometric authentication for payments are the perception that it is more secure than passwords/PINs [48%] and that it gives consumers peace of mind that their payment is protected [46%].
  • Indian consumers overwhelmingly perceive that biometrics are faster [81%] and easier [84%] than passwords.
  • Fifty one percent are concerned both about the risk of a security breach of sensitive biometric information.

To help financial institutions and merchants more quickly adopt emerging biometric authentication solutions, the Visa ID Intelligence platform provides a curated selection of leading third-party authentication technologies. Visa clients can create, test and adopt new authentication solutions with simple integrations using Visa APIs and SDKs.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Unity Technologies, creator of the world’s leading real-time development platform, released a sneak peek at ‘Book of the Dead’, which demonstrates the power of real-time rendering on Unity. Making extensive use of Unity’s powerful new rendering system, the Scriptable Render Pipeline, ‘Book of the Dead’ shows how developers can take total control of the rendering process to achieve a level of detail and visual fidelity made possible by Unity in 2018.

Veselin Efremov, Creative Director, Unity Technologies, said

Forests are amazing; they can be mysterious, dangerous, and breathtakingly beautiful. Achieving the feelings a forest evokes is one of the hardest challenges when working within real-time graphics. We set out to tackle this with ‘Book of the Dead’ to see how much a small team like ours could accomplish working within Unity.

Seeking out challenges like this helps Unity to evolve and advance. We use new features when they are introduced early in their development cycle, and we partner closely with our tech teams to push new features to their limits, so that the innovations we uncover together will make a better product for our developers. When a demo is done, we know that the engine has achieved new functionality; and we are excited to see developers use this tech for their next creations.

Built using Unity 2018’s Scriptable Render Pipeline, Progressive Lightmapper, and Post-Processing Stack, the sneak peek at ‘Book of the Dead’ gives viewers a look at the first-person interactive experience being played in real-time, targeting the PlayStation 4 computer entertainment system. The story unfolds in two parallel timelines, and as the audience views the scattered memories of our protagonist, they discover there’s more to her story than she is willing to tell. More information on how ‘Book of the Dead’ came to life can be found on the website

Sneak Peek at Unity 2018 – Delivering New Innovations to Advanced Developers

The release of Unity 2017.3 in December completed a year-long cycle which delivered tools such as Timeline and Cinemachine, empowering teams of artists and developers to do more together. Unity 2018 will build on this foundation to give advanced developers and engineers control of new features such as the Scriptable Render Pipeline and the C# Job System, the first versions of two major features that will continue to evolve to help unlock beautiful graphics and increase runtime performance on Unity. Key highlights include the following:

  • Scriptable Render Pipeline: Unleash the Power of Modern Hardware Without the Burden of Building a New Engine – Unity 2018 places total control of a powerful new rendering process in the hands of advanced developers. The Scriptable Render Pipeline is a combination of power and ease – developers now have the freedom to control the rendering engine at a fine-grained level without the complexities of writing a complete rendering pipeline – leading to an increase in graphics quality and gameplay performance in AAA console, PC, and mobile.
  • C# Job System – A New Coding System That Unlocks Major Performance Increases – The C# Job System is a new high-performance multithreaded system that makes it possible to take advantage of multi-core processors without the heavy programming headache. Combined with a new programming model [Entity Component System], it enables developers to optimize creations for major increases in performance. Developers can add more effects and complexity to their games, or use that horsepower to add complex AI, to make rich worlds that immerse gamers.

Unity brings the world’s best talent together with the goal of making Unity 2018 the best choice for all creators – from AAA studios and solo developers to indie studios and more. Unity has hired engineers and artists from renowned studios such as Insomniac, Bungie, and Naughty Dog are building the foundation alongside a team of more than 1,000 engineers that are making their breakthroughs available to all developers around the world. Games and experiences made with Unity have reached more than 3 billion devices worldwide in 2017 and were installed more than 20 billion times in the last 12 months. For more information, please visit Unity Store

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

The premium ad tech network, Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd, now becomes India’s one of the biggest player in APK [Android Package Kit] campaigns marketing. Apps Discover was founded in the year 2013 and since then the company has worked on over 300 APK campaigns. The campaigns reflect company’s sturdy and efficacious bond with its clients like Alibaba, Amazon, Paytm, Baidu, Flipkart, etc.

These APK campaigns have been a major player in company’s phenomenal growth rate and have created a benchmark in Indian Digital Ad Network Industry. The Company’s APK marketing campaigns are running in India and international geographies like China, Thailand, Russia, UK, and Australia.

Commenting on company’s achievement, Ashish Bahukhandi, Founder & CEO said

At Apps Discover, we embrace every aspect of technology to make digital evolution more augmented for our clients and this accomplishment is a resounding validation of our work by our fellow associates and clients.

After it’s strong base in South Asian Countries the company is now seeking for funding to foster its growth in other continents.

About Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Apps Discover Technologies Pvt. Ltd is a premium Digital Ad Network Marketing Company offering the most preferred online affiliate programs & affiliate marketing products which help advertisers across multiple industrial backgrounds to advertise their brands [products/services] and track mobile ad campaigns in the easiest way possible. Started with an office in Gurgaon, Haryana the company’s operations have now extended far and wide in the South-East Asia market with a strong base in Singapore and Indonesia. For more information, please visit Apps Discover

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

India is in prime position to become a Robotic Process Automation [RPA] powerhouse because of its growing talent pool and cost advantage. It is estimated that around 2 lakh RPA-led jobs will be created in the country by 2021. RPA has been gaining traction as a way of automating repetitive, tedious tasks to handle higher-value analysis and decision-making.

Daniel Dines, CEO and Co-Founder of UiPath, the leading enterprise Robotic Process Automation [RPA] software company, said

India is reaping the benefits of a new genre of jobs created from RPA. The Indian mind is apt for this technology; Indians have the right ability for workarounds and out-of-the-box thinking that works well for RPA. So we see a great pool of RPA talent emerging from the country.

He was speaking at the #UiPathForward, the RPA India summit hosted by UiPath on Wednesday in Bengaluru. The event saw participation from more than 650 business leaders, experts and executives and also discussed concepts and presented work done by major UiPath customers and partners such as HCL, KPMG, IBM, Robert Bosch Engineering and many more.

Daniel Dines, CEO & Co-Founder, UiPath

Daniel Dines, CEO and Co-Founder of UiPath, added

RPA will help build India’s middle class. Currently only 1% of the Indian population earns above $20,000 a year. RPA is right now creating jobs that will push a higher percentage of the population into this segment.

Also present at the summit, Sarah Burnett – Vice President of global research company Everest Group, said that automation is the way to go. He said

It will create incredible opportunities in the IT sector. In a recent study by Everest Group, 80% of companies that we surveyed rated RPA to meet expectations and even exceed them. RPA addresses many areas including regulatory compliance, process automation and more. Also it is secure and most importantly, it is scalable.

Manish Bharti, Country Sales Leader – UiPath India, said

RPA provides new pathways for job opportunities. These could range from process engineers and robot managers to implementation and infrastructure staff and complex management positions. The scope is limitless. Around 2 lakh RPA-led jobs will be created in India in the next three years.

Raghu Subramanian, UiPath India’s Chief Customer Success Officer, said

The company will be a part of this job-creation journey not only by providing best-in-class technical support, but also by way of knowledge sharing through the UiPath Academy. Two self-led MOOCs are being delivered free of charge though the academy, allowing people to train as RPA Developers at beginner and advanced levels.

Amitava Sharma, Vice President, Global Automation – Cloud Application Innovation, IBM, said

It is important for all IT companies to evolve as the market changes. RPA is a game-changing technology that facilitates this change. However, RPA product companies need to integrate cognitive solutions to harness the true power of the technology.

About UiPath

Built for both business and IT, UiPath is the leading platform for Enterprise Robotic Process Automation [RPA]. The company is at the forefront of the digital business revolution achieving more than 500% yearly revenue growth since 2015. A global community exceeding 30,000 users and over 500 enterprise customers and government agencies use UiPath’s Enterprise RPA platform to deploy attended and unattended software robots quickly and accurately resulting in better business outcomes, stronger security and compliance, and higher job satisfaction. Based in New York City, US, UiPath also maintains offices in Australia, France, India, Japan, Romania and the United Kingdom with an employee base of more than 500 people. For more information, please visit UiPath

|In: IOT|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

DeloitteTouche Tohmatsu India LLP’s [DTTILLP or Deloitte India] eighth edition of signature publication on Technology, Media and Telecommunications [TMT] predicts major advances in machine learning, VoLTE technology services and Over the Top [OTT] platforms, apart from othertrends.

VoLTE is expected to be the most prevalent voice technology in the future. It is also estimated that more than 90% of all mobile subscribers will comprise of broadband subscribers by 2023. OTT platforms are witnessing an explosion in original content due to increase in consumption and viewership, the report says, adding that they will gradually become a preferred medium over television,with the consumers of vernacular content likely to become over 2.5 times that of English language content by 2021.

The publication highlights the fact that ‘Machine Learning’ will intensify among medium and large-sized enterprises. Compared to 2017, the number of implementations and pilot projects using machine learning technology is likely to double in 2018 and then doubling again in 2020.

As enterprises in India embrace technology to bring transparency and efficiency in business operations, data assumes center stage in decision-making, setting the stage for tools such as advanced analytics and machine learning to ushervalue-chain efficiencies, a Deloitte India spokesperson said. In 2018, technologies like OTT, VoLTE and Machine Learning will make significant progress and as organizations take steps to realize the potential of the Internet of Things [IoT] for their businesses, predictive analytics and intelligent data mining technologies are set to become mainstream in India.

PN Sudarshan, Partner, Deloitte India, said

India is one of the fastest growing technology market in APAC, with the on-going digital transformation of public sector and private sector enterprises enabled by changing market dynamics and policy interventions. Enterprises across industries are increasingly adopting technology driven solutions to improve customer experience, optimize business operations, and compete effectively in the market.

Catalyzed by the availability of cost effective computing infrastructure and flexible business models through Cloud computing, and the adoption of exponential technologies such as AI, ML, AR, IoT etc., technology sector in India is truly at an inflection point. Trends such as IoT will catalyze the emergence of analytics at the edge. Digital revolution, also known as ‘The Internet Economy’ is creating a new market for digital first services, which has the potential to optimize value chains, bring transparency, and improve overall productivity in the economy.

Newer technologies like LTE, LTE-A, LTE-A Pro & 5G will make wireless internet commercially more viablefor home internet users. The smartphone riding on new innovation will consolidate its position as the primary access to digital services and content, and live streaming and OTT video content arelikely to gain popularity.

Here are some more highlights from the TMT Predictions 2018 India edition:

Internet of Things, Realizing the Potential

IoT-driven point solutions will be adopted to solve a specific business issue. IoT-driven enterprise solutions would help organizations redefine their business models and provide innovative services for their customers; investments will not only be assessed on KPIs, but also will involve new product launches, new supply chains and a new operating model that enables organizations to monetize their services across value chains, leveraging IoT.

Analytics [finally] travels Beyond the Back Office

Enterprises will combine external perspectives, social inputs [surveys, social media comments, response to a feedback questionnaire] to the internal data sources to improve customer service. Device data will be integrated faster and on-demand to answer immediate field needs; information dissemination for decision-making will be faster and simpler using digital delivery; paying for results and provisioning on demand is the new normal [on cloud].

VoLTE: Enabling Next-gen Voice Services

Deloitte predicts that more than 60% of all broadband subscribers would be utilizing Voice over LTE [VoLTE] technology for voice services by 2023 surpassing 5 billion subscribers globally. IoT appliances can be enhanced with VoLTE improving the productivity and efficiency of applications and especially effectiveness in emergency situations, one example is a smartwatch with feature to automatically dial an emergency contact in case of abnormal heart rate.

Wi-Fi would be essential part of service provider network strategy to enhance access and extend coverage. With VoLTE supporting VoWi-Fi [Wi-Fi calling], it would be an opportunity to monetize hot-spots especially relevant in the Asia-Pacific region which would constitute 45% of global hotspots.

Sports Media in India Set to Unlock New Horizons

Indian sports business will continue to attract global investments. With broadcasters paying as much attention to rural segment, these geographies will continue to lead the way for Sports sector in India, especially with Tier 2 leagues beginning to receive widespread attention. Data analytics will increasingly play a significant role in managing all aspects of sports, especially on initiatives such as fan engagement and viewership on digital platforms. Governance related matters will continue to be in focus in Indian Sports ecosystem, and topics such as legalizing betting will be discussed more than before.

Mobile only: Wireless Home Internet Bigger Than You Think

Due to challenges in deployment of fixed broadband networks, current rural internet penetration stands at ~ 17%. In future, demand for fixed broadband would be limited to consumers with higher bandwidth/QoS requirements, with majority of home internet requirements catered through wireless network.

Augmented Reality [AR]: On the Cusp of Reality

The Indian market is witnessing the emergence of AR service providers helping enterprises embrace AR as part of their digital experience strategy. India’s $150 billion technology services industry has the potential to play a key role in increasing the adoption of AR for global businesses by building a robust supply of talent, business models, and frameworks to accelerate deployments. The public sector also has the opportunity to leverage the product and talent ecosystem in the country and adopt AR for improving the quality of experience in areas such as Education and Healthcare.

To access the complete report, refer to the link Deloitte India

|In: Fintech|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Synechron, a global financial services consulting and technology services provider, has today revealed the top trends it expects to see in financial services technology in 2018. These priorities touch on six key themes – Innovation, User Experience [UX] Design, Risk, Regulatory Technology [RegTech], Data, and the Cloud – that cut horizontally across the business and therefore are driving enterprise financial services decision-making.

Image Source – Fintech

Based on Synechron’s work with the world’s largest global tier one investment banks and insurance companies, the company has identified the following top priorities for 2018.

Innovation – will focus on taking proven new technologies from pilot to production 

Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence [AI] will continue to dominate in 2018. Where last year was focused on blockchain-pilots, 2018 will be focused on production. As a result, there will be a stronger emphasis on the architecture and interoperability needed to support this approach.

For AI, development will move away from simple automation and focus on cognitive use cases across sales, trading, wealth management and compliance. Cognitive RPA will be a critical bridge in moving from advanced robotics to real cognitive learning.

User Experience Design [UX] – will increase in importance for new B2C and B2B proto-types

In 2018, firms can expect to see experience design applied to immersive technologies such as Augmented Reality [AR] and Virtual Reality [VR], with the aim to improve customer experience. Combined with Natural Language Processing and Machine learning, best practices for UX development will be re-defined for both external customers and internal employees, leveraging the immersive nature of the technologies to create new, meaningful experiences and gamified processes especially in areas like account onboarding.

Risk – will focus more on real-time analytics and automation

Whereas 2017 focused on implementing new regulations focused on risk like Basel III, 2018 will shift to more enterprise-wide risk management techniques. To match the increasingly fast-paced environment of financial services, firms will need to improve real-time risk analysis, supported by AI, to fulfil the changing needs of the organization.

RegTech – will expand beyond KYC-centric use cases which largely dominate the space to take a tech-first approach to all new regulations

With major regulatory changes on the horizon in 2018, RegTech will have a vital role to play as firms move beyond initial MiFID II compliance to gain more long-term benefits from the regulation and take a tech-first approach to their compliance with newer regulations like Fundamental Review of Trading Book [FRTB] and Consolidated Audit Trail [CAT] compliance. Tech-first regulatory compliance will lay the foundation for greater economies of scale across data, analytics, and related risk.

Data – will get bigger as big data initiatives push more intelligent and more open business models and better data tools and visualizations 

While preparations for data standardization began in 2017, firms are still relying on legacy data architecture and infrastructure, and moving past these systems will be a main focus on data in 2018.

To comply with new data requirements like General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR] and Payment Services Directive [PSD] II, new data infrastructure will be required. Data virtualization, data lineage, & data visualization will also become increasingly important to gain additional value and intelligence from data.

Cloud – will begin to be considered for mission critical infrastructure

In 2017, banks began to move non-mission critical applications into the cloud, and in 2018 cloud adoption will be more widespread with a focus on security and regulatory compliance. Trends like the use of Open APIs will further drive adoption of the cloud for consumer applications in 2018, and place pressure on banks to create more open, cloud-enabled business models and applications.

As per Faisal Husain, Co-founder and CEO at Synechron,

2018 will continue to be an exciting and dynamic time for financial services. We expect that this year will see the culmination of some key technologies that aim to provide more effective methods of doing business, whether that is more intelligent AI, a more comprehensive use of blockchain or even business compliance ahead of Brexit. We cannot wait to see what 2018 will bring and look forward to leading the way on all these fronts.

About Synechron

Synechron is a global consulting and technology organization providing innovative solutions to the financial services industry through its three main business focus areas: digital, business consulting, and technology. Based in New York, the company has 18 offices around the globe, with over 8,000+ employees producing over $500+M in annual revenue. For more information, please visit Synechron

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Reliance Jio is hosting the India Digital Open Summit 2018, an Open Source Networking [OSN] Day being organised in partnership with the Linux Foundation and supported by Cisco Systems.

The January 19th, 2018 event marks the inaugural India Digital Open Summit, a meeting of the top technologists, academia, startups, and industry leaders focused on how open source networking systems and platforms would transform and foster innovation and leadership across the entire digital ecosystem.

Open source is being embraced by leading organisations globally, not only due to its cost advantage, but to leverage the development advantages open source communities offer. By its very essence, open source fuels enterprising organizations, because unlike proprietary systems, it enables greater innovation and differentiation, helping companies customize and manage platforms with more flexibility with the ability to rapidly develop and bring new services to the market with scalability and security.

The summit will feature discussions on various elements of the Open Source framework for policy, technology and security that accelerate the expansion of the Digital India initiative across domains. Over 400 attendees are expected at the India Digital Open Summit 2018. More than a dozen global C-Level Executives will discuss a range of topics, including application to blockchain, Artificial Intelligence [AI], Cloud-scale networking, Open Compute, AR/VR, Real-time analytics and other topics on the open source-spurred digital transformation.

The one-day event will be held at the Reliance Corporate Park campus in Navi Mumbai. For details of the event, please visit India Digital Summit.

Linux Foundation is the world’s premier organization for building sustainable Open Source Ecosystems and Reliance Jio has joined Linux Foundation’s Open Network Automation Platform [ONAP] as a Platinum member. Jio’s Platinum membership in ONAP provides a platform for accelerating its efforts to further its work in open source to support The Linux Foundation.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

DingTalk, a professional office application for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises [SMEs], unveiled an English version of the app. A product by the Alibaba Group, the app aims to enhance communication and redefine organisational collaboration for small and medium-sized enterprises that prefer to correspond in English. Over 5 million enterprises and organizations in China are already using the Chinese version.

Equipped with cutting edge technology, DingTalk is a revolutionary platform providing SMEs with a simple, efficient and secure platform for collaboration. Currently available on iOS, Android, Mac and Windows operating systems, DingTalk offers organizational-centric functions and features aimed at improving business-to-business communication and collaboration:

Unified Communications – supports audio, video and/or conference calls for up to 3,000 parties in a single call; integrated emails, chats and message reminder features; voice and video services are currently only available via VoIP for users outside of China

Office Automation – Allows businesses to manage attendance, make approvals, maintain business reports, send files of up to 700MB in size.

Internal and External Collaboration – Businesses can book and host meetings, manage CRM information, create tasks and service tickets, set up private chat and more.

Open Platform – Allows third party SaaS applications and services to be integrated with DingTalk and provide an enterprise service ecosystem for SMEs.

ISO security certification – Dingtalk is one of the first Chinese apps to have obtained the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 standard, a globally recognized data security benchmark. That means data is encrypted at SSL/TLS security standards to provide high-level communications protection.

Speaking on the launch of the English version of DingTalk at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Chris Wang, Head of Global Business Development for DingTalk said

Our endeavour is to empower SMEs so they can scale and become part of the global marketplace. Technology is a powerful tool to help businesses enhance operations, and function smoothly. With DingTalk, we will enable organizations to seamlessly communicate and collaborate across locations, thereby increasing productivity. We believe that this is the future of the workplace, and we see immense potential in helping businesses redefine their organizational connectivity.

Currently, DingTalk serves businesses across sectors such as e-commerce, manufacturing, education and finance, providing them with a growing slate of business-centric functions. The goal is to create an effective platform which is mobile-optimized while offering cloud-based corporate solutions and freeing companies from the costs of building or buying software and maintaining their own servers for business communications, workflow management, and data storage.

About DingTalk

Created in January 2015, DingTalk is Alibaba’s proprietary enterprise communication and collaboration platform that enables text, photo, voice and video communication, workflow management and collaboration among team members and enterprises of various sizes. More than 5 million companies and organizations are currently using DingTalk. The mission of DingTalk is to empower small and medium enterprises with mobile and cloud technologies to enjoy simple, efficient and secure business communications and collaboration. For more information, please visit DingTalk