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|In: Digital|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Flytxt have announced the availability of an intelligent voice interface for NEON-dX, its digital customer engagement product. NEON-dX will use analytics and Artificial Intelligence [AI] to personalize conversations on any digital touch point that supports Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.

Dr. Vinod Vasudevan, CEO, Flytxt, said

More than a quarter of all mobile searches in 2016 were done over voice. With speech recognition accuracy reaching over 95%, more and more consumers will adopt voice as the preferred medium to interact with their service providers.  With this interface, our enterprise customers can now engage their consumers in natural conversations using voice. This will significantly improve consumer experience and generate higher returns for enterprises.

NEON-dX has out of the box analytics and AI capabilities to translate data to actionable insights reflecting consumer’s persona, intent and contextual needs. Enterprises can leverage these insights and recommend right offers and actions during voice conversations seamlessly just like how a human agent will do. The interface will start supporting other voice platforms like Siri subsequently.

Flytxt has partnered with more than 100 enterprises including some of the largest Telcos and other enterprises in their digital customer engagement initiatives across the globe.

About Flytxt

Flytxt provides NEON-dX, an enterprise class software product for intelligent digital customer engagement automation. The product enables Artificial Intelligence based autonomous customer value management, helping enterprises to accelerate their digital transformation journey and generate measurable economic value faster and more efficiently. The solutions powered by Flytxt’s products and services help enterprises to grow revenues, reduce churn and enhance customer experience.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

IT security researchers have discovered a new spear-phishing campaign that intercepts an active conversation and hijacks them to spread malware using highly-customised emails designed to look as if they are coming from the original sender.

Image Source – Phishing

The malware dubbed as FreeMilk is used by the hackers to infiltrate the computers using malicious codes and retrieve confidential information without even getting noticed.

The attack leverages CVE-2017-0199, a remote code execution vulnerability in the way Microsoft Office and Wordpad parse specially crafted files – which was subsequently patched in April this year.

How does FreeMilk affect the victim’s system ?

Upon successful execution of a FreeMilk phishing attack, two payloads named PoohMilk and Freenkin gets installed on the targeted system

PoohMilk’s primary motive is to run the Freenki downloader. Freenki, on the other hand, performs two different task -the first is to collect information from the host and the second is to act as a second-stage downloader which further downloads sophisticated malware.

Information collected by the malware include username, computer name, ethernet MAC addresses, and running processes. Besides this, Freenki can take screenshots of the victim’s system, with all the information sent to a command server for the attackers to store and use.

Who is behind this ?

As of now the actors behind this attack have not been identified. However, the security researchers have found out that ‘PoohMilk’ tool has been previously used in January 2016 in which the phishing emails were disguised as a security patch.

Attackers also attempted to distribute ‘Freeniki’ in an August 2016 watering-hole attack on an anti-North Korean government website by defectors in the United Kingdom.

How does this affect India ?

Due to the massive number inactive, un-patched and outdated windows machines especially in the government & small-medium scale organisations, these series of attacks can be deadly for India. All machines that aren’t updated with the patch that was released in April are at a severe risk and can aid cyber criminals and state actors in gaining access to even the most sophisticated networks.

You can more about the same here and here

Comments from Ankush Johar, Director at HumanFirewall.io, a leading provider of human information security awareness and preparedness solutions.

Freemilk is exploiting the CVE-2017-0199 vulnerability in Windows which was patched in April 2017. Therefore, ensure that any computer that has not been patched since before April, 2017 is not allowed to go on your the network.

First Things First, Patch all your computers using the official security update if not done already. Patch available here

General Hygiene for Protection

Defending against this kind of attack is rather simple. Following are some key points.

For Consumers

  • Use the latest Operating System.
  • Make sure automatic updates are enabled, and downloaded regularly.
  • Ensure Firewall is enabled to block all network based attacks.
  • Never Click/Download anything on Emails from untrusted sources. Make sure the mail is from a trusted party, only then download the attachments.
  • Use a proper, regularly updated Antivirus.

For Organizations

  • Latest patches must instantly be deployed across the company.
  • All pirated/un-patched/outdated devices to be removed [read unplugged] from the network instantly.
  • Employees to be trained to detect and protect against Phishing and other such scams.
  • Antiviruses ensured to be in place and updated.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

U2opia Mobile announced the launch of Reycreo, a platform geared to help game discovery and adoption in frontier markets. The Reycreo vision has been tailored to provide a progressive gaming experience for early adopters in these markets.

Subscribers to Reycreo have an option to dive into an all–you–can–eat offering of over 500 browser-based bite-size games. This also serves as a simplified initiation to the world of gaming. The platform has games across categories including – Action, Arcade, Adventure, Puzzles, and Logic. Users can play all the games on any browser anytime without downloading. A wide range of games can be played on any device, anywhere, any number of times. With multiple language support, users get a great gaming experience on their mobile data or Wi-Fi connection.

Reycreo is currently live in South Africa, India, Malaysia, Cameroon, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Indonesia, Bissau and Kenya. The mobile gaming market has huge potential in the frontier markets. By 2020 the mobile gaming industry is expected to cross USD 2bn in MEA and USD 30bn in Asia Pacific, which indicates that in next three years, the market may grow up to 60%.

U2opia is actively signing up strategic partners to introduce downloadable freemium and premium games with a specific focus on localized gaming content along with global favorites.

Sumesh Menon, Co-Founder and MD, U2opia Mobile said

With Reycreo, our ambitions are to handhold first-time gamers through the exciting myriad world of game content. We are cognizant of challenges of high-speed bandwidth, handset compatibility and access to payment channels that are in some ways curtailing rapid game adoption. Reycreo is working towards solving for these systematically.

About U2opia Mobile

A pioneer and innovator in mobile technology working towards accelerating the growth and usage of the internet across the globe. U2opia Mobile collaborates with the world’s largest and most innovative mobile operators and is managed by an experienced team with deep understanding of consumer, internet and mobile ecosystems. Engaging a variety of customers, across generations of handsets, the company addresses a global user base of over 1 Billion users in emerging markets. The company is backed by marquee investors Matrix Partners and Omidyar Network. For more information, please visit U2opia Mobile

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Uber, the ridesharing app that connects riders with drivers to provide convenient, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button, strengthened its commitment to decongest Indian cities and reduce emissions over time by expanding uberPOOL, an innovative offering, in 3 cities – Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ahmedabad this week, taking the national tally to 12 cities.

The expansion strategy is an effort to promote shared mobility in India with uberPOOL allowing people heading in the same direction to take the same ride. Post the successful adoption of the product in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Guwahati, Chennai and Kochi, uberPOOL went live in Chandigarh [3rd October] and Jaipur [5th October] followed by Ahmedabad, which will go live tomorrow.

Designed to offer first and last mile connectivity, and improved reliability,uberPOOL will also help contribute towards reducing congestion in cities. With more people in fewer cars, uberPOOL aims to decongest roads and reduce emissions and pollution over time. As of March 2017, with 48,259,398 kms of travel saved, uberPOOL has helped in reducing Co2 emissions of 5,352, 000 Kgs.

Speaking on the launch, Prabhjeet Singh, General Manager, North, Uber India, said

At Uber, we are constantly working towards redefining the urban mobility landscape in Indian cities which involves initiatives towards reducing congestion and pollution. We believe that uberPOOL is the future of urban mobility that allows ridesharing using technology, and in the process helps decongest cities by getting more people into fewer cars, letting riders move around their city more affordably and enables first/last mile connectivity. We have received positive feedback from other cities and are confident that as Chandigarh, Jaipur and Ahmedabad embark on their uberPOOL journey, the same will help contribute to the future that we have envisioned – smarter cities.

According to Uber’s Green Index 30% of rides in Mumbai are on UberPOOL, 28% in Delhi, 29% in Hyderabad, 25% in Bengaluru, 18% in Chennai and Pune and 15% in Kolkata. Uber’s ridesharing product has been able to deliver a significant impact in reducing congestion and pollution in several cities.  In order to highlight several such examples from across India and advocate the merits of ridesharing, Uber launched a nationwide initiative, Decongest India, which aims to draw the attention of policymakers on how utilising cars for ride-sharing can complement stressed and overburdened public transport to be part of the solution – rather than the problem.

How does uberPOOL work

Selecting the uberPOOL option connects the rider real-time with 1~2 passengers heading in the same direction.

  1. Set your pickup location and destination
  2. Select uberPOOL for the carpooling option and get a fixed fare upfront, so you know exactly what you’re going to pay
  3. Click on ‘Confirm Uberpool’
  4. Click on ‘Confirm Pickup’
  5. Select how many seats you need 1 / 2
  6. Confirm seats! You might get matched with other passengers heading in the same direction
  7. Regardless of whether you are matched or not, the fare will be less than traveling solo
  8. You can choose to use Cash, PayTM, Credit or even a Debit card

|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

NI, the provider of platform-based systems that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world’s greatest engineering challenges, announced the release of NI Trend Watch 2018. The report examines the technological advances propelling our future faster than ever before along with some of the biggest challenges engineers face looking ahead to 2018.

As per Shelley Gretlein, NI Vice-President of corporate marketing,

As we advance through the 21st century, our customers demand higher quality devices, faster test times, more reliable networking and almost instantaneous computing to keep their organizations moving forward. Not only is NI prepared to help customers keep pace by exploring the trends impacting our industry, we also provide actionable insights backed with an open, software-centric platform to accelerate the development of any customer-defined test, measurement or control system.

NI Trend Watch 2018 explores the following topics:

  • Machine Learning Puts Data to Work – Intelligent systems create and rely on data, but the ever-increasing quantity of data exacerbates the Big Analog Data Challenge. Discover how machine learning addresses the problem head-on, so engineers can focus on finding and solving the next grand challenge.
  • 5G to Disrupt Test Processes – 5G innovation doesn’t stop at design. Test and measurement solutions will be key in the commercialization cycle, but 5G requires a different approach to test than previous wireless technologies. Find out what it’s going to take to make 5G a reality.
  • 3 Mandates of the IIoT – The proliferation of smart and connected ‘things’ in the Industrial Internet of Things [IIoT] provides tremendous opportunities for increased performance and lower costs, but managing these distributed systems is often an overlooked challenge. Explore the three necessities for successfully managing your ‘things’.
  • Effects of Electrification – The vehicle electrification trend goes deeper than a global shift from internal combustion and hybrid vehicles to fully electric powertrains. Consider implications beyond the increasingly complex vehicle itself, including new demands on supporting infrastructure.
  • Breaking Moore’s Law – The constant pace of innovation has tracked remarkably close to Moore’s law for decades, despite a few minor revisions and much talk of its death. But now, the more than 50-year-old observation is facing health challenges again. Find out what that means for the future of the semiconductor market.

Review the complete report here.

|In: CloudComputing|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Marico Limited, India’s leading consumer products company in the wellness and beauty space, has recently adopted Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse to improve their business productivity. The adoption of the fully-managed, highly-elastic, petabyte-scale, warehouse-as-a-service cloud-based relational database has helped Marico increase their data processing speed by over 150%.

In the FMCG space, the volume of data being generated fluctuates greatly during certain periods, especially the month beginning and ends or during season and festival time. This puts unforeseen burden on the existing IT infrastructure in managing the data flux. The window for extraction, transformation and loading of huge amount of data is limited to a few hours.

This deployment has freed Marico from regular hardware refresh owing to data volume variability, and provided the flexibility of scale-up or scale-down on demand. They now have an end-to-end data solution [database, data warehouse, big data, visualization, advanced analytics] that unlocks insights from any data. This has given Marico complete control of data management and more agility for business decision-making during critical times. They have also overcome the need for creating disaster recovery or backup infrastructure.

Mukesh Kripalani, Chief – Business Process Transformation & IT, Marico said

With the growing surge of data, and the burden that used to come along with it, Microsoft has helped us in eliminating the need for over-provisioning. We wanted to gain control over the churn and speed of data, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse has not only helped achieve this but also helped us gain business insights from big data and advanced analytics.

Peter Gartenberg, General Manager, Enterprise Commercial, Microsoft India, said

The deployment at Marico addresses the current FMCG market need for an integrated, intelligent cloud-based database management system. The solution will help Marico stay ahead of the market with faster and more accurate decisions. We have always aimed to reduce complexity and redundancy, and ensure data privacy and security through the Microsoft Cloud. We are excited to be associated with the growth of Marico.

In India, numerous FMCG customers are leveraging Microsoft Azure as their cloud platform to develop cutting edge digital and data analytics capabilities. Microsoft’s commitment to deliver enterprise-grade cloud platform that is open, flexible, affordable and secure has resonated strongly with Indian companies.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

VeriSign, a global leader in domain names and internet security, have announced that approximately 1.3 million domain name registrations were added to the internet in the second quarter of 2017, bringing the total number of domain name registrations to approximately 331.9 million across all Top-Level Domains [TLDs] as of June 30, 2017.

Image Source – TLD

The increase of approximately 1.3 million domain name registrations globally equates to a growth rate of 0.4 percent over the first quarter of 2017. Domain name registrations have grown by 6.7 million, or 2.1 percent, year over year.

The .com and .net TLDs had a combined total of approximately 144.3 million domain name registrations in the domain name base in the second quarter of 2017. This represents a 0.8 percent increase year over year. As of June 30, 2017, the .com domain name base totaled 129.2 million domain name registrations, while the .net domain name base totaled 15.1 million domain name registrations.

New .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 9.2 million during the second quarter of 2017. In the second quarter of 2016, new .com and .net domain name registrations totaled 8.6 million.

Verisign publishes the Domain Name Industry Brief to provide internet users throughout the world with statistical and analytical research and data on the domain name industry. The second quarter 2017 Domain Name Industry Brief, as well as previous reports, can be obtained from here

 

|In: AI|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Freshworks, the leading provider of cloud-based business software launched Freshchat, a next-gen messaging product that helps businesses better communicate with their customers. Freshchat provides a suite of website and in-product engagement capabilities which help businesses capture more leads and drive sales.

Image Source – FreshChat

As per the 2016-17 Gartner CMO Spending Survey, nearly two-thirds of marketing leaders plan to increase digital ad-spend in 2017. Marketers are spending more on digital marketing to attract customers to their websites and apps, but end up converting only 2 to 3 percent of these visitors into customers.

To solve for this, Freshchat enables businesses to target visitors with highly contextual messages to increase engagement and thereby conversions. Once the end user responds, an intelligent bot screens and qualifies leads effortlessly before bringing in a sales rep. This information is auto-synced into the CRM, providing context for sales reps and enabling intelligent conversations.

Freshchat breaks from legacy live chat tools to deliver a modern messaging experience that customers expect, similar to personal messaging apps like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Leveraging technology from recent acquisitions, Freshchat enables smarter conversations without the burden of traditional live chat on either party – no missed chats or sessions timing out for the customer, and no staffing up during peaks for the business.

Freshchat can integrate into websites, web-apps, native mobile apps, and other messaging products like Facebook Messenger. Freshchat offers in-product campaigns for on-boarding and engagement, a unique integrated FAQ experience to encourage self-service, and advanced features to route and manage conversations for customer support.

Girish Mathrubootham, CEO and Founder of Freshworks, said

Businesses today want to provide their consumers with contextual, intelligent and personalized chat experiences. We believe there is a huge gap that live chat products don’t address compared to consumer messaging apps, which are creating high benchmarks for user experience.

Sales and support agents need to be empowered with a single platform that provides the flexibility to engage with prospects and customers who are always multi-tasking. We are excited to offer a game-changing chat offering with unique sales and support capabilities that push the boundaries of an already well-established business communication channel.

Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder and CEO-India, MakeMyTrip, said

At MakeMyTrip, we are always looking to use innovative technology to make travel seamless and hassle-free for our customers. We are using Freshchat to solve for our customers’ needs with precision, in real time. Not only has it ensured that our customers receive prompt personalized experiences, it has also brought in operational efficiencies that make assisted buying extremely scalable.

In addition to the standalone chat offering, Freshchat will integrate into Freshsales and Freshdesk, making it easy for sales and support teams to adopt the product into their workflow. Freshchat is available to businesses of all sizes, with a free plan for companies with less than ten team members in sales and support. For more information, please visit FreshChat