As the micro-blogging platform takes ginger steps into becoming a public listed company, Twitter has stepped-up its region-specific engagement activities with an India specific Blog.

With a clear intention of garnering interest in the platform primarily outside of USA, Twitter has decided to up its user engagement and interaction exercises. Since India has one of the highest English speaking populations, it can be a natural course of progression that the company chose this country.

Why a blog?
Twitter has always been a platform offering minimalist options to network. With just 140 Characters, ironically, the platform has managed to engulf the online population. However, the company now clearly wishes to attract more casual readers. Especially after the rather shocking revelation by a recently concluded Reuters-IPSOS poll that stated 36% of Twitter users do not use the online messaging service regularly. In order to ensure such users start interacting with the platform, Twitter might have decided to launch a blog and this should explain why the inaugural blog post was honoring cricketing legend Sachin Tendulkar.

Twitter is following a path laid out by Facebook, but this path is certainly strewn with uncertainty. Though all the agencies involved, including Twitter as well as Stock Brokering Houses are taking utmost precautions to ensure the Facebook IPO Launch debacle isn't repeated, Twitter has ample reasons to worry.

Twitter is relying on advertising as a major source of revenue. But unfortunately for the company, Facebook, which has been making excellent money out of the same, had its own CFO cautioning about overuse of the advertising. Twitter hasn’t turned profitable yet, neither are its engagement numbers anywhere near Facebook's.

Under such trying times, Twitter will surely try all possible steps to exhibit its ability to gain traction and participation which will prove vital to show profitability. If a blog can up the readership and engagement, then why not? What do you think?

Image Credits: twitter blog

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Female Software and Technology Engineers in India will soon receive opportunity to meet and interface with like-minded and highly effective / successful women entrepreneurs.

Lean In, a collaborative and information sharing platform, founded by Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook's Chief Operating Officer), is coming to India. Anita Borg Institute (ABI), a non-profit organization, focused on the advancement of women in computing, is associating with Lean In. Together the institutes will design courses and provide networking opportunities for women engineers in India.

Are such gender selective platforms especially in the Tech Industry necessary?
"Discrimination against women at workplaces coupled with societal pressures has resulted in women not taking up engineering as a profession as compared to men. Also, there are issues of women being unable to continue with their careers due to marriage and such factors" lamented Geetha Kannan, India Representative of Anita Borg Institute (ABI).

While the urban metros do appear to have a balanced gender workplace, the situation worsens in the Tier II and III Towns, where gender discrimination is still very rampant and despite high levels of intelligence, women are marginalized.

How will Lean In and ABI help?
"With Lean In, ABI will develop videos, training, and resource materials to help women in technology," explained Geetha. Similar to rural education programs commissioned by the Govt. Lean In and ABI will encourage women in Technology to come together in small groups and these groups will then be offered opportunities to discuss with females who become successful.

Owing to multiple educational institutes and regulations that offer incentives to allow females to learn, the number of female engineering graduates has more than doubled from 125,000 in 2000 to 275,000 in 2010, but ironically, they represent only 28% of the IT workforce, which clearly indicates that technology industry is still majorly a male dominated one.

With modern tools like cloud computing and easy availability of affordable tablets, mass dissipation of knowledge even in remote corners is now easier than ever. Lean In and ABI are simply offering a platform for women to come together. Do you think women are still marginalized in Tech Industry?

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Canalys, an analytics firm which keeps tabs on the mobile space has announced their report for Q3 2013. This new report shows that around a quarter billion smartphones were shipped in this quarter, which represents a 44% year-on-year increase compared to Q3 of 2012.

Samsung and Apple have managed to maintain their leadership positions in the smartphone market with 34% and 15% market share respectively. Besides these two, the next 3 top manufacturers are Huawei, Lenovo and LG. Apart from Apple, all the other four companies are Asian phone manufacturers.

The report also shows that the sales of 5-inch display smartphones reached their peak in this quarter. These 'phablets' accounted for 22% of the smartphone shipment volume (56 million in this case). Canalys expects that the most popular phones in 2014 will have a screen size between 4.1 and 5 inches.

China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (together known as Greater China) now account for 39% of the global smartphone market. Greater China has the highest growth in smartphones sales (+64%) and Latin America comes second (+58%).

The report lists that Indian manufacturer Micromax comes fourth, being behind Sony in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Greater China). This is thought to be so because of strong domestic shipments and demand.

OS Market share:

Android and iOS are leaders in the platform category, with Android having a huge lead over iOS. While their market share in this quarter didn't change, Windows Phone has grown by 4%. This represents a 185% increase since Q3 of last year. Windows Phone is also second most used OS in 19 countries such as Finland, Vietnam, Italy, Thailand to name a few.

This is interesting because it seems that Windows Phone might ultimately see more promise as a platform. Since Microsoft's announcement of the Nokia acquisition, things have been going well for Nokia devices and thereby Windows Phone. Nokia rose to number 4 on the US smartphone market recently. Android has penetrated the market heavily and growth seems to be slow at this volume. Windows Phone while very far behind has a good opportunity to begin its ascent now. Challenges for the platform include a competitive app ecosystem like iOS and Android, and producing better flagship handset models.

Source | Canalys

Via | The Next Web

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The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has now readied its mPassport Seva app for iOS and Windows Phone users.

Google's Android was the first Mobile Operating System (OS) to get the app. Christened as mPassport Seva, the app was under development for some time. Now iOS as well as Windows Phone users will be able to execute majority of procedures needed to complete the Passport Application Process.

Expanding the scope of usage of the app is a very important step as majority of Smartphones will be able to utilize the facility. With mPassport, users can track passport applications, locate Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) and get general information on how to obtain a passport. Under the app's service menu, one can also calculate the fee to be paid while applying for the passport. Though such an expansion of scope was logical, MEA chose to emphasize the increasing interest and immense public response, to be the core reason.

mPassport Seva is one of the more prominent services under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) that is being executed in public-private-partnership mode with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Incidentally, TCS is responsible for the development of the app, but, the Passport Seva Project, as a whole, is being executed by Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) division of the MEA.

What began as a mere informative app development endeavor, soon had to be outfitted with payment facilities to ensure applicants were able to complete all major pre-application procedures. However, applicants still need to make a trip to the regional Passport office to submit physical copies of their documents and exhibit originals to establish authenticity.

e-Governance Projects, specific and relevant to the common citizens have started to receive widespread attention. Coupled with the phenomenal adoption of smartphones, such applications could soon alter the very dynamics of addressing common issues and settling grievances. What do you think?

Image Credits: google play

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Apple has filed patent for a new technology which would let your iPhone/iPad issue commands to other devices at your home using GPS. The applications could range from anything from home automation to tracking certain parameters at your home when you aren't around. The patent is titled 'System and method of determining location of wireless communication devices/persons for controlling/adjusting operation of devices based on the location' and lists Raghunandan K. Pai and Timothy S. Hurley as inventors.

The technology is a based on tracking your GPS signal and other location sources like swiping credit cards, cell phone towers etc. and sending this data to your home network. Based on conditions that you have set up, these location signals could trigger certain events in the house. Some examples could be air-conditioning switching on by itself after receiving the signal which suggests that you are on your way home.

The first device (iPhone) will issue these location signals and a second device attached your home network would receive them via a server relay. The second device would execute the actions that are defined previously by the user. This second device could be any device you want to control, say a washing machine. This means that any device, lighting systems, electronic doors and other appliances will have to be connected to the Internet via ethernet ports or USB.

The patent is interesting and is indicative of Apple's interest in the upcoming trend of the Internet of Things. While there are a million possibilities about how people could go ahead and use this for home automation, there are also potential dangers here. Security could be compromised and you could provide someone with access to devices in your home and your home itself. We will have to wait and see how secure this technology is.

You can view the patent in its entirety here.

Source | The Times Of India

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Google has been testing a new service called Helpouts now since some time. Two days back, Google announced the launch of Helpouts for everyone. Helpouts is based on Hangouts, the hit feature of the otherwise poorly performing Google+. It lets users get video help on any topic, problem or situation from an expert who has also signed up on the service.

Basically, it is a help marketplace. Helpouts lists a variety of experts in various domains along with the cost associated with the task. Users have the ability to connect live with these experts or even schedule an appointment over video. Since Helpouts uses Hangouts technology, users can do more than just video chat. They can share their desktops, collaborate on documents and record the helpout session for future reference.

While the idea seems very cool, it is difficult to standardize experience in such kinds of distributed service. Google says that if you don't like the experience, they will refund the money back to you. This will exercise a level of control on the quality of help being provided.

You can get more information in the video embedded below,

Currently, the categories in which help is offered are Art & Music, Computers & Electronics, Cooking, Education, Fashion, Fitness, Health and Home & Gardens.

'Real help from real people', as the tagline goes, is very exciting. This distributed way of seeking help could bring down barriers to knowledge. While the internet exists as tool for that, it is not personalized enough. Helpouts would be personal, customized help from a real person, and this would give a lot of assurance for the help seeker. Also, if it runs well, this could give rise to a whole new freelancer economy which would go beyond the usual writing, coding and designing jobs. Say, if you play the flute really well as a hobby, you could teach it to someone over Helpouts and get paid for that. Multiple income streams in an uncertain economy can be really helpful.

What are your thoughts on this concept? Do you see yourself using this service?

Website | Google Helpouts

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Estranged Canadian Smartphone maker BlackBerry has hinted at voluntary withdrawal from making phones.

BlackBerry, the once iconic smartphone supplier and enterprise services provider's new Chairman and interim Chief Executive has clearly implied that as a company, BlackBerry needs to think on a broader scale and should consider focusing its efforts beyond the increasingly competitive smartphone market.

Chen, Former CEO of Software Data Company Sybase, who is now the new Chairman and interim CEO of BlackBerry, said that BlackBerry employees need to start thinking differently about the company and accept that "We’re really not in phones but we’re in phones for software, for services."

Such statements indicate that BlackBerry will eventually pull itself out of making and selling smartphones. The company will then have to bank on software and services to stay buoyant. Chen added that he wants to find a CEO with a strong software and services background.

Why is BlackBerry backing out?
It is amply evident that BlackBerry cannot survive, let alone prosper in the current scenario. Hit with multiple setbacks, the company had been trying to pry itself away from the public eye, by going private through acquisition by its largest shareholder.

Unfortunately, the company was in for a rude shock when Fairfax Financial, the largest stock holder refused to buy BlackBerry. Though, such an eventuality must have been realized quite early on as BlackBerry had approached multiple companies, the latest of which was Chinese giant Lenovo.

The confidence to withdraw from the smartphone market could have originated from the euphoria displayed by Android and iOS users, over the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) availability on their devices. Additionally, the company will surely focus on its Mobile Device Management business, which it had recently made available even on Android.

Traditionally, BlackBerry's virtual and mobile work-space was lauded as the safest and most secure by enterprises. Though there are flaws even in the relatively newer platforms like Android, companies like Google are quick to patch the vulnerabilities and assure users. BlackBerry could take on a role on Enterprise Environment Management and Data Safety which is a globally concern-worthy phenomenon and still manage to stay in the spotlight. What do you think?

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