Google Ends It’s Free Wi-Fi Program ‘Station’ In India
Google said that it is winding down Google Station, a program as part of which it worked with a number of partners to roll out free Wi-Fi in more than 400 railway stations in India.
Google says that the mobile data is now cheap in India. Mobile data plans have become more affordable and mobile connectivity is improving globally. India, specifically now has among the cheapest mobile data per GB in the world.
As mobile data prices got cheaper in many markets including India, Google Station was no longer necessary. The company plans to discontinue the program this year. For the programme Google worked with Indian Railways.
WhatsApp Payments Gets Indian Government’s Approval
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted WhatsApp permission to operate its digital payment service in a phased manner. WhatsApp has assured the NPCI and RBI that it will comply with India’s data localization rules.
The first phase of the WhatsApp Pay will be limited to over 10 million users, followed by a full country-wide rollout.
WhatsApp Pay would give a tough competition to platforms such as Amazon Pay, Phone Pe, Google Pay, Paytm and others. Google Pay currently is the most used payment app in India followed by Paytm.
Samsung To Unveil Its Artificial Intelligence Project ‘Neon’ At CES 2020
Neon, the latest AI-based product is in the works at Samsung Technology & Advanced Research Labs (STAR Labs) an autonomous entity of Samsung Electronics. Neon will be the second AI assistant from Samsung after it introduced Bixby in 2017 and is available across a range of products including smartphones and home appliances.
Samsung is teasing Neon with the tagline ‘Have you ever met an ‘ARTIFICIAL’?. NEON could be some framework of an advanced interactive AI engine that may have superior cognitive abilities over the mainstream AI assistants like Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, Google’s Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana. Samsung’s STAR Labs is likely to announce specifics at CES 2020 that will begin from January 7.
Huawei Unveils Harmony OS, Its New Operating System At HDC 2019
Huawei has announced its operating system, Harmony OS, at an event in China.The reveal of Harmony OS comes months after the Chinese tech company was placed on a US trade blacklist that barred American firms from selling tech and software to Huawei unless they get a license to do so. That ban has prevented companies like Google from supplying new Huawei devices with its version of Android OS.
The new Huawei operating system will support a wide variety of devices, include smartphones, tablets, computers, smartwatches, smart TVs, smart speakers, in-vehicle systems, etc. The company says Harmony OS is “a deterministic latency engine that gives a smooth interactive experience. Harmony OS will be open source, with developers allowed to create apps for it using the ARK Compiler. Harmony OS is not a replacement for Android, but can be used on smartphones if its access to Android is suspended
Apple offers Bounty of $1 Million To Researchers To Detect Flaws In IPhones
Apple has raised the stakes for bug bounty hunters, aka white-hat hackers, who can find flaws in iPhones and Macs. Apple is said to be offering anything between $100,000 to $1,000,000 which is the largest bug bounty that’s being offered currently by any tech company. The announcement by Apple came at an event at Las Vegas on Black Hat security.
Apple says that the top prize of $1 mn will only be awarded to those who can find the vulnerability of the kernel with zero clicks required by the owner of the iPhone i.e. finding a hack where the hacker takes complete control of an iPhone without any user interaction.
Cisco Partners With Google To Offer Users Free High Speed WiFi In India
Cisco said it is collaborating with Google for its ‘gStation’ offering that provides access to free and high-speed WiFi at public locations across the country. The first pilot under the partnership has been rolled out at 35 locations in Bengaluru adding that it will work with Google’s “Station Platform” to provide communities around the country access to high-speed public Wi-Fi.
The project is being rolled out in partnership with D-VoiS – an Internet service provider in Bengaluru. The next locations being looked at include outskirts of Delhi, and few cities in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
Apple Designer Jony Ive Is Quitting To Start His Own Independent Design Firm
Apple’s chief design officer Jony Ive is leaving the company after nearly 30 years. Ive, who joined Apple in 1992, was responsible for designing some of Apple’s most iconic products, including the iMac, iPod, and iPhone.
Ive announced its plans to leave Apple. In a statement released by Apple, the company stated that Ive is leaving “to form an independent design company”. The new firm will be called “LoveFrom” that will start operations in 2020 Apple said it would be among its first clients. Apple stock drops 1% on the news.
Tech Mahindra Launches AI-Powered Humanoid K2
Tech Mahindra introduced K2, the first Human Resource (HR) Humanoid for its Noida Special Economic Zone campus in Uttar Pradesh. K2 will take over the routine HR transactions to provide constant assistance to the HR team in creating an enhanced employee experience.
K2 leverages state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence technology and initiates conversation without any need for wake-up commands. Keeping in mind the needs of people with disabilities, K2 can respond to queries with text display along with speech. K2 can address general and specific HR-related employee queries, as well as handle personal requests for actions like providing payslip, tax forms etc., and will enable the HR team to focus on other important areas for employee development.
Adobe Develops AI Tool To Identify Photoshopped Images of Faces
Adobe, along with researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, have trained Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect facial manipulation in images edited using the Photoshop software.
A team of researchers used deep learning to train A.I. to recognize images of faces that had been altered. It was trained by showing pairs of images, one original and one altered, so the system could learn the telltale signs of manipulation. By the end of the training, the tool was able to identify manipulated images up to 99% of the time, as compared to the 53% identification rate of humans.
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