Flappy Bird May Soar Again

The mobile game Flappy Bird seemed dead and buried, but a tweet from its creator suggests it may yet rise from the ashes -- perhaps not quite like the phoenix.

In response to a Twitter user asking whether the game would return to Apple's iTunes App Store, Dong Nguyen responded, "Yes. But not soon."

Independent Vietnamese developer Nguyen released the game last May after creating it over the space of just a few evenings. It suddenly surged in popularity at the beginning of this year, soaring to the top of both the App Store and Google Play, with many gamers becoming fans of its quirky graphics and simple yet difficult-to-master game play.

Nguyen was making as much as US$50,000 in ad revenue from the game every day, he claimed.

Negative Impact

However, in February, Nguyen removed the game from both marketplaces.

He was tired of being besieged by press in his homeland and was concerned that the game was having a negative impact on people's lives, Nguyen said in an interview with Rolling Stone. He mentioned that he had received emails from people who had lost their jobs and had heard of a mother who no longer talked with her children because of their addiction to his game.

If he ever should reinstate the game,Nguyen said, it would come with a warning to players to take a break once in a while. It is not clear why he has decided to release the game once more.

Nguyen did not offer a timeline on when Flappy Bird would return, other than to respond to a Twitter user by suggesting he would release the game again when it is ready.

The re-release will not be the original Flappy Bird, but a "better" version, he said, adding that he is also working on some other games.

Flood of Clones

During Flappy Bird's hiatus from the app marketplaces, dozens of games that clone its mechanics and visual style have been launched on the App Store and Google Play. At one point, a new clone reportedly was launched on the App Store every 24 minutes. Some replace the bird controlled by the player with popular culture icons such as Miley Cyrus and Sesame Street character Bert.

Despite the flood of competition from the clones, there's every chance that Nguyen's title will recreate the hysteria it caused before he pulled it.

Even if the popularity does not quite reach the same level as before, it could reach "certainly something close to it," Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends, told TechNewsWorld. "It became a cause célèbre when the developer pulled the game."

'Marketplace Hunger'

"It spawned all of these other clones," Schreiner added. "They all seem to be doing well, so there does seem to be a hunger in the marketplace for something like this. I do think that if it came back on the market, there would be people that would right away get it for fear that it would disappear again."

Speculation has been rife that Nguyen's decision could have been a marketing scheme to drive interest in Flappy Bird.

"That could very easily have been a ploy because he increased the scarcity and the supply went down, and demand -- because now that it's got notoriety and it's got press -- is going to go up, marketing expert Lon Safko told TechNewsWorld. "When he opens up the floodgates again, he's going to get another rush, and that's going to drive pay-per-click revenue through the roof." 

Why do cellphones explode and how to prevent it

Mobile phones may be treated like playthings these days. However, these flashy gadgets can prove dangerous if not handled with care. Several instances have been reported about the phones blasting off suddenly, the latest victim of which was a 14-year-old child of daily wage workers from Seoni. The blast was so bad that the boy narrowly escaped death and ended up with severe disfigurement to his jaw, nose, mouth and face. TOI tells you the do's and don'ts of handling mobile phones.

What are the things to be kept in mind while buying mobile phones?

Buy a branded phone as far as possible. Ensure that the phone has a proper IMEI number, which is a code that identifies each phone. Check that the number on the phone corresponds to that on the box and receipts.

It is considered wise to check the accessories such as earphones, battery and charger. Make sure the battery description such as voltage value matches with that of the charger to avoid overcharging which sometimes lead to explosion of handset.

How and why do mobile phone blasts happen?

The most common reasons for a cell phone to explode are using it while the phone is being charged and 'call bombing'. Charging puts pressure on the motherboard of the phone, using it during charging increases this pressure manifold. This causes the cheap electronic components in some mobiles to explode. Call bombing refers to calls or missed calls received from international numbers. If one receives or calls these numbers back and the call exceeds a certain amount of time, the phone will blast. There is also a malware, or bug, found in some Android-based smartphones, that can also cause explosion by exerting extra pressure on the motherboard during charging.

What care should be taken to ensure not much pressure is put on the phone?

Avoid using the phone while the battery is being charged. If you wish to receive a call during this time, disconnect the phone from charger before connecting the call. Ensure it is not over-charged by removing the electric supply when the battery is fully charged. If your battery seems to have swollen, replace it immediately.

Why is it dangerous to buy cheap phones?

Most cheap models, like those of Chinese make, use hardware and components that are not branded and often substandard. The quality of vital accessories such as battery and earphones are compromised which can have disastrous outcome. Such components cannot be used continuously for as long as their high-quality substitutes. Their shelf life is also shorter.

Is it more harmful to surf internet or download anything on mobile phones?

Yes, because the anti-virus softwares for mobile phones are not as effective. That is why one should avoid downloading anything from a third party vendor, ie directly from the internet browser. Instead use the in-built store or market application provided by the operating system. Malware, which is software that creates a bug in the operating system of the phone, often gets downloaded with third party tools. The sites that you visit using the phone must start with an https (which means they are encrypted or safe sites).

Avoid using public or unsecured Wi-Fi connections. A hacker could access the mobile device through a port that is not secured. Make sure the Bluetooth connectivity is not switched on in public places as it can be used to send malicious files which corrupt the operating system.

Are there certain precautions that must be practiced while using a mobile phone?

While communicating using your cell phone, try to keep the cell phone away from the body as this would reduce the strength of the electromagnetic field of the radiations. Whenever possible, use the speaker-phone mode or a wireless blue tooth headset. For long conversations, use a landline phone.

Avoid carrying your cell phone on your body at all times. When in pocket, make sure that key pad is positioned toward your body so that the transmitted electromagnetic fields move away from you rather than through you. Do not keep it near your body at night such as under pillow or a bedside table, particularly if pregnant. You can also put it on 'flight' or 'offline' mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions. Avoid using your cell phone when signal is weak or when moving at high speed, such as in car or train.

How to deal with a wet phone?

After removing the phone from water, dismantle it by removing battery, SIM and memory cards and switch it off (only SIM card in case of an iPhone). Dry each component thoroughly (but gently) with a towel until the phone is dry to the touch. Then put all components in a bowl of uncooked rice in a way that all components are totally covered. If you have any silica packets (the ones that come with products like new shoes), put them in to the bowl too. Leave it there for 12-24 hours.

Never use a hair dryer to try to dry the phone quicker. Drying it with a heated hair dryer can cause important parts to melt, while forcing water further into the phone. Drying it will a cold hair dryer will just force water deeper into the phone.

Why you shouldn't hold your mobile in your mouth?

Using mobile phones too close to your mouth regularly or holding cell phone in your mouth frequently could lead to malignant salivary gland cancer and tumors in mouth. Regular cell phone users who speak with the phone held too close to the mouth face the problems of sleep disturbance, migraine and headache.

Google didn’t let Motorola build ‘True’ Google phone

Google reportedly prevented Motorola from building a phone that integrated tightly with Google's other services. 

While Motorola was keen on working with Google's natural language processing group to improve voice-command recognition in the Moto X smartphone, Google was not very supportive of the company's ambitions. 

According to a news story in The Information, the company also approached Google's YouTube and Google+ teams to build tight integration with those services into the Moto X, again to no avail. 

Also, Google played very little role in Samsung-Motorola patent battle. Google CEO Larry Page too reportedly did little to help Motorola in its battle against Korean giant. 

Google management is believed to have ignored Motorola executives plea for a bigger marketing budget to compete with Samsung.

Europe to have a single charger for all mobile phones

Europe is all set to amend its radio equipment laws to develop a common charger for all mobile phones in the continent.

Members of the European Parliament (MEP) voted unanimously for the changing of the laws calling for a single charger to be developed for all mobile phones sold in the EU to reduce waste, costs and hassle for users.

The new draft law has already been informally agreed with the council of ministers.

"The modernised Radio Equipment Directive is an efficient tool to prevent interference between different radio equipment devices. I am especially pleased that we agreed on the introduction of a common charger. This serves the interests both of consumers and the environment. It will put an end to charger clutter and 51,000 tonnes of electronic waste annually," said rapporteur Barbara Weiler.

The draft directive lays down harmonised rules for placing radio equipment, including cellular telephones, car-door openers and modems, on the market.

The draft law was approved by 550 votes to 12, with 8 abstentions. It will still have to be formally approved by the Council.

Member states will have two years to transpose the rules into their national laws and manufacturers will have an additional year to comply.

The rules aim to keep pace with the growing number and variety of radio equipment devices and ensure that they do not interfere with each other while respecting essential health and safety requirements.

MEPs called for a renewed effort to develop a common charger for certain categories of radio equipment, in particular mobile phones, because it would simplify their use and would reduce unnecessary waste and costs.

They amended the draft law to stipulate that the ability to work with common chargers will be an essential requirement for radio equipment.

Candy Crush creator King Digital expects $7.6 billion IPO valuation

King Digital Entertainment Plc, the maker of hit mobile phone game Candy Crush Saga, expects to be worth up to $7.6 billion when it goes public this month as the Irish company looks to take advantage of strong demand for technology investments.

The successful IPO of Twitter Inc in November and a surge in Facebook Inc's share price have fueled speculation that a string of technology firms could come to market, including music-sharing service Spotify, lodging service AirBnB and payments company Square.

King should also get a boost in its U.S. initial public offering from a surge in shares of digital coupon company Coupons.com Inc after it went public on Friday. Shares of Coupons.com doubled after being priced above the company's planned IPO range.

King Digital said it expected to price its IPO of 22.2 million shares at between $21 and $24 per share. At the top of this range, the company would be valued at about $7.6 billion.

The offering is scheduled to be priced on March 25 and the stock will start trading on March 26, two underwriters told Reuters.

The Dublin-based company will sell 15.5 million shares in the offering, while stockholders, including Apax Ventures, will sell 6.7 million shares, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday.

King is hoping to benefit from a shift towards mobile platforms, social networks and app stores. The company derived 73 percent of gross bookings from mobile users in the fourth quarter ended December 31.

In February, an average of 144 million daily active users played the company's games more than 1.4 billion times per day, the filing showed.

The King IPO will raise as much as $532.8 million at the top-end of the planned range. It filed for a $500 million placeholder in February.

Entities related to Apax will own 44.2 percent of the company following the offering, according to the IPO filing. CEO Riccardo Zacconi, who has led the company since it was founded in 2003 in Sweden, will have a 9.5 percent stake.

Candy Crush Saga, which involves moving candies to make a line of three in the same color, was the most downloaded free app of 2013 and the year's top revenue-grossing app.

It has been downloaded more than 500 million times since its launch in 2012. The basic games are free, but players must pay for add-ons or extra lives.

King offers 180 games in 14 languages through mobile phones, Facebook and its own website, but is heavily reliant on Candy Crush, which brings in about three-quarters of its revenues.

The company said it has applied to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "KING".

Internet can help the youth realise their dreams: CII's Gopalakrishnan

Advising the country's youth to develop entrepreneurial skills, industry body CII's President Kris Gopalakrishnan on Friday said Internet and technology can help them realise their dreams.

"Technology today has opened several avenues, something we did not have when we started. Internet can play a crucial role in helping the youth in India realise their dreams," he said at the 10th Young Indians National Summit in New Delhi.

Giving the example of Infosys, Gopalakrishnan said that when he, along with six others including co-founder N R Narayana Murthy, started the firm in 1981, the total employee strength was seven and the capital was Rs. 10,000. The company took 18 years to reach a turnover of $100 million in 1999.

"But, now things have changed. With the advancement in technology, if you have the will and way to succeed, such things can be achieved in a shorter span," he said.

Internet can act as a great leveraging force and has the capacity to catapult the youth of this country into the global race, Gopalakrishnan, who is also the Executive Vice Chairman of Infosys, added.

Department of Youth Affairs Secretary Rajiv Gupta said the government is also working towards helping the youth in the country realise their potential.

"The government has approved the National Youth Policy (NYP) 2014, replacing NYP 2003. Its vision is to empower youth to achieve their full potential and through them enable India to find its rightful place in the community of nations," he added.

For achieving this vision, NYP identifies five well-defined objectives and 11 priority areas and suggests policy interventions in each such area, Gupta said.

The priority areas are education, skill development and employment, entrepreneurship, health and healthy lifestyle, sports, promotion of social values, community engagement, participation in politics and governance, youth engagement, inclusion and social justice.

"It will cover the entire country catering the needs of all youth in the age-group of 15-29 years, which constitutes 27.5 percent of the population according to Census 2011, that is about 33 crores persons," he said.

Young Indians is a non-government, not-for-profit and industry managed organisation. It was formed in 2002 with an objective of creating a platform for young Indians to realise the dream of a developed nation. Young Indians, a part of CII, has around 1,500 direct members in 32 chapters.

Say goodbye to '123456', as passwords go high-tech at CeBIT 2014

Internet users may before long have a secure solution to the modern plague of passwords, in which they can use visual patterns or even their own body parts to identify themselves.

Developers at the world's biggest high-tech fair, CeBIT, say that one of the biggest frustrations of having a smartphone and a computer is memorising dozens of sufficiently airtight passwords for all their devices and accounts.

"The problem of passwords is that they are very weak, they are always getting hacked, and also from a user point of view, they are too complicated, everybody has 20, 30, 60 passwords," said Steven Hope, managing director of Winfrasoft from Britain, the fair's guest country this year.

"They all have to be different, no one can remember them, so everybody writes them down or resets them every time they log in. They don't work in the real world today."

Passwords have proliferated so much that it's a daily struggle for users to cope with so many of them.

And as millions of Internet users have learned the hard way, no password is safe when hackers can net them en masse from banks, email services, retailers or social media websites that fail to fully protect their servers.

Many simply throw in the towel and use no-brainer codes like "123456" and "password" -- which are still the most common despite how easily they can be cracked, CeBIT spokesman Hartwig von Sass said at the event in the northern German city of Hanover.

In response to the vulnerabilities and hassles of the antiquated username-and-password formula, Winfrasoft has developed an alternative based on a four-colour grid with numbers inside that resembles a Sudoku puzzle.

Users select a pattern on the grid as their "password" and because the numbers inside the boxes change once per minute, the code changes too, making it far harder to hack.

"There is no way anybody could see which numbers you are looking at. You see typing numbers but you don't know what the pattern is because each number is here six times," Hope said during a demonstration.

Backup from body parts

Biometric data offers another alternative to seas of numbers, letters and symbols.

US giant Apple has already equipped its latest generation iPhone with a fingerprint reader to boost its security profile.

But a group of European hackers, the Hamburg-based Chaos Computer Club, demonstrated that the system could be pirated using a sophisticated "fake" fingerprint made of latex.

Japan's Fujitsu turned to the other end of the hand and has developed an identification system based on each person's unique vein pattern.

At its CeBIT stand, the company was showing off its PalmSecure technology on its new ultra-light laptop computer which has a small sensor built in.

Meanwhile Swiss firm KeyLemon has developed a face recognition system using a webcam.

The computer registers parts of the face, "the eyes, the eyebrows, the shape of your nose, your cheekbones, the chin..." a company spokesman said.

The person must then only sit in front of the screen to be recognised and gain access to the computer.

The system, already used by some three million people according to the company, still has a few kinks however so users must remember to take off their eyeglasses, for example, or have consistent lighting in order to pass the identity test.

"Face recognition and fingerprint recognition are additional safety security features, they will never have only face recognition or fingerprint recognition" but rather use them as a crucial backup to passwords, he said.

Genpact to cut verticals, focus on new ones

Genpact, one of the biggest back-office outsourcing names in India, will more than halve the number of verticals it will focus on, in an effort to target its growth investments into areas that hold the most promise. 

Of a total of 23 verticals, the company will focus its efforts, including re-allocating sales staff, to nine verticals that account for about 85% of its business, including banking, financial services and manufacturing. The New York-listed $2 billion BPO provider came for some flak after its latest earnings results and outlook disappointed investors, and has offered a $300 million share buy back with its own money and borrowings from existing loan facilities. 

"In our history, we've always spread our investments out, but to go from $2 billion and beyond now, we think it's necessary to concentrate on those investments," chief executive NV Tyagarajan told investors on March 6 in a conference, according to the transcript of the comments seen by ET. Genpact started out as a GE unit in 1997, and spun out into a separate company in 2005 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. 

For years,its GE connection gave it the skills and heft to outgrow other Indian-based, US-listed competition such as WNS and EXL. However, the financial crisis hurt GE's financial business — a major source of Genpact's revenue — and a shift to managing more complicated contracts had the side-effect of cramping revenue growth as the deals took longer to negotiate, Genpact has said. 

As Genpact tried to get its groove back,it hired McKinsey, a management consultancy, to help it map out a new path to growth, Tyagarajan told investors. The McKinsey engagement came shortly after private equity firm Bain Capital bought 30%of the BPO provider in August 2012. In addition to slashing the number of verticals to focus on, Genpact will halve the number of point solutions it offers. 

Point solutions, as their name suggests, are software and back-office applications for specific processes. The company had also cut the number of salespeople focused on the China market, a much-talked about geography under former CEO Pramod Bhasin, ET had reported. 

At the investor meeting, Tyagarajan added : "It allows us to free up resources who are thinking about their little space that would end up contributing maybe $1 million extra over the next couple of years, and 50 people thinking about those little things, trying to win those little battles." 

Sales investments

The company will grow its sales force by a quarter and revamp its compensation model for sales staff, investing $45 million in its sales this year and making further incremental investments, Tyagarajan said. 

"I think refining their sales strategy based on certain core verticals is the right strategy to pursue," as Genpact focusses on winning large contracts, said Rahul Bhangare, an analyst at New York brokerage William Blair. "In the near term it clearly has affected them in terms of those deals not necessarily closing as quickly anticipated and hence not ramping as quickly as anticipated. So that will affect 2014-15," Bhangare added. 

That has led to some analysts, such as Edward Caso at Wells Fargo, a large US bank, to reduce their rating on the stock: While GE's December quarter growth of 10% and earnings per share of $0.25 were slightly above his estimates, the longer-term concerns led Caso to reduce his rating on Genpact to "market perform", which is equivalent to "hold" from "outperform " that is a "buy". 

Caso in a February note to clients, after Genpact's results, said: "CEO introduced investment plan that may not return non-GE revenue to teens growth for three years. GE outlook now for down 5% in 2014 from flat," according to streetinsider.com. Ben Trowbridge, chairman of outsourcing advisory Alsbridge, said in an email, "The challenge for Genpact and all market leaders is to capitalize on proven markets while looking for uncharted ground to create the real growth of tomorrow." 

William Blair's Bhangare added : "Longer-term to really get global client growth to re-accelerate to the mid-teens, it is to win these larger deals and I think it's going to be a wait-and-see if it does end up working."

Samsung's 'failure' made Google feel comfortable selling Motorola

Ever since Samsung became the dominant Android phone company, people have predicted that eventually Samsung would "fork" Android. "It's not a matter of if, just when," one source in the industry told us two years ago. 

Forking Android would be like what Amazon has done with Android. Samsung would rip out all of Google's core apps and replace it with its own set of applications. It would add its own user interface layer making Android look unique to Samsung.
It wasn't just mobile industry sources who were worried about Samsung forking Android. 

Executives at Google talked openly about Samsung gaining too much power over Android, Amir Efrati at The Information reports. He says this was part of the reason Google bought Motorola in a deal valued at $12.5 billion. It wanted leverage over Samsung.
Two years ago, the fear of Samsung forking Android made perfect sense. Samsung was the dominant Android phone company, but it looked like its future was uncertain. Samsung's success wasn't well understood, and people thought it could be dethroned by another Android phone company. 

By creating its own version of Android, Samsung could stand out from the crowded field of Android phone makers. It would totally control its users just like Apple totally controls its iOS users.
For Google, this would have been a disaster. It would effectively lose control of its platform. 

Samsung never did fork Android. It looks increasingly unlikely that it ever will fork Android. 

Samsung may be very talented at quickly manufacturing hardware products, but it is no good at making software and applications (Walt Mossberg called the S4 "weak" and "gimmicky"). Therefore, it would be taking a huge risk by ditching the well-liked, and highly successful, Android platform for a platform of its own.
This is part of the reason Google felt comfortable selling Motorola. It didn't need leverage against Samsung since Samsung failed to put any pressure on Google.

'China's Twitter' Weibo files for $500 million US IPO

Twitter-like messaging service Weibo Corp has filed to raise $500 million via a US initial public offering, as Chinese companies flock to the American market to take advantage of soaring valuations.

The messaging service owned by China's Sina Corp hired Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to manage its US debut, which it said would boost brand recognition and help retain talent.

Its proposed $500 million target is an estimate worked out solely for the purposes of calculating registration fees.

China Risks Another State-Run Search Engine Faceplant

The Chinese government is taking another stab at the domestic search market with a new service called "ChinaSo."

ChinaSo was formed by merging two already-failed search engines: Jike, launched three years ago by state-run newspaper/propaganda pusher The People's Daily; and Panguso, launched by fellow state-run media outlet Xinhua. Neither of those sites is believed to have ever garnered more than a 0.4 percent market share... so, yeah.

People trying to access Jike and Panguso are being rerouted to a beta version of ChinaSo. The home page has multicolored lettering and looks more than a little like Google.

China's search market currently is controlled by Baidu, which boasts a 60 percent share, followed by Qihoo 360 (25 percent).

Early predictions suggest that The People's Daily deputy editor-in-chief will be the search engine's president, and that Xinhua's VP will act as CEO.

Google plans to open first retail store in New York

Google has reportedly planned to open up its first retail store situated near an Apple store in New York City's SoHo neighborhood. 

According to Mashable, Google plans on opening an 8,000-square-foot retail location at 131 Greene St. and speculations are rife that the store could also be across the street from eyewear company Warby Parker, which at one point was rumored to be helping design frames for Google Glass. 

This is reportedly a bold move for Google to open up a store in such a high-profile neighborhood and suggests a greater shift into hardware, including Google Glass and its Chromebook laptops. 

This, however, is not the first time Google is entering into brick-and-mortal retail as the company already has physical Android stores called 'Androidland' in Australia, Indonesia and India. 

However, any fix dates for the inaugural of the Google store have yet not been declared by the web giant.

Why BlackBerry QNX is important for Apple

 BlackBerry might be sinking in its smartphone business and market shares, however, the company's QNX platform is crucial to other tech giants who intend to venture into the auto-industry. 

Smartphone giants, Google and Apple, whose next aim is the auto industry for bringing their entertainment and utility technologies to car dashboards need BlackBerry's QNX platform, which serves as a middleware layer for in-car infotainment. 

According to Cnet, Apple's CarPlay has to ride on top of BlackBerry's QNX platform for in-auto entertainment systems, while it is highly likely that the front end of Google's Android in-vehicle efforts would also have a QNX play. 

BlackBerry CEO John Chen had appropriately called the QNX one of the crown jewels of the company, adding that they intend to invest in this and go vertical as they are doing well in automotive. 

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek pointed the presence of QNX software powering Apple's CarPlay in-car infotainment system that allows iPhone users to make calls, access maps, message, and listen to music. 

The report said that if QNX is able to deliver value-added services, customize the experience, and further cultivate the role in other verticals such as appliances, where Android wants to venture, and medical devices, then the platform would play a key role and might be the most valuable thing at BlackBerry.

India named among nations following worst cyberspying methods

PARIS: Shady agencies at the service of democratically elected governments are among the worst online spies in the world, media watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF, Reporters Without Borders) said on Wednesday, putting them on the same level as offenders in Iran, China and Saudi Arabia.

In the latest installment of the "Enemies of the Internet" report, wholesale spying by " free world" services - much of it exposed by US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden - is offered no distinction from the unabashed surveillance carried out by the world's worst dictatorships.

To RSF, agencies such as the US National Security Agency, Britain's GCHQ and the Centre for Development Telematics in India embrace the worst methods of snooping in the name of governments that purportedly hold freedom of speech as a national priority.

They have "hacked into the very heart of the internet" and turned a collective resource "into a weapon in the service of special interests" that flout the "freedom of information, freedom of expression and the right to privacy."

"The NSA and GCHQ have spied on the communications of millions of citizens including many journalists," the report by RSF said.

The methods used, many of which NSA contractor Snowden revealed to the world last year before going into hiding in Russia, "are all the more intolerable" because they are then used by authoritarian countries such as Iran, China, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia, the report said.

Also singled out by RSF are private companies that provide their most up-to-date powers of snooping at trade fairs that have become giant spying bazaars selling the best that technology can offer.

It is at these shows hosted regularly around the world that profit-driven spyware firms link up with government agents or nervous multinationals that are in search of the newest ways to observe and control the internet.

RSF argued that the censorship carried out by the Enemies of the Internet "would not be possible without the tools developed by the private sector companies to be found at these trade fairs."

With these tools, spies can track journalists anywhere in the world, RSF said.

Governments keen to impose censorship also help one another. Iran has asked China to help it develop a local version of the electronic Great Wall that cuts off billions of Chinese from the internet as seen by the rest of the world. China is active in Africa and central Asia too.

To stop this proliferation of snooping, RSF said a whole new legal framework to govern surveillance was "essential" with states needing to embrace transparency regarding the methods being used.

The fight for human rights, it warned, "had spread to the internet."

Nucleus Software shuts down Singapore subsidiary

IT services firm Nucleus Software Exports has shut down its step-down subsidiary in Singapore as part of its "rationalisation" efforts.

"In order to rationalise operations, the company has closed down its step down subsidiary - VirStra i-Technology (Singapore) Pte Ltd - with effect from February 19, 2014," Nucleus said in a statement. The name of the subsidiary has been struck off and published in the final gazette notification issued by Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, Singapore, it added.

VirStra i-Technology Services was incorporated in May 2004 in India. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Nucleus, the company provides offshore and onsite software support services to other group companies.

Its net profit was up by 16.7% to Rs 3.84 crore, while revenues grew 23.4% to Rs 20.84 crore for the year ended March 2013 compared to the previous fiscal.

Last month, Nucleus Software it has set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Nucleus Software Australia Pty Ltd, with a view to tap the business potential in Australia.

Apple dominates 64-bit chip devices as Android rivals wait

 Apple is reportedly enjoying its temporary monopoly over 64-bit mobile chip devices as its Android rivals wait for a 64-bit version of the Android OS, ABI Research revealed. 

While the first 64-bit version of the Android OS is expected to be released in the second half of the year, it is believed that the new version will enhance the adoption of 64-bit-compliant handsets and tablets. 

According to PC World, about 182 million 64-bit mobile processors will ship by the end of this year, though only 20% will go into Android devices, with Apple's A7 chip in the iPhone 5s and iPad tablets retaining a dominant market share.

However, Apple's market share in 64-bit mobile chips will reportedly take a back seat with the release of many more Android 64-bit mobile devices in the coming years.

US scientists build thinnest-known LEDs

Scientists have built the thinnest-known LEDs that are 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair and can be used as a source of light energy in electronics.

Most modern electronics, from flat-screen TVs and smartphones to wearable technologies and computer monitors, use tiny light-emitting diodes, or LEDs.

These LEDs are based off of semiconductors that emit light with the movement of electrons. As devices get smaller and faster, there is more demand for such semiconductors that are tinier, stronger and more energy efficient.

The LED developed by the University of  Washington is based off of two-dimensional, flexible semiconductors, making it possible to stack or use in much smaller and more diverse applications than current technology allows.

"We are able to make the thinnest-possible LEDs, only three atoms thick yet mechanically strong. Such thin and foldable LEDs are critical for future portable and integrated electronic devices," said Xiaodong Xu, a UW assistant professor in materials science and engineering and in physics.

Most consumer electronics use three-dimensional LEDs, but these are 10 to 20 times thicker than the LEDs being developed by the UW.

"These are 10,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair, yet the light they emit can be seen by standard measurement equipment," said Jason Ross, a UW materials science and engineering graduate student.

"This is a huge leap of miniaturisation of technology, and because it's a semiconductor, you can do almost everything with it that is possible with existing, three-dimensional silicon technologies," Ross said.

The UW's LED is made from flat sheets of the molecular semiconductor known as tungsten diselenide, a member of a group of two-dimensional materials that have been recently identified as the thinnest-known semiconductors.

Researchers use regular adhesive tape to extract a single sheet of this material from thick, layered pieces in a method inspired by the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to the University of  Manchester for isolating one-atom-thick flakes of carbon, called graphene, from a piece of graphite.

In addition to light-emitting applications, this technology could open doors for using light as interconnects to run nano-scale computer chips instead of standard devices that operate off the movement of electrons, or electricity.

The latter process creates a lot of heat and wastes power, whereas sending light through a chip to achieve the same purpose would be highly efficient, researchers said.

The details of the study are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

World Wide Web turns 25 years old

Twenty-five years ago, the World Wide Web was just an idea in a technical paper from an obscure, young computer scientist at a European physics lab.

That idea from Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN lab in Switzerland, outlining a way to easily access files on linked computers, paved the way for a global phenomenon that has touched the lives of billions of people.

He presented the paper on March 12, 1989, which history has marked as the birthday of the Web.

But the idea was so bold, it almost didn't happen.

"There was a tremendous amount of hubris in the project at the beginning," said Marc Weber, creator and curator of the Internet history program at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

"Tim Berners-Lee proposed it out of the blue, unrequested."

At first, said Weber, the CERN colleagues "completely ignored the proposal."

Web had rivals

The US military began studying the idea of connected computer networks in the 1950s, and in 1969 launched Arpanet, the forerunner to the Internet. But the World Wide Web was just one of several ideas to connect the public.

Berners-Lee convinced CERN to adopt his system, demonstrating its usefulness by compiling a lab phone book into an online index.

A key aspect of the design put forward by Berners-Lee was that it worked across various computer operating systems. And it offered the ability to click on links to access files hosted on computers located elsewhere.

The Web was not a winner out of the gate. There were rival online services such as US-based CompuServe and France's Minitel but they involved fees, while Berners-Lee's system was free.

"It started as a real underdog; no one would have predicted the system would have succeeded," Weber said.

The Gopher system owned by the University of Minnesota was beating the Web in the early 1990s.

Weber credited former US vice president Al Gore with helping the Web topple Gopher by getting government agencies in Washington to use the system.

The launch of the Whitehouse.gov website was seen as a huge stamp of approval for the Web.

In 1993, the Web system was released free into the public, while those behind Gopher started charging, according to Weber.

"Most people don't realize that both the Web and the Internet had competitors," Weber said.

"Had they lost the battles, we would still be going online, but it could certainly be different, a lot more top-down control like the walled garden at Facebook."

Web competitors were online environments controlled by operators.

Under the Berners-Lee model, people were free to publish what they wished on Internet-linked computers.

Internet titans such as Google and Yahoo were built on helping people find pages of interest as the amount of information being hosted on servers exploded

Disrupting industries

"At its birth, many of us were guilty of a lack of imagination and just didn't see what the Web would do to the future," Gartner analyst Michael McGuire told AFP.

"The personal computer changed the way we work, but is was the Web that disrupted and changed a lot of industries."

The ability to freely access files on the Web has shaken traditional business models in music, film, news and more.

"The Internet pushes power to the edges," said Jim Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the US-based Center for Democracy & Technology.

"Anybody can be a listener and anybody can be a publisher on the same network; there has never been anything like it."

A powerful underlying tenet of the Web is that it is egalitarian and open, but those principles are under threat, according to Dempsey.

It remains to be seen whether the Web is hobbled with regulations and fragmented by governments walling off portions in countries.

Freedom threatened

"You will never stop the teenage kid from watching little snippets of cute cats," Dempsey said.

"The trouble is you could limit the ability of people to criticize the government or make a tiered Internet in which it is harder for innovators, critics, or human rights activists to reach a global audience."

Threats to a Web based on equality concern its creators, according to Weber.

While the Web unified the Internet decades ago, there is nothing "written in stone" saying it can't fragment anew, the historian reasoned.

In the US, major Internet service providers have won the right to give some online traffic preferential treatment, and governments have shown willingness to invade online privacy or restrain Web freedom.

A big battle for the shape of the Web could be the effect of billions more people getting online with smartphones in parts of developing parts of the world.

"The Web is really only half built; it is not worldwide yet," Weber said.

Microsoft leaks Windows 8.1 Update

Microsoft reportedly leaked its yet-to-be-unveiled Windows 8.1 

Update 1 OS, much before its scheduled launch. The software 

maker’s Windows Update service apparently released links to the 

update, which enabled the new desktop-features after installation.

According to The Verge, although Microsoft has removed access to 

the downloads from its servers, those who managed to get hands on 

the update, were able to find that most of the changes have been 

designed to appease traditional desktop users.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 is expected to be launched officially on 

April 8, following the company’s Build developer conference in 

early April.

Whatsapp Founders got place In Forbes' Global Billionaires List

According to Forbes, 38-year-old Jan Koum, who ranks 202 in the list, is now worth $6.8 billion and 42-year-old Brian Acton (rank 551) is worth $3 billion.

Run by just 55 employees, WhatsApp has over 450 million active users.

Koum and Acton are among 26 newcomers who made it fresh to the annual list, alongside Twitter's Evan Williams, who has a fortune of $3 billion.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates topped the list with his $76 billion fortune.

Mexican telecommunication magnate Slim Helu came in second with his fortune of $72 billion.

However, according to the Forbes report, it was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who made the most money in the world over the past year.

From 2013's estimate of $15.2 billion to $28.5 billion this year, Zuckerberg's net worth nearly doubled within one year.

This year's annual rich list has the largest number of female billionaires ever, said Forbes.

BlackBerry’s new flagship on the way.

If you were planning to cash in on the price cut and buy BlackBerry Z10 then you might have to wait a week or so to get your phone, for the smartphone has almost vanished from stores across India.

Now, available for a limited period offer price of Rs 17,990, the phone is sold out at most online as well as brick and mortar dealers. We could not find the phone is stock with most top NCR dealers. Some of them said new stock should be in by March 10.

When contacted, Sameer Bhatia, Director, Distribution, BlackBerry India, confirmed to indianexpress.com that the phone had indeed been “stocked out”. “We have seen great response to the commemorative offer for BlackBerry Z10 and it is true that we have been stocked out.

However, despite the huge price cut, marking BlackBerry’s tenth anniversary in India, online portals like Flipkart still have units selling for as high as Rs 22,990. Bhatia said this was because in the market place model any seller could list any product at their own price. “On Flipkart, authorized BlackBerry product is sold via WS Retail. At present, WS Retail is stocked out.”

In Indian Market Samsung still No 1

Apple is now India’s third largest tablet vendor and closing in on No 2 Micromax which now has a 8.9% market share. However, Apple’s 7.5% market share,  gained with help from its popular Apple Mini tablet, pales in comparison with market leader Samsung’s 18.7%, says IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker data for CY 2013.

According to IDC, India’s overall tablet shipments for CY 2013 stood at 4.14 million units representing a year-on-year growth of 56.4% over CY 2012. However, the high growth in the first half of 2013 driven by low-end devices, contracted substantially in the second half with adoption reaching levels of maturity.

In India, there is more acceptance for the 8 to 9 inch segment.

“The popularity of phablets has in fact crossed over the demand for 7 inch tablets. For a price conscious market like India, it is about owning a combination device, meeting the needs with one device instead of two. Also, the return rates on low cost 7 inch tablets have been unexplainably large. First time users latching onto such devices are now looking to move to products that offer better experience in terms of life span and quality” said, Karan Thakkar, Senior Market Analyst with IDC.

IDC anticipates the overall tablet market to remain flat in CY 2014. “The government mandate on BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) Certification mixed with the growing popularity of phablets is likely to obstruct the growth in the tablet category”, said Kiran Kumar, Research Manager with IDC.

However, there has been an uptake in the adoption of tablets amongst commercial users. These are primarily meeting relevant needs in industries such as financial services, healthcare, media and education, amongst others. “Activities such as interactive digital presentations, collecting KYC (Know your Customer) documents, and point-of-sale transactions are typical use cases”, added Karan Thakkar.

Aishwarya, Vidya Balan, Kiran Bedi among most searched on Google

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai has topped the list of 20 most searched successful Indian women on Google followed by Vidya Balan and  UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. 

Former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi also features among the top ten, revealed a Google search trend result Friday. 

The list was revealed after a two-month analysis between Jan-Feb 2014. 

"On the occasion of Women's Day, Google search trends reveal who are the most searched 20 successful Indian women. Kiran Bedi is still among the top 10 most searched  Indian women,"  

"Two sportswomen (Saina Nehwal and boxer MC Mary Kom), two authors (Arundhati Roy and Shobhaa De) and four politicians (J. Jayalalithaa, Gandhi, Trinamool  Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj), also made it to the top 20," the statement added. 

The other names include Nita Ambani, designer Ritu Kumar, actress Shabana Azmi, designer Neeta Lulla, filmmaker Meera Nair,  producer Ekta Kapoor, PepsiCo chief Indra Nooyi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple Yadav.

Google promises fix for battery bug on Nexus 5

Facing unexplained battery drain on Nexus 5? You are not alone. Many Nexus 5 users have complained on Google support forums that they are facing unexplained battery drain when they use apps related to camera.

The problem is that when a camera app like the one that allows users to click pictures or Skype is used, it continues to run in the background and uses CPU cycles. This not only leads to the battery drain but the phone also heats up.

"It started yesterday. Phone was hot and the battery drained from 80c/o to 20% in one hour in my pocket. There was no particular installation or update. It seems it came from nowhere," a user wrote in the Google support forum.

A Google executive later confirmed the bug. The executive said that it was related to the Qualcomm chip which is used for camera functions in the phone. He promised the company will fix it with the next software update.

"We've had scattered reports of persistent high CPU usage of mm-qcamera-daemon since our last maintenance update, and based on those, found a number of bugs that were then fixed," the Google executive wrote.

"More recently, there's been a significant increase in the frequency of reported problems. These may be related to a recent update to Skype, which seems to access the camera regularly from its background service in some way that triggers this bug (note, we don't currently believe there's a bug in Skype itself). Investigating this, we've identified a few additional fixes that we hope resolve this issue for good. However, since the high CPU usage is an intermittent problem, we're continuing to test our fixes to verify the problems are gone."

The executive also suggested that for now if a nexus 5 user is facing the battery drain problem due to a camera app, the best solution is to reboot the phone.

However, the good news for the Nexus 5 users is that the battery-eating bug is triggered by only some apps, and that too not always. Though if you are Nexus 5 users and have Skype or Snapchat installed, you should keep an eye on the battery drain in your phone.

"Uninstalling Skype may substantially reduce the likelihood of this bug appearing, but I realize Skype is a very important application for many people. Other camera-using applications may trigger this bug as well, but that's been relatively rare. Most applications also do not access the camera when not in the foreground, so they will only trigger issues when actively used," wrote the Google executive.

Tablet sales growth to slow globally in 2014: IDC

SAN FRANCISCO: Tablet shipments will increase this year but at a much slower pace than in 2013 as consumers remain content with the devices they already own, market research firm IDC said.

Global tablet shipments are set to expand 19.%4 this year, compared to 51.6% in 2013, it said.

IDC's prediction for tablet growth in 2014 is 3.6 percentage points less than its previous forecast for the year.

Consumers in mature markets such as the United States are increasingly holding onto the high-end tablets they previously bought, IDC said.

"Few are feeling compelled to upgrade the same way they did in years past, and that's having an impact on growth rates," IDC analyst Tom Mainelli said in a report.

Since Apple dazzled consumers with its first iPad in 2010, manufacturers have increasingly focused on making fewer expensive tablets.

But a decline in the average selling prices for tablets of all price levels appeared to be bottoming out as consumers move from "ultra-low cost" products toward devices that last longer, IDC said.

Average selling prices are expected decline 3.6% this year, compared to a 14.6% drop in 2013, IDC said.