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Google 'Home' and 'Home Mini' in India, to get Hindi support soon
New Delhi, April 10 (IANS Taking on Amazon 's Alexa-powered smart speakers, Google on Tuesday brought its voice-activated speakers "Home" and "Home Mini" to India that can help people with their commute, play favourite songs and videos, plan daily schedule and lots more.
Google brings 'Home' to India
Tech giant Google has launched its voice-activated speakers 'Home' in the Indian market as it looks to take on rival's devices like Amazon Echo. The Google Assistant-powered 'Home' and 'Home Mini' will be priced at Rs 9,999, and Rs 4,499, respectively. It will be available online exclusively on Flipkart, and in over 750 retail stores including Reliance Digital, Croma and Vijay Sales, among others. "These products have been customised to match the needs of the Indian consumer. It understands Indian accents, and will respond to users with uniquely Indian contexts," Google VP of Product Management and General Manager of Home Products Rishi Chandra told reporters here. He added that Google has partnered firms like Saavn, Gaana, India Today and Aaj Tak, among others to stream content through the speakers. Chandra said the company is looking at bringing in support for Hindi language to 'Home' soon. Google had launched its 'Assistant' in India last year, which is now available across ...
Gecko-inspired adhesives help soft robotic fingers get better grip
Scientists have developed a robotic gripper that combines the adhesive properties of gecko toes and the adaptability of air-powered soft robots to grasp a wide variety of objects. The gripper can lift up to 20 kilogrammes of weight and could be used to grasp objects in a wide range of settings, from factory floors to the International Space Station (ISS), according to researchers at the University of California San Diego in the US. Geckos are known as nature's best climbers because of a sophisticated gripping mechanism on their toes. In previous work, researchers at Stanford University and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US recreated that mechanism with a synthetic material called a gecko-inspired adhesive. This material was used primarily on flat surfaces like walls. "We realised that these two components, soft robotics and gecko adhesives, complement each other really well," said Paul Glick, a PhD student at UC San Diego. The team coated the fingers of a soft robotic gripper
'Framework should be set up to curb cyber incidents effectively'
An Assocham-PwC joint paper on Tuesday said a framework should be established to effectively curb cyber incidents and reduce the time taken in responding to them.
Vietnam activists accuse Facebook of censoring content
A group of 50 Vietnamese activists and rights organisations have written an open letter to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg suggesting his company may be colluding with communist authorities to scrub out online dissent. Vietnam ranks among Facebook's top 10 users by numbers and the site is hugely popular among dissidents in the one-party state where independent media is banned and blog sites are routinely removed. The letter to the head of the world's largest social media platform was signed by 50 organisations, activists and bloggers who said they have seen an uptick in "account suspensions and content takedown" since last year. Vietnam's government said in April 2017 that Facebook has agreed to remove "bad and malicious" content that violates local laws, including fake news and imposter accounts, but made no explicit mention of anti-regime material. "It would appear that after this high-profile agreement to coordinate with a government that is known for suppressing expression online ..
Indian developers transitioning to cloud-neutral, integrated container native technology
Computer technology MNC Oracle noted that Indian developers are increasingly inclined to open, container native technologies for rapid application development and deployment.The company's latest study noted that as developers understand the need to move fast, build for the cloud, but retain the flexibility to run where the business or workloads require, there is more leaning towards open source based, community driven technology stack to avoid cloud lock-in.With 2018 touted to be a defining year for modern cloud developers, Oracle is hosting its global, flagship 'Oracle Code' developer focused event series in India yet again. Oracle Code enables developers to get a deep, hands-on view into emerging technologies and techniques for modern cloud development.A number of trends have surfaced in the recent past, as per Oracle.As per IDC, a research firm, 90 percent consumers will interact with chatbots by 2025. Embedding AI into apps with chatbots is a key priority for the developer ...
Sorry for not doing enough: Zuckerberg testimony to Congress
Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to the US Congress and taken personal responsibility over the Cambridge Analytica scandal for "not doing enough" to protect Facebook's 87 million users' private data from being misused and manipulated. In a testimony released yesterday on the eve of his first congressional appearance, Zuckerberg accepted responsibility for the social network's failure to protect private data of its users and prevent manipulation of the platform. "We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I'm sorry," Zuckerberg said in his written testimony released by a House of Representatives panel. "I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here." "It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg, 33, who is facing the worst crisis of ...
Google Home, Home Mini launched in India
After months of anticipation, tech giant Google on Tuesday announced the launch of Google Home and Home Mini voice-activated speakers for its Indian audience.As per Rishi Chandra, Vice President of Product Management, Google Home, the device understands Indian accents, and will respond to with uniquely Indian contexts. Furthermore, he noted that Google Assistant will work seamlessly for across all devices.The top surface of the device contains LEDs that provide visual feedback when Google Home recognises the "Hey Google" command. In those moments when voice won't do, the top surface is also a capacitive touch panel, thereby enabling the user to play music or adjust the volume with a single touch.In a blog post, Rishi stated that Google Home was designed with two microphones to enable accurate far-field voice recognition. The microphone system uses a technique called neural beam forming, and has been tested with simulations of noisy environments and applied machine learning to ...
IIT Delhi sets up India's first 5G lab
IIT-Delhi (IIT-D) has set up a radio lab with an array of antennas for "standardisation, research and manufacturing" of 5G equipment, the institute said on Tuesday.
HTTPS.IN is geared up to make websites beat the Google Chrome website security deadline
In July 2018, with the release of the Google Chrome 68 web browser, all websites which begin with httpChrome will not only tell users that HTTP page is insecure, meaning, any information exchanged by them with this webpage, can be viewed in clear text by any intermediary. Any internet intermediary (like a data center admin or even a hacker) who attempts to intercept traffic between a user and a page with https:// prefix sees only encrypted garble text.Google will add a red-for-danger icon to emphasize the point. This can lead to a huge loss of business, goodwill and even have legal implications for a vast number of organizations.HTTPS.IN is India's first online, web security initiative offering website owners a complete range of SSL and Code Signing certificates along with malware scanning and protection. Owned by Adweb Technologies, a pioneer in internet security for over 18 years, the offering covers leading global brands such as Comodo, Digicert, Symantec, Geotrust and Rapid SSL.We
M-tech launches new 4G VoLTE smartphone
Domestic handset-maker M-tech Mobile on Tuesday introduced "Eros Smart," a new 4G VoLTE smartphone with a 360 degree, rotation-capable fingerprint sensor for Rs 4,799.
Indian developers embrace Cloud-native software stacks: Oracle
As Indian enterprises look to embrace Cloud-driven solutions, the thriving developers' community is increasingly preferring open, container native technologies for rapid application development and deployment.
'AI may help search for gravitational waves'
Scientists have used artificial intelligence tools to train an AI 'brain' to search for gravitational wave signals. Gravitational waves, ripples in space-time caused by massive astronomical events, were first hypothesised by Albert Einstein in 1915. It took another century before the Laser Interferometry Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors in the US first picked up the very faint signals from the collision of binary black holes. Researchers at the University of Glasgow in the UK investigated whether deep learning, a form of artificial intelligence, could help make the process of detection of gravitational waves more computationally efficient. They used a process known as supervised deep learning to build an AI capable of correctly picking out gravitational wave signals buried in noise from thousands of simulated datasets which they created. Currently, gravitational wave signals are picked from the background noise of the detectors using a technique known as matched ...
Google appeals Indian antitrust watchdog's 'search bias' verdict - sources
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Online search giant Google has filed an appeal at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against a judgement from India's competition watchdog that found it guilty of "search bias", two sources aware of the matter told Reuters.
Google appeals Indian antitrust watchdog's 'search bias' verdict -sources
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Online search giant Google has filed an appeal at the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against a judgement from India's competition watchdog that found it guilty of "search bias", two sources aware of the matter told Reuters.
Google confirms testing 'more results' for Search
Google is officially testing and refining the "more results" button to load more search results on the same page instead of making searchers click to the next page.
Sorry for not doing enough: Zuckerberg testimony to Congress
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to the US Congress and accepts responsibility over the Cambridge Analytica scandal for "not doing enough" to protect its users' personal data being misused. In a testimony released yesterday on the eve of his first Congressional appearance, Zuckerberg accepts responsibility for the social network's failure to protect private data of its 87 million users and prevent manipulation of the platform. "We didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I'm sorry," Zuckerberg said in his written testimony released by a House of Representatives panel. "I started Facebook, I run it, and I'm responsible for what happens here." "It's clear now that we didn't do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech," Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg, 33, who is facing the worst crisis of business, will testify ...
US Oregon governor signs Net Neutrality law in defiance of federal ban
Governor Kate Brown of Oregon state on the US west Pacific coast said on Monday that she has signed the Net Neutrality bill into law, which bans Internet operators from offering paid prioritisation services to customers.
Facebook CEO apologises for data misuse
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Congress in written testimony on Monday that he is "responsible for" not preventing the social media platform from being used for harm, including fake news, foreign interference in elections and hate speech.
Apple co-founder shuts down Facebook account
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is closing his Facebook account as one of the latest tech leaders who started to distance themselves from the world's largest social media firm following its scandal involving alleged misuse of user data.