Namaste - Indian based alternative to Zoom

Namaste, the new Video Confrencing web app is Introduced as an alternative of popular video confrencing softwares like Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype etc., At present it is available in beta mode. This app can be accessed from a web browser and no need to install any software. Namaste is developed by a Mumbai (india) based software development company called Inscripts. It is expected that Mobile versions will be expected on Android and iOS platforms by next week.

Inscript

Namaste offers users with live calling and chat options. It allows you to invite other users to a conference call using a meeting link and a code. It will allow group video calls with multiple people simultaneously, however, the number of maximum participants has not been revealed yet.. 

Namaste’s mobile app will reportedly let you switch to the rear camera by tapping on the “toggle” option while you are on call. It will also give the option to not use the camera for calls at all and only do an audio call. It also lets you toggle between the screens and check out other meeting participants similar to Zoom. In Namaste, it is not necessary that only the host can invite people to join the meeting, infact, whoever has the meeting details can join it.

The website currently has a note saying that “users may face some temporary connectivity issues with the site as they have been facing tremendous demand, thereby requesting users to check back after some time.

Link: SayNamaste.In/

Tags: Mamaste, Say Namaste, SayNamaste, Video, mobile video calling, web video calling, web video conference, desktop video calling, desktop video conference, video meeting, video calling app, video conference app, zoom, zoom alternative, skype alternative, video calling, video conference, inscripts

Access Instagram Direct Messages from web

Image Sorce: The Verge

Instagram’s making it easier for people to send direct messages from their browser. The company announced on Friday that it’s rolling out access to DMs on the web to everyone globally. Instagram has been testing web DMs with a small group of users since January, and the experience isn’t changing with the wider rollout. 

Since that test started, Instagram has made small updates to more closely mimic DMs on the app, like including the emoji keyboard and adding a gallery view to photos and videos. Web DMs are especially convenient for people who use Instagram all the time, like reporters, influencers, and social media managers. 

It’s the easiest way to communicate privately on the platform, especially if someone is trying to respond to possibly hundreds of messages a day. Even for non-power users, typing on a laptop keyboard is easier than typing on their phone screen, so they might be more incentivized to chat over Instagram DM if they can access their inbox through a browser. 

Bringing DMs to the web fits with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s broader vision for the company’s future. Zuckerberg told The New York Times last spring that “private messaging, groups, and Stories” were the “three fastest-growing areas of online communication,” and the company announced a year ago that it would shift toward becoming a “privacy-focused communications platform” with a focus on encryption. He also said he eventually wants to allow Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram users to message each other, regardless of the platform they’re using. The browser could potentially play an important role in making this system work, if only to give users even more flexibility about where they have conversations.

News Source: The Verge



Tags: Social Media, Instagram, Direct Message, DM, Desktop, Web, App

Google launches new Dataset Search Engine

Google's new search service, called Dataset Search, launches today, and will be a companion of sorts to Google Scholar, the company’s popular search engine for academic studies and reports. Institutions that publish their data online, like universities and governments, will need to include metadata tags in their webpages that describe their data, including who created it, when it was published, how it was collected, and so on. This information will then be indexed by Dataset Search and combined with input from Google’s Knowledge Graph. 

Data Search results for 'india petrol prices'

Natasha Noy, a research scientist at Google AI who helped create Dataset Search, says the aim is to unify the tens of thousands of different repositories for datasets online. “We want to make that data discoverable, but keep it where it is,” says Noy.

At the moment, dataset publication is extremely fragmented. Different scientific domains have their own preferred repositories, as do different governments and local authorities. “Scientists say, ‘I know where I need to go to find my datasets, but that’s not what I always want,’” says Noy. “Once they step out of their unique community, that’s when it gets hard.”

Noy gives the example of a climate scientist she spoke to recently who told her she’d been looking for a specific dataset on ocean temperatures for an upcoming study but couldn’t find it anywhere. She didn’t track it down until she ran into a colleague at a conference who recognized the dataset and told her where it was hosted. Only then could she continue with her work. “And this wasn’t even a particularly boutique depository,” says Noy. “The dataset was well written up in a fairly prominent place, but it was still difficult to find.”

The initial release of Dataset Search will cover the environmental and social sciences, government data, and datasets from news organizations like ProPublica. However, if the service becomes popular, the amount of data it indexes should quickly snowball as institutions and scientists scramble to make their information accessible.

This should be helped by the recent flourishing of open data initiatives around the world. “I do think in the last several years the number of repositories has exploded,” says Noy. She credits this to the increasing importance of data in scientific literature, which means journals ask authors to publish datasets, as well as “government regulations in the US and Europe and the general rise of the open data movement.”

You can try the Google's new data search on this page.

eBOOK: Sams Teach Yourself Android Application Development in 24 Hours

Publisher: Sams, 2010 | ISBN: 0321673352 | 475pages | PDF | 17.2MB

Full Color!

In just 24 sessions of one hour or less, learn how to build powerful applications for the world’s first complete, open, and free mobile platform: Android. Using this book’s straightforward, step-by-step approach, you’ll build a fully-featured Android application from the ground up and master the skills you need to design, develop, test, and publish powerful applications. Each lesson builds on what you’ve already learned, giving you a rock-solid foundation for real-world success!

Step-by-step instructions carefully walk you through the most common Android development tasks.

Quizzes and Exercises at the end of each chapter help you test your knowledge.

By the Way notes present interesting information related to the discussion.

Did You Know? tips offer advice or show you easier ways to perform tasks.

Watch Out! cautions alert you to possible problems and give you advice on how to avoid them.

Learn how to…

* Develop Android applications quickly and successfully with Java
* Master Google’s Android SDK and development tools
* Leverage the Eclipse programming environment to develop Android projects
* Understand the Android application lifecycle
* Build effective, user-friendly user interfaces
* Retrieve, store, and work with application data
* Develop powerful network applications
* Add popular social features and location-based services to your applications
* Take advantage of Android device hardware like the camera
* Internationalize, test, and publish your Android applications

eBook: Learning Android Application Testing

eBook: Learning Android Application Testing (2015) 

Pdf, Epub & Mobi

Publisher: Packt Publishing - ebooks Account (April 30, 2015)
Language: English 

ISBN-10: 1784395331
ISBN-13: 978-1784395339
Improve your Android applications through intensive testing and debugging

About This Book

Focus on Android instrumentation testing to ensure full application coverage
Apply testing techniques and utilize tools to improve Android application development
Build intensively tested and bug free Android applications
Who This Book Is For
If you are an Android developer looking to test your applications or optimize your application development process, then this book is for you. No previous experience in application testing is required.


What You Will Learn

Apply testing techniques and utilize tools to improve Android application development
Get to grips with the nuances of testing on Android, including how to architect an application to facilitate better testing
Explore the Android instrumentation testing framework to optimize your activities, services, content providers, and usage of other Android components
Understand different development methodologies including Test-driven Development and Behavior-driven Development
Apply the continuous integration technique for ultimate application quality control
Improve application performance by analyzing the results returned from performance tests
Expose your application to a wide range of conditions and configurations to simulate real-life network conditions and detect problems in the application
Explore further tools to improve application quality such as micro benchmarks and code coverage


In Detail

This book is a practical introduction to readily available techniques, frameworks, and tools to thoroughly test your Android applications and improve project development.

You will learn the Java testing framework, how to create a test case and debug it. Next, you'll be walked through using the Android SDK to test using the ActivityTestCase and ActivityUnitTest classes as well as discussing popular testing libraries. Through examples you will test files, databases, ContentProviders, exceptions, services, and test your app using Espresso. You will discover how to manage your Android testing environment using Android emulators, deep dive into how adb and the emulator can super charge your testing automation, and also test user interactions with monkeyrunner. You will be guided through different testing methodologies including Test-driven Development and Behavior-driven Development and will learn how to perform Unit and Functional testing applying them to your Android projects. You will also use continuous integration techniques for ultimate application quality control using Gradle and Jenkins.

By the end of the book, you'll be looking through alternative testing tactics including Fest and Spoon to build upon and expand your Android testing range and finesse.

Government of India's Free Botnet Anti Virus Tool

             

 The " Cyber Swachhta Kendra " (Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre) is a part of the Government of India's Digital India initiative under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to create a secure cyber space by detecting botnet infections in India and to notify, enable cleaning and securing systems of end users so as to prevent further infections.

              The " Cyber Swachhta Kendra " is a set up in accordance with the objectives of the "National Cyber Security Policy", which envisages creating a secure cyber eco system in the country. This centre operates in close coordination and collaboration with Internet Service Providers and Product/Antivirus companies. This centre is being operated by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).

What is BotNet? 

What would happen if my computer infected with BotNet?

If your computer / system / device is probably infected with malware called 'Bot' and could become a part of a botnet. If your computer / system / device is part of a botnet, the following could happen:

• Information on your computer / system / device could be stolen
• Your computer / system / device may be used to send out spam
• Your computer / system / device could be used for launching attacks on other computer / system / device

If you would like to remove the malware, kindly read and follow the advice on this page.

What should I do?

To remove the malware, you need to scan your computer / system / device with the tools recommend below and take steps to improve the security of your computer / system / device.

We encourage you to visit the following page from the antivirus company Quick Heal who is providing free bot removal tools for this initiative. 

Download Free Bot Removal Tool

 

Indus OS Indias Regional language mobile OS

Indus OS - a mobile phone operating system built in India - has become the country's second-most popular smartphone platform, surpassing Apple's iOS.

Google's Android rules the roost by powering nine out of 10 smartphones sold in India. But other major international players have struggled to expand their base.

India is the world's second fastest growing market for smartphones behind China. Smartphone sales are expected to exceed 100 million in 2016.

But, for a country where more than 80% of the population does not understand English, reaching out to new consumers in small towns and villages can be a challenge for smartphone manufacturers. 

And Mumbai-based Indus OS has been quietly making rapid inroads by plugging that gap.

'India-specific'

Its biggest selling point is that it is available in 12 Indian languages, which covers 90% of India's population.

Now, it's not exactly a new operating system built from scratch, but the developers have tweaked the Android platform to meet the unique demands and culture of India. 

Rakesh Deshmukh, co-founder and chief executive of Indus OS, tells,
"We wanted to create a product specifically for the Indian consumer,"

According to Counterpoint Research, it had captured 7.1% of the market share during the July to September quarter, making it the second most used operating system for smartphones behind Android.

Mr Deshmukh says that, during the company's research, it found many people who wanted to migrate from a basic phone to a smartphone were reluctant to do so due to language inhibitions.

Payment friendly

Apart from multiple languages, Indus OS also offers simplified predictive typing and translation between regional languages - a technology patented by the company.

It also has an in-house app store like Google Play, offering 35,000 apps in various regional languages that consumers can download on their devices. 

Unlike with other operating systems, consumers don't need a credit card or an email address to download apps. They can pay via their phone bills. 

More than half of India's population is without a debit or credit card, and a fraction of the population uses email.

"On an average our customers use 25 apps, which includes first-time smartphone users," says Mr Deshmukh.

The company has tied-up with leading Indian mobile phone manufacturers such as Micromax and Intex, which are selling some of their smartphones with Indus OS. 

To expand its market share, firms are also in talks with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers that have a huge presence in the Indian market.

The challenges

Indus OS is currently available on six million smartphones, with the aim of adding 100 million users by 2019. 

The company is also looking to explore new markets such as Indonesia, Nepal and Myanmar during this period.

While it has done well in acquiring customers since its launch, the task going ahead could be challenging.

That is because other operating systems are trying to localise their products to meet the demands of consumers as they go deep into the Indian market.

For example, Google's Android benefits from the fact that the firm's search engine is now available in nine Indian languages. 

It is also expected to come out with versions of other products such as Gmail and Google Maps in more Indian languages in the future.

And with Android already being the preferred choice for most consumers - players like Indus OS may feel the heat. 

But Mr Deshmukh believes that Android's efforts to create more products in Indian languages will help Indus OS.

"If we can offer a Google Map on our phone in multiple languages that makes our operating system more attractive," he says. 

 

'Evolution' needed

The other hurdle that analysts point out is that becoming profitable in the long run will be a challenge for firms such as Indus OS - that are operating in a niche segment. 

The process of translating content and apps into multiple languages requires a lot of resources and is an expensive affair.

"Operating systems need to keep evolving by launching new features continuously to stay relevant," says Anshul Gupta, research director at Gartner.

Mr Deshmukh accepts that mobile manufacturers are hungry for unique features and there's constant pressure to deliver. But he is confident of turning profitable as they scale up.

"Indus has an in-house app store - which is available in so many Indian languages. We will use that as a platform to attract advertisers," he adds.

It's estimated that over the next three years some 300 million people in India will migrate to smartphones, and an overwhelming majority of them will be users who don't understand English.

And companies like Indus are hoping that these consumers will buy smartphones not for their features or the price tag but rather for the languages they understand.

Indus OS is focused on creating a regional smartphone ecosystem through Simplification, Innovation & Content. The operating system is currently available in English & 12 regional languages (Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Odia, Assamese, Punjabi, Kannada, Gujarati, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Marathi) 


Source: BBC.Com

WhatsApp has turned on end-to-end encryption across all users

The Facebook-owned app, which has more than one billion monthly active users, turned on the Signal Protocol, developed by Open Whisper Systems, by default. The open-source private messaging system, which has been supported by Edward Snowden, will protect group chats, attachments, voice notes, and voice calls that are made across WhatsApp on Android, iPhone, Windows devices and some Nokia and BlackBerry models.

The encryption method lets users see content that has been sent but does not allow service providers, such as WhatsApp, to access the content of the messages.

"Starting today, users will see a notice in their conversation screen as their individual and group chats become end to end encrypted," Open Whisper Systems said in a blog post. "Additionally, the encryption status of any chat is visible under that chat's preferences screen."

WhatApp's adoption of end-to-end encryption follows Apple's debate with the FBI over the unlocking of a terrorist's iPhone. During the dispute Jan Koum, WhatsApps' co-founder, said that he supported Apple's position and admired its "efforts to protect user data". In March it was revealed that WhatsApp had been targeted by court orders asking to access information it holds.

The Whisper blog explained that there would still be unencrypted text on the WhatsApp network until everyone updated to the latest version of the software. When someone is using the end-to-end encrypted network plain text will not be sent to them, even if they downgrade their software.

"Eventually all the pre-e2e capable clients will expire, at which point new versions of the software will no longer transmit or accept plaintext messages at all," Whisper said.
Users will also be able to verify their encrypted messages by scanning a QR code or reading a code aloud. This is to ensure messages are being sent and received by the correct users. The latest move means that WhatsApp employees won't be able to access messages, even if they are ordered to do so by the courts.

According to reports, a team of 15 engineers from the company was involved in bringing end-to-end encryption to all WhatsApp users; and creating the fully-encrypted service didn't come without its challenges. Koum told that the project had been in the works since 2014, with development nearly publicly announced in 2015 only for cross-platform compatibility problems to cause delays.

Source: http://www.wired.co.uk

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Soon we can access Google play Store Android Apps in Chrome OS

Google first brought the ability to run Android apps on Chrome OS with a project called the "App Runtime for Chrome (ARC)." Google built an Android runtime on Chrome OS and partnered with select developers to port a handful of Android apps. Now it sounds like Google is ready to unleash millions of Android apps onto the platform by bringing the entire Play Store to Chrome OS.

In the Chrome OS subreddit, users are reporting some interesting behavior in their Chromebooks. "TheWiseYoda" noticed that when the settings first load up, an option flashes on screen that reads, "Enable Android apps to run on your Chromebook." The option immediately disappears, so it's not possible to click on its confirmation box. We were able to replicate this on our second-gen Chromebook Pixel running the developer build.

After some hunting in the Chrome OS source code, TheWiseYoda found a few strings in this file (starting at line 6522) that mention the arrival of Google Play on Chrome OS. The most important message seems to be this one:

<message name="IDS_ARC_OPT_IN_DIALOG_DESCRIPTION" desc="Description of the opt-in dialog for Android apps.">
Choose from over a million apps and games on Google Play to install and use on your <ph name="DEVICE_TYPE">$1<ex>Chromebook</ex></ph>.
</message>

The message name "ARC OPT IN" points to this being a huge expansion of the App Runtime for Chrome project. ARC took a big step a year ago when it added support for Google Play Services, and now it seems Google is really going to open the floodgates for "over a million" apps. Another user by the name of "InauspiciousPagan" was able to bring up a user-facing dialog box describing the new feature.



We haven't heard any official news about Google Play coming to Chrome OS, but Google I/O is right around the corner.

Source: Ron Amadeo  for http://arstechnica.com/ 

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Adobe Flash Player is still required for Google Play Music

I uninstalled Flash Player on my computer, now that most sites no longer need it. Adobe's Flash Player is still bundled with Chrome, so I had to disable it from the chrome://plugins/ page.

One of the only Google services that still requires Flash is Google Play Music, but only if you don't use Chrome or Internet Explorer 11. I tried opening Google Play Music in Firefox and Safari and got this message: "Missing Flash Player. You need the latest Adobe Flash Player to listen to music."

There's actually a Lab experiment called "HTML5 audio" in the settings and it's grayed out and disabled. It claims that it allows you to "listen to your music without the need for Flash. Support for this lab is still experimental, and it may not work in all cases," informs the description.

Well, it looks like the Lab experiment only works in Chrome, not in other browsers. It's hard to tell why HTML5 audio is still an experiment and not a regular feature that works in all browsers. YouTube's HTML5 player works well in most browsers and Google Play Music uses the same back-end.

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Windows 10 Build 14327 for Mobile Insider Preview Released

Now you can now try out the preview of the “Messaging everywhere” feature in Windows 10 that allows you to send and receive text messages from your phone directly from your Windows 10 PC’s.

To enable this:

• Make sure you are signed in with your Microsoft Account (MSA).
• On your phone – make sure “Send texts on all my Windows devices” is turned on.
• On your PC – make sure you have chosen which phone to send messages through. You do this in the settings of the Messaging app on your PC (screenshot below).

As a reminder – Microsoft release builds for Mobile from their Development Branch to the list of devices that will be capable of receiving updates as part of the Windows Insider Program. As they stated previously, only devices which are eligible to receive the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade will be able to get preview builds from the Development Branch going forward.

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