Samsung copies Apple, announces gold Galaxy S4

It seems after witnessing the craze for the recently launched gold editions of the iPhone 5S, Samsung has also decided to tread the golden path. The South Korean smartphone giant has announced that it is bringing in two gold colour models of its flagship smartphone Galaxy S4. 

Twitter accounts of the Samsung Arabia and Samsung Gulf tweeted pictures of the two models, one brown gold in colour and the other pink gold. Official Twitter accounts posting these photos suggests that Samsung would be releasing these models in the Middle East in the first phase, and then perhaps roll them out to other markets, depending on their initial response. 

Samsung's latest move comes barely a week after media reports came in of the gold colour iPhones being a hot favourite in the market with most of the supplies being sold out in China, Hong Kong, US and other major markets. As per reports, a scarcity of gold iPhones saw people selling the variant for over $1,000 on eBay, much higher than the $649 base retail price. 

Presently, Galaxy S4 is available in three colour options - black, white and blue. 

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Gtalk glitch sends chats to wrong recipients

Sent a message to someone onGtalk and it got delivered to someone else? Wondering what happened? Hold, you are not the only one experiencing this bug. Many other users of Google's free instant messaging serviceGoogle Talk too have reported that messages are being delivered to unintended recipients on Gtalk.

In some cases the unintended recipients are multiple. Also, some Gtalk users have also complained of messages being delivered to people outside their contact lists.
Acknowledging the issue, Google said, "Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by 9/26/13 4:30pm with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience. At this time Google Talk is not functioning correctly and we are continuing to work to restore full functionality."

Microblogging site Twitter is flooded with user comments on the same, says ?@SamreenSamad, "My Gtalk is randomly sending messages to multiple contacts. Can someone help please? I've changed my password and all that."

"Avoid gtalk. There's something wrong with it today. Seriously," reads another tweet from @devgoswami. Some tweets, like this one from @Monelle_b, also have an interesting warning, "Google's GTalk is sending chat messages to the wrong recipients. So be careful with office gossip."

So far, there seems no pattern to whom the message is wrongly getting delivered to. Also, it is not clear how many users have been affected affected by the bug.

Google is currently looking into the glitch. "Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. The issue has been resolved and all services are gradually returning to normal. We will update when full service is restored," reads the update on Google App dashboard.

Earlier this week, Google's Gmail service apologized to users who were affected by email delivery delays on September 23. Wrote Sabrina Farmer, senior site reliability engineering manager for Gmail, in post on the Google Gmail Blog," On September 23rd, many Gmail users received an unwelcome surprise: some of their messages were arriving slowly, and some of their attachments were unavailable. We'd like to start by apologizing—we realize that our users rely on Gmail to be always available and always fast, and for several hours we didn't deliver."

Regarding the reason for delay, Sabrina added, "The message delivery delays were triggered by a dual network failure. This is a very rare event in which two separate, redundant network paths both stop working at the same time."

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India shines in Facebook’s global friendships map

Facebook's recently released global friendships map shows India among the 'densest use' countries where the social networking site is accessed the most to form friendships across the world. 

The new map shows Facebook's global reachnow impacting India, Africa and South America.

The original version of the map, which was released three years ago, shows most of the world illuminated by transcontinental friendships, with oceans dominated by blue arcs of light, metro.co.uk reports. 

According to the report, China is shown dark, because of the site being banned in the country, while countries like Russia, where homegrown networks are favoured, are also less bright. 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg set the map as his cover photo and captioned it as the 'map of all the friendships formed on Facebook across the world'. 

The report said that visualisation was the brainchild of former intern Paul Butler, who revealed that is not just a pretty picture, it's a reaffirmation of the impact Facebook has in connecting people, even across oceans and borders.

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Prem Watsa confident of BlackBerry deal

Fairfax Financial chief executive Prem Watsa said he is confident the consortium he leads can find the money to fund its $4.7 billion bid for smartphone maker BlackBerry.

"We wouldn't put our name to such a high-profile deal if we didn't feel confident that at the end of the day that our due diligence would be fine and we'd be able to finance it," Watsa said in an interview.

The Canadian-led consortium put in its $9 a share bid for BlackBerry on Monday, arguing that the troubled company would have better chances as a private entity, away from Wall Street's constant gaze. The company pioneered mobile email communications but has lost ground to Apple iPhone and other snazzier rivals,

BlackBerry shares closed a full dollar below the bid price on the Nasdaqon Wednesday, indicating that investors were skeptical the deal would succeed. The stock edged up to $8.05 in after-market trade.

"Short term these things fluctuate, there is speculation one way, there's speculation the other way," Watsa said of the movement in BlackBerry's share price. "We never pay too much attention to the marketplace."

Fairfax is BlackBerry's biggest shareholder, and Watsa said he did not expect Fairfax would need to contribute more than its existing stake of about 10% to the buyout bid. He said the bid was led by Fairfax and Canadian funds, but not restricted to them.

"BlackBerry is one of Canada's great success stories," he said. "There is no question it's fallen on hard times recently, but we have every confidence it will be successful again. We're putting a consortium together to make sure that that takes place."

The group has until November 4 to conduct due diligence, in which time BlackBerry can also seek out other buyers.

Asked if the bid price could be reduced, Watsa said he didn't expect that to happen unless the review of BlackBerry produced negative surprises. He said Fairfax had never changed the terms of a deal in 28 years.

Watsa declined to name any participants in the group, citing confidentiality agreements, or to comment on questions around possible collateral the group could use to secure financing, or on the possibility of bridge financing that could be repaid using BlackBerry's existing cash pile.

He said the group did not include any strategic players, but that one or two technology companies could possibly join.

Watsa, who stepped down from BlackBerry's board when the company said it was looking for buyers in August, said the "timing was right" for a deal after BlackBerry warned on Friday that it would post a heavy loss in its fiscal second quarter ended August 31 and cut more than a third of its workforce.

"For the benefit of the company's customers, its employees, it was the right time to do the deal," he said.

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eBay to buy payments company Braintree

PayPal parent eBay says it is buying online and mobile payments technology provider Braintree for $800 million in cash. 

Braintree's payments technology is used by popular start-ups such as vacation rentals siteAirbnb, cab-hailing app Uber and restaurant reservations site OpenTable. 

The move comes as eBay's PayPal unit works to evolve from its roots as an online payments provider, expanding its offline, mobile and online offerings to stores, restaurants and other business. 

San Jose, California-based eBay says that it will operate Braintree as a separate business. Bill Ready, the CEO of the Chicago-based company, will report to PayPal President David Marcus. 

Braintree's roughly 200 employees are staying with the Chicago-based company. 

EBay says it expects to close the deal before the end of the year.

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Google announces Hangouts update

Google has update its Hangouts app, adding the much desired status availability feature. Meaning, the updated Hangouts app finally shows who is online. 

The update shows only as to who is online, but also as to who is reachable on Hangouts. Green icons show that people are online while grey ones indicate they are not. 

In addition to this, Google has made it easier to browse through your contacts while starting a Hangout and better access to invite people to Hangouts. Contacts are now organised by People you Hangout with, Suggested People, and Other Contacts. There are also options to hide contacts in the new Hangouts screen and users can pinch-to-zoom photos. 

The new Hangouts update can be downloaded from Google Play. It is not yet clear as to when Google would be providing the update for Hangouts users on iOS platform. 

The update, however does not include SMS or Google Voice integration.

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Can Amazon crack Indian e-commerce market?

In just three months, MirchiMart, a Delhi-based online retailer of mobile phones, has seen its business jump by 50%. In the same period, another electronics retailer Universal, which runs 500 stores in South India, has shipped tablets and smartphones to every state and union territory in India. And AXA PDA Lounge, a Bangalore-based retailer of mobile phones and accessories, has seen its business grow by one-third, selling products as far away as Srinagar and Imphal.

Behind the increase in sales and reach of these three retailers is their decision to sell their products also via Amazon.in, the Indian platform of the world's largest online retailer launched in June. While this is doing wonders to their sales, it's a small step to bigger things forAmazon India, but far from a done deal.

Indian rules don't allow Amazon to stock and sell products, which is how it earned 60% of its 2012 revenues of $61 billion (Rs 3,66,000 crore). So, as it bides its time for rules to change in India, it is dipping its toes in this $12 billion market by being an online marketplace, hosting and enabling 500 sellers like MirchiMart, Universal and AXA PDA Lounge. "If regulation permitted Amazon.in to be a seller, it would be good for the consumer," says Amit Agarwal, vice president and country manager, Amazon Seller Services. "We will be able to offer more choice."

In his 14 years at the 19 -year-old Amazon, Agarwal has seen the company do that, with great purpose, force and results. Before he relocated to lead Amazon in India, the IIT Bombay and Stanford graduate helped build the marketplace business in the US, started its cloud computing business, did a stint with Amazon International and did two years as advisor to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He has seen Amazon power ahead in developed markets. And he has seen Amazon move gingerly in emerging markets, hemmed in by rules, local consumer behaviour and local competition.

India is the 12th country for which Amazon has a dedicated website. It's only its third emerging market, after China in 2004 and Brazil in 2012, and this is a space where Amazon is yet to stamp its presence the way it has done, say, in the US. "In Brazil, Amazon's offering is fairly new and focuses on e-books," says Zia Daniell Wigder, vicepresident and research director, Forrester Research. "However, it will face competition from traditional retailers in Brazil, who have now gone online."

Amazon has been longer in China, which is also a much bigger market. According to Praveen Sengar, research analyst at Gartner, e-commerce in China is a $197 billion market, against $220 billion in US. "China will overtake the US as the largest e-commerce market in a few years," he says.

"But Amazon is not among the top five sellers in China. Even in developed economies like Japan, local player Rakuten is much bigger than Amazon. Companies have to localize to succeed in emerging markets and Amazon has been unable to do so in China."

The local challenge
Like China, e-commerce in India is throbbing with local players — 75-100 start-ups, driven by entrepreneurs and backed by venture capital. "It's hard for an executive to compete with an entrepreneur," feels Sanjeev Aggarwal, managing director of Helion Venture Partners. "The passion and energy they bring is very different."

Besides, adds Aggarwal, these start-ups understand the local market — like low-value transactions, cash on delivery and supplying to 20,000 pin codes. "You can't run retailing in India with executives installed from the US," he says. "Amazon will replicate what has worked for it in other markets." In developed markets, what has worked for Amazon is its large product catalogue competitive pricing, good customer orientation, a culture of innovation, deep pockets (it has about $11.5 billion in cash and marketable securities) and branding.

In India, too, it will gradually leverage all of this.

Globally, Amazon offers products in 40 categories and two million sellers, and draws about 100 million buyers. "Amazon is like Walmart — keep a huge inventory and sell at a low price," says Anshul Bansal, who quit as vice president in the investment banking division of Yes Bank in 2011 to become an online retailer of sarees on eBay, another online marketplace.

In India, Amazon is currently offering 13 product categories and is planning to add more in time for the festive season.

Sengar calls it a "timely entry." According to Pragya Singh of Technopak -- a management-consulting firm -- organized, brick-and-mortar retail has 7-8% penetration and does not reach small cities. "E-tailing is less than $1 billion at present, with plenty of headroom to grown, in sync with growth of mobile internet users," says Singh, associate director, retail, Technopak.

Singh believes the tipping point in e-tailing is three to four years away.

"VC-funded models don't have the deep pockets to match global companies," he says. Amazon too is in no hurry. "We are driven for the long term," says Agarwal. "We take a 7-10 years time frame for the seed to sprout and not three years or three months."

Sengar sees Amazon making an acquisition. "It costs Rs 1,200-1,500 to acquire a customer, while an average order value per year is $200 (about Rs 12,000," he says. "An acquisition will help it obtain customers who are used to buying online, besides warehouses." Agarwal deflects queries on acquisitions. "At, present we are focussed on customer experience," he says. "I won't speculate on future strategy. We are here for the long haul." 

For now, Amazon is content to build its marketplace model by adding sellers from the pool of 14 million small and medium enterprises in India who have something to sell. That model is what eBay is founded on — it does not own warehouses and products are shipped directly from sellers — and it's what Flipkart,the largest online retailer in the country today, launched earlier this year. 

While eBay, which has been in India for about a decade, has 30,000 sellers, Amazon has 500 currently. While sellers can express an interest to be on the Amazon platform, the company decides. "It's a due diligence we do on the ability of a seller to provide a good customer experience," says Agarwal. 

These, typically, include the kind of stock a seller has and its ability to complete an order on time. 

The building challenge
Amazon does not charge sellers for listing products and has no cap on how many products can be listed. For the first year of its operations, Amazon has also waived its monthly subscription fee and transaction fee (about 10-15% of the price of an item). "Buyer 'footfall' is the biggest advantage sellers get on Amazon," says Dinesh Agarwal, founder-CEO of IndiaMart.com, a business-to-business marketplace. 

Mumbai-based MX Information Systems has a retail outlet and 14 shop-in-shops or counters in large multi-brand retail stores or malls. It is also a seller on Amazon. Satish Bathija, its director, says that being on Amazon increases the catchment area for its products, helps sell on the back of a global brand, creates trust among buyers, and offers access to Amazon services like payment gateways, shipping and logistics. 

"We see online business grow faster than offline," says Bathija. 

A seller on Amazon can ship products directly or through Amazon, from its 1,50,000 sq ft warehouse on the outskirts of Mumbai. In case of the latter, buyers can see an FBA tag (Fulfilled By Amazon) alongside the product. "We don't need to invest in manpower for shipping, packing and logistics," says Bathija, "though we have to pay for payment gateway (for credit-card sales)." 

Some retailers feel that if and when Amazon can sell on its own, it will threaten its portfolio of sellers, even as it promotes their interests. "Amazon does not share market research data with sellers and uses that data to push its own products," says Bansal, proprietor of Old India Republic, a retailer of sarees on eBay. "Small sellers feel threatened by a giant like Amazon." 

Agarwal, today, emphasizes on getting the basics right. "It's just been three months since we launched, and we believe consumers care more about low prices, wide selection and reliable delivery," he says. "We are focussed on that."

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Nokia Lumia 1020: First impressions

Nokia has unveiled the Lumia 1020 smartphone in India though it is yet to announce the price tag. The manufacturer showed off many of the camera features and technologies that go into the phone at a media event on Thursday, but refused to divulge the price. While potential customers will be able to buy the smartphone on October 11, we got to spend some time with it at the event. Here are our first impressions of the Nokia Lumia 1020:

The latest top-end Lumia phone in India has a 41MP camera at the back. While its megapixel count is huge, the design is not as absurd as that of Galaxy S4 zoom (16MP rear camera). However, the phone's design does not have the understated elegance of Sony Xperia Z1 (20.7MP camera). At 158gram, Nokia Lumia 1020 is still heavy and you can feel the weight in your hands as soon as you hold it.

The Nokia device has a big bump off the back, where the camera sensor is located, but despite the odd design, this phone looks good. Moreover, the positioning of the bump is such that you are unlikely to encounter any problems while working with the Lumia 1020 with one hand. It looks similar to last year's Lumia 920 rather than the newer Lumia 925, with edges on top and curves on the sides.

But let's go straight to the most exciting part of Lumia 1020 - the 41MP camera. It has all the makings of a great snapper, from high-end PureView image processing technology to terrificzooming (for a smartphone). Its backlit sensor design allows the camera to get more light for better lowlight imaging, which we witnessed ourselves during our time with the device. The photos are actually shot at 38MP (4:3 aspect ratio) or 34MP (16:9 aspect ratio).

However, we noticed a slight lag during image processing in both 5MP and 38MP resolution settings. Saving the image takes a little time at both resolutions. In our view, unless one knows enough about camera settings, the settings in Lumia 1020 should not be fiddled with, else the images can end up being over- or underexposed.

The default camera app in Lumia 1020 captures images at just 5MP resolution and you have to remember to use the Pro Camera app in order to take the higher resolution photos.

The photos we clicked with the phone had excellent colours and contrast, and with the right settings, you get amazing photos with a lot of details. In fact, the phone allows users to take photos, then zoom in and crop certain portions without losing any clarity. The zoomed-in photos show no pixilation and look very good.

Here is a shot we have taken with the Nokia Lumia 1020:



Here is the zoomed-in and cropped version of the same photo:



While Nokia has done a good job with the phone's zooming capabilities, Lumia 1020 is not blessed with optical zoom even though rivals like Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom and Sony Xperia Z1 both have it. With a full review, we will be able to determine whether Lumia 1020's lossless zoom is just as good as optical zoom, and we keep our judgement reserved till then.

That notwithstanding, Lumia 1020 has gotten us quite excited about the camera, though we feel most of its features will be used occasionally.

Lumia 1020 has decent hardware, but nothing that would put the competition on the edge. In fact, it shares the screen size and quality, chipset, software features and connectivity suite with the Lumia 925. The only difference - apart from camera, of course - is twice the RAM and internal storage. (2GB and 32GB respectively).

Lumia 1020 may be a great option for anyone looking for a camera they can carry around. But if the best smartphone is your priority, Lumia 1020 is probably not the ideal choice. Of course, we cannot be sure of the value-for-money aspect unless Nokia announces the price tag of this smartphone.

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15% of Americans dont use internet: Study

A latest study by the Pew Research Centre's Internet and American Life Project has revealed that 15% of Americans don't use the internet. 

The study also states that 9% of US adults only use the internet when they are not at home. 

According to Fox News, out of those people who don't go online, only 8% want to, while the restsaid that they are not interested. 

The study revealed the reasons why people in the US did not use the internet, which includes 34% of the respondents who think that the medium is not relevant to them and they don't need it. 

13% don't have a computer while 7% don't have internet access and 6% said that it's too expensive. 

The report said that only 3% said they are worried about things such as privacy, viruses, spam or hackers. 

According to the study, age, income, education level and race have a lot to do with who is and isn't online as 44% of people 65 or older are not online, compared with 2% of those aged 18 to 29 and those who have not graduated from high school, 41% don't go online, compared with 4% of those with a college degree.

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Tweets show global news readership patterns: Study

Researchers have used data collected from Twitter to study readers' news preferences across the globe, a new study has found.

In a new article published in SAGE Open, researchers discovered that different countries have stronger preference towards different types of articles.

For example, American and British readers are more drawn to opinion and world news, Spaniards to local and national news, Brazilians to sports and arts, and Germans to politics andeconomy.

The researchers also found that German and Spanish readers are more likely to read national newspapers compared to British readers, who prefer foreign publications.

Authors Marco Toledo Bastos and Gabriela Zago conducted the study by monitoring tweeted news links from eight of the largest national newspapers in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, and Germany over two weeks in 2012.

The researchers analyzed 123,191 tweets from Germany, 394,533 from Brazil, 792,952 from Spain, 537,606 from the UK, and 994,417 from America, totaling of 2,842,699 tweets.

Through their analysis, the researchers found not only that social media helps to demonstratereadership patterns, but also that through social media the readers themselves play an active role in determining the popularity of different news stories.

"Audiences now have the opportunity to express their agency, not only as readers of texts but also as a fundamental piece that decides which news articles are replicated and which news section gets the most attention across social networking sites," the researchers wrote.

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World‘s first ‘attention-powered‘ car

Researchers claim to have developed the world's first 'attention-powered'car — a pioneering vehicle that uses a headset to monitor brain activity and slow acceleration during periods of distraction.

The car commissioned by the The Royal Automobile Club of West Australia was tested in Perth in a bid to prevent road accidents due to inattention. The makers describe it as a "car that goes when you're paying attention, and slows when you're not."

The technology behind the vehicle uses a neuro headset that connects to brain activity linked to the car's engine via customized software, 'PerthNow' reported. The software communicates with the car and slows the vehicle when the driver's concentration lapses. The headset measures the electrical activity in a person's brain and feeds it into an algorithm that determines if the driver is paying attention or not.

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‘More airlines will tap social media for business‘

Over the next three years, 70% of the airlines will use social media to reach out to passengers and offer services, aviation industry specialists in Goa say in a report on Thursday.

"India is the world's third-largest social media market with the number of users in urban India estimated at 66 million. Indian carriers and airports are increasingly conscious of their social media footprint and the need to reach out to passengers via social media platforms," the report said.

"Over the next three years, 70% of airlines surveyed will use social media to promote their brand and offer reservations, customer relationship management and check-in via social media platforms."

"The social media will also play a vital role in how airports enhance their engagement with passengers, particularly during periods of disruption," the report said.

Co-authored by air-transport specialists at SITA and CAPA, which focus on research and analysis in the aviation sector, the report is based on surveys across the country conducted by the two organisations.

The findings form part of a white paper on the aviation andinformation and communications technology released at a two-dayAviation ICT Forum 2013 that started on Thursday at a resort on the outskirts of the Goa capital.

The ever increasing use of smartphones and tablets will also have a major bearing on the airline-passenger relationship right from mobile check-ins to itinerary integration, it said.

"With over 82% of travellers surveyed carrying smartphones and 22 carrying tablets, India's airlines and airports are also adopting new mobile services. By 2015, 100% of airlines surveyed will offer mobile check-in, flight status notification, ticket purchase, itinerary integration and sharing and on-board mobile services," it says.

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