Use your smartphone to find misplaced keys

In the ranks of nagging annoyances, the search for misplaced keys (especially when you are late) is pretty high. 

A product called Stick-N-Find has a solution: a Bluetooth beacon with an adhesive backing that you can stick to your keys or anything else you might lose. You can use your phone to home in on the beacon. 

The little gizmos are easy to use. The adhesive-backed disks, about the size of two quarters stacked together , can stick to anything you might hunt for between the couch cushions. A free Stick-N-Find app goes on an iPhone 5 or 4S, the new iPad, iPad mini, the new iPod touch, or any Android phone with Bluetooth Low Energy and system 4.1. 

Then the phone acts as a homing device that lets you zero in on up to 20 Bluetooth beacons. You name each beacon using the app, so you can always track down the right item (provided it is not your phone that you have lost). 

When you come within range, you can press a button on the phone that causes the beacon to chirp and light up. You can also create an electronic leash that sets off the chirp when the beacons are outside of tracking range. That could stop you walking out of a restaurant without your keys. 

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Google launches Product Listing Ads in India

MUMBAI: Online search giant Google has launched a new ad format, called Product Listing Ads, in India to provide users informationimages, price and brands of products that will help people shop better both online and offline. 

Everyday, millions of shoppers use Google search to research and discover products to purchase online and offline, and this new format connects users to product-informationlooks, price and brands, Google India said in a statement. 

Product Listing Ads will appear on shopping-related queries on Google.co.in. This feature will initially be placed on the right-hand side of the search results page above text ads, and it will be labeled as 'sponsored', it added. 

This ad format will help users easily find and compare relevant products and their prices to fine-tune what they are looking for, the statement said. 

Product Listing Ads are a great opportunity for merchants to present their business and promote their products to interested shoppers as well, it added.

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Apple received 5,000 data requests US

Apple, over the last six months, received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests for customer data US law enforcement authorities relating to criminal investigations and national security matters, the company said. 

Microsoft and Facebook published similar data last week after reaching a deal about disclosures with US national security authorities. 

"We have asked the US government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data," Apple said. 

In a statement posted on its website Apple said that the requests were received December 1 2012 to May 31 2013, and between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came federal, state and local authorities. 

The most common form of request came police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide, it said. 

"Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers' personal data, and we don't collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place," the company said. 

Apple said conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are "protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data".

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'Tech Mahindra, MindTree may raise salaries by 7-12%'

MUMBAI: Mid-tier IT firms such as Tech Mahindra and MindTree may raise salaries by 7-12% this fiscal to ensure they do not lose talent to top players TCS, Infosys and Wipro, according to HR service providers. 

The larger players have announced wage hikes ranging between 6% and 10% for this fiscal. 

"Current environment is challenging and companies are looking at preserving their bottomline. Despite that, keeping employees' interest in mind, organizations have given hikes ranging 8-12%, which is a good development." 

"In general, we can expect 7-12% hikes for employees working with mid-tier IT companies," Randstad India president (staffing) and director (marketing) Aditya Narayan Mishra told. He added that as the demand for IT services increases in the coming quarters, one can expect above-average hikes.

Last week, Infosys said its employees in India will get on an average 8% increase, while Wipro said it has raised salaries by 6-8%. Onsite employees have seen salaries going up by 2-3%. India's largest software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has increased wages by 8-10% in India and 2-4% for overseas workforce. HCL Technologies has started its appraisal process and is expected to make an announcement by July-end. Most Indian IT firms give increments around April or May.

"IT sector has been fairly conservative in terms of pay hike. We recently did a survey,we asked some of our customers on increments this year and almost 46-47% of the respondents said they are looking at wage hikes between 6-15%," HeadHonchos.com CEO Uday Sodhi said.

IT firms are also looking at the global economic scenario, which still has not been very promising and it plays an important role in determining the hike percentage, he added.

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Micromax unveils Canvas 4 with 13MP camera

NEW DELHI: Indian smartphone manufacturer Micromax has released a teaser of its upcoming handset called Canvas 4. The company has posted two teaser videos of the device on its official YouTube channel. The videos, with tagline "Can Life Be Endless," show a smartphone with a sleek body and 13MP camera. 

Expected to be an update to the popular Canvas HD smartphone, the upcoming Micromax Canvas 4 is speculated to have an eight-core processor,Samsung Galaxy S4. The YouTube channel of Micromax states that pre-bookings for the device will start June 28. 

Micromax in January said that it will launch a total of 30 smartphones this year. Since then, it has rolled out devicesCanvas HD, Canvas 3D, Canvas Music, Bolt A35 and Canvas Viva. 

A vast and diverse range at affordable price points is part of Micromax's ambitious plans to emerge as the largest phone seller in India, ahead of Nokia and market leader Samsung. In January, it claimed to have shipped 1.98 lakh phablets in Q4 2012, as compared to 1.89 lakh units sold by the South Korean manufacturer Samsung. 

In smartphones, Micromax has scored quite well recently with its entry-level Canvas 2 A110 and mid-range Canvas HD A116 phablets respectively. The company is facing a severe shortage of Canvas HD and has not been able to get its supplies in order, leading to a waiting period of up to two weeks.

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Life-like robots showcased in New York

A Japanese scientist has developed a body-double robot which resembles him closely, with tiny humanmovements and blinking eyes. 

Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, has been working on developing lifeandroids. 

The new robot was unveiled at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York, a futuristic conference focused on the technological singularity. 

The new Geminoid, an android resembling a real person was tele-operated controlled remotely by a person offstage. 

Ishiguro has also developed another Geminoid, a fashionably dressed female android, which he has shown off in the windows of clothing stores, LiveScience reported. 

The robot was so popular that the clothing it was modelling sold out immediately, Ishiguro said. 

Ishiguro has also taken his robots on the road as part of a travelling "android theatre,"they act out scenes with humanexpressions. 

The roboticist also made the Telenoid, a pillow-like bot deliberately designed to appear ageless and genderless so that people can project an imagined face onto its neutral appearance. 

Ishiguro has tested the Telenoid among the elderly in Denmark, who took to it very well, he said. 

Another of Ishiguro's inventions is the Elfoid a smaller version of the Telenoid that functions as a mobile phone. 

Today, everyone talks to the "little black boxes" of their smartphones, Ishiguro said, so he wanted to personalize and humanize the devices. 

At the end of Ishiguro's talk, his robotic double spoke up, saying that next time, it would give a much better presentation than the real Ishiguro.

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Guava Soft sets up data centre in India

NEW DELHI: Ludhiana-based IT firm Guava Soft has started e-mail services email.biz with complete set-up in India, offering singleacter-based and name-based domains. 

The company has set up its data centre in India and has developed entire e-mail services with its in-house Indian employees. 

"Our complete set-up is in India. We have our data centre in Ludhiana. The services and applications, everything has been developed by our employee and they areIndian. The company is jointly owned by me and my brother Sachin," Guava Soft founder and chief executive officer Anshul Goyal said. 

The company has started services at a time when the US image is marred in controversy of peeping into e-mail accounts of foreign countries. Most of the prominent e-mail services are offered by US-based IT companies. 

Goyal said that within a month, email.biz will start offering integrated chat servicesoffered by other top email providers. 

The company has also launched personalize e-mail services that can be registered on 20,000 domain names registered by the firm. 

"We are offering domains in various categorysingleacter based n.biz, 7.biz, then are names based domainbengal.biz, officer.biz. At present 9,500 such domain names are available for people to use against annualge of Rs 500. We are adding 1,500 to 2,000 domain names every week," Goyal said. 

In premium e-mail services, he added, that the company is providing facility to send e-mails with attachment size of up to 500MB but at some additional price. 

"As an innovative feature we are also providing people to log in to their active email account registered with any of the known website our website. They have to use same e-mail id and password without registering on our website," Goyal said.

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