iPhone 5S apps more vulnerable to crashing than older models

The apps on Apple's latest iPhone5S are more crash-prone as compared to those on the older models of the tech giant's flagship product.

A mobile app analytics company, Crittercism has revealed that apps running on the iPhone 5S crash twice as often as those available on the iPhone 5 or iPhone 5C, and this data came from analyzing hundreds of millions of apps.

According to CNET, hardware problem could be the reason for the increased crash chances; however, since the iOS 7 developers were fixing flaws in the operating system before the launch, the app crashes on the iPhone5S could be limited now.

Crittercism doesn't anticipate higher crash rate to last forever, as its CEO Andrew Levy said that over time these issues get resolved, the report added.

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Cyclone Phailin: Google launches ‘People Finder‘

As the respective governments of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha prepare for the impending cyclone Phailin, which is expected to hit their shores on Saturday evening, search engine giant Google has voluntarily set up a Crisis Response team to assist the governments in rescue & rehabilitation of cyclone victims.

"Google has come forward to offer their help. We are coordinating with them. It will help us collect information concerning the victims of the cyclone and track their status," said Andhra Pradesh minister for Information Technology and Communications Ponnala Lakshmaiah.

Google has launched a 'Person Finder' to help those displaced by the storm to reconnect with their families. It is an open source software that allows individuals to post and search for the status of relatives or friends affected by a disaster. Google is also working with Airtel to see if they can send an SMS blast to all users alerting them of the cyclone.

The firm is launching a crisis map, which would mark the shelters, power outages and other resources.The crowd-sourced map will display as to the points where the cyclone has hit. It also has a list of helpline numbers. As the search engine giant does not have enough sources concerning the location of the relief camps set up, they have appealed to the concerned governments seeking their help on the same.

The maps have been set up by netizens who call themselves 'digital humanitarian volunteers' or so called CrisisMappers. The online volunteers along with on-the-ground relief mates from different places, including volunteers of StandBy Task Force, OpenCrisis, Info4Disasters, and several university students are working on the map.

The 4-level category storm, cyclone Phailin, is supposed to be approaching the shores at 235 km an hour. The US navy forecasters have warned of even more menacing winds at 315 kph and wave height of 54 feet. The Global Disaster and Alert Coordination System (GDACS), has rated this event as a red alert, high humanitarian impact based on the maximum sustained wind speed.

The cyclone, which will also raise sea level up to three metres, is expected to flood low-lying areas of Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts of Odisha and Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh and extensively damage the agricultural crops.

The AP government is also coordinating with the telecom service providers to ensure 24/7 connectivity. They have already alerted 527 fishermen villages and of all the 22,997 boats except two boats that were in the sea have returned to shore. The IT department is also ensuring that video-conferencing will be available 24/7 in all government departments to ensure a flow of communication.

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Press shot of Nokia‘s Lumia 2520 tablet leaked

Here's another leak on mobile giant Nokia's forthcoming event scheduled for October 22 in Abu Dhabi. EvLeaks has posted what it claims is the first press shot of Nokia's upcoming tablet dubbed "Lumia 2520."

No specifications or launch date of the device have been disclosed with the image. The tablet will be Nokia's first Windows RT 8.1 tablet.

The rumoured specs of the 10.1-inch tablet are:Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC, 10.1-inch 1080p IPS display and 6.7 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. The tablet will reportedly have more than one version including one with LTE support.

There are also speculations that the tablet may feature some exclusive software from Nokia, including 'StoryTeller'.


Nokia 5250 tablet is expected to come in four colors -- black, white, red and cyan.

Earlier this week, Nokia's official "Conversations" blog posted a teaser image for the Nokia World event showing a smartphone, tablet and notebook.

Interestingly, Apple is expected to launch iPad 5 and iPad mini 2 at an event on the same day. According to website AllThingsD, Apple will host a media event on 22 October, where it will announce updates to both iPad models.

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Google installs monorail in its offices

Do you ever joke around with your coworkers about how cool it would be to build desks out of old cars or have meetings on a houseboat? Maybe not, but if you work at Google, you might want to start -- because they might actually make your weird office dreams a reality.

That's exactly what Google did this week in Australia. Thanks to one smart-alecky engineer's weird and totally not serious request, the search giant just installed two retired Sydney Monorail cars in its offices there. Just to be clear, these monorail cars do not zip around the offices like a trolley delivering snacks and shuttling nerds to meetings. They're being set up as meeting rooms, complete with TVs and air conditioning.

The origin story is what makes the installation especially interesting, though. At the beginning of this year, Google employee Paul Cowan filed a ticket with the internal facilities team requesting that a monorail be installed to make it easier for employees to get to the different Google offices, which are spread out in the Pyrmont suburb of Sydney. A member of the facilities team actually replied and, in detail, pointed out why this was such a bad idea, at one point remarking that it was "more of a Shelbyville idea."

So Cowan was very surprised six months later, when that same facilities team member called him in for a meeting at a junkyard by the airport, where Google had purchased two old monorail cars. The cars were installed earlier this week for, in the Sydney Morning Herald's estimate, the cost of around $250,000.

It's tempting to just write this off as yet another marketing effort in which Google goes to absurd lengths to prove what a cool company it is. We get it, Google. You're super rich and you have slides in some of your offices and now monorail cars in another. On the other hand, it's actually pretty cool that Google's making use of the old monorail cars, which would otherwise just rot in that junkyard for the next 100 years. The company is also shoveling some cash from its mountains of money to the local government.

Does it make practical sense? Probably not. Those monorail cars are clearly too big to fit in that building. (Apparently, there were only 20 centimeters of clearance when they pushed them in the window.) It also looks like they're also too small to be comfortable conference rooms. But did it cheer up at least one public transport-loving engineer? You betcha.

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Australia to ban employers from accessing job seekers‘ Facebook accounts

Under a potential change to Australia's national privacy laws, bosses are likely to be banned from demanding access to job seekers' Facebook or other social media pages or accounts.

The Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) said that the use of social media accounts to assess candidates for work, education and other opportunities was an area of growing concern.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the commission is considering whether new laws are needed to allow people to sue for serious breaches of privacy.

The report said that it is deemed illegal to ask job seekers for social media passwords in 13 US states, including California and New Jersey, and other states are following suit.

The ALRC said that it may be appropriate to include such conduct as an example of a serious invasion of privacy for the purpose of a statutory cause of action or to amend laws dealing with workplace surveillance to prohibit such conduct.

The commission will release draft recommendations in late February and a final report at the end of June next year, the report added.

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Now, Google wants permission to use your name, photos in ads

Google wants your permission to use your name, photo and product reviews in ads that it sells to businesses. 

The Internet search giant is changing its terms of service starting Nov. 11. 

Your reviews of restaurants, shops and products, as well as songs and other content bought on the Google Play store could show up in ads that are displayed to your friends, connections and the broader public when they search on Google. The company calls that feature ``shared endorsements.'' 

Google laid out an example of how this could happen: ``Katya Klinova,'' her face and five-star review appear underneath an ad for Summertime Spas. 

You can opt out of sharing your reviews. 

Google said Friday that the name and photo you use in its social network, Google Plus, is the one that would appear in the ad. Google has said the social network has 390 million active users per month. 

``We want to give you _ and your friends and connections _ the most useful information. Recommendations from people you know can really help,'' the company said in an explanation of the changes. 

The Mountain View, California, company already had a similar setting for its ``+1'' button, which it introduced in 2011. It had experimented temporarily with putting ``+1'' endorsements with users' identities in ads, but it hasn't had them up recently. The company said Friday that the choice a user made about allowing for ``+1'' endorsements would remain the same. 

Also, if a user chooses to limit an endorsement to certain circles of friends or contacts, that restriction will be respected in any ads that use the endorsement. 

Google's move follows a similar proposal by Facebook. The social network in August said it would show users' faces and names in ads about products they clicked to ``like.'' That proposal was criticized by privacy groups. 

They asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into the matter, which the agency said it did as part of routine monitoring of privacy practices.

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Infosys rejigs top management

Infosys has made further changes to its top management, reassigning roles held by senior executives who recently left the company to join smaller rivals. 

Prasad Thirkutam, a senior vice president and head of the energy, utilities, and communications vertical has been given the additional responsibility of heading Americas geography. Mohit Joshi, vice president and head of financial services vertical in Europe has been made the head of banking, financial services and insurance unit for the Americas. 

Both Thirtukam and Joshi, take the additional responsibility while continuing on with their exiting responsibilities. Thirkutam replaces Ashok Vemuri, who left Infosys to join iGate as CEO, while Joshi replaces Sudhir Chaturvedi left Infosys for NIIT Technologies where he is now the chief operating officer. 

Thirkutam joined Infosys in 1995, as a regional head of business operations in the US. He also serves as board member of Infosys China. Joshi joined Infosys in 2000 and has since played multiple roles. In 2007, Mohit founded and was the CEO of Infosys Mexico, the first subsidiary of Infosys in Latin America.

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