Google can now recognise Hindi handwriting on Android, iOS devices

Today, Google announced beta support for Hindi handwriting and the ability to switch to a native Hindi experience for Android. These are baby steps to make the Hindi internet simpler to use, the Internet giant claims. The new feature allows users to type in Hindi on a touchscreen, using fingers/a stylus after which it recognises the characters on its own.

"We believe you should be able to use the internet in Hindi as easily as you read and write today. No matter what kind of handwriting you have, Google can help you find exactly what you’re looking for — so here’s to Handwrite in Hindi, we hope you have as much fun using it as we did creating it!" an official press release said.

How it works?

Write in Hindi and you shall find on Google Search Handwrite enables you to search by just writing letters with your finger or stylus anywhere on your device’s screen—there’s no keyboard that covers half of the screen and no need for typing. 

Here’s how you can start scribbling away

1. Go to www.google.co.in in your mobile browser, tap on “Settings” at the bottom of the screen, go to Search Settings and enable “Handwrite.” 

2. Change language in Google products to Hindi. Also add “Hindi” as a Language of Search Results. Note that after you've saved the setting, you may need to refresh the homepage to see the feature. On tablets, the Search settings are available as an option behind the gear icon.

3. Once the feature is enabled, tap the Handwrite icon on the bottom right corner of your screen to activate Handwrite mode. Write a few letters and you’ll see autocomplete options appear below the search box. If one of the options is what you’re looking for, just tap it to search. 

4. For longer queries, you can continue writing a string of characters and then use the arrows next to the autocompletions to move the right one into the search box. Remember, you can write anywhere on the screen.

The handwrite feature is currently available on all Android 2.3+ phones, Android 4.0+ tablets and iOS5+ devices.

Author's comment: While there are many handwriting recognition apps and built in software in phones and tablets, the option to make a Google page outside of an app recognise handwriting is awesome. Who knows it could bring handwriting back in style?

Handwrite tips and tricks

Delete letters: Touch the  backspace icon at the bottom of the page.

Start over: Touch X in the search box at the top of the page.

Clarify ambiguous characters: When you type a character that could be mistaken for another, like 0 (the number) and O (the letter), a list of options may appear at the bottom of the screen.

Use predictions: To help save you time, a list of predicted queries may appear in the search box as you write. Touch a prediction to search for that query, or touch the  arrow to the right of a query to explore related searches.

Include symbols: Try symbols and special characters such as + @ & $.

iOS Apps Crash more than Android Apps

While there are still mixed reactions on iOS 7 which comes with an all new design, let’s check out a detailed comparison table which gives you a detailed insight on where each of the OS stands. While some say that iOS is an explicit copy of Windows Phone OS as well as from Android’s Jellybean OS, it has become tough for Apple to give out clarification. With Google keenly looking at the iOS 7, it seems like the next version of Android will surely be different from what we saw till now. Rumors are doing the rounds that the next version of Android will also be supporting the low end devices. In recent Android OS version, Jellybean 4.1 – 4.2.2 didn’t see many changes in terms of UI /UX and almost looked same.

iOS 7	Android 4.2	Windows Phone 8	BlackBerry 10
Control Center	Varies by Manufacturer	No Settings Menu	Access to System Settings is Possible
Notification center	Detailed notifications	Live tile badges	BlackBerry Hub, badges
Multitasking preview	Recently Used List	Multitasking preview	Active Frames grid
Surfaced camera modes	Varies by Android skin	Third-party lenses	Video, Time Shift modes
Photos grouped by years, location	Albums, other filters	Albums, date	Albums, recent
Shared photo stream	Select Android Devices have it	Share one by one	Share one by one
Peer-to-peer sharing (AirDrop)	Android Beam (NFC)	Tap + Share (NFC)	NFC sharing
Unified browser bar	Yes	Yes	Yes
Personalized radio/discovery	Google Play Music All Access	Nokia Music	Third-party app
Voice access to system settings	Samsung’s S Voice	No systems access	No systems access
Automatic app updates	Update All & Individual App Update option	‘Update all’ option	Individual
Password-protected reset	No	No	No
In-dash integration (iOS for cars)	Driving mode/S Drive	Nokia Drive	Third-party apps
iCloud Like Service	No	No	No

While the iTunes Radio is Free for all service, Google has launched the All Access Music Service which comes with the subscription service which costs $10. Nokia Music too is a free service but only is limited to Windows Phones.

So, currently there are 4 Operating Systems which are ruling the charts which includes iOS, Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone 8. OS 7 today makes a big splash when it comes to its refined interface design and a smaller splash when it comes to its new feature set. Do let us know your thoughts on which one is your current favorite OS in the comments section below.

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Android Continues to Dominate Smartphone Market by Significant Margins

We’ve known for quite some time now that Android has been dominating the smartphone market for the past couple of years. In fact, Android’s market share has been at least double that of Apple’s for a long period of time. There are several factors that are contributing to this and the most recent numbers begin to really put things into perspective.

In Q2 of 2013, Android has encompassed an enormous market share of 79.3%. This is absolutely huge as is as become clear that Android is the king of the mobile space and is showing absolutely no signs of letting up. While Android’s market share is up from 69.1% just over a year ago, its competitors’ share is consequently going down. Blackberry for example has hit an all-time low, which is very unfortunate news seeing as the company put so much faith in its Blackberry 10 OS and Z10 device. Going from 5% last year to 3% this quarter just may be a sign that Blackberry is fading into oblivion.

Not all of Android’s competitors are losing market share however. Microsoft has seen success alongside Nokia’s Lumia line of devices and has actually overtaken Blackberry as number 3 in market share going from 3.1% last year to 3.7% this quarter. Whether this change is a result of Microsoft’s success or Blackberry’s failure is unclear, but it is definitely certain that the mobile market is becoming increasingly competitive.

Perhaps the biggest fall was from the folks over in Cupertino. Apple’s market share fell from 16.6% last year to 13.2% this quarter. However, Apple’s new iPhone coming later this year is likely to gain some of that momentum back. Likewise, Blackberry’s new OS is still in its infancy and certainly has plenty of room to grow. The IDC states that “BlackBerry will need time and resources to evangelize more end users”.

Android’s success is thanks to an increase in the number of Chinese manufactures pushing out devices. The open-source model certainly has its advantages when it comes to numbers. However, it unfortunately is responsible for an extreme lack of unity across devices, making for a confusing and inconsistent Android ecosystem.

Android is going to become more like Apple because that's what Google wants

Android has come a long way from where it started; and, it had to because in some ways it had been playing catch up with iOS for a long time. Apple made sure from the start that iOS was focused on the user experience, so there were never really issues of lag; and, the UI, while plain, was consistent and polished. Over the years, Apple has continued that focus at the expense of adding features more quickly, and at the expense of having the UI look the same, until now. On the other hand, Google started off with a platform that was full of potential, but was clearly a work in progress. Google never slowed down in adding features to the platform, but it took a few years for Android to find that level of polish and usability that iOS had. 

Right now, if you set the two platforms side-by-side, it is clear that from a usability standpoint, the platforms are on equal footing, and from a features standpoint, Android has pulled ahead considerably. Unfortunately, you still see the same tired arguments around the two platforms, as though nothing has changed. And really, I'm getting a little bit tired of the constant shouting by Android fans that nothing seems to matter aside from hardware specs. The trouble I have with that argument is that it's either based on old, busted logic, or it's an argument to set up a false dichotomy between Android and iOS. To me, it comes off just as silly as when Apple fans continue to claim that Android is laggy or buggy, because both arguments are based on platforms that don't exist anymore.

Android's Evolution

There was a time when both arguments were valid, though. Back in the days before Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Android was laggy and it was buggy; and the best way for manufacturers to combat the lag issues was to push as hard as possible on specs. Back then, there was a far bigger real world difference between different hardware, because chipsets were still in early stages. Remember, we're under three years from the days when single-core processors were the norm. 

When Android devices were first jumping from single-core to dual-core, the ecosystem was still mostly running Android 2.2 Froyo, with Android 2.3 Gingerbread rolling in, and Eclair and Donut rolling out. Google was working hard to add features and find its footing with the platform, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would have called the platform "mature" at that point. Android didn't even have proper support for multicore processors until Android 3.0 Honeycomb, which was tablets only, meaning that Android phones didn't get multicore support until Android 4.0.

That's when Google hired Matias Duarte, and Android turned a corner. Android 4.0 was released in late 2011, which was about 6 months before the first quad-core device hit the market. That means, in about one year, the hardware jumped from single-core to quad-core; and, during that time, Google finally added real multicore support to the platform. Hardware and software were growing together, and we had to pay attention to the hardware side, because the software wasn't quite ready. 

But, Android 4.0 brought the "look" to what had been a somewhat ugly OS. It brought the stability, and it brought a solid performance boost for devices that could handle it. The ecosystem was still in flux at that point, so there were troubles, like the original Nexus One not getting the Android 4.0 update even though the device was less than two years old. Single-core devices were quickly left behind, so the system requirements for Android 4.0 weren't an issue for too long. 

That's when Android 4.1 Jelly Bean dropped, and Project Butter brought the performance that everyone had always hoped would come with each faster piece of hardware. And, that was really the last piece of the puzzle for Android. Sure, there are ways to improve the platform and the ecosystem. But, for a user going out to buy a new high-end device (all of which come with at least Android 4.1 preloaded), you could be sure that you were going to get a device that ran smoothly, had a consistent look and feel, and is essentially feature complete given the vast options for customization and improvement available in the Google Play Store. 

Google is certainly going to keep evolving Android, and adding new features, but we've hit the point where just about everything else from here on is ancillary. Of course, because of the nature of Android, Google isn't the only one controlling its fate, which leads to two distinct paths for the platform: Google's way, and Samsung's. 

Google wants Android devices to be like the iPhone

Obviously, a statement like this is going to anger some people who don't like to read/think and would rather keep spitting rage and getting into meaningless fights in our comment threads. But, here's the real point of the statement: Google doesn't want users to have to care about specs; Google wants users to care about the experience. Just like Apple with the iPhone. 

There's a reason that Apple doesn't talk about the specs of its hardware except in comparative terms. The new iPhone is always "twice as fast", or Apple will show what the graphics look like in a new game. Think about it: Apple never even compares its new devices to its old ones directly. It's never that the new iPhone is "twice as fast as the iPhone 5", it's simply "twice as fast". Apple never shows a side-by-side comparison of what a game looks like now compared to before. And, while Apple will give the name of the new chipset, it never gives specs, because when software is properly optimized, the specs don't matter. Just ask anyone with a Nokia Lumia handset if they care (or even notice) that their device is running on hardware that would be considered "mid-range" by spec fanatics. 

Google wants the same thing for Android. We've seen it with the last few iterations of the Nexus phones, and the Nexus 7 tablets. None have launched with cutting-edge specs from top to bottom, because the price to performance ratio was the key for those devices. Now, while Motorola continues to claim it is a separate company, it is pretty clear that it is doing what Google wants; and, the Moto X is the perfect example of a device that doesn't want users focused on specs, but on the high-end experience. If Google has its way, Android devices will be marketed (like the iPhone) to the average consumer, who doesn't care about specs, and only cares about what the device can do. Of course, even that approach has two schools of thought.

The Kitchen Sink vs Thoughtful approach

All of this seems reasonable enough, but there is still the constant push-back from spec fanatics who don't seem to care that there is software running on their devices; all they care about is that the hardware specs are the best they can be. Unfortunately, the hardware companies that tend to share this idea also tend to think that "more is more" when it comes to software as well. That's where Samsung and LG come in. 

As we know from seeing every new Galaxy device come out, Samsung doesn't want to waste time thinking about what consumers might want, or what might be the most useful for daily life. No, Samsung would rather take every idea that hits the brainstorming table, make it, and cram it into a device. And, from the looks of the new LG G2, it seems as though that is LG's theory as well. Of course along with this kitchen sink approach to software, Samsung and LG both tend to use the top-of-the-line hardware (though not casing, just internals). This leads to more fuel for spec fans, who will continue to point to these devices as if they have some sort of groundbreaking superiority over another device simply because the CPU is a bit faster, or the screen has more pixels (as if you can see the difference anyway). 

For those who take a more holistic approach to devices, there are options from Google (via the Nexus line), Google (via Motorola), and more and more it seems that HTC is leaning this way as well. Over the past couple of years, HTC has been scaling back its Sense software to be more sensible (no pun intended), and it refocused its efforts on the hardware design. Given HTC's constant sales and production issues, I certainly wouldn't be surprised to see the company follow Google's lead even more in the future. 

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Mobile internet is the next big growth engine

BANGALORE: India's ecommerce posterboy Flipkart.com has built its next-generation data centre running on the Juniper Networks's Junos operating system. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) is deploying Juniper's ethernet switches, integrated with its security and routing devices, within the Chennai Airport's new terminals. In an interaction with TOI, Kevin Johnson, CEO of Juniper Networks, talks about how he and his team are focused on fundamentally changing the experience and economics of networking through an ecosystem of innovation built on integrated software platforms. Excerpts: 

Do you think customers are plugging into the new networking paradigm?

Today, a third of the population is connected to the internet. Projections say, two-thirds of the population will be connected to the internet in the near future. There are more people connected through mobile devices and networks are enabling innovation. Internally, we call this as connect everything and empower everyone. Network has created an opportunity to access information and be connected. It's had an impact on education, commerce, healthcare and way the governments can reach out to their citizens. The internet is providing positive implications in the world that we live in. The fact that you can have people collaborate around an idea related to innovation and create a network for them to share their ideas is made possible by the internet. Network is a key enabler of innovation not just in technology, but in the way businesses operate. 

The demand fundamentals for networking continue to remain strong. What's driving growth?

I think, there is a huge demand for smartphones and tablets and people want to consume more data on the internet. In many ways, service providers will continue to look to Juniper to innovate so that we can reduce the cost of traffic carried and make them more profitable. In addition to this, some service providers have innovated in their own business models. The big growth engines are mobile internet, videos and distribution of videos on the network. Increasing adoption of cloud computing, private cloud and public clouds and big data centres connected to network are other drivers for growth. 

How is the enterprise business playing out in India?

Our India business is growing rapidly. Last year, we grew 30% on the enterprise side, while the service providers business was flat and part of that is related to the way the spectrum was allocated on the wireless side. The wireless spectrum and auction process have created a situationthe industry remains fragmented. There has been a pause in spending and service providers are waiting for certain changes in policy matters. Most competitors in the wireless side are not making profits posing a challenge to many of the service providers. I think that's being addressed. 

How are you leveraging on cloud to deliver a better value proposition?

There are certain applicationsclients have concerns around privacy of data and hence, they want to store their data on a private cloud. At the end of the day, virtualised data centres provide better economics of computing. In addition to connecting data centres to the internet, we have a sizable security business that will grow exponentially in the next 5-10 years.

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11 ways to keep your emails safe hackers

WASHINGTON: Emails are the most common thing vulnerable to spying.

Adam Levin, founder of Credit.com and Identity Theft 911, has given 11 steps not to do with email and doing which will make us vulnerable to hackers, ABC News reported.

Firstly, he said that a person should never check their e-mail on an unsafe network, as a computer in an internet cafe, library or any other business may be infected with malware to steal your passwords.

Secondly, people should log off their e-mails as soon as their work is over, as by staying signed up a hacker can gain immediate access.

Thirdly, Levin said that email login name and password should not be repeated.

Fourthly, another problem is that people do not their old-emails properly, which could contain addresses, account usernames and passwords, contact information foryour pals, financial data and may other sensitive information.

Fifthly, if an email comes to you that promises a loan or credit card that is worth a guaranteed amount of money at a low interest rate, beware that it is a scam, as nobody will give you credit without checking your credit report.

Sixthly, people should not click on seemingly ambiguous emails their pals, as they could be vectors of attack. Cyber criminals often pose as pals stuck penniless in Europe or Asia and in need of an immediate wire transfer.

Seventhly, if you get a mail your bank or credit card company asking to verify your account information beware that it can be cyber criminals, as an institute that handles important thingsmoney or packages, don't use email for communication, and definitely not to confirm personal information.

Eighthly, many scams involve sending money to people that you have never met for e.g there is the "Wall Street insider" with the hot investment tip or the foreign company, which needs you to cash a check or process transactions. Beware.

Ninthly, people should not fall for the trick that makes them think that their credit card has been stolen.

Tenthly, after Hurricane Sandy and the giant tornado in Oklahoma, cyber criminals sent emails requesting donations for relief efforts.

Lastly, do not click on emails that show too good to be true travel deals.

Airpush Launches 'AirDSP'

Airpush, winner of “Best Mobile Ad Network” at the 2012 MEA’s, today unveiled its “AirDSP” platform to provide mobile real-time bidding capability for the company’s 5,000+ advertisers.Using AirDSP, advertisers can run campaigns across major mobile RTB exchanges and SSPs a single interface, using the most advanced optimization and audience targeting tools in the industry. Airpush has partnered with Inneractive, MobClix, MoPub, OpenX, Smaato and other mobile RTB supply sources around the world, in order to provide AirDSP clients with nearly limitless scale for RTB campaigns.

“Real-time bidding in mobile has recently experienced explosive growth, but the barriers to entry are extremely high for advertisers who want to enter the market and be competitive,” said Asher Delug, Airpush Founder and CEO. “Only the largest advertisers and agencies are equipped to build connectivity to the exchanges, develop a bidding algorithm and media buying interface, and acquire data at a scale that is required to be competitive in today’s mobile RTB market. Our vision for AirDSP was to break down those barriers to entry and give our 5,000+ advertisers a world-class platform to enter the mobile RTB market effortlessly.”

One of AirDSP’s flagship features is Optimizer, a breakthrough, patent-pending optimization tool that can dramatically improve the performance of any RTB campaign. Optimizer “democratizes” the mobile RTB market by giving self-serve advertisers a level of bidding precision that was previously available only to programmatic buyers. The tool’s core functionality is to display campaign performance metrics and trends across a high number of targeting parameters, while enabling advertisers to manage different bids, creatives, and landing pages for each targeting parameter independently. For example, a restaurant chain promoting a coupon campaign can automatically change the ad creative during breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours as well as raise bids 30 percent during the most profitable meal time.

In another major benefit to Airpush clients, AirDSP features a comprehensive set of open APIs. This enables agencies, ad networks, and resellers to offer mobile real-time bidding functionality to their clients via their own customer portal on a private-label basis. Every feature available in the AirDSP portal has been exposed via open APIs, enabling clients to fully replicate the power of AirDSP within their own web applications.

AirDSP is currently available on www.airpush.com. Current advertisers can log into their existing self-serve accounts for immediate access, and new advertisers can easily sign up by creating a free advertiser account on the Airpush website.

About Airpush

Named “Best Mobile Ad Network” at the 2012 Mobile Excellence Awards, Airpush is on a mission to redefine mobile advertising for publishers and advertisers. More than 100,000 apps and 5,000 advertisers rely on Airpush to deliver the industry's highest performance, driven by exceptional ad formats and targeting technology. Founded in 2011 by mobile advertising veterans, the company has approximately 140 employees and offices in Los Angeles and Bangalore.

New fibre optic tech to boost internet bandwidth

WASHINGTON: In a breakthrough, scientists including one of Indian origin have devised a new fibre optic technology that promises to increase bandwidth dramatically, easing internet congestion and video streaming. 

The technology centers on donut-shaped laser light beams called optical vortices, in which the light twistsa tornado as it moves along the beam path, rather than in a straight line. 

Widely studied in molecular biology, atomic physics and quantum optics, optical vortices (also known as orbital angular momentum, or OAM, beams) were thought to be unstable in fibre, until Boston University engineering professor Siddharth Ramachandran recently designed an optical fibre that can propagate them. 

In a paper in journal Science, he and Alan Willner of University of Southern California, demonstrated the stability of the beams in optical fibre and also their potential to boost internet bandwidth. 

"For several decades since optical fibres were deployed, the conventional assumption has been that OAM-carrying beams are inherently unstable in fibres," said Ramachandran. 

"Our discovery, of design classes in which they are stable, has profound implications for a variety of scientific and technological fields that have exploited the unique properties of OAM-carrying light, including the use of such beams for enhancing data capacity in fibres," he said. 

Ramachandran and Willner collaborated with OFS-Fitel, a fibre optics company in Denmark, and Tel Aviv University. 

Traditionally, bandwidth has been enhanced by increasing the number of colours, or wavelengths of data-carrying laser signals essentially streams of 1s and 0s sent down an optical fibre,the signals are processed according to colour. 

An emerging strategy to boost bandwidth is to send the light through a fibre along distinctive paths, or modes, each carrying a cache of data one end of the fibre to the other. 

Unlike the colours, however, data streams of 1s and 0s different modes mix together; determining which data stream came which source requires computationally intensive and energy-hungry digital signal processing algorithms. 

Ramachandran and Willner's approach combines both strategies, packing several colours into each mode, and using multiple modes. 

In experiments in the study, researchers created an OAM fibre with four modes (an optical fibre typically has two), and showed that for each OAM mode, they could send data through a 1km fibre in 10 different colours, resulting in a transmission capacity of 1.6 terabits per second.

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US entrepreneurship reaches record levels

Entrepreneurship in the US has risen to its highest level in a decade, according to the recently released Global Entrepreneurship Monitor U.S Report.

In fact, a massive 13 per cent of the entire adult American population are currently involved in entrepreneurial activities, with a diverse cross-section of the society making up this figure.

Take a look at the below infographic, prepared by GEM, to delve deeper into the facts and see how this rise in entrepreneurship is shaping the future of the country.

Google patents photo-capturing walking stick

Google has got its new invention, a walking stick that takes pictures whenever it hits the ground, patented. 

According to the patent text, the stick has a sensor that provides location info about the elongated member's position, Discovery News reported. 

According to Geekwire, a patent application sketch shows the camera mounted on top of the stick; there are also multiple location sensors, a battery and a processing system in the middle and at the bottom there is a switch. 

The patent has also been extended to stick-like objects such as a cane, a crutch, a monopod, a trekking pole, a rod or a staff.

How smartphones are making customer care hi-tech

BANGALORE: Indian enterprises are increasingly using touch-enabled smartphones and data analytics tools to transform traditional call centre work, reducing workload on staff and claiming significantly improved customer satisfaction levels.

By integrating traditional voice support with real-time support through smartphones, enterprises are encouraging a form of self-service, sometimes without any human intervention.

That is being supplemented through predictive analytics to improve efficiency and sometimes forecast outcomes of interaction between a customer and a support executive. At India's second-largest private lender HDFC Bank, for instance, a customer applying for a loan only has to submit account credentials through a smartphone using the bank's customer-support platform.

The system, which incorporatesinformation pertaining to the customer, will analyse the credit background instantly and accept the application through the touch-based screen on the mobile phone. Using predictive analytics tools, the system also offers new services to existing customers based on their previous credit history.

Potentially, a man with a smartphone will have the same capabilities as an entire bank branch. Automated technologies can liberate the workforce currently engaged in primary call centres to participate in more productive activities which are higher on the value chain," said Nishant Singh, chief executive officer and founder of Noida-based customer relationship management firm CRMnext, which helped HDFC Bank create this service.

A recent survey by technology market researcher Gartner indicated that there would be a 60-85 % drop in call volumes when such automated self-service options are made available to customers. First piloted by a few banks, these tools are now being widely used by insurance companies and information technology firms.

Tata AIA Insurance and Reliance Capital are among other firms that are adopting similar technologies to improve customer care. Thanks to increased adoption of touch-based phones, more service providersCRMnext are offering innovative customer service ideas to clients.

For instance, Silicon Valley-based 24/7 has developed a single platform which integrates speech, touch and visual display.

These solutions can provide cost savings to enterprises by requiring fewer human agents," said PV Kannan, cofounder and CEO of 24/7 Inc, who claimed that service efficiency of clients improved by 50-75 % due to the adoption of visual and speech technologies.

Even companies that are not traditionally into customer service management are now keen on developing new platforms in this space. Corporations such as Convergys and Accenture have devised automated self-service platforms for various services hoping these would become the predominant form of customer engagement in the near future.

While the advantages of automated platforms are plenty, experts caution that it is too early to rule out human interaction as an integral part of customer care.

According to best estimates, 50-60 % of feedback calls still go through to human agents at contact centres," said Praveen Sengar of Gartner, adding that many customers still prefer that 'human touch' while resolving their problems. But optimistsCRMnext's Singh says the adoption of 4G technology will reduce the cost of internet connectivity, thus allowing automated mobile phone and internet based customer services to permeate into more areas, including rural markets.