VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

Nokia has announced its Smartpur project that aims to develop 500 digitally-integrated and sustainable villages across India in line with the government’s vision of Digital India. In phase 1 of the project, a pilot has been rolled out in Haryana and Tamil Nadu with Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) as the implementation partner to develop 10 such villages in each state. The pilot in Tain village, Nuh district, Haryana was inaugurated today by the Ambassador of Finland, Ms Nina Vaskunlahti. In phase 1 of the project, 20 villages will be digitally integrated in Haryana and Tamil Nadu in a hub and spoke model. Tain village in Nuh district Haryana and Asoor in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu will serve as hubs which will host a digital center with telecom connectivity to provide ICT-enabled, primary services across each of the 5 pillars to rural community. The spoke centers will further extend these services to 9 other villages from each hub. In phase 2, the project will be s

Symantec has announced that it has discovered two new sets of malicious apps on the Google Play Store. The first set is of seven apps and the second set is of 38 apps. However, now the research firm has gotten the malicious apps removed after contacting Google. As per the reports, the apps had over 10,000 downloads. The first app set features the "Android.Reputation.1" malware and loads scam websites on smartphone browsers. They come in the garb of calculators, app lockers, and call recorders. These apps have been re-uploaded on the Play Store with different names (and without any change in code) after they were pulled down earlier.... Read More

Facebook has announced that it had suspended 200 apps as part of its investigation into the potential misuse of personal data on the social network, the latest fallout from the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal. As per the reports, after Cambridge Analytica fallout, the company is investigating apps that had access to large amounts of data before 2014. The company also said that it had investigated thousands of apps two months after reporting by the Observer and the Guardian revealed that millions of Americans’ personal data was harvested from Facebook and improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy. Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Vice-President of Product Partnerships, said in a blogpost that the company was conducting a “comprehensive review” to identify every app that had access to large amounts of data before the site changed its policies in 2014. When concerns arise, Facebook plans to conduct interviews, request information from the apps “and p

One97 Communications Limited that owns the brand Paytm has further unified bank transfers for its customers with the new “My Payments” feature on its app. This will enable Paytm users to make recurring, high-value payment and other monthly expenses in an instant. Using the Paytm app, Bank Transfers can be done from any Bank Account to any Bank Account, making it easier for customers to make payments at 0% charge. Even non-KYC Paytm users can avail this facility. With this new addition to its multilingual app, the company is confident of a substantial increase in the Bank Transfers transactions on its platform. Paytm is aiming to process Rs.60,000 crore in monthly Bank Transfers alone by the end of this year. It has been aggressively educating its users to link their bank accounts and experience instant and secure Bank Transfers for a wide variety of regular use-cases like house rent, business payments, fee, salaries and peer-to-peer payments among others, while emerge as a on

State-run telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and SAP SE have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly offer innovative GST solutions to enterprises across India. The collaboration leverages the capabilities of BSNL as GST Suvidha Provider (GSP) and SAP as Application Service Provider (ASP). BSNL, through its network of approximately 115 million customer base currently connecting 646 districts, 4,519 cities/towns and 6.25 lakh villages across India, will provide enhanced accessibility to companies of all sizes, specifically SMEs, to create, consolidate and file GST returns through SAP’s ASP solution in an easy, secure and smooth manner. The alliance will, thus, help realize the full potential of GST on the back of BSNL’s countrywide reach and SAP’s expertise in providing robust technology offerings. “As an intrinsic part of the Government’s Digital India initiative, we see GST as an important tool in the process for nation building,” said Shri