VARINDIA IT MAGAZINE

Storing data and applications remotely rather than on one’s own premises can cut IT costs dramatically and speed up operations. Business leaders are looking to optimise and grow their businesses, and cloud can give them the scope of reducing costs and providing better customer experience. Smart businesses are asking what’s driving the rush to the cloud by keeping customized applications in the cloud. India is emerging as the battleground for global e-commerce Internet conglomerates. While Amazon’s boss Jeff Bezos had committed over $5 billion for its Indian arm, biggies like Alibaba, Tencent and SoftBank are excited about their Indian story. Large Internet groups from the US and China are thereby competing for taking a bigger share of the market. Despite the rise of public cloud platforms offered by the likes of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, it is a fact that only 10% (or may be less) of the world's data is currently stored in the cloud.... ...

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has slapped a fine of Rs 136 crore on search engine biggie Google for unfair business practices in the Indian market for online search. Reacting on the complaints that were filed back in 2012, the regulator said the penalty is being imposed on Google for "infringing anti-trust conduct". Incidentally, this is one of the rare cases where Google has been penalized for unfair business ways globally. It was alleged that taking advantage of its dominant position in search engine, Google is indulging in such practices leading to search bias and search manipulation, among others. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) said that it found it appropriate to impose a fine on Google after it has given thoughtful consideration on the submissions made by the search engine major on issue of penalty.... Read More

Every organisation relies on the use of information in their daily work. For this reason, organisations need to ensure that their information assets i.e. any piece of data which has value to the organisation such as employee record, analysis reports, financial data, trade secrets, contracts, etc., are suitably protected. This has given rise to the concerns around privacy and personal data protection. Data security of the information will take the center-stage in 2018. Privacy and personal data protection will be the focus in 2018 for every organization. Organizations will refocus on protecting what is really important. Information Security is a difficult task as most organisations are faced with an ever changing landscape affecting their operations - market development, advances in technology, discovery of new vulnerabilities, changing legal regime and so on. Gartner forecasts worldwide security spending will total USD 96.3 billion, that’s an 8 percent spike from 2017. ...

Both consumer and business applications are contributing to the growing dominance of cloud services over the Internet. For consumers, streaming video, social networking, and Internet search are among the most popular cloud applications. For business users, enterprise resource planning (ERP), collaboration, analytics, and other digital enterprise applications represent leading growth areas. But anything we do, security remains to be the biggest concerns. Improvements in datacenter governance and data control have helped to minimize enterprise risk and better protect consumer information. The growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart cars, smart cities, connected health and digital utilities require scalable computing and storage solutions to accommodate new and expanding datacenter demands. By 2021, experts say IoT connections will reach 13.7 billion, up from 5.8 billion in 2016. Datacenter application growth is clearly exploding in this new multi-clo...

In today’s fast-paced world, it becomes extremely difficult to find time and make a lot of friends. Well, here’s someone who has made over half-a-million friends and had over 40 million conversations in just one year. It is none other than Ruuh, Microsoft’s AI-powered, desi chatbot, who has turned one year old. Ruuh has a persona of a 21-year-old female who is intelligent and is capable of empathizing with her audience. Entertaining the youth with discussions on Bollywood, music, humour and travel, the past year has seen Ruuh’s popularity grow exponentially. It’s no wonder she gets almost 600 “I love you” messages every day and spends several hours chatting with her friends, with the current record standing at 10 hours.. Read More

Facial recognition solutions are expected to come to a wide range of handsets in 2018 following Apple’s FaceID and Samsung Galaxy Note 8’s Face and IRIS unlock technology. More than one billion smartphones are expected to feature some form of face unlock solution in 2020. When Apple announced Touch ID in 2013, it set a trend in consumer mobility. Smartphone OEMs around the world followed Apple’s example and integrated fingerprint sensors into their own devices. And they did so to such an extent that fingerprint-based security is now considered standard issue on even budget-priced smartphones. More than a billion smartphones are estimated to be shipping in 2018 sporting fingerprint sensors. Is Apple permanently ditching Touch ID for contactless authentication? Either way, inevitably, Apple’s rivals will adopt similar technology during 2018, which could lead to facial recognition becoming the de-facto standard for unlocking phones and the gradual elimination of fingerprint...

“A draft National Telecom Policy 2018 that is liberal and non-prescriptive in its licensing approach in Machine to Machine (M2M) communication is being given final touches. The policy should be in the public domain in the next two to three weeks for discussion and responses from stakeholders,” said Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications. Aruna Sundararajan said, “M2M is the next big opportunity for India in terms of its impact and the quantum change that it will bring about in the quality of services and delivery. The favourable impact of M2M on job creation had already set in as seen by the arrival of the first set of start-ups in the areas such as agriculture, smart cities, healthcare and water management.” She stressed that NTP 2018 would be transformative in harnessing the full benefits of M2M communications. She further said that in the M2M framework the focus would be on low-cost manufacturing, where exciting innovatio...

With the advent of the 2018 Winter Games, McAfee forewarns global fans, consumers, athletes and organizations alike of impending Winter Games-themed phishing attacks. Through these attacks, cybercriminals are most likely seeking passwords and financial information, using a number of techniques to entice victims into opening weaponized documents. Tactics include email distributed from “spoofed” corporate-branded email addresses, emails written in native languages, and the addition of attached documents marked as “protected”. McAfee has recently uncovered Operation GoldDragon, a malware attack targeting organizations affiliated with the 2018 Winter Games. Further investigation by McAfee Advanced Threat Research analysts has uncovered the consequences for victims of malware implant GoldDragon include attackers’ accessing end-user systems and collecting data stored on the device and connected cloud accounts. Potential risks include attacker’s access to customer and employee finan...

Dimension Data has extended the company’s protection from ransomware, phishing attacks, bot networks, and all types of malicious software, with Cisco Umbrella, the Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) in the cloud. The decision to incorporate Cisco Umbrella follows the company’s firsthand experience protecting its own 28,000 employees and addresses its clients’ requirement to support an increasingly mobile workforce.  Cisco Umbrella is a cloud security platform that provides the first line of defense against threats on the internet.  “In today’s expanding threat landscape, it is critical to have powerful security tools that effectively support mobility and cloud. With Cisco Umbrella, we are able to proactively stop threats on any mobile device before they happen with a secure solution that is easily integrated with existing infrastructure,” said Chris Panzeca, Senior Director, Global Strategic Partner Sales, .... Read More

Telefónica and Huawei have achieved a new milestone with the Proof-of-Concept (PoC) testbed for 5G-based vehicle communication networks (known as 5G-V2X) in their 5G Joint Innovation Lab at Madrid. This is another solid step to promote 5G commercialization and expand the 5G ecosystem after both companies completed 5G UCNC trial in 2017. 5G-V2X is widely recognized as the first and most important vertical industry which will be enabled by 5G innovations. The test for 5G-V2X technology is based on the latest 3GPP New Radio (NR) Standard specification available since December 22, 2017. Some of the most advanced 5G-V2X services include vehicles platooning, extended sensors, advanced driving and remote driving, among others.... Read More

Google India has launched a public initiative "#SecurityCheckKiya" to protect young and first-time web users from account hijacking, safeguard Android devices from malicious apps and secure all their personal data if they lose their device. The company said that, with a large base of unsuspecting first-time Internet users now coming online through easy access modes but lacking technical literacy, Indian users are increasingly vulnerable to bad actors and abuse on the web. "Just like in the physical world, users in India should take precautions while engaging with the online world. While security is built into all of Google services, keeping the web safe for everyone is a shared responsibility," said Sunita Mohanty, Director, Trust and Safety.... Read More

Running on 28.5 percent of devices (across both versions 7.0 and 7.1), Android 7.0 Nougat is now the most-used version of the Android operating system, according to an update on Google’s developer portal. Android, 6.0 Marshmallow (released in 2015) is the second most-used version that still stands at 28.1 percent. Google’s latest 8.0 Oreo update released last fall stands at just 1.1 percent of Android devices, coming at a distant sixth place. It was running only on 0.2 percent of devices till October 2nd, 2017.... Read More

HP Inc. has expanded its 3D printing portfolio with the introduction of its new Jet Fusion 300/500 series of 3D printers, the 3D printing technology that enables manufacturers to produce engineering-grade, functional parts in full colour, black or white – with voxel control – in a fraction of the time of other solutions. Depending on configuration and colour preference, the Jet Fusion 300/500 series is available starting in the $50,000s, enabling small- to medium-sized product development teams and design businesses, entrepreneurs, and universities and research institutions to access HP’s industry-leading Multi-Jet Fusion printing technology. The new Jet Fusion 300 / 500 series complements HP's existing industrial-grade Jet Fusion 3200 / 4200 / 4210 3D solutions which deliver the lowest cost per part and are designed for manufacturing environments. With this portfolio expansion, HP is providing users of its Multi- Jet Fusion solutions the ability to prototype and produce ...

OPPO has entered into the Japan market with its full-screen camera phone OPPO smartphone. With its revolutionary mobile photography experience, the OPPO smartphone will be available soon in the coming weeks to Japanese consumers. As the company accelerates its expansion plan to markets such as Japan and Europe, OPPO has now entered more than 31 markets, including Asia, Middle East, Africa and Oceania. "The entry into the Japanese market is a further step in the globalization of OPPO. OPPO has been committed to uncovering and meeting the core needs of consumers and has accumulated rich experience in global market expansion. We believe OPPO will win recognition of Japanese customers. In the future, we will learn from the successful experience of Japanese brands, adhere to our strategy of quality products and localized operations, and strive to bring to Japanese consumers the smartphone products that combine leading technology with artistic beauty,” said Sean Deng, CE...

OPPO has unveiled a dashing blue edition of OPPO F5 in collaboration with its brand ambassador – Sidharth Malhotra: OPPO F5 Sidharth Limited Edition. According to the company, this new colour edition continues the success of the F5 series, OPPO’s first full-screen model featuring A.I. Beauty Recognition Technology designed to personalize beautification.  OPPO has also revealed a brand-new microfilm starring Sidharth Malhotra and directed by critically acclaimed film director – Mohit Suri.  Commenting on this new launch, Will Yang, Brand Director, OPPO India, said, “It brings us immense pleasure to offer our consumers another special that will enable them to capture special moments spent with loved ones. OPPO as a brand is focussed on the youth and always innovates its marketing and product strategies to offer unique experiences. The OPPO F5 Sidharth Limited Edition, a blend of innovation and technology, is an effort in that direction. We are extremely happy to coll...

Vivo has collaborated with fashion designer Manish Malhotra and launched "Infinite Red" Vivo V7+ limited edition smartphone targeting millennials in India. The selfie-focussed flagship smartphone comes with 24MP front shooter features a heart-shaped motif at the back. The device was launched in champagne gold and matte black coloured variants in September. Commenting on this, Kenny Zeng, CMO, Vivo India, said, "With the launch of V7+ Manish Malhotra Limited edition, we are providing an opportunity for consumers to express their love in a more elegant and captivating manner." "I am happy to collaborate with Vivo and present the V7+. We have created a phone that symbolises the spirit of youth and infinite love," Malhotra said in a statement.... Read More

From budget year 2017-18, the Government has decided to merge Rail Budget with the Union Budget. The merger of Railway Budget with General Budget is based on the recommendations of the Committee headed by Shri Bibek Debroy, Member, NITI Aayog, and a separate paper on “Dispensing with the Railway Budget” presented by Shri Bibek Debroy along with Shri Kishore Desai. A Committee with representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Railways examined the issues involved and worked out the procedural details. The salient features of merger and the benefits likely to accrue there from are broadly given below: i. Ministry of Railways will continue to function as a departmentally run commercial undertaking; ii. A separate Statement of Budget Estimates and Demand for Grant will be created for Railways; iii. A single Appropriation Bill, including the estimates of Railways, will be prepared and presented by Ministry of Finance to Parliament and all legislative work connecte...

Quess Corp. has announced that it has signed definitive agreements to buy Monster India and its business in South-East Asia and the Middle East (“Monster”) from Monster Worldwide Inc. and The Care Business of HCL Services (“Care Business”) from HCL Infosystems.  According to the company, the transactions are expected to close in the next few weeks, subject to the fulfilment of customary closing conditions and required statutory approvals.  Monster, a leading online career and recruitment resource with its cutting-edge technology, provides relevant profiles to employers and relevant jobs to jobseekers across industry verticals, experience levels and geographies. Monster, a 20+-year-old marquee internet brand, provides the widest and most sophisticated job-seeking, career management, recruitment and talent management capabilities globally. The acquired business has operations across India, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia,...

Red Hat has signed a definitive agreement to acquire CoreOS, Inc., an innovator and leader in Kubernetes and container-native solutions for a purchase price of $250 million. The acquisition is subject to certain adjustments at closing that are not expected to be material. The transaction is expected to have no material impact to Red Hat's guidance for its fourth fiscal quarter or fiscal year ending February 28, 2018. Red Hat’s acquisition of CoreOS will further its vision of enabling customers to build any application and deploy them in any environment with the flexibility afforded by open source. By combining CoreOS’s complementary capabilities with Red Hat’s already broad Kubernetes and container-based portfolio, including Red Hat OpenShift, Red Hat aims to further accelerate adoption and development of hybrid cloud platform for modern application workloads. Paul Cormier, President, Products and Technologies, Red Hat, said, “The next era of technology is being drive...

With the perfect theme designed for this year, Infotech Software Dealers Association (ISODA) is in its 8th edition of TechSummit, held in hotel J W Marriot Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 1st and 4th of February, 2018. This year, TechSummit is sponsored by CISCO as the Platinum sponsor, Checkpoint and Kaspersky as the Gold sponsors, while other vendors which include Redhat, Sophos, Radware, iPSwitch and Stratus are the Silver sponsors and LG participated as the Associate sponsor. The event is attended by 100 key decision makers of the VAR community, members of ISODA who have been working tirelessly to onboard technology sponsors, create an interesting agenda, maximize participation and creating most interactive platform for discussion on Tipping Point: Breaching the finance barrier.... Read More