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Google’s New Marketplace Invites Sellers to Trade Their Patents

Google aims to get a hold of your exclusive set of rights. The search internet giant announced the same on Monday by stating its plan to establish an online marketplace. The common place will offer talented minds sell their patents to them.

The online meeting spot for Google and patent holders is known as Patent Purchase Promotion and it is an “experimental marketplace for patents that’s simple, easy to use, and fast.”

Allen Lo, the Patent Deputy Counsel of Google mentioned in a blog post –

We invite you to sell us your patents. Today we’re announcing the Patent Purchase Promotion as an experiment to remove friction from the patent market.

The blog post adds that a streamlined portal will be open for patent holders from May 8, 2015 through May 22, 2015, where willing sellers can set a price of their product. On the last date, the submission will close and submitters with valuable patents will be contacted by June 26, 2015. The deal is anticipated to close by late August.

The move will help improve their patent landscape. Also, it will provide better benefits to the original patent owner.

Get more information on Patent Purchase Promotion here.

April 28, 2015
This Remarkable New Ad Campaign Will Make You Think Twice Before Littering

Ad agency, Ogilvy & Mather has come up with an ingenious method to curb littering in the streets of Hong Kong. By using the DNA lifted off the litters and Snapshot DNA phenotyping, they’re now recreating the faces of the litterbugs.

The campaign, known as ‘The Face of Litter’ was formulated after Hong Kong Clean up, Ecozine and the Nature Conservancy joined hands for the same cause. The campaign was launched on Earth Day and will be targeting key locations. Using the DNA, visual representations of the litterbug will be created and put up across the city and online. This gives a warning call to other litterers too.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Reed Collins” author_title=”Chief Creative Officer Ogilvy & Mather Group Hong Kong”]

This campaign is one of a kind, It’s interactive. It’s innovative. It’s our own science experiment that we’re using to create social change. Litter is such a major problem in Hong Kong and thanks to technology we can now put a face to this anonymous crime and get people to think twice about littering.

[/quote]

Check out the video below that explains how the whole procedure works:

Overall, the country has been battling the problem of pollution for a long time. Each year, 300 million tons of waste gets generated. This initiative may seem small, but it is a start.

April 28, 2015
Xiaomi’s Q1 Earnings May Not be as Good as You Think

Lately, Xiaomi has been in the news for all the good reasons. They’re constantly announcing high-speced affordable smartphones and earnings that are constantly on a rise. But seems like the good days of the company may be over played. The Chinese equipment manufacturer that took over Apple’s sales on its home ground a while back, is now witnessing a steep decline in its revenue.

Ben Bajarin from the market research firm Creative Strategies revealed the quarterly sales of Xiaomi. The figure shown below depicts a decline in the Q1 2015 from the last quarter of 2014.

Based on Xiaomi’s end of March statement they sold 100m smartphones in total, they did not have a good Q1 2015. pic.twitter.com/Bn9qwyKukW

— Ben Bajarin (@BenBajarin) April 28, 2015

According to the statement by Ben Bajarin, Xiaomi sold a total of 100 million handsets, which is less than its previous records. One of the major reasons for lesser business for the Chinese tech giant is the supply shortage. The flash sale model adopted by the company has worked both in its favour and against. When the company’s supply does not meet the demand, interested buyers begin looking for other options.

There is a possibility that the latest Mi phone may help recover the revenue. The new Xiaomi Mi 4i consists of the Mi 4 parts, which are easily available in the market. Their supply chain is expected to achieve an overall boost by this, consequently helping Xiaomi build its sales numbers. Let’s hope Xiaomi pays heed to these figures, and increases its units in the future.

April 28, 2015
Thinking of Donating to Help Nepal? Check Out Facebook’s Impressive New Initiative

Facebook’s initiatives to help the earthquake-hit people in Nepal are appreciable. Earlier it launched a ‘Safety Check’ feature to help people know who all are safe in the affected region. The social networking service has now come up with a new tool that will lend a hand in making contributions for the victims of the Nepal earthquake.

The company has rolled out a ‘Donate button’ within the website which lets millions of connected users make a donation through Facebook. The fund raised for the Nepal earthquake-affected victims will go to International Medical Corps, which are on the ground serving the needful. The most brilliant part about this initiative is that the amount you donate, Facebook will match your donation till $2 million.

The CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg stated in his blog post –

People are coming together to support those affected by the earthquake that struck Nepal and impacted the populations of Nepal, India and Bangladesh

Mark also announced through his Facebook account that it will match every dollar donated up to $2 million, and matching funds i.e. $2 million will be donated by the company. Facebook will distribute the amount to the local relief and rescue organizations providing immediate and continuous relief. The official page of Mark Zuckerberg reads –

Today we’re launching a special campaign to help raise funds for those affected by the Nepal earthquake.At the top of…

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, April 27, 2015

Facebook says that till date, millions of people have been marked as safe and tens of millions of others have learnt about their safety across different sections of the world.

Many countries have joined hands to help Nepal get over this tragic situation. India has already sent and is sending assistance to its neighboring nation. United States has also stood up to do its bit and has announced to send $10 million in relief to stand by Nepal in its hard time.

The natural disaster that struck Nepal a few days back shook the very existence of the country. The death toll has passed 4,000 and is still increasing. According to UN, as much as eight million people are affected by this devastating incident.

Willing people can make their contribution here and save lives.

April 28, 2015

Huawei Unveils the Affordable Honor 4C with a 13MP Camera and 5-inch Display

After launching the Huawei P8 at an official event on 15th April, Huawei released yet another handset today, the Honor 4C. With a price tag of 799 Yuan (Rs. 8,150), the phone will directly compete against the Micromax Yu Yureka and Xiaomi Red Mi Note 4G.

From the specs point of view, the 2GB RAM Honor 4C sports a 5-inch 720p display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor and a HiSilicon Kiri 620 Octa-Core chipset. Camera specifications include a 13MP f2.0 aperture primary camera and a 5MP front camera. Internal memory offers 8GB of storage and a microSD slot. It runs on Android 4.4 KitKat and feature a 2,550 mAh battery.

The phone is being offered in black, white, blue, gold and pink color options. For now, the handset is up for sale only in China and will be available through online portals only. The handset will be available on Huawei’s Vmall online store and Alibaba’s Tmall store on 7th May, registration are now open on both the online retailers.

Specifications	Honor 4C
Display	5-inch 720p Display
Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-Core processor
RAM	2GB
Storage	8GB internal, microSD
Primary Camera	13MP
Front Camera	5MP
Battery	2,550mAh
Price	Rs. 8,150, (tentative)

April 28, 2015

Xiaomi Flaunts 3 Lakh Mi 4i Registrations; No Word on the Number of Units Up for Sale

When Xiaomi took the veil off its latest, affordable smartphone Mi 4i in India, it was speculated to have record sales. Going by the presumption, the device has garnered huge registrations for the flash sale to be held on April 30. The handset reported over 3 lakh applications in a mere four days period.

Xiaomi India Head Manu Jain confirmed the same via Twitter –

#Mi4i: we got 3+ lakhs of registrations for Mi 4i during 1st 4 days. Thank you everyone for your love and support :) @MiIndiaOfficial

— Manu Kumar Jain (@manukumarjain) April 28, 2015

At the launch event held on April 23, the Chinese electronics firm mentioned that users need to register on the e-commerce website Flipkart to participate in the sale. The registration process is done simply via a three step process.

Xiaomi hasn’t mentioned the number of devices going up for sale and users need to be online before the sale time (April 30, 2 pm) to grab the product. In the past, we have seen Xiaomi pushing 40,000-50,000 units of devices. Therefore, this time it is expected to release units close to the earlier figures. Those who haven’t registered yet can do it here.

Recalling the specifications, Xiaomi Mi 4i has a 5-inch Full HD OGS IPS display with 441ppi pixel density. The processor powering the phone is a 64-bit octa-core Cortex-A53; the four cores clocked at 1.7 GHz and the other four at 1.1 GHz. It features 2GB of RAM and 16GB of non-expandable storage space. The Mi 4i runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with the company’s MIUI 6 on top.

Optics includes a 13MP rear and a 5MP shooter. The dual-SIM device is powered by a 3120mAh battery. Connectivity options include microUSB 2.0, Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi. Priced at Rs. 12,999, the handset will be available in white, blue, orange, yellow and pink colour options.

April 28, 2015
Apple CEO Speaks Up About iPad’s Disappointing Sales Figures

The recently released statistics by Apple establishes the fact that the iPhone is the most popular smartphone in the international markets. The world’s most valuable company made public the three months earnings of this year’s second quarter, which speaks of 61 million iPhones being sold. This leap is incredible as this is the second biggest quarter for the iPhone. Apple managed to sell as much as 43 million iPhones last year in Q2 2014.

The CEO of the company Tim Cook spoke about the achievement –

We are thrilled by the continued strength of iPhone, Mac and the App Store, which drove our best March quarter results ever. We’re seeing a higher rate of people switching to iPhone than we’ve experienced in previous cycles, and we’re off to an exciting start to the June quarter with the launch of Apple Watch.

Apple set a record in China by surpassing the overall sales of US. For the first time in the history of iPhone, China contributed $160 million with the iPhone sale, whereas it remained $120 million in its home market Europe. The increase of 71% put Apple’s revenue in the Asian country to $16.8 billion, a major chunk mostly attributed to festivities around the Chinese New Year.

However as iPhones, Macs, and the App Store has gained numbers, iPad are continuously fading in the background every passing year. Once again, the iPad sale shrunk this year and closed at 12.6 million. The newest iPads to hit the market this year were the iPad Air 2 and iPad Mini 3.

For the lackluster sales of iPad, Tim Cook says –

We have never worried about that, it is what it is, and at some point it will straighten out.

Meanwhile, there are many estimates by analysts about the Apple Watch sales, but the company hasn’t come out with an official announcement. Seeing the present report, Apple is likely to take a leap from $46 billion to $48 billion in revenue in Q3 this year.

April 28, 2015
With this New Feature, Facebook Messenger is Now Ready to Take on Skype

Voice-Calling within the app is a recent trend every established and emerging messaging software company is following. Recently, Facebook joined the drift and updated its Messenger service to enable voice-calling in the app. Now users can talk face-to-face with their friends anywhere through Facebook.

Initiating the voice chat service is a child’s play, and users just have to tap on the video icon in the top right corner of the screen to pop up a voice call. The service is available for iOS and Android users as of now. Countries that will be able to access this feature are Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Laos, Lithuania, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Poland, Portugal, the UK, the US and Uruguay. The tool will soon arrive in other countries “over the coming months.”

The standard messaging service on Messenger still exists. Users can anytime stop a voice call and get back to the customary messaging platform and vice-versa. The company claims that there are over 600 million active users of its Messenger app, and the voice-calling tool will help them with real-time video communication.

Facebook’s Messenger platform is on a development spree. Previously, it added the ability to send money to friends via Messenger, which was followed by the release of Messenger platform for Developers to help people connect with businesses.

Check out the video below for a detailed description of voice-calling on Messenger:

April 28, 2015
Apple Watch Already Has More Than 3,500 Apps Available in the App Store

The Apple Watch is the first smartwatch by the Cupertino-based giant, and the company is extremely proud of it, especially its apps. Yesterday the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook while disclosing about the total earnings of the company, boasted about the massive amount of apps ready for the Apple Watch. Tim stated that over 3,500 apps were available.

Cook further elaborated how significant this figure is as the iPad had only had 1,000 apps ready at its launch in 2010, and iPhone App Store had just 500 apps when it first debuted in July 2008.

Cook briefed in a meeting –

We’re far ahead from where we expected to be from an application point of view. We had an internal goal of beating that 1,000 [that the iPad had] and we exceeded that.

As Apple allowed the third-party apps to make their presence on its Watch, developers have been submitting the ready apps for approval since March 31. The creation of apps wasn’t an easy task for developers as Apple limited the access to functional hardware. Most of those apps have been approved, and Apple Watch users can install any tool from the plethora of apps. Some of the Indian apps for the Apple Watch include NDTV News, HDFC and Cleartrip.

This seems like an important announcement, however we need to keep it in mind that the presence of apps was considerably less in 2010, when the iPad was first introduced. It would not be fair to compare the iPad with the Apple Watch. Recently, it was also learnt that developers are also creating a set of games for the wearable, which is a challenge. Know more about the Apple Watch games here.

April 28, 2015
Google Maps Hides An Image Of An Android Robot Urinating On The Apple Logo

In a bizarre yet funny incident a Google map render image contains a cartoon of an Android robot taking a piss on the Apple logo. The image is in a small patch just south of the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, which was possibly put by an End- user.

Someone at Google definitely is getting the boot as the image, which apparently was by an end-user helpfully “suggesting” an edit, has now been removed, Google says. “We’ve terminated the Android figure involved in this incident, and he’ll be disappearing from Google Maps shortly.”

Another picture accompanies the Urinating Android Figurine, a few miles to the east, reads : “Google review policy is crap.”

The Google Map Maker allows for users to suggest changes on the Google Maps, which are then duly moderated. These two however were not identified and managed to get on the public domain. This is not the fist incident of lack of moderation on Google Maps, and considering the massive scale of the project it may not be the last.

However people always tend to leave stuff for a few chuckles here and there.

April 28, 2015
China Overtakes US in iPhone Sales, As Apple Earnings up 33%

For the first time in the history of the iPhone, China sales of the Apple iPhone have overtaken the US sales. The increase of 71% put Apple’s revenue in the asian country to $16.8 Billion, a major chunk mostly doe to the festivities around the Chinese New Year.

The Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have been the most popular handsets from the company since the launch of the iPhone back in 2007. The last quarter results broke all records pegging the worldwide success of the handsets.

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Tim Cook” author_title=”CEO- Apple inc.”]

The large middle class growth has fueled the high purchase volumes of the handset in China

[/quote]

End of March 2015 Apple’s cash totaled $193.5 billion, up from $178 billion at the end of December, that is more than the total of the next top 15 companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 list.

Apple has increased its dividend to 11%, In all, Apple pledged to return $200 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends by March 2017. Overall revenue rose to $58.01 billion in the second quarter ended March 28, from $45.65 billion a year earlier. That beat Wall Street’s expected revenue of $56 billion.

Apple’s latest hardware product, the Apple Watch, started shipping Friday. So far, availability is limited for the new device with Apple’s website estimating that new orders won’t be delivered until June.

April 28, 2015
Hackers Take Drown The TRAI Website for Releasing Email IDs

Hackers from the Anonymous India group took down the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) website in an attempt to stand against the violation of Net Neutrality in the country. The website may be back online for the time being, but the group remains active on their twitter voicing out their reasons. The DDOS attack was done to the website to stand against the releasing of Email IDs by the organization, claims Anonymous India group.

Although TRAI took to the media outlets and said that the website was down due to technical glitches. However the hacktivist group has asserted claim over the DDOS attack.

https://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/592755220469424128

TRAI had released a list of email-ID’s from which it had received responses towards and agains Net Neutrality. This makes clear the severe lack of privacy of information from a govt. organization. A lot of Indians voiced their opinions on the lack of discipline in the TRAI functioning.

Anonymous India claimed to have stopped the attack, because a lot of tweets asked them to, Although, they claim that if no action is taken by TRAI, a similar incident will take place in the future.

https://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/592667666546044928

https://twitter.com/opindia_revenge/status/592677071056445442

April 28, 2015
Activision Unveils Crucial Gameplay Details and More About Call of Duty: Black Ops 3

After showing off the teaser a few weeks ago, Activision has now revealed few more crucial details of one of the biggest first-person shooting franchises of all times, Call of Duty: Black Ops 3. The company announced the official trailer of Black Ops 3 which shows the game taking a leap into the future. The third installment seems to dig deep into the military science-fiction. Check out the trailer below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58Pspqx0XGs

The new game aims to hold its franchise fans spellbound. The creators of the game have developed new characters, landscapes, and weaponry, which can be customized as players progress. The modes introduced in the latest game are – Zombie, Campaign, and MP.

Another big alteration coming with Black Ops 3 is the multi-player mode. Developers have raised the stakes in the single-player campaign, turning it to an optional one-player to four-player co-op game. In this mode, players can share information about threats during gaming. As the game has been designed keeping four players in mind, playing in single-player mode may prove difficult.

While the first Black Ops was set in 1960 and the second part in 2025, this edition is set 35 years later in 2060. In the third part, you play as a member of a prototype Black Ops unit that has cybernetic enhancements with mission briefings of a missing CIA team in Singapore.

Treyarch’s popular military shooter saga is due to release on November 6 this year for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. Its release date in India isn’t specified yet.

April 27, 2015

Lenovo Launches the Affordable A5000 With 4000mAh Battery in India; Price Revealed

The newest A-series smartphone to launch in Russia few days back, the A5000, was speculated to arrive in India soon. Today, the handset has finally made it to the Indian soil. The A5000 is introduced at a price of Rs. 9,999 and is currently listed on the company’s online TheDoStore. Lenovo is taking pre-orders for the A5000, which will ship by April 30, as mentioned on the website. The phone will be available in two colour options – white and black.

The A5000 flaunts a 5-inch HD IPS display (1280×720 pixels). Inside is a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor with 1GB RAM that provides processing speed to the device. The 8GB internal storage capacity of the device can be expanded up to 32GB via MicroSD card. The smartphone runs on Android 4.4 KitKat.

Optics includes an 8MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, while the front is a 2MP camera to click selfies. Connectivity options include GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi 802, GPS, Micro-USB, and Bluetooth 4.0. The dual-SIM device gets its juice from the massive 4000mAh battery.

At the price of Rs. 9,999, the new Lenovo handset will compete with Honor 4X, Redmi 2 and the new Moto E LTE.

Check the specs sheet of Lenovo A5000 below:

Specification	Lenovo A5000
Display	5-inch HD IPS (1280x720p) display
Processor	1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek processor
RAM	1GB
Storage	8GB
Expandable Upto	32GB
Main Camera	8MP
Front Camera	2MP
Battery	4000mAh
Operating System	Android 4.4 KitKat
Price	Rs. 9,999

April 27, 2015

Airtel Introduces Super Cheap Unlimited Voice Calling Schemes for Broadband Subscribers

Following the footsteps of Indian cellular service provider BSNL, Airtel has announced plans to boost its landline service. Bharti Airtel launched an unlimited voice calling service for its broadband customers in the country.

The telecom company announced two voice packs: there is a Rs. 49 pack for unlimited local calls for a month, and the other is Rs. 99 per month plan to make unlimited local and STD calls.

Airtel said in a statement –

In an industry first, it will announce that its broadband customers can enjoy free voice calls to any network in the country 24×7. Customers can enjoy unlimited free local calls with the pack priced at Rs. 49 per month and unlimited free STD+local calls at Rs. 99 per month to any network, anywhere in the country to both landlines and mobile phones round the clock.

The new offers are for non-commercial use, and allow users to make calls to both fixed lines and mobile numbers.

Airtel has an extensive network of fixed-line telephone and broadband services in 87 cities of India, but its user base is smaller in comparison to BSNL. According to a study by TRAI, Airtel has around 3.39 million landline customers in the country, while BSNL had more than five times the fixed-line subscribers, at 16.6 million.

Recently, BSNL announced free unlimited voice calling from 9pm to 7am across India, which will kick off from 1st May.

April 27, 2015