Facebook selects Kerala IT company as preferred marketing developer

Kreata Global, an IT company headquartered at Kerala's Kochi Infopark campus, has been selected as a Facebook preferred marketing developer (PMD), said an infopark official.

The PMD programme aims to better represent the various technologies in the Facebook ecosystem and to recognise companies that develop holistic solutions.

Kreata is just the second Indian company to be picked for the programme. It has qualified for the PMD badge in the apps category for building socially enabled integrations.

Infopark chief executive officer Gigo Joseph said, "It is an honour for an IT company to be chosen as a Facebook PMD."

The Facebook PMD programme also endeavours to help developers build products that make social marketing easier and more effective.

Deepan Parameswar, executive director, Kreata Global, said they were really excited about becoming a Facebook PMD.

"This is definitely going to be an inspiration for developing more engaging and innovative apps," said Parameswar.

The company that was formed in 2010 has developed engaging Facebook applications for popular brands such as Ford, Panasonic, Samsung, Levi's, Clarins and Parachute.

New Telecom policy approved: Roaming charges to go, one-nation-one-number cleared

The government today cleared National Telecom Policy 2012 that aims to abolish roaming charges thus allowing mobile phone subscribers to use same number across country without having to pay extra charges.

"Target is one nation full mobile number portability and work towards one nation free roaming," Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal told reporters after the Cabinet gave approval to NTP. The Department of Telecom (DoT) will now start process to implement full mobile number portability allowing users to retain their existing number at the time of changing their service providers across any state in the country.

However, consumers will have to wait for some time before roaming charges are abolished and one-number-one-nation concept implement as DoT will first work out modalities of the new scheme before it is brought into force. The NTP 2012 envisages increasing penetration of telecom services in rural area from current level of around 39 to 70 per cent by 2017 and 100 per cent by the year 2020.

Under the new policy broadband speed has been increased to minimum of 2 megabit per second (mbps). This change will come into force with immediate effect. With the new policy getting approved, telecom licences have been delinked from spectrum which was earlier bundled with the licences. The NTP 2012 will allow operators to provide services based on any technology by using airwaves and will not restrict them to use it for particular service using any specific frequency band. At present, there are frequencies which are specifically used for providing GSM or CDMA services as per the permit given to the companies.NTP 2012 replaces 13-year-old New Telecom Policy 1999 and "seeks to provide a predictable and stable policy regime for a period of about 10 years," Sibal said. The cabinet has cleared the point that pertains to encouraging domestic manufacturing of telecom equipment.

"Making India a global hub for manufacturing. Till the time we will not set up industry here...India will not be able to become become global. It is very important because along with this prices of device will also come down," he said. The major details of the manufacturing telecom equipments are part of National Policy of Electronics which Sibal send is expected to be approved within a month.

"Electronics manufacturing policy is hopefully going to be decided this month.. it will go to cabinet soon," he said. The Cabinet has approved NTP 2012 with five changes related to revenue generation objective, Spectrum Act and TRAI Act. The government has deleted Spectrum Act which was proposed in the policy.

"Spectrum Act has been deleted as a policy matter we don't intend to have a spectrum act any more," Sibal said. In the point which aimed at giving more power to TRAI, Cabinet has added that policy making function would remain with government and the regulator will not make policy. "We just want to add that policy making function would, however, continue to remain with government, means TRAI will not make policy," Sibal said.

The cabinet also substituted the point which mentioned "direct revenue generation" as secondary objective of new policy with "availability of affordable and effective communication for the citizens is at the core of the vision and goal of NTP 2012" at two places. The government has also replaced a sentence related to spectrum allocation to migrate its users to different frequency bands to make way for services based on new technologies. Sibal said that any major changes in the policy in future will be brought to the cabinet for approval.

Source:TOI.IT

Why avoid having multiple identities

Recently I got a Facebook request from Roby S, my schoolmate. I was surprised, because he is already my friend. Why was he adding me again? The profile photo was similar. The 'About' column too matched. Was it someone else who had stolen Roby's identity and playing mischief? 

So I sent Roby a message seeking a clarification. He replied saying he had an FB account opened with his official ID. Later he discontinued it, and opened one with his personal ID. Now, he decided to revive his FB account opened with his official ID after he came to know that some friends whom he had added there, had sent him messages to which he hadn't replied. 

There was another case of Vini. Her earlier email ID was on Hotmail, and she had opened an FB account with it. Later, she dumped her Hotmail ID and moved to Gmail, and she opened another FB account with the Gmail ID. Now there are two FB accounts of hers, confusing her friends no end. 

Should Roby and Vini have opened another FB account? No. Even if your email ID has been hacked, you needn't dump the FB account opened with it. Just add another valid email ID to your existing FB account and delink the hacked email ID from it. 

You can link multiple email IDs to one Facebook account and use any of them to log in. You can even use your phone number as login ID if you have added it. To add another email ID to your FB, click on the downward arrow beside 'Home' on the top right corner, click on 'account settings' , click on 'Edit' against Email, and click on 'add another email address' . It will get activated after you click on the verification link sent to the email ID you added. Just as you add, you can remove email IDs as well. LinkedIn works the same way. There's no need to have another account just because you have changed your default email ID. 

Of course, there are cases where people do have two FB accounts. But that's when they want to have two sets of identities -- like one account that can be accessed by acquaintances, colleagues etc; and another more personal one that can be accessed only by family members and very close friends.

Similar is the case with email accounts. Suppose you have three email IDs, used for different purposes, they can be accessed at one place. All major email clients like Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail allow forwarding emails to another ID. They also allow you to open different email IDs that are linked to the original one, and you can toggle between them.

Gmail also lets you reply from a non-Gmail ID from within Gmail. Meaning, you can send a mail from your Yahoo ID, say abc@yahoo.com, via Gmail. The recipient of your email will see it as sent from your Yahoo ID, but via Gmail. This can be done by using 'Mail Settings'.

Cyberspace lets your different identities easily co-exist .

Source:TOI.IT

Apple CEO hints at iTV

 Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said technology for televisions was of "intense interest" but stressed the company's efforts would unfold gradually amid speculation the iPad and iPhone maker was on the brink of unveiling a revolutionary iTV. 

In one of his more revealing interviews since assuming the helm of the world's most valuable company, Cook also said he hoped someday to see Apple products manufactured in the United States and outlined his approach to managing an organization long-associated with its late founder Steve Jobs. 

"Another thing that Steve taught us all is to not to be focused on the past," Cook told this year's All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering of A-list technology and media executives in the upscale California coastal resort town of Rancho Palos Verdes. 

Industry insiders and executives say Apple may unveil a TV-based device in late 2012 or 2013 that has the potential to shake up the cozy television content and distribution industry the way the iPod and iPhone disrupted music and mobile content, but Cook has steered clear of commenting on that issue directly. 

"This is an area of intense interest for us," Cook said, referring to Apple's existing television set-top box product. 

"We're going to keep pulling this string and see where it takes us." 

When asked specifically if Apple was making a television set, Cook said he was not going to answer that question. Apple already sells a $99 set top box called Apple TV that streams Netflix and other content. Cook, who has previously said the Apple TV product had a hobby status inside the company, noted the company was sticking with it despite not being known as a "hobby kind of company." 

"Here's the way we would look at that, not just at this area but other areas, and ask can we control the key technology?" he said in response to a question about how Apple thinks about improving the television experience for consumers. "Can we make a significant contribution, far beyond what others have done in this area? Can we make a product that we would want?" 

Apple has been in negotiations with content companies for its devices. It began talks earlier this year to stream films owned by EPIX, which is backed by three major movie studios. 

The company has a good relationship with content owners and doesn't see the need to own a content business, Cook said, adding he has met with several people in that business recently. 

Made in USA?

In wide-ranging remarks, Cook said he would like to see more of the company's products assembled at home than in China and contain more US components such as semiconductors. 

Apple has been criticized for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to assemble its products and for contributing to the decline of the US manufacturing sector. 

Cook, who took the helm of the world's most valuable technology company in August shortly before founder Steve Jobs died, said manufacturing in the United States was difficult because of declining tool-and-die manufacturing expertise, among other things, but he was working on it. 

"There are things that can be done in the US, not just for the US market but that can be exported for the world," Cook said. "On the assembly piece, could that be done in the US? I hope so, again, one day," he added. 

Apple's final assembly is done through Asian contract manufacturers, particularly Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group and its listed entity Hon Hai Precision. Cook noted that Apple does some component manufacturing in the United States, including the main microchip that runs the iPhone and iPad. 

Apple makes the A5 processor in a 1.6 million square-foot factory in Austin, Texas, owned by Korean electronic giant Samsung Electronics. 

Cook also said some of the glass for the iPhone and iPad is made in a plant in Kentucky. 

The CEO talked about how the iPad was just in the "first innings," but declined to say what was in store for it next. 

He reiterated his belief that many consumers will use the iPad more than computers. In response to a question about PC software-maker Microsoft's efforts to enter the tablet market, Cook brushed off the threat. 

"The more you look at the tablet as a PC, the more the baggage from the past affects the product," he said. 

Apple released the iPad in 2010 and it has quickly defined the tablet computer market, selling more than 67 million units so far. 

Doubling down on secrecy

The 51-year old Cook said he spends less time focused on marketing and design as CEO than his predecessor, who Cook said spent "virtually all of his time on those two things." 

At a company the size of Apple, Cook said, having a strong team is critical. 

"You could have an S on your chest and a cape on your back and not be able to do everything," said Cook, who later cited Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr as well as Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Bob Iger as figures that he looks up to. 

Cook also discussed efforts to make the company more transparent on certain issues, such as supplier responsibility and environmental matters, but stressed he was committed to preserving Apple's culture. 

One Jobs legacy that Cook flagged is Apple's well-known penchant for going to great lengths to keep details of new products under tight wraps, noting that he planned to "double down on secrecy" on products. 

But he suggested Apple would not be constrained by its past. "I love museums, but I don't want to live in one," he said.

Source: TOI.IT

Google Chromebook gets an upgrade

Google will try to win more converts to a computer operating system revolving around its popular Chrome Web browser with a new wave of lightweight laptops built by Samsung Electronics. 

Tuesday's release of the next-generation Chromebooks will give Google and Samsung another opportunity to persuade consumers and businesses to buy an unconventional computer instead of machines running on familiar software by industry pioneers Microsoft and Apple. 

Unlike most computers, Google's Chromebooks don't have a hard drive. They function like terminals dependent on an internet connection. The laptops come with 16 gigabytes of flash memory - the kind found in smartphones, tablet computers and some iPods. Two USB ports allow external hard drives and other devices to be plugged into the machines. 

Chromebooks haven't made much of a dent in the market since their debut a year ago. In that time, more people have been embracing Apple's iPad and other tablet computers - a factor that has contributed to a slowdown in sales of personal computers. 

The cool reception to Chromebooks has raised questions about whether Google misjudged the demand for computers designed to quickly connect to its dominant internet search engine and ever-expanding stable of other online services, ranging from email to a recently introduced file-storage system called Drive. "The Chromebooks have had less to offer than tablets, so they haven't been that interesting to consumers," said Gartner analyst Mika Kitagawa. 

Google says it always intended to take things slowly with the Chromebooks to give its engineers time to understand the shortcomings of the machines and make the necessary improvements. 

"This release is a big step in the journey to bringing (Chromebooks) to the mainstream," said Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president of Chrome and apps. 

The upgraded laptop, called "Series 5 550," is supposed to run two-and-half times faster than the original machines, and boasts higher-definition video. Google also added features that will enable users to edit documents offline, read more content created in widely used Microsoft applications such as Word and Excel, and retrieve material from another computer at home or an office. More emphasis is being placed on Chrome's Web store, which features more than 50,000 applications. 

The price: $449 for models that only connect to the internet through Wi-Fi and $549 for a machine that connects on a 3G network. Samsung's original Chromebooks started out with prices ranging from $429 to $499. Like the original Chromebooks, the next-generation machines feature a 12.1-inch screen display and run on an Intel processor. 

Google and Samsung also are introducing a "Chromebox" that can be plugged into a display monitor to create the equivalent of desktop computer. The box will sell for $329. 

The latest Chromebook and new Chromebox will be available online only, beginning in the US on Tuesday, followed by a Wednesday release in the United Kingdom. The products will go on sale in brick-and-mortar stores for the first time in still-to-be-determined Best Buy locations next month. 

The expansion beyond Internet-only sales signals Google's determination to attract a mass audience to its Chromebooks, just as it's done with smartphones running on its Android software. More than 300 million mobile devices have been activated on Android since the software's 2008 release. 

Without providing specifics, Pichai said several other computer manufacturers will release Chromebooks later this year. Google plans to back the expanded line of Chromebooks with a marketing blitz during the holiday shopping season in November and December. 

One reason Google is confident Chromebooks will eventually catch on is because the Chrome Web browser has attracted so many fans in less than four years on the market. The company says more than 200 million people worldwide currently are using the Chrome browser. 

Like other laptop and desktop computers, the Chromebooks will have to contend with the accelerating shift to the iPad and other tablets. The iPad 2, an older version of Apple's tablet line, sells for as little as $399, undercutting the new Chromebook. Other low-cost tablets are expected to hit the market later this year. One of them might even be made by Motorola Mobility, a device maker that Google bought for $12.5 billion earlier this month. Google so far hasn't commented on Motorola's future plans for the tablet market. 

The new Chromebooks also are hitting the market at a time when some prospective computer buyers may be delaying purchases until they can check out machines running on Windows 8, a makeover of Microsoft's operating system that is expected to be released in September or October. Microsoft designed Windows 8 so it can be controlled through touch as well as keyboards. That versatility is expected to inspire the creation of hybrid machines that are part laptop, part tablet. 

Google shares added $2.81 Tuesday to close at $594.34.

Source: TOI.IT

Angry Birds & Farmville: How they help students score better

Eight-year-old Ashish Gupta, a third standard student, could never really understand what a fraction was. His mother asked him to play an online game on a site recommended by her friends on Facebook. Ashish, who logged on to classtopper.com, got a screen similar to the online game sites he visits and started working on a fraction game.

A circle cut into half, with one portion painted green, appeared and he was asked what fraction of the circle was coloured. Confused as he was, he clicked on the wrong answer. And just like on the Farmville and Angry Bird sites, his score started appearing on the right side of the page.

Ashish scrolled down to the explanation which read: "Count the number of equal parts. Count the number of green parts. One out of 2 equal parts is green. So, write one out of 2". That was very easy for Ashish to understand. Very soon, he scored a decent 88%. He had also mastered the concept.

Gamification, or using gaming techniques to explain concepts, is a happening trend among Indian students these days. It has been identified as among the Top-10 technology trends for 2012 by audit and consultancy firm Deloitte.

Classtopper. com, for one, has over 10,000 users logging in just a month after its launch in India. With digital games generating over $25 billion in sales worldwide in 2010, online content providers are wrapping educational material in the form of games so that students can learn, while having fun.While some people dismiss gamification as a fad, neuroscientists are discovering more and more ways in which humans react to interactive design elements. They say such elements can trigger feel-good chemical reactions from human responses to a stimuli -- increasing the reaction time, states the study 'Future of Internet' by Pew Research Centre.

Last week, two IIT-Mumbai alumni, Ashish Rangnekar and Ujjwal Gupta -- co-founders of BenchPrep -- brought out the first game-based GRE test preparation app for iPad, called GRE Score Quest, which can be downloaded free from App Store.

"As a student attempts a question, we tell them how many of their friends have got the same answer correct. We also compare the student's performance with their peers around the world. These elements are similar to what you see in Angry Birds in Facebook," says Rangnekar.

"We create games using the educational content developed by publishers like McGraw Hill. For example, if a mathematics chapter has a long list of theorems, we create a match-the-column game," says Rangnekar.

Complex algorithms deployed in game-based platforms were traditionally used by high skill-assessment programmes like GREs. "Students who appear for GRE examinations have to go through different levels. Depending on how he/she scores in the first section, the complexity of the next section is determined," says Rochelle, explaining the new format, which was introduced in August 2011 by Educational Testing Service (ETS), the organisation which conducts GRE tests globally.

The difference now is that these algorithms are now designed for students to be used anywhere, anytime. Jatin Patel, co-founder and CEO of UK-based company classtopper. com, says, "The gamebased software operates on the concept that each learner is different. The software throws up questions in three different ways. Only if the students get right, can he/she proceed to the next level. There are 35 different analytical tools which track a student's progress".

In what's still a disruptive space with no visible competition, classtopper.com hopes to tap the Indian market with its 75,000 private schools and 9 crore students. The company is in talks with Google Ventures for private equity funding. While those who can afford smartphones, tablets or PCs can play games online, students of Municipal Corporation Schools in Mumbai are being initiated to these fun learning processes.

In March 2012, some students of Mumbai's 'City of Los Angeles School' in Mahim were asked to stay back after their examinations to carry out a pilot on online educational videos from Khan Academy, which creates educational videos for students. "Students were shown videos of subjects they learnt and then made to answer a set of game-puzzles," says Miheer R Walavalkar, country director, India of Teach-A Class. This was facilitated by creating an 'Internet hotspot' in the school.

"A hotspot is created by converting one of the computers into a server and connecting rest of the computers to it," explains Walavalkar. Unlike the classtopper. com play pattern where the software adjusts automatically, here students are offered fun-based questions designed from a base level and then gradually increased in complexity.

"There was a scramble among students to step up their scores and they prepared to work on this for hours together," says Miheer. The next pilot is going to be held at Geeta Vikas schoo in Mumbai. Meanwhile, students of high-end schools like RN Podar School in Mumbai have been using videos from Khan Academy as part of their learning curriculum.

"Teachers only give them the links to the videos. Students are asked to watch the videos at home and a discussion on this is held the next day," says the principal of the school, Avnita Bir, who stumbled on this site while going through Facebook. "There have been 2 lakh visitors from India to Khan Academy sites," says Sundar Subbarayan, School Implementations Lead, Khan Academy. Most of the downloads were from Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai, in April.

Source:TOI.IT

Google warns Internet users to shutdown on July 9

Search giant Google has issued a warring to its millions of users that they could lose the ability to connect to the internet in July due to a computer virus. 

The problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. 

In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users, but that system will be shut down on July 9, killing connections for those people 

The FBI has run a campaign for months, encouraging people to visit a website that will inform them whether they are infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won't be able to connect to the internet. 

According to Fox News, Google has now planned to throw its weight into the awareness campaign. The site will be rolling out alerts to users via a special message that will appear at the top of the Google search results page for users with affected computers, CNET reported. 

"We believe directly messaging affected users on a trusted site and in their preferred language will produce the best possible results," wrote Google security engineer Damian Menscher in a post on the firm's blog 

"If more devices are cleaned and steps are taken to better secure the machines against further abuse, the notification effort will be well worth it," he added According to the report, the challenge, and the reason for the awareness campaigns is the fact that most victims don't even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their anti-virus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Source:TOI.IT

Instagram web traffic surges 78%

Photo-sharing social network Instagram has seen a 78 per cent uptick in unique visitors after it launched its Android app, and was acquired by Facebook. 

The dramatic gain in traffic placed Instagram at the top of the web for growth in April, according to ComScore Inc. 

According to The Los Angles Times, Instagram brought in nearly 14.6 million different individuals to its service in April, making the app the 106th-most visited property on the Internet. 

By comparison, the app grew by just 19 per cent in March with 8.2 million uniques, leaving it No. 204 on the most visited list. 

According to the paper, Instagram's uptick was undoubtedly tied to the start-up's expansion onto Google's platform of Android phones. 

The Android Instagram app arrived in early April, and at that time Instagram had about 30 million users. 

According to Venture Beat, after April's growth, Instagram is now believed to have over 50 million users.
Source:TOI.IT

How Nasdaq's tech glitch affected Facebook IPO

Dead silence. For nearly 20 minutes on the morning of Facebook's trading debut last Friday, the line Nasdaq had opened up to keep traders informed about the social media company's $16 billion IPO had been mute. Well after the stock was supposed to have opened at 11 a.m. New York time, no one from Nasdaq was talking - and there was still no sign of trading. 

Finally, at 11:28 a.m., an unidentified person announced that the shares would open in about 2 minutes. Nasdaq also said orders and cancellations were still being processed, according to several sources listening to the call. 

Those crucial 20 minutes created confusion that turned into chaos over the next few hours as market makers - the brokers who quote bid and offer prices - struggled to figure out what was happening. They were rebuffed in their attempts to get Nasdaq to halt trading and sort out a growing number of problems. 

A lack of communication and, some say, misinformation from Nasdaq may have been central to the failed debut of Facebook's shares. Market makers - crucial to the smooth operation of stock trading - were unsure about their exposure for hours. Investors were in the dark as to whether their trades had gone through, in some cases for days afterwards. The turmoil caused the four big market-makers for Facebook's stock, Knight Capital Group, Citigroup's Automated Trading Desk, Citadel Securities, and UBS AG to lose around $115 million between them. 

"There was very little if any communication from Nasdaq throughout the entire process," said Mark Turner, head of trading at Instinet, another market-maker based in New York. "As a matter of fact, we feel there was miscommunication." 

Instinet said it also suffered a loss, though it wasn't specific other than to say it was significantly less than the $30-35 million reported by Knight. 

The precise actions taken by Nasdaq officials last Friday are still unclear. Spokespeople for Nasdaq declined numerous requests for comment, referring Reuters to a status alert issued on Monday that outlined some of the problems encountered and some of the steps it took in an attempt to resolve them. 

Fist-pumping
The Nasdaq call, led by Nasdaq Vice President Todd Golub, according to sources, was scheduled to last 2 hours from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. to make sure that the exchange was keeping in close touch with the market. It is a normal event for a big IPO. However, this call stretched into the late afternoon, as the most anticipated new US stock offering in years turned into one of the ugliest. 

The fallout from the events last Friday has become a continuing nightmare for Nasdaq OMX Group, which wooed the social media network for months and openly prides itself on its technology. 

The result is another black eye for an exchange industry already suffering because investors not only lost confidence in the financial crisis but through the "flash crash" in May 2010 when $1 trillion in shareholder equity was temporarily wiped out in a matter of minutes.  Nasdaq CEO Bob Greifeld pumped his fist at the symbolic opening bell ceremony at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California next to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg an hour-and-a-half before the company's stock was due to start trading. There were no outward signs then of the problems that were about to unfold back on Wall Street. 

At 10:58 a.m., Nasdaq issued a notice that the Facebook opening would be delayed until 11:05 a.m. IPO delays of that nature are not unusual, especially with a massive launch like Facebook. 

But then the revised start time passed without an opening trade on the stock. Minutes passed as traders waited. Nasdaq's next communication came at 11:13 a.m., when it noted in a terse emailed message to people who subscribe to the exchange's alerts that Nasdaq is "experiencing a delay in delivering the opening print in Facebook," with no other details. 

Meanwhile, market-makers were receiving messages about their orders that later proved to be inaccurate. They say they were told during the period between 11:05 and 11:30 a.m., when the stock finally opened, that orders were still being taken for the opening price. 

"Nasdaq representatives were stating right up until 11:29 that they were still accepting orders in Facebook for the open," said Turner of Instinet. 

But that wasn't the case. Later, Turner said he was told that orders submitted up to 25 minutes before the opening were either canceled or not submitted into the marketplace until about 1:50 p.m - more than two hours later. Other market makers received similar messages. 

Behind the scenes, the massive order volume was overwhelming Nasdaq's systems. 

Orders that were supposed to be processed in 3 milliseconds were taking 5 milliseconds, said one person familiar with exchange operations. This proved to be a major problem: In the extra two milliseconds new orders flooded in, thwarting the system's ability to establish an opening price for the stock and leading to a backup in unprocessed orders. 

"This is starting to get bizarre," Wayne Kaufman, an equity market strategist at brokerage John Thomas Financial, said from the firm's trading floor on Wall Street, around 11:15 a.m.

Finally, the decision was made to put through a fix to the systems problem and get the stock trading. That move to a secondary matching engine used the order book as it appeared at 11:11 a.m. - but this meant new orders and changes in orders that came in later did not show up in the opening price. A matching engine is a computer that pairs bids and offers to complete trades.

Eric Noll, Nasdaq's head of transaction services, said in a statement earlier this week that the fix instead led to 2-1/2 hours of uncertainty during which brokers were unable to see the results of their trades.

Trading halt?
The stock opened at 11:30:09 a.m. at $42.05 a share. An investor looking at a quote screen might have thought the trouble had ended there. In reality, the problems were about to worsen.

After initially heading to a high of $45, the stock soon began to plunge towards its issue price at $38. Lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stepped in to defend the stock while some others - unsure whether their orders had been processed or not - backed away from trading or decided to sell.

If confidence is undermined at the open, people "pull back because their orders are essentially going into a black hole," said former Nasdaq Vice Chairman David Weild. Clients were telling their brokers they had not received confirmation of orders - which normally come through in seconds.

"Multiple market makers called Nasdaq and asked them to halt the stock and said, 'You have a problem and it's getting worse,' and their response was, 'The stock is trading normally,'" said an executive at one market-maker. It is unclear who would have the authority to halt the stock. Nasdaq would not comment on whether it considered such a move.

For market-makers, the chaos was particularly problematic because they didn't know what they and their clients owned, and at what price. "Should I be selling stock, should I be buying? And what's my price point?" said another official at a market-making firm. "You just don't know, so you were in effect flying blind until 2 o'clock."

Source:TOI.IT

Microsoft asked Google to remove 500,000 links

Software giant Microsoft requested Google to remove over 500,000 links from its search index in April, new figures published by the search giant have revealed.

Google's data showed that most of these links would direct users to websites that sell pirated Microsoft software. Some of the links, which Microsoft asked Google to remove are, however, still live via its own search engine Bing, The Telegraph reports.Google recently released a report in the U.S. to provide a better understanding of the intellectual property abuses on the internet, after Microsoft faced copyright infringement problems by other websites.

The new report, released by the internet search giant, includes a breakdown of all requests Google has received since July 2011 to remove copyright-infringing content from its search index.

According to the paper, Microsoft's removal requests significantly outnumbered those registered by the British Phonographic Institute, which represents record labels.

Music body the BPI and the media company NBC Universal respectively made the second and third largest number of requests in the last four weeks, the report said.

Google's transparency report showed that the number of requests to remove links has risen steeply over the last 12 months.

Source:TOI.IT

Facebook may buy Opera to launch own browser:

 Social networking giant is planning to buy a Norwegian software firm in a bid to launch its own browser, according to a report.Tech blog Pocket-lint, cited unnamed 'trusted sources,' as saying that Facebook is looking at Opera Software, the company behind Opera Web browser, to expand into the browser space.

According to CBS News, the move would place Facebook in competition with other tech companies in the browser game such as Yahoo, which recently launched Axis, and Google.

The tech blog said that a Facebook browser 'would allow you keep up to date with your social life from in-built plug-ins and features on the menu bar.'

The Next Web's sources revealed that Opera is in a hiring freeze and talking to potential buyers.

The company reports about 200 million users across all of its platforms.

Meanwhile, Facebook has declined to comment on the matter.

China plans to use social media to create awareness disaster mitigation

Chinese authorities suggested they may use social networking websites to enhance awareness on earthquake prevention and disaster reduction. 

The popularity of microblogging sites should be utilised to educate the people about disaster mitigation, said Chen Jianmin, director of the China Earthquake Administration. China has around 500 million internet users. Sina Weibo, the country's most popular microblogging site, has 324 million registered users, China Daily reported. 

Using social media to share information regarding natural disasters will expedite the publicizing process, he said. Drills should be conducted nationwide to improve people's ability to handle earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Source:TOI.IT

How Google gets all your private data

Secrets spilled across the computer screen. After months of negotiation, Johannes Caspar, a German data protection official, forced Google to show him exactly what its Street View cars had been collecting from potentially millions of his fellow citizens. 

Snippets of e-mails, photographs, passwords, chat messages, postings on websites and social networks - all sorts of private internet communication - were casually scooped up as the specially-equipped cars photographed the world's streets. 

"It was one of the biggest violations of data protection laws that we had ever seen," Caspar recently recalled about that long-sought viewing in late 2010. "We were very angry." Google might be one of the coolest and smartest companies of this or any era, but it also upsets a lot of people - competitors who argue it wields its tremendous weight unfairly, officials like Caspar who says it ignores local laws, privacy advocates who think it takes too much from its users. 

Just this week, European anti-trust regulators gave the company an ultimatum to change its search business or face legal consequences. American regulators may not be far behind. The high-stakes anti-trust assault, which will play out this summer behind closed doors in Brussels, might be the beginning of a tough time for Google. 

But never count Google out. It is superb at getting out of trouble. Just ask Caspar or any of his counterparts around the world who tried to hold Google accountable for what one of them, the Australian communication minister Stephen Conroy, called "probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy". 

The secret Street View data collection led to inquiries in at least a dozen countries, including four in the US alone. But Google is yet to give an explanation of why the data was collected and who at the company knew about it. No regulator in the US has ever seen the information that Google's cars gathered from the citizens. 

The tale of how Google escaped a full accounting for Street View illustrates not only how technology companies have outstripped the regulators, but also their complicated relationship with their adoring customers. 

Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple supply new ways of communication, learning, entertainment and high-tech wizardry for the masses. They have custody of the raw material of hundreds of millions of lives - the intimate e-mails, the revealing photographs, searches for help or love or escape. People willingly, at times eagerly, surrender this information.

But there is a price: the loss of control, or even knowledge, of where that personal information is going and how it is being reshaped into an online identity that may resemble the real you or may not. Privacy laws and wiretapping statutes are of little guidance, because they have not kept pace with the lightning speed of technological progress.

©2011 The New York Times News Service

PayPal strikes deals with 15 retailers

 PayPal has made deals with 15 retailers including Toys R Us, J C Penney and Barnes & Noble that will allow consumers to pay for purchases with their cellphones while expanding the online payment company's service into additional physical stores. 

Earlier this year Home Depot began accepting PayPal in about 2,000 stores. For retailers, the service may attract more shoppers, provide more information about consumers, and help reduce costs associated with credit card payments. For PayPal, owned by eBay, physical stores can provide growth beyond its online roots. 

EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe and Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan told Wall Street earlier this year that PayPal planned to sign up about 20 big retailers in 2012. "They said 20 large merchants would partner with us this year. This is only our first installment. There will be others," Don Kingsborough, the PayPal executive overseeing the offline initiative, said from its headquarters in San Jose, California. 


PayPal grew quickly by making it easy for people to make secure online payments. It grew to prominence on eBay's online marketplace, leading eBay to acquire the business in 2002. It has since branched out to hundreds of other e-commerce websites and is working on expanding to mobile transactions as well as physical stores. 

Other retailers announced on Thursday that have signed on for PayPal's in-store service are Office Depot, American Eagle Outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch, Rooms To Go, Jos A. Bank, Aeropostale, Foot Locker, Nine West, Jamba Juice, Guitar Center, TigerDirect and Advance Auto Parts.

Jamba, American Eagle and Toys R Us were notable additions because they also use Google Wallet, a PayPal rival run by Google. Some of these retailers will go live with PayPal in-store payments next month, Kingsborough said, while not mentioning specific merchants.  EBay shares closed down 3 cents at $39.67 on Thursday.

Shawn Milne, an analyst at Janney Capital Markets, said PayPal had yet to strike a deal with a huge retailer, or "whale," such as Target.  He said, however, that the breadth of retail categories represented by the merchants announced on Thursday would likely help PayPal encourage more consumers to use its service in physical stores.

David Marcus, PayPal's new president, said it takes time to bring large merchants into such a new initiative.  "We're not even at halfway through the year, and we already have 16 large retailers," he said, adding that PayPal expects to comfortably reach its goal of 20 big merchants in 2012.

Marcus said PayPal may process more than $7 billion worth of mobile payments this year. He also said that more than 300,000 small businesses had registered for PayPal Here, the company's card payment service that works with smart phones and competes with start-up Square Inc. PayPal Here was launched in March.

'Ubiquity'
Earlier on Thursday, PayPal said it had signed agreements with VeriFone Systems and Equinox Payments to get its payment technology on their networks of checkout terminals. VeriFone and Equinox provide payment terminals that are used in stores run by many of the world's largest retailers. Earlier this year, PayPal signed a similar deal with the other leading payment terminal provider, Ingenico.

These agreements should help PayPal's offline expansion, giving it potential access to almost 40 million payment terminals that are already installed in stores worldwide. PayPal's service was quickly rolled out in Home Depot stores this year, partly because no new hardware needed to be bought or installed by the retailer. Instead, just software on payment terminals needed to be upgraded.

"An important part of our future is to get to ubiquity," Kingsborough said on Thursday. "There will be 40 million terminals eventually to let consumers buy in stores with PayPal. That's one of the big building blocks we have to get to ubiquity." VeriFone is used by 80 per cent of the top 200 US retailers while Equinox is used by three of the top 10, according to Doug Anmuth, an analyst at JP Morgan.

"This ubiquity makes it significantly easier for PayPal to quickly increase adoption among large retailers," Anmuth said in a note to investors. "The ability to quickly upgrade software on point-of-sale terminals removes a great deal of friction around the willingness of offline merchants to adopt PayPal."

Source: TOI.IT