Google kickstarts Indian Language Internet Alliance, focus first on Hindi

 Google on Monday roped in an array of partners to usher in the Indian Language Internet Alliance, a new platform to offer better content and technology for the Hindi speaking population. The search giant also announced the launch of the Hindi voice search in the country.
With most of the 200 million-odd English speakers already online, the growth of Internet in India will depend on lowering the entry barriers for the rest of the population. “To reach to our goal of 500 million Internet users by 2017 we need to make the Internet accessible to those who don’t speak English,” said Google India MD Rajan Anandan. He said most of the 5 million Internet users being added everyday are on the mobile and not all of them speak English. As a measure of the lack of Hindi content in the country, he said there were just 22,000 Wikipedia entries in the language while 400 million people spoke the language.
Inaugurating the initiative, Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said he was confident that this can change the technology landscape of the country. “ We are very adaptive and have accepted new technology and techniques, be it in the farm or our workplace. It just has to be easy,” he said.

Google is developing cancer and heart attack detector

Google is aiming to diagnose cancers, impending heart attacks or strokes and other diseases, at a much earlier stage than is currently possible.

The company is working on technology that combines disease-detecting nanoparticles, which would enter a patient's bloodstream via a swallowed pill, with a wrist-worn sensor.

The idea is to identify slight changes in the person's biochemistry that could act as an early warning system.

The work is still at an early stage.

Early diagnosis is the key to treating disease. Many cancers, such as pancreatic, are detected only after they have become untreatable and fatal.

There are marked differences between cancerous and healthy tissues.

Microsoft drops Nokia name from Lumia smartphones, new devices will be branded 'Microsoft Lumia'

US software giant Microsoft said it will now start selling Lumia smartphones as 'Microsoft Lumia' device instead of calling them Nokia Lumia.
"Our global and local websites are going through a transition as we speak and in the coming days our social channels will get a new name too ? they will be called Microsoft Lumia," Microsoft's Senior Vice President of Marketing for Phones Tuula Rytila said on a blog.
"We have now started the transition from Nokia Lumia to Microsoft Lumia," the company said.

The move comes within 6 month of Microsoft acquiring Finnish telecom company Nokia's mobile device business for about USD 7.5 billion. The deal was completed on April 25, 2014.

PhotoMath App Makes Solving Maths Equations as Simple as Taking a Picture

MicroBlink's PhotoMath is making waves on the App Store across several countries, an iOS (and Windows Phone) app that can solve equations users scan in via the device's camera, and even provides the steps taken to solve.

With its augmented reality interface, PhotoMath users have to centre the desired equation to solve on their device's camera, and PhotoMath recognising the mathematical expressions works out the answer, providing a detailed listed of steps taken to solve.

Currently meant to help children, the PhotoMath app is limited to a middle school level of math, as noted by the company's blog post celebrating the app's success, "At this stage it can solve basic arithmetics, fractions, decimals, powers, roots, linear equations and functions like log, exp, sin, cos. It can recognize printed characters only, not handwritten text. The app doesn't solve word problems, geometry, or calculus."

BlackBerry Passport: A hybrid workhorse coming your way

“Is that a phone?” “Whoa, so huge!” “I thought it was tempeh.”

These were just a few of the many remarks that people in the crowd around me made as I used my brand new, square BlackBerry Passport. The latest model of the smartphone is expected to hit the local market by the end of the year, and it is fun to hear people light-heartedly comment on my gargantuan phone. 

My teenage daughter teased me as to why in the world I was still going around with yet another BlackBerry when most of the manufacturer’s local fans have shifted their loyalties to Android and iOS phones. 

Airtel-Samsung launch India’s first Integrated Digital TV

Airtel digital TV, the Direct-To-Home (DTH) service from Bharti Airtel, today announced its partnership with Samsung to launch India’s very first Integrated Digital TV (iDTV).

Samsung’s range of SmartDirect TVs will come designed with an in-built Airtel digital TV Smart Card which will enable DTH signal reception without the need for customers to install an external set-top-box (STB).

Gmail 5.0 for Android Spotted; Supports Outlook, Yahoo, and Other Accounts

Google is reportedly all set to roll out a significantly revamped version of its Gmail app for Android, with a pre-release build of the overhauled app doing the rounds of the Internet. Most notably, the Gmail 5.0 app now supports multiple accounts from different email providers.

Reported by Android Police, the new Gmail v5.0 app for Android can be seen in what appears to be a video by Google that introduces the new features for returning users. The video says the new app brings "all the features you love with a fresh new look."

The video adds, "you can access other email accounts like Yahoo Mail, Outlook.com, and more," and shows that users can switch accounts in Gmail 5.0 by swiping, or selecting the account from the dropdown.