Months after Pokemon Go was launched in U.S.A, Niantic finally launched the game in India through a tie-up with Reliance Jio a few days ago. The biggest problem with this move is that no one really cares anymore.

Those who were excited by the game and enamored by it’s A.R. capabilities downloaded the game months ago when it was actually released. Niantic completely missed the boat on the smartphone game’s launch in India.

From a phenomenon to a has-been
When Pokemon Go first launched, it became a phenomenon almost overnight, breaking records left right and center and even crossing behemoths like Facebook and Twitter in terms of active users.

Pokemon Go completely captured the imagination of the public in a way we haven’t really seen before. Seeing people randomly walking on the streets trying to desperately catch the elusive 'Pikachu' became a common sight, even in India.

However, it all died out incredibly fast. While it might be a little presumptuous to say, the truth of the matter is that no one really cares about Pokemon Go anymore. Just like a pop song, which becomes the rage for a few weeks and then completely vanishes from the charts, Pokemon Go has become just a side note in history.

According to a report from app tracking firm Slice, Pokemon Go had lost a whopping 80% of its paying players since its highest point in mid-July. This was in the second week of September. The situation will be worse by now.

Just a fad?
Pokemon Go seems to be suffering from the same fatigue experienced by various fads such as Angry Birds or Flappy Bird: people going crazy over the game and then slowly losing interest.

Niantic hasn't helped its cause by removing features like the nearby system which caused a lot of fan backlash, and the general buginess of the game hasn't found any favors with players.

What does Niantic need to do to revive interest?
The big question here is how will Pokemon Go fare in the coming months. Niantic is at a crucial juncture in the game's lifecycle, where the initial hoopla is dying down and people are starting to lose interest.

Niantic needs to keep users engaged with frequent updates and new features and make sure they reinvent themselves as time goes by. The plethora of bugs and issues in Pokemon Go need to be ironed out and the game needs to start feeling like a finished product.

Is this the beginning of the end?
Pokemon Go is a glimpse into the practical and real world application of A.R. and it will be sad to see it suffer the same fate as that of Angry Birds or Gangnam Style. What do you think? Are you excited for Pokemon Go’s launch in India? Do you think it can reclaim the magic? 

                                                                     source: techradar

Reliance Jio is the fastest-growing technology company not only in India but also in the world, said Reliance Industries' Chairman Mukesh Ambani in his speech on Thursday. With Jio crossing 50 million customers in 83 days, the company is growing faster than Facebook, WhatsApp or Skype, asserts Ambani.

Happy New Year offer was the highlight of Ambani's speech on Thursday which will allow the existing and new Reliance Jio users to be able to use data, voice, video and all of Jio's applications for free until March 31, 2017.

The other significant step that Ambani announced is the wallet offering for small merchants which will launch on December 5. During this period, Jio customers will also be able to go for digital payment and test-drive billing experience using JioMoney wallet app. The merchant wallet will enable digital transactions of all types --be at mandis, small shops, restaurants, railway ticket counters, bus and mass transit and even for person-to-person money transfers.

After being successful in making a mark in the telecom sector with the launch of Relaince Jio 4G network, Ambani now seems to be moving onto the e-walletindustry as the nation struggles to go cashless.

Can JioMoney, its merchant ecosystem make a mark?
Jio is working to empower Indian merchants by building a digital retail ecosystem, while empowering the consumers to make digital transaction through e-wallet. "Thanks to solutions like JioMoney, every Indian has the ability to have a digital ATM in their pocket," said Ambani.

The company is focused on signing up over 10 million small merchant retailers in the coming weeks across 17,000 towns and four lakh villages. This speaks volumes on how Ambani is upbeat about his next digital India move.

The Reliance chairman also tried to pitch in the government’s much-debated demonetisation move by saying the step would help boost the country’s economy. ‘The JioMoney merchant ecosystem will be an enthusiastic partner for the smooth implementation of Prime Minister's game-changing vision of creating a digitally-enabled and strong Indian economy,’ Ambani reiterated in his speech.

Having said, Ambani did not seem to position JioMoney as just a mobile wallet, but rather as ATMs. "Customers can use this to pay the merchant from their bank accounts, and merchants can use this to accept the payments directly into their bank accounts." This seems to be a greater scheme than it actually looks. If it succeeds to add to the regular value propositions of a wallet, the cashless service from the Reliance Industries may succeed to make deep inroads into neighborhoods.

Should the likes of Paytm be worried?
Paytm, which is currently at the help of affairs when it comes to digital wallets in the country, says they have seen a huge response from India’s smaller cities and towns. ‘Kirana store owners, vegetable and fruit vendors, food stalls, pharmacies and many more merchants across India now accept Paytm,’ says the company.

With one million merchant base and an offline presence in over 40 cities across India, Paytm is currently at the top most used wallets in India.

Their latest move to make the Paytm Android app available in 10 regional languages has proved to be a great success, is what the company think.

The Paytm merchant network grew to one millionth offline merchant. It just took less than three months to double up the merchant base. Keeping the momentum going, the wallet company is working hard to make the entire neighbourhood shops part of the cashless economy.

With one millionth merchant base and an offline presence in more than 40 cities across India, Paytm is currently at the top most used wallets in India. And of course, there are others as well in the fray including MobiKwik which claims to have registered two million downloads within 48 hours of the lunch of its ‘Lite’ version of the wallet app.

Now that Reliance is making a digitisation move on the back of an obvious thought-through strategy, it only remains to be seen how the story unfolds given that Paytm has grown multi-fold post-demonetisation making inroads into remote areas and unseen hyper-local stores while Jio has a better platform to connect and of course funds. 

                                                                   source: techradar

Months after it received flak for allegedly violating net neutrality with Free Basics, social networking giant Facebook is now testing a new model for public Wi-Fi deployments for offering quality internet access in rural parts of the country.

According to Facebook's Internet.org page, the company's "Express Wifi" is live in India and it is "working with carriers, internet service providers and local entrepreneurs to help expand connectivity to underserved locations around the world".

"...are expanding to other regions soon," it added.

However, Facebook did not indicate if the Wi-Fi will provide limited access of a few websites, like its Free Basics, or provide full access. Express Wifi empowers local entrepreneurs to help provide quality internet access to their neighbours and make a steady income, it further said.

"Working with local internet service providers or mobile operators, they are able to use software provided by Facebook to connect their communities," it said.

Facebook is experimenting with products like laser drones to enhance internet connectivity for users across the world.

When contacted, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the company is currently working with internet service providers to test 'Express Wi-Fi' with public Wi-Fi deployments in multiple pilot sites.

"This solution empowers ISPs, operators and local entrepreneur retailers to offer quality Internet access to their village, town or region," the spokesperson said.

However, the spokesperson did not comment on the locations or the names of the partners in the project. The spokesperson said Express Wi-Fi customers can purchase fast, reliable and affordable data packs via digital vouchers to access the Internet on the Express Wi-Fi network.

READ ALSOTrai explores model for setting up of public Wi-Fi hotspots

"We focus on building a sustainable economic model for all stakeholders involved, so that local retailer entrepreneurs, ISPs, operators and Facebook can continue to invest in and operate lasting connectivity. We believe a sustainable economic model is the one which can scale to bring all of India online," the spokesperson said. 

The US-based company had pulled the plug on its controversy- ridden 'Free Basics programme' in India in February this year after telecom regulator Trai barred operators from charging discriminatory rates for Internet access based on content.

Launched in 2014, Facebook continues to run the programme across many countries. The service was launched in India in partnership with Reliance Communications as Internet.org.

The service -- which was later rebranded as Free Basics -- aimed at providing basic Internet access to people in partnership with telecom operators. However, critics slammed the service saying it violated the principle of net neutrality that advocates equal treatment of all internet traffic.

Airtel Payments Bank said over 10,000 customers have opened savings accounts with it within two days of going live with a pilot project in Rajasthan.

Majority of these accounts have been opened by customers in semi-urban and rural areas, underlining the potential for growth of banking services in such areas, Airtel Payments Banksaid in a statement.

Last week, Airtel Payments Bank became the first Payments Bank to go live in the country with the roll out of pilot services in Rajasthan.

"We are offering the highest interest rate on savings account deposits in the country along with personal insurance of Rs 1 lakh and may look at sweetening the value proposition further and introduce more benefits in the coming days to accelerate the onboarding," Shashi Arora, MD and CEO, Airtel Payments Bank said.

In Rajasthan, Airtel Bank has rolled out pilot services across 10,000 Airtel retail outlets, which also act as banking points. Two-thirds of these banking points across Rajasthan are in rural areas. Airtel Bank plans to have a network of 100,000 merchants (shops) across Rajasthan by the end of the year.

All these merchants will accept digital payments via Airtel Bank using a mobile phone, the statement said adding Airtel will not charge any processing fee from merchants for this facility.

READ ALSOAirtel becomes first payments bank to go live

With the objective of deepening financial inclusion, RBI kicked off era of differentiated banking with SFB (small finance bank) and PB (payments bank), and 21 entities, including 11 for payments bank, were given in-principle nod last year.

Later, three entities -- Tech Mahindra, Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company and a consortium of Dilip Shanghvi, IDFC Bank and Telenor Financial Services -- backed out of the payments bank licensing. 

The digital and paperless Airtel Payments Bank has promised that account opening will be quick using Aadhaar based e-KYC. Customer's Airtel mobile number will be their bank account number.

The interest rate of 7.25% per annum will apply on deposits in savings accounts. Airtel Banking points will offer bank account opening services and cash deposit and withdrawal facilities.

As per RBI norms, payments bank will initially be restricted to holding a maximum balance of Rs 1 lakh per individual customer.
                                                   source: gadgetshow

0% processing free is applicable only till December 31, at least for now.

• Le 2 11400

Paytm earlier unveiled a new feature that allows users to transfer funds from their Paytm wallet to a bank account at 1% fee. Now, the company has announced that the same feature will be available to users at O% fee. Paytmadded that the offer is applicable till December 31, 2016.

This follows a similar move by rival MobiKwik and Freecharge, who are also charging 0% processing fees. With the government’s demonetisation drive in full flow, more and more people have been forced to turn to online modes of transactions.

Paytm added that the change in processing fee will be applicable to all users, including those who are yet to complete the Know-Your-Client (KYC) formalities. Users who wish to conduct transactions without fulfilling KYC formalities will be charged 1% processing fee for every transaction.

As per RBI guidelines Paytm users can conduct transactions amounting to Rs. 10,000 per month. However, users who have completed the KYC procedure can spend an unlimited amount and store up to Rs. 100,000 in the Paytm wallets. Users need to submit any one of the following documents: Aadhar Card, Passport, Voter ID card, Driving License or the NREGA job card, for the KYC procedure to be completed.

Earlier, users who had completed the KYC formalities could send money to bank at 1% without any waiting period, while users who had not completed KYC were charged a 4% processing fee and wait for 45 days after creating their Paytm account before they could transfer funds to a bank account.

                                             source: digit

The telecom regulatory body has floated a discussion paper for feedback on implementing open interfaces of Aadhar, e-KYC and UPI for public WiFi access authentication.

• Le 2 11400

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has extended the deadline for its discussion paper that seeks to gather feedback on the implementation and execution of public WiFi framework in India. The paper was initially floated with responses to be closed for November 25, but now, the sector regulatory body has extended the deadline to December 9. TRAI’s initiative seeks to use open Application Programme Interfaces (APIs) of Aadhar, electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) identifications as part of a uniform authentication and payment method for accessing public WiFi hotspots.

Present authentication methods for accessing, authenticating and paying were quoted as “tedious and cumbersome” by TRAI. The absence of a uniform method made inter-operability impossible, and hence, TRAI’s solutions involve using a unified interface to allow users to authenticate and pay for public WiFi services. Public WiFi services are being looked upon as an efficient way to spread Internet connectivity in low-Internet areas, and also to allow telecom operators to ease off unused spectrum.

The TRAI consultation paper also asks about the viability of telcos reselling capacity and bandwidth to consumers, and the possibility of implementing “light touch regulation”, or fewer investor and business barriers in between a transaction, by registering telcos instead of licensing a service to them. The paper also explores on whether regulatory action is required for such a segment, and a possible cost and revenue sharing roadmap for the operators and the consumers alike.

While the mode of implementation, as quoted by TRAI, does seem to unify authentication processes, it remains to be seen how the public and telecom operators accept and respond to this move. A response from the regulatory body is expected soon after responses close on December 9.

                                      source: digit

Union Minister for Law & Justice, Electronics & IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday disclosed that the NDA Government saved Rs.36,000 crores by digitalizing economic activities such as payment of subsidies and MGNREGA wages through direct cash benefit facilities on to the accounts of intended beneficiaries through Aadhaar.

With e-commerce facilities being made available to rural folk, the government succeeded to transfer their wages for many of its social schemes to intended beneficiaries into their accounts which has amounted to a savings of Rs.36,000 crores in the last 12 months with leakages being plugged, explained the minister.

Addressing a Plenary Session on Transforming India Through Digital India of 111th Annual Session PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry here today, Mr. Prasad forecast that e-commerce has been gaining in so much of public accessibility with pro-active government’s e-commerce drive that its size in next five years would be around $1 trillion.

The government, according to Mr. Prasad has been driving the digital drive and e-commerce in such abundance that poor labourer is getting their benefits beyond imagination of habitat living in and around metros and large cities. That is the power of digital India and e-commerce initiatives for which the government would do all possible with suitable laws and policy initiatives for Cyber Security, pointed out the Minister.

As a result of giving a wider spectrum for e-commerce initiatives close to 40 mobile units have come to India to manufacturer mobile devices, of them 11 are approved of for Noida, indicated Mr. Prasad.

He added that with the digital initiative of the government being widened to postal services, a couple of leading multi-national banks such as City Bank, Deutsche Bank and Barclays of London would shortly be forging ties with host of Indian post offices to set up payment banks for rural India.

Among other who spoke on the occasion also consisted of President, PHD Chamber, Dr. Mahesh Gupta and its Senior Vice President and Vice President, Mr. Gopal Jiwarajka and Mr. Anil Khaitan.

                                           SOURCE : DATAQUEST

Can Big Data help track Black Money in the Indian market?

The Modi-led NDA government’s move to ban the circulation of old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes brought black money again into the spotlight. The ban is believed to bring down the stashing of cash, outside the banking system and ensuring transparency in  the economy. It is easier said than done. However, the government can use more effective tools to fight corruption as well as black money. It can use new age tools such as big data and analytics.

The government has already put a lot of stress on Digital India which is centred around connecting all 600k villages over the high-speed fibre network. Since most of the transactions related to disbursement of subsidies/funds, land records, land deals and others would be done digitally, the government will have a fair chance to keep eye on everything.

The use of big data analytics in order to track transactions can give government insights into the financial malpractices in real time. The government will have to further the use of DBT (direct benefit transfer) and transfer all kinds of subsidies into the bank accounts opened either under the Jan Dhan Yojna (JDY) or otherwise. In many states, the government is already transferring the LPG and PDS subsidy into the bank accounts. Further enhancement of DBT will give the government an upperhand in its fight against corruption.

“With the financial backbone that can collect information on all the financial activities also in place, Big Data Analytics can be extremely effective. It can easily spot unusual activities at any level of aggregation: regional, branch or even at individual level. It is the right time to deploy Big Data Analytics to make this detection of unwanted financial activities faster, easier and more targeted,” suggests Himanshu Gupta, Director of Strategic Accounts, Fuzzy Logix.

The cash that remains out of the financial systems will start diminishing, but even this cash leaves a digital trail, either at the point of consumption or at the point of supply.

India is not the only economy which is facing a challenge to uncover the black money hoarders. According to a fresh estimate by a trio of senior economists from the Bank of Italy, from the $6-7 trillion worth of black wealth lying hidden in tax havens across the world, Indian’s share is estimated at $152-181 billion, which makes up a sizeable portion of Indian economy. For effective use of big data analytics, the successful implementation of Digital India in all government departments (States and the Center) including all the banks will have a far reaching impact.

                                               SOURCE: DATAQUEST

Here is a list of some open source tools for the lean web developer

Evernote

Evernote is a cross-platform, free app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving.  The app allows users to create a “note” which can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten “ink” note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notebooks can be added to a stack while notes can be sorted into a notebook, tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched, and exported as part of a notebook.

Download: http://download.cnet.com/Evernote/3000-2381_4-10425994.html

Dropbox

Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by American company Dropbox,  that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on their computers, which  then synchronizes so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of which device is used to view it. Files placed in this folder are also accessible via the Dropbox website and mobile apps.

DOWNLOAD: http://filehippo.com/download_dropbox/

Droplr

As a developer, working with designers or co-workers often means sharing documents, images and text. Droplr makes that incredibly easy, packaged in a blazingly fast, slick, intuitive interface. Without even signing up, we can upload files and share them with a generated URL  for a period of seven days, while signing up for a free account allows uploads of up to 25MB files and up to 1GB of storage.

DOWNLOAD: http://download.cnet.com/Droplr/3000-2196_4-75222306.html

Xampp

A live testing environment should be an essential element in every web developer’s toolbox, and XAMPP is a highly recommended open source, configurable web server. It contains Apache, MySQL, PHP, OpenSSL, FileZilla FTP server and more, bundled together for a smooth configuration.

DOWNLOAD: http://filehippo.com/download_xampp/

Git

Git is an open source revision control and source code management system that tracks the history of your project in a data structure called a repository. Git is a decentralized system that allows for multiple backup repositories.

They only merge when stabilized, making it easy to experiment quickly and safely. This is particularly useful if you’re working in collaboration with others, as you can share the history of the project, merge between their work and yours, then compare and revert to previous versions of individual project files.

DOWNLOAD: https://git-scm.com/downloads

GitHub – Gist

GitHub is a place to securely store your code, and Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others.

With native clients for Mac, Windows and mobile devices, GitHub offers the ability to work on your projects from anywhere. It’s a powerful way to collaborate, review and manage your code on both public and private development projects. Hosting your code using an external service such as GitHub means it’s safe and secure, should your web host get hacked or your computer crashes, for example.

DOWNLOAD: http://github-for-windows.en.softonic.com/

JS Bin

JS Bin supports remote rendering, enabling you to check on multiple platforms while the output automatically refreshes as you edit the code. Once you start typing, JS Bin saves your work .If you want to stop saving, just create a milestone and live saving will apply to the new revision.

DOWNLOAD: http://webscripts.softpedia.com/script/Development-Scripts-js/Complete-applications/JS-Bin-80868.html