Technology news

Gest is a wearable device that allows users to control computer or mobile device with their hands (Source: Kickstarter)
Over the years our way of interacting with personal computing devices have changed. From mouse and keyboard, we have moved to touchscreen. With Virtual Reality on the brink, our way of interaction is set to get even more personal.
Right in between these two ways of interaction comes Gest – a wearable device that allows users to control computer or mobile device with thei

A sixth-grade Indian-origin girl sells secure passwords generated by dice rolls (Source: Dicewarepasswords.com)
An enterprising 11-year-old Indian-origin girl in the US has started her own business selling cryptographically secure passwords generated by dice rolls.
Mira Modi, a sixth grader in New York City, has her own website and generates six-word Diceware passphrases for her customers at USD 2 each.
Diceware is a well-known decades-old system for coming up with passwords. It involves rollin

Huawei will sell some of its honor smartphones on Snapdeal as well.
Chinese telecom firm Huawei will start selling Honor smartphones through e-commerce platform Snapdeal from Monday, expanding the reach of the handsets which were earlier available only on Flipkart.
“Our e-brand, Honor, has received an overwhelming response from Indian customers and we are now expanding our reach with Snapdeal.com.
“We are confident that this partnership will help us reach out to larger group of Hono

Facebook will help BSNL set up 100 wi-fi hotspots in rural India and will spend Rs 5 crore on the project.
Boosting the government’s ambitious ‘Digital India’ drive, social media giant Facebook has come forward to facilitate state-run BSNL in setting up 100 wi-fi sites in rural areas of western and southern India. Facebook will spend Rs 5 crore per annum for sponsoring these 100 Wi-Fi hotspots in the country.
“Facebook has partnered with us to sponsor 100 wi-fi hotspots

In a boost to Make In India, Karbonn announces Rs 200 crore investment in Tirupati mobile manufacturing plant
In line with the government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, domestic handset vendor Karbonn will invest Rs 200 crore to set up a manufacturing plant at Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh.
Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone for a dedicated mobile handset and electronics manufacturing facility at Tirupati.
Apart from Karbonn, the facility will ho

Internet freedom in India has improved slightly under the Narendra Modi-led government even as censorship and surveillance of the Web increased world over, an independent organisation for freedom and democracy Freedom House has said in a report. India’s score has improved by 2 points to 40 in 2015 from 42 a year ago, the report said. Low score is indication of reduction in barriers to freedom.
However, across the world censorship and surveillance of the Internet increased leading to declin

Google says it has programmed the software of its self driving cars to be more cautious around kids (Source: Google)
Google’s self driving cars are more cautious around children thanks to embedded sensors and programming of these autonomous vehicles. While self driving cars have been involved in accidents lately, Google it would appear is taking special care when it comes to children on the road.
Google says in its blog post, “We teach our cars to drive more cautiously around childr

Guvera music app has over 6 million subscribers in India.
No one pays for streaming music in India. But can you make money out of music without getting the customers to pay. Yes, it seems if we take a cue from Guvera, one of the newer players in the music streaming market here.
Since its India launch in November 2014, this ad-funded service from Australia has 6 million users in India thanks to its 20 million odd tracks. Ananya Amin, Head of Business Development in Asia for Guvera, says his comp

Facebook is making some changes to its ‘real-name’ policy after facing criticism. (Source: Reuters)
Facebook is making some modifications to its real-name changes policy, which has faced criticism in the US from LGBT activists in particular.
According to Engadget, Facebook has confirmed changes to the terms and conditions of its real-name policy which insists that people use real names on the site, rather than pseudonyms. The report notes that the policy has often misused by trolls

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captures stunning close up pictures of Saturn moon Enceladus
Following a successful close flyby of Saturn’s icy, geologically active moon Enceladus on Wednesday, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has begun transmitting its latest images.
During the dramatic flyby of Enceladus, a prime target for future exploration in search of habitable environments beyond our home planet, the probe passed about 49 kilometres above the moon’s south polar region.
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Vodafone UK said on Saturday hackers had accessed the accounts of 1,827 of its customers this week. (Source: Reuters)
Vodafone UK said on Saturday hackers had accessed the accounts of 1,827 of its customers this week, the second cyber attack on a British telecoms company this month.
The attackers had potentially gained access to the victims’ bank sort codes and the last four numbers of their bank accounts, along with their names and mobile telephone numbers, a Vodafone spokesman said.
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Google’s new app ‘Who’s Down’ will ‘help’ you hang out with friends.
If you are feeling lonely on the weekends and your usual dose of social media is not helping, then Google has an answer for you in the form of its latest app: ‘Who’s Down.’ The app lets a user see which of their friends are ready to hang out.
According to 9to5Google, which first spotted the app, you can let your friends know you are ready to ‘hang out’ with

LG Google 5X is a beast of a smartphone with Lumia-like plastic design and a frustrating USB Type C story.
Ok Google. The Nexus 5X must be special for you. Two years back, the LG Nexus 5 had set the benchmark pretty high. It was among the best Android smartphones till late 2014. The ambitious Nexus 6 was almost non-existent. It failed to make any sort of noise at all, at least in India.
Everything was so perfect with the Nexus 5 that adding the ‘X’ to it would have been seriously di