Lava may buy Nokia’s Chennai unit, will create jobs for thousands

Fast-growing smartphone maker Lava is said to be in talks to buy Nokia's Chennai handset factory, once the world's biggest but now non-operational. If a deal is struck, that could raise the possibility of thousands of former workers getting a chance at re-employment at the plant that had been regarded as a showpiece of India's manufacturing capabilities.

The two companies have signed a nondisclosure agreement, people familiar with discussions told ET. "Lava's manufacturing team has already visited the plant and has done the assessment. It will make a proposal to Nokia mid-December after taking all aspects into consideration," one of the people said. "The tax issue needs to be sorted out before a final deal is sealed though."

He was referring to the tax dispute between Nokia and the government, which had prevented the Finnish company from transferring the factory to Microsoft as part of a global $7.2-billion deal to sell its devices business to the US company. The tax row is in court and the factory is silent after Microsoft decided to stop using it from November 1 as a contract manufacturer for its devices, putting thousands out of work.

Another person said a top executive of Nokia Finland's M&A team was recently in India to discuss the sale with Lava, which has moved up to the No. 3 spot among smartphone vendors in the July-September quarter from No. 4 in the second quarter, according to IDC. The Noida-based company, headed by co-founder and Chairman & Managing Director Hari Om Rai, was set up in 2009 and sells devices under the Lava and Xolo brand names.

"Nokia has already communicated to Lava that the ongoing tax and lease-related issues are being discussed with the authorities concerned," said the person cited above. "It has asked Lava to continue with the assessment since there are high chances that these issues would get resolved soon."

A Nokia spokesperson said in an email: "With production at Chennai suspended, we would like to see the asset freeze imposed by the tax authorities lifted. This will allow us to explore potential opportunities for sale to a suitable buyer."

Nokia and Lava declined comment on any talks they might be having. While there are no valuation estimates available, the Indian tax department had pegged Nokia's fixed assets including the factory and a few sales offices at Rs 586 crore in the Delhi High Court last December.

"The valuation would have gone down by 10-12% considering depreciation," said the second person quoted above. At its peak, the factory was the world's largest mobile phone manufacturing plant with 8,000 permanent employees working three shifts producing more than 15 million phones a month. ET recently reported that Nokia will renew the factory's licence by the end of November so the machines run occasionally and are kept in working condition, allowing the company to sell it off as a functional unit without too much of a cut in valuation.

A third person said Nokia is also open to leasing out the plant to contract manufacturers. "The plant's machinery can also be used for making other electronic equipment such as tablets or personal computers after some tweaking," he said. Nokia had approached Celkon Mobiles for a possible lease arrangement, said Executive Director Murali Retineni. "We've not given it serious thought," said the Celkon executive.

The person cited above said Celkon may not need the kind of big capacity that the factory offers, given its volumes. Buying the plant, however, makes sense for Lava, among the fastest-growing phone makers in India. It aims to start domestic manufacturing next year due to the rapidly increasing cost of labour in China. Lava has already said it plans to spend Rs 500 crore on local manufacturing operations over three years.

The company was earlier in talks with Chinese original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Vivo for setting up a manufacturing unit, but this fell through. The company is hoping the Nokia deal works out but will otherwise set up its own plant, land for which has already been earmarked, people said.

"Being one of the fastest-growing handset vendors, Lava has witnessed growth in both their brands — Lava and Xolo," IDC said in its latest market report on India released on Wednesday.

Lava is set to cross $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) revenue by the end of the current financial year, sharply higher than the Rs 2,909 crore it posted last year. It was the first Indian phone vendor to introduce its own user interface or skin, Hive, riding on the Android OS. Convergence Catalyst's founder analyst Jayanth Kolla said this is a "strong product differentiator" for Lava devices in India.

Source:The Economic Times

Chrome Will Start Blocking All Remaining NPAPI Plugins In January

Starting in January 2015, Google’s Chrome browser will block all old-school Netscape Plug-In API (NPAPI) plugins. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, given that Google started its efforts to remove NPAPI plugins more than a year ago.

Over the last year, Google went from recommending that developers move away from this old architecture to actively blocking almost all NPAPI plugins. There was, however, always a whitelist that allowed some of the most popular NPAPI plugins like Microsoft’s Silverlight, Unity and Google’s own Google Earth plugin to continue to run in the browser. Starting in January, even that’s going away and all of these plugins will be blocked by default.

Other plugins that will be affected by this move include the Google Talk and Facebook plugins. Most of the whitelisted plugins saw their usage decline since Chrome started the deprecation program, but according to Google’s own data, Silverlight still remains popular with 11% of Chrome users launching it at least once per month. Most of that usage is probably from Netflix users, but now that Netflix is slowly moving away from Silverlight, too, the impact will likely be less than those numbers suggest.

Enterprises, which may still run some mission-critical NPAPI plugins, will be able to bypass these restrictions for the time being. Come September 2015, however, Google will completely remove support for these plugins from Chrome.

Source:Techcrunch 

Custom Weather Alerts Straight to Your Inbox

Every morning when I wake up, there's a peppy text message waiting in my inbox, letting me know that the summer storms are over, and that the sky will be blue and clear for the day.
And each afternoon, as I am preparing to head home from work, another message arrives, telling me to expect a cool, dry evening, one that might be best suited for a light jacket.
Both messages come courtesy of a new service, Poncho, that delivers customized weather updates via text or email.

There are hundreds - perhaps thousands - of weather applications available for smartphones, laptops and tablets. And there is no shortage of ways to find the day's forecast by turning on the radio or television.
But Kuan Huang, one of Poncho's creators, is betting that people will use his service for its convenience, and the customized information it provides. Poncho asks its new users questions about their daily habits, like what time they wake up, how they commute to work, whether they have pets they need to take out, and whether users prefer to receive their daily weather reports via text or email. From there, Poncho builds out a schedule of alerts and updates to deliver.

"I wanted to make something that pushes information to people and they don't have to check it," he said.
The app, which was developed at Betaworks, an organization behind Digg.com, was released last April and still has a relatively small following, with users in the tens of thousands. That is partly because the service is available only in New York and Boston. But the app's five-person team is working on expanding to a handful of major U.S. cities this year.

Huang has been encouraged by the early response, and indicators of momentum. For example, few users have unsubscribed, which Huang sees as a sign that people like the service.
He also thinks that people will be won over by Poncho's personality, which is chipper and occasionally sassy. Poncho's voice comes from a team of human editors who write the messages. They often add humor, Internet slang and the occasional graphic to spice up the alerts.
In addition to weather, Poncho can give tailored information about traffic and train delays, as well as others details like the daily pollen count.

Huang joined Betaworks last January as part of its hacker-in-residence program, which recruits talented engineers to experiment with different ideas and concepts in the hopes of devising a service that could eventually become a stand-alone company. The effort has given rise to Dots, a popular mobile game, and Giphy, a search engine for animated images called GIFs.

Huang had no experience in weather. He heard that the Betaworks team was interested in a better forecast experience, which struck a chord with Huang, who almost always got his daily report from his mother. She knew his schedule and would tell him if it was going to rain or if he should bundle up. He originally wanted to name the service "WeatherMom," but his team persuaded him to choose something a little more mysterious and sleek.

Huang worked with data scientists at Betaworks to build a service that pulls weather information from 10 sources and can aggregate ZIP codes with similar forecasts into groups, which helps minimize the number of messages to be written each day.
The company has also been testing ads on the service. When the pollen count is particularly high, for example, Poncho shows an advertisement for allergy medicine at Duane Reade, a chain of New York drugstores.
Eventually, the service could expand its advertising platform and let brands target ads based on conditions or the season.
But Huang says the company's priority is scaling Poncho nationally.
"We want to roll it out city-by-city and keep learning what works," he said.

Amazon India Announces 15-Day Trial Offer for Kindle Ebook Readers

Amazon India, after launching its Kindle Cloud Reader Service in May this year, has introduced a new offer for its Indian ebook readers devices, along with a money-back guarantee. The offer is valid from July 8 till July 23.

According to Amazon, Indian consumers can order the All-New Kindle Paperwhite, All-New Kindle Paperwhite 3G or Kindle 6-inch Wi-Fi from the Amazon India Kindle Trial page, use it for 15 days, and then can return if they are unsatisfied, along with a full refund.

Amazon India also mentions that the money paid by users while ordering the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite and Kindle 6 devices will be refunded (if users opts for the option) within 3-5 days via a cheque or bank transfer.

While the All-New Kindle Paperwhite and All-New Kindle Paperwhite 3G are priced at Rs. 10,999 and Rs. 13,999 respectively, the Kindle 6-inch Wi-Fi model comes with a price tag of Rs. 5,999.

"We know from our experience around the world, that once the consumers experience the device, they love it! Their apprehensions of eye strain vanish and they quickly realise how it feeds their appetite for reading and how convenient it is to have instant access to any book they want to read or the ability to carry their favourite books with them at all times. We are committed to helping India read more and this is one tiny step towards that," said Devesh Khandelwal, Senior Product manager, Kindle India in a press statement.

Amazon India, as mentioned above, also announced the launch of its Kindle Cloud Reader for India, a free to use app that lets users read books from their Kindle library directly on their computer. Users can access all their books when connected, and can download books from the library for reading offline. Books users are reading start to download automatically, but they can manually pin other books if they want to keep them on the PC whether they've been read recently or not.

Flipkart Expands 'In-a-Day Guarantee' Delivery Service to 50 Cities

Flipkart kicked off its 'In-a-day Guarantee' service with some selective Indian cities last year. The online retailer has now announced that the service is now available in 50 cities.

The Internet retailer giant announced the news on Twitter and said, "The wait is now over! In a day guarantee in 50 Indian cities at Rs. 50! Offer valid for 2 days."

The company as an introductory offer has slashed the price of its 'In-a-day Guarantee' service to Rs. 50 from Rs. 90 for two days on orders above Rs. 5,050.

For those unaware, the 'In-a-day Guarantee' service initially was available to customers in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Noida and Pune. Now the offer includes Kolkata, Agra, Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Ambala, Bhatinda, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chandannagar, Coimbatore, Davangere, Durgapur, Erode, Faridabad, Goa, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Hissar, Hosur, Howrah, Hubli, Jaipur, Kanchipuram, Kharagpur, Kota, Ludhiana, Madurai, Meerut, Nagpur, Nashik, Navi Mumbai, Panipat, Panjim, Patiala, Pondicherry, Salem, Secunderabad, Thane, Thanjavur, Tiruvallur, Tiruppur, Tiruchirappalli and Vellore.

In April, Flipkart also introduced a 'Same-day Guarantee' delivery service in select cities, which can be availed by paying an additional Rs. 200 per item and is only available for orders placed before noon.

Earlier in June, Flipkart announced an annual subscription service for frequent shoppers, called Flipkart First. The service is available for interested customers for a subscription fee of Rs. 500 per year.

Notably, the Flipkart First service is similar to the Amazon Prime premium subscription service in the US.

Flipkart last week also launched its first tablet, the Digiflip Pro XT 712, at Rs. 9,999.

Google buys music service Songza to take on Apple and Beats

Google announced today that it's acquiring the streaming-music service Songza for an undisclosed sum. Over the coming months it will be integrating the company's smart playlist creation into Google Play Music and perhaps YouTube. Songza will remain an active and independent app for the time being. The purchase highlights the increasingly competitive landscape emerging around music, as Apple, Amazon, and Google all seek to differentiate their mobile products by offering top-notch streaming services.

When Beats Music launched in January of this year, it offered users the ability to build a playlist based on variables like their mood, location, and activity. Songza actually offered this kind of contextual playlist creation way back in 2010, when it was still web-only. The company launched its mobile app in 2011 and has since grown to serve 5.5 million active users. Sources familiar with the deal say that the purchase price for Songza, which had raised a total of just $6.7 million to date, was far less than what Apple paid for Beats. Earlier reports on the acquisition from the New York Post said Google was offering around $15 million, while The New York Times claims the deal is worth over $39 million.

Google's music service already included a radio feature that generated a playlist based on a user's taste and a song or album they selected as the starting point. It also has a very complex and computer-driven approach to figuring out what music to recommend, one that relies on dual-sided machine-learning technology and advanced machine listening to analyze not just people's taste but the component parts of the songs themselves. Songza, by contrast, offers up simple hand-picked mixes like "Indie Music That's Not Too Weird" and "Easy, Breezy, Summer Songs" that are created by real people and geared to match a person's mood.

In that sense, Songza is closer to Pandora, which uses human musicologists to decide what songs go well together. Beats Music also has a team of editors hired from places like Pitchfork and XXL to create playlists for its users, and even Google's machine learning gets a little help from an in-house record store geek. Across the board, what's valuable is removing the effort of deciding what's next when there are tens of millions of songs to choose from. "Every jukebox in the sky needs curation to be valuable," says David Pakman, a tech investor and former digital music entrepreneur. "Google is admitting humans have a big role to play in that process."

Of course, knowing Google, and what it's trying to do with Google Now, down the road there could be other interesting uses for all the data Songza captures.

Flipkart Reportedly Set to Launch Its Own Tablet on June 26

Online marketplace Flipkart is said to be all set to launch tablet with its own label on June 26.

The Bangalore-based firm, which sells its own brand of electronic and computer accessories like headphones, speakers and pen drives under the DigiFlip range, is expected to launch the tablet under the same label.

While the specifications of Flipkart's rumoured tablet still remain under the wraps, the company is hosting a blogger event on June 26 and has sent out a cryptic invite in form of a jar of tablets.

The move is expected to help Flipkart, which follows the mix of marketplace and inventory-led model (with resellers putting up their wares for sale on the website) to boost its margins in the highly competitive electronics retailing space.

Interestingly, last week, online retailing giant Amazon had launched its first smartphone Fire Phone(First Impressions) becoming the first e-commerce firm to compete in the over $150 billion global market, led by players like Apple and Samsung.

Amazon also has its Kindle range of e-Book readers. Flipkart's move to launch a tablet is also expected to help the e-commerce firm connect faster with its consumers.

Another similarity that Flipkart shares with Amazon is its annual subscription service for its customers.Flipkart First, which is similar to Amazon Prime premium subscription service in the US, is aimed at rewarding registered shoppers, which the company claims are about 18 million for the portal, as well as getting new ones on board.

Like Amazon's Firefly feature on its Fire Phone, Flipkart's tablet is expected to be integrated with features that will enable users to complete transactions with the firm that sells everything from apparel to household appliances to stationery, within minutes.

Amazon's Firefly feature can identify things like books, games, CDs etc., by pointing the Fire Phone's camera at them. It can also capture songs or TV programmes and gives the user options to purchase them.

With this move, Flipkart will compete with global giants like Samsung and Apple, which are leaders in the domestic market too.

However, going by tablet sales data, the growing demand for phablets is eating into the market share of tablets and it is yet to be seen how does Flipkart markets its device to catch the consumer's pulse.

According to research firm CMR, the tablet sales in India declined 17.5 percent to 0.75 million units in January-March 2014 compared to 0.9 million units in the same quarter last year, pulled down by higher demand for phablets (smartphones with displays larger than 5-inches) and BIS certification compliance issues.

However, with the consolidation in the market (as many smaller players have discontinued their products), analysts expect sales to pick up in the quarters ahead.

SMS and Chat Have Killed Letter Writing, Claims Email's Inventor

Letter writing may have dwindled substantially over the years but billions of people are participating in the written word in the electronic form as never before, says the inventor of email V A Shiva Ayyadurai.

"Email has explosively supported the growth of letter writing globally. Today, unlike some decades ago, where penning letters was limited to a few who could afford education, billions are now writing letters, in electronic form, as never before - albeit, we can argue about the quality of writing - but regardless, more people, than ever before, are participating in the written word," the 50-year-old MIT systems scientist, technologist, entrepreneur and educator told PTI.

In 1978, Ayyadurai invented the world's first email system at the age of 14 and was awarded the first US copyright for "email".

He feels people tend to confuse email with the simple exchange of short text messages such as in texting, SMS, chat or Twitter, saying these have "destroyed" letter writing.

"Email is not the simple exchange of text messages. Email is the electronic version of the interoffice mail system used for formal letter or memo communication," he says.

"Clearly texting, SMS and chat are very different than writing a letter or email. In fact, I believe what is going on is that people are realising that you use short messaging, like texting, SMS, chat, Twitter, etc. for quick informal messages, and you use email for more intimate and formal letter writing.

"In this sense, mail is the preferred medium for 'letter writing', and if anything, texting and chat, are killing 'letter writing'. Email did precisely what I predicted, back in 1978, it took over the postal mail process and system of writing letters."

Mumbai-born Ayyadurai has just come out with a book "The Email Revolution: Unleashing the Power to Connect", published by Allworth Press, in which he demonstrates how organisations can realise the infinite potential of email to strengthen their brands and reach their audiences in incredibly creative ways.

According to the author, email was designed for formal business communication, and as long as we participate in business, email will be here. When he created the first email, he saw its real value.

"The system as a service which could automate all paper-based activities of managing mail in the office environment, by providing features of inbox, outbox, folders, address book, attachments, sorting, archiving, etc. to emulate electronically the interoffice mail system - the email we all use today" says Ayyadurai he realised that email, if adopted widely, beyond its value economically and productivity-wise, would also have immense social implications.

"This is why I also had stated then that email would change our 'patterns of communication, attitudes, and styles'.

Today, email has become a legal medium, for example, and in business communications, especially, people should be more cognisant of what they put in email communications, for it is far different than informal communications such as texting, chat or SMS," he says.

Ayyadurai, however, regrets that the postal service of the US, in 1997 did not heed his advice and embrace email, to become a provider of an email service such as Gmail or Hotmail.

"Such a decision would have positioned them for the future as well as other postal services worldwide, since at that time, most of the world's postal services, looked to the US Postal Service for new innovations," he says.

Ayyadurai, who managed email for the Clinton administration and created email-sorting software which was used by companies like Nike, AT&T and Toyota, gets upset with "so-called experts" who, since the 1990s have been saying that "email is dead".

"When chat came in the early 1990s they said 'Email is Dead'; when SMS came, they said 'Email is Dead'; and when Facebook came, Zuckerberg declared 'Email is Dead'. They all confused short messaging and community messaging with formal messaging. Email is not texting. Email is not a Facebook post," he asserts.

Ayyadurai stresses that email is here to stay.

"I am confident because I know what email is, and what it is not, having invented it. And, more importantly, as a media researcher, and as a systems biologist, I believe that we as humans are hardwired to seek and engage in three different types of messaging modes: Short Messaging, Community Messaging, [and] Formal Messaging," he says.

Ayyadurai believes another smart kid can definitely create another more convenient mode of communication.

"I think there are a bunch of kids out there, given, the right ecosystem, they will create things, we've never dreamed before or thought were 'impossible' - think about a device for telepathic communication - for example - far better than typing away all day," he hopes.

Aerospace Industry Must Learn from Google and SpaceX: Airbus Chief

The aerospace industry must embrace competition from technology companies such as Google andSpaceX which are already having a revolutionary impact on the sector, the head of the Airbus Group told AFP in an interview.

Describing the scale and speed of innovation in Silicon Valley as both "frightening and fascinating," Tom Enders said the increasing digitalisation of the economy was having a profound impact on his company's business.

"I think that in the future our industry will have to work much more closely with these new high-tech companies if only because these guys are increasingly intruding on our territory," said Enders, 55, who is half-way through a four-year mandate as CEO of the European aerospace giant.

Enders cited SpaceX, the space transport company founded by former PayPal entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Falcon launch vehicles are taking on the market-leading Airbus-built Ariane in the commercial satellite launch market.

SpaceX has also mounted a legal challenge to the monopoly held by Boeing and Lockheed Martin for the launch of US government satellites.

Google in April acquired the drone start-up Titan Aerospace which aims to compete with Airbus in making high-altitude unmanned planes that are meant to take on tasks traditionally done by more expensive satellites.

"Aerospace is still a rather young industry but these people are even younger," he said. "And I think there is no debate as to which of us is the more vibrant industry. They are."

"The speed of decision and risk taking and all that is amazing," said Enders, speaking while in Normandy for events to mark the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

'Bright young Frenchmen
A paratroop officer in the German army reserves who is a 25-year veteran of the European defence and aerospace industry, Enders also complained the European Union was stifling innovation and warned it must cut red tape.

"It should make us think as we look at the software industry, when you look at the IT industry at the Microsofts, Amazons, Facebooks, SpaceXs, Yahoos. It is all coming from the US."

Enders said many successful entrepreneurs in the United States were "bright young Frenchmen and bright young Germans" who had been forced to leave Europe to seek venture capital and a dynamic entrepreneurial environment.

Enders was appointed CEO of European aerospace giant EADS in June 2012 and immediately attempted a merger with Britain's BAE systems, a deal that would have seen the group replace Boeing as the world's biggest aerospace and defence company.

After the deal was blocked by Germany, Enders initiated an overhaul of the group's structure which reduced political influence.

He rebranded EADS into Airbus Group, reoganising the company into three divisions by merging the defence and space businesses. He has since led a push to expand the group's business outside of its home base in Europe, notably in Asia, the United States and the Middle East.

Airbus decided in 2005 to set up a joint venture in China to assemble the medium-range A320 passenger jet and the company plans to open an assembly line in 2015 in the southern US state of Alabama.

Enders said Airbus considered the project in the Chinese city of Tianjin a success and that it was vital the company developed a local identity as it expanded into foreign markets.

He said Airbus had allayed reservations from Chinese airlines about taking a China-made plane.

"We have demonstrated that they are just as good, some people say even better, as those assembled in Europe."

The Airbus Group would continue to embed itself abroad through new assembly lines, engineering centres and supply partnerships. "We clearly have beachheads that I hope we will be able to expand."

Enders said it was inevitable that the proportion of the Airbus workforce employed in Europe - currently 90 percent of the company's 144,000 staff would fall as the international expansion gathered pace.

But he added: "If that one day would be 80 percent or 70 percent, we would still be a European company."

Airbus turnover rose by five percent in 2013 to 59.3 billion euros ($80.9 billion). That compared to a rise of 6.0 percent to 63.5 billion euros for rival Boeing.

Cybercrime Costs Global Economy $445 Billion a Year: Report

Cybercrime costs the global economy about $445 billion every year, with the damage to business from the theft of intellectual property exceeding the $160 billion loss to individuals from hacking, according to research published on Monday.

The report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said cybercrime was a growth industry that damaged trade, competitiveness and innovation.

A conservative estimate would be $375 billion in losses, while the maximum could be as much as $575 billion, said the study, sponsored by security software company McAfee.

"Cybercrime is a tax on innovation and slows the pace of global innovation by reducing the rate of return to innovators and investors," Jim Lewis of CSIS said in a statement.

"For developed countries, cybercrime has serious implications for employment."

The world's biggest economies bore the brunt of the losses, the research found, with the toll on the United States, China, Japan and Germany reaching $200 billion a year in total.

Losses connected to personal information, such as stolen credit card data, was put at up to $150 billion.

About 40 million people in the United States, roughly 15 percent of the population, has had personal information stolen by hackers, it said, while high-profile breaches affected 54 million people in Turkey, 16 million in Germany and more than 20 million in China.

McAfee, owned by Intel Corp, said improved international collaboration was beginning to show results in reducing cybercrime, for example in the takedown last week of a crime ring that infected hundreds of thousands of computers known by the name of its master software, Gameover Zeus.

Amazon Launches 'Gift a Smile' Charity Initiative in India

The most pertinent question that crosses the mind of a donor is "will my donation be used for the right purpose" while the most daunting task a NGO faces is "to find ways to utilise unwanted gifts". Bridging this chasm is an online portal that offers transparent options for "sensible" gifting to the marginalised.

In a first, online shopping portal Amazon.in has launched the unique initiative "Gift a Smile" by joining hands with 10 NGOs to create a platform for people to select the gifts they want to give from the wishlists of the organisations.

It can be accessed on the Amazon.in website. Interested donors can choose from an array of wishlists - stationary, books, portable loudspeakers, medical kits, toys and sports equipment, among other things - for a transparent and credible face to these virtual donations.

"What happens is that people donate things they don't want or what they think can be donated," Shailendra Kumar Sharma from NGO Pratham, told IANS.

"In such cases, we don't get what is required and end up sitting on a pile of unwanted material," added Sharma, whose NGO primarily supports education and vocational training skills among children.

Sharma said the initiative gives NGOs the space to select what is required and needed.

Most importantly, this virtual medium offers a platform where specific information about each NGO is given, with a page dedicated to its domain and programmes.

This, in a way, lends greater credibility to this initiative that connects and engages these two different communities.

These NGOs have been selected by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), a registered trust, and according to its chief executive Meenakshi Batra, it is a wonderful platform for donors and NGOs to come together.

"We know these NGOs can deliver. They are extremely credible, have a significant outreach and have been chosen on based of these credentials," Batra told IANS.

All the NGOs on board have different ideas to use the "gifts" and are quick to caution that these shouldn't be confused with "charity".

Hence, Geeta Malhotra, country head of Read India, wants to use these gifts as "rewards" to encourage children to go to school and study hard.

"We plan to use these as reward during competitions and class performances. This will motivate them to study in a competitive environment," Malhotra, whose NGO supports education and women's empowerment, told IANS.

Donation options have also been made "centre-specific".

The display page of each NGO has a link to its various centres and a donor can choose a centre of choice.

Thus, the Kolkata-centre of Save the Children has asked for beauty products and equipment like foot-care kits, hair straighteners and facial kits among other things to help the girls who are being trained as beauticians.

"We are giving girls vocational training to be beauticians and help them live a dignified life. So, such a platform gives us the opportunity to ask people to donate what we need the most," Irwin Fernandes, director - resource mobilisation, Save the Children, told IANS.

According to Sujeet Ranjan, chief operating officer of NGO Magic Bus, the platform leave "no room" for compromising quality.

"The quality of these gifts is good," Ranjan pointed out.

Another prominent aspect that can't be ignored is, how this gifting system will help the NGO's in better allocating finds to other areas.

"When support like this is available, we can use some money to scale up our programmes further," said Sharma.

Amazon India vice president and country manager Amit Agarwal is hopeful of bringing more NGOs on board.

"This is our small effort to show how in small steps technology can be used to connect causes and generate support for a cause," Agarwal told IANS.

"We have a long-term outlook for India and would like to have more NGOs on board," he concluded.

Yahoo Removing Flickr Sign-In Via Facebook and Google Accounts by June 30

If you used to access Flickr by signing-in through your Facebook or Google accounts, things are going to change for you from June 30 onwards.

Yahoo, the parent company of Flickr, has started informing users that it will remove the option to sign in with a Facebook or Google account by the end of the month. Users will only be able to sign in using a Yahoo account.

At present, users can sign-in one last time using their old Facebook or Google credentials, after which they will be prompted to create a new Yahoo account. Users can either use an existing Yahoo account, or create a new one, while keeping the same Flickr account.

"We're streamlining our sign in process. As a result, you'll need to use a Yahoo account to access your Flickr account," Yahoo noted on its help page.

The company also notes that this procedure won't affect any paid services used already, such as Flickr Pro.

Notably Yahoo had integrated these third-party logins three years ago in 2011. Back in March this year, the company had announced that it will stop letting consumers access its various online services, including photo-sharing site Flickr and Fantasy Sports, by signing-in with their Facebook or Google credentials. Notably the change has been already deployed to Fantasy Sports.

"Yahoo is continually working on improving the user experience," the company had said in a statement, noting that the new process "will allow [it] to offer the best personalized experience to everyone".

Flickr was created by a Vancouver-based company Ludicorp in February 2004, and which was acquired by Yahoo in March 2005 for an estimated $35 million. In March 2013, the website had a total of 87 million registered users and more than 3.5 million new images uploaded daily.

Google Adds Brazil World Cup Football Stadiums to Street View

Google Maps on Thursday began letting soccer fans dive into World Cup venues in Brazil without having to leave home.

The free online mapping service added "Street View" imagery of all 12 World Cup stadiums along with scenes captured on roads painted in festive tribute to the major global sporting event.

"Whether you're watching the games from the comfort of your couch or packing your bags for Brazil,Google Maps is your ticket to the World Cup," Street View program manager Deanna Yick said in a blog post.

"And if you're lucky enough to have a physical ticket to Brazil, don't forget to pack Google Maps for mobile."

Google mapping applications for smartphones or tablet computers include tools for finding the most efficient ways to get to games using buses or trains in host cities.

The service also features maps of the insides of stadiums, airports, malls and other spots soccer fans may want to explore, according to Yick.

Images from other potential locations of interest, such as Iguacu National Park and St. Michael of the Missions, were also added to Google Maps.

Google in April introduced a 'time travel' mode for Street View. Street View snapshots now include the option to see what neighbourhoods and landmarks looked like at different periods in the last seven years, as Google Inc. has been dispatching camera-toting cars to take street-level pictures for its maps.

The search giant said it intends to keep adding pictures to the digital time capsules as its photo-taking cars continue to cruise the same streets gathering updates.

Google Partners With Twitter to Include Tweets in Public Disaster Alerts

Google has announced that starting Tuesday, its Public Alerts service has begun incorporating tweets from disaster-struck locations.

Now, when the company issues a public disaster alert from official sources, such as the National Weather Service, it will include relevant tweets in Google Now, Search and Maps, as well as on its Public Alerts website.

The announcement came via a Google+ post from the Google Crisis Response team. Google made the Crisis Response page to make critical information more accessible in times of disaster.

"Starting today [June 3], you can find relevant data from Twitter on a subset of Google Public Alerts. We launched Public Alerts to provide updates from official sources, such as the National Weather Service, via Google Now, Search, and Google Maps. Now, some of the more extreme Public Alerts will include Tweets to help answer important questions: are schools closing? Are neighbours evacuating? What are people seeing on the front lines of a storm?" Google noted in its post.

The idea behind this is to have the public's tweets help answer questions in emergency situations. The feature is currently for English-speaking regions and only for Google's Public Alerts product. The company is also working towards adding "new kinds of social content to other products and geographies in the future."

Once partners in 2011, both companies has had issues in past. It seems that Google is leaving things behind and using Twitter's public API.

Although Twitter declined to comment on the news, but a Google spokesperson told Wired that the tweets are sourced via Twitter's public API and not the "firehose," or real-time data stream.

36 million daily users of Internet inBritain

Britain now has 36 million adults using the Internet everyday, an increase of 20 million over 2006 when the country started such records, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS figures show that 21 million households, 83 percent of the total, had Internet access in Britain, in 2013. 

"The Internet has changed the way people go about their daily lives," said the ONS Thursday. Almost three-quarters of adults in Britain used the Internet everyday in 2013, with six out of every ten adults, or 61 percent, using a mobile phone or portable computer to access the Internet "on the go", reported Xinhua citing the ONS. 

The ONS figures also showed that four million households in Britain, 17 percent, still have no access to the Internet. The ONS said, people aged 25 to 34, 72 percent of the total, were most likely to read or download news online. 

Almost half of 55-64 age group reported that they now have access to news online. "Social networking has been one of the major success stories of the Internet age and its use continues to grow," it said. In 2013, over half, or 53 percent, of all adults participated in social networking, up from 48 percent in 2012. Almost all adults aged 16 to 24, 93 percent, have used social networks, with one in every two adults, 50 percent, aged 45 to 54 years old now reporting that they participate in social networking. 

The ONS warned the importance of the social networks use is not solely confined to the youngest age groups, "There has been significant growth, in the last six years, in adults selling goods or services online." The official data indicated that 72 percent of all adults bought goods or services online in 2013, up from 53 percent in 2008. In 2007, only one in 10 adults, 12 percent, used sites such as eBay or Gumtree to sell goods online. 

While younger age groups have traditionally embraced Internet shopping, 92 percent of those aged 25 to 34, there has been significant growth in the rate of online purchasing by those aged over 65. Over a third of those aged 65 and over bought online, 36 percent, this year, more than double the 2008 estimate of 16 percent, said the ONS. 

Clothes were the most popular online purchase in 2013, bought by 47 percent of all adults with people aged 25-34 most likely to buy these items. Half of all women bought clothes online, compared with 45 percent of men, revealed the ONS figures.

Tumblr founder to get $110 million to stay at Yahoo for the next four years Tumblr founder to get $110 million to stay at Yahoo for the next four years Tumblr founder to get $110 million to stay at Yahoo for the next four years

Yahoo's recently completed acquisition
of Internet blogging service Tumblr
includes a $110 million payment to
Tumblr founder David Karp as long as
he remains on the job for the next
four years.

The retention payment disclosed in a
regulatory filing Thursday is part of
the windfall that Karp and Tumblr
investors realized by agreeing to sell
the service for $1.1 billion in May.
Karp turned 27 last month. He started
Tumblr in 2007, a few years after he
dropped out of high school in New York
to concentrate on computer
programming.
Yahoo Inc. CEO Marissa Mayer has
pledged not to make any dramatic
changes at Tumblr in hopes that the
acquisition won't alienate the blogging
service's existing users, which includes a
substantial number of teenagers and
young adults.
As part of her promise "to not screw it
up," Mayer is allowing Karp to run
Tumblr independently in New York.
Yahoo is based in Sunnyvale, Calif.
Karp is believed to own a 20 to 25
percent stake in Tumblr, which means
he probably has already received a
windfall, which hasn't been disclosed,
from the sale to Yahoo. But he must
stay at Tumblr until June 2017 under
the provision disclosed Thursday to get
the $110 million retention payment.
The payment will consist of $70 million
in stock and options and $40 million in
cash, according to Yahoo's filing.
The documents also disclosed that
Yahoo paid a total of $44 million to buy
six other companies during the three
months ending in June. All told, Yahoo
paid about $1.15 billion to buy 10
companies, including Tumblr, during the
first half of the year.
Yahoo has bought several other
startups since the end of June. The
prices for those deals are likely to be
disclosed in another regulatory filing in
October and November

How to Create Successful Online Products – 7 Tips You Should Remember

Online business is a never ending
process; people create online products
every day. But not everyone takes
the maximum out of it and becomes a
millionaire. As a matter of fact the
main thing which is needed to become
a successful online entrepreneur is the
product you make – it all circulates
around your product’s quality and
marketing strategy. So the thing
which you need to aim first before
marketing an online product is to
make it good. Well in case you are also
thinking of starting your own online
business and selling your own product ,
then here is a brief guide to make it
successful.
Decide What You Have to Build
1. Do the Paper Work to Clear Things
Up
The first thing you need to do is to
decide what you need to build. In
fact, you need to plan the product
and write down the planning
somewhere on a piece of paper, what
this will do is that it will let you study
your product more efficiently and will
clear everything up. For example, you
will be able to judge a lot of flaws in
the product yourself.
2. Choosing the Niche
It is a fact that it is always a wider
range of profit if your products
targets at high demanding niche. But
let me tell you, even if you target at
a smaller market, even then you will
get a lot of profit. As a matter of
fact, there is one advantage and one
disadvantage on both of these
options, in case you aim your product
at a high demand market; in that
case you will have to do more
competent marketing. And in case you
create a product which aims at a
smaller niche, in that case you will not
have to spend some extra bucks on
hiring marketers to market you
product. In fact, the market in that
case will be to brief and obvious and
will be easier to target at.
3. Deciding the Price Factor
Now after deciding what product you
are going to make, you will now have
to decide its price, remember; decide a
price which satisfies your profit as
well as the costumers range. Always
think of a price while assuming
yourself as a costumer, this will not
only let you decide a good price but
will also let you know the worth of the
product because it is obvious that a
costumer first thinks regarding the
pros of the product before buying it.
Build Efficiently and Test the
Prototypes
4. Hire a few Professionals With You
As I said before that one of the most
important thing in order to be
successful is to build a good product,
therefore, it is now your job to hire a
few professionals and force them to
make a product at their best level.
Try to hire experienced and passionate
people who have interest in the field
of your product.
5. Build Prototypes First
In addition to this, another thing in
order to maintain your products
market is to have least number of
cons in the product. So always
remember to build prototypes first;
give them to a few costumers and get
their feedback.
6. Never Be Late in Fixing the Bad
Part
Now after collecting every bit of
feedback from the costumer, don’t
get late in fixing all these issues and
when you are done, only then release
your final build of the product.
7. Set Up a Proficient Costumer
Management System
Now even after releasing your final
build of the product, don’t get eased.
Make sure that you set up an
efficient customer management
system so that your costumers stay
satisfied. Or in other words, always
give an ear to the people; don’t just
rely on your own judgement.
These were almost all the important
tips which you need in order to crease
a successful product. So what are you
waiting for now, go ahead and start
your own online business right now
without hesitating.

Yahoo results show mixed picture forCEO Marissa Mayer

Yahoo said Tuesday its second-quarter profit rose sharply from a year ago, but revenues lagged, offering a mixed picture for chief executive Marissa Mayer's turnaround efforts. 

Net profit rose 46 percent from a year ago to $331 million, slightly better than expected, but revenues excluding payments to partners fell one percent to $1.07 billion, the Internet giant said. 

"I'm encouraged by Yahoo's performance in the second quarter. Our business saw continued stability, and we launched more products than ever before, introducing a significant new product almost every week," said Mayer. 

Mayer cited the company's new Yahoo News, the new Yahoo Sports app , the redesigned Yahoo search , the new Flickr , the new Yahoo Mail for tablet, the Yahoo Weather app , and the company's new Yahoo app with Summly . "This quarter drove tremendous improvements in our product line and our users responded with increased usage and engagement," she said. 

She said the quarter was "one of the most productive in the history of Yahoo" The company's strategy is based on "people and products, then traffic and revenue," she said, and that traffic is now growing again. 

Mayer was hired from Google a year ago to help turn around the Internet pioneer, which had seen its fortunes fade. Since then, Yahoo has been on a buying spree, and has also sold shares in China's Alibaba to boost its cash. Its most publicized deal was a billion- dollar acquisition

US proposes remedy for Apple ebook price-fixing

Apple Inc deserves a five-year ban
from entering anti-competitive ebook
distribution contracts and should end
its business arrangements with five
major publishers with which it conspired
to raise ebook prices, federal and
state regulators said on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Justice and 33
U.S. states and territories proposed
those changes after U.S. District
Judge Denise Cote in Manhattan last
month found in a civil antitrust case
that Apple played a "central role" in a
conspiracy with the publishers to raise
ebook prices.
Regulators also want Apple for two
years to let retailers such as
Amazon.com Inc and Barnes & Noble
Inc provide links to make it easier for
consumers to compare prices.
They also want Apple to use an outside
monitor to ensure that its internal
antitrust compliance policies are strong
enough to catch illegal conduct before
consumers are harmed. The proposed
changes require Cote's approval.
"Under the department's proposed
order, Apple's illegal conduct will cease,
and Apple and its senior executives will
be prevented from conspiring to thwart
competition," said Bill Baer, head of
the Justice Department's antitrust
division.
Apple did not immediately respond to
requests for comment. It has said it
did not conspire to fix ebook prices and
that it planned to appeal Cote's
decision.

Regulators accused Apple of conspiring
to undercut Amazon.com's ebook
dominance, causing some prices to rise
to $12.99 or $14.