Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 launched with Intel processor Run On Android Or Windows 10

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2

Last month, the Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 was unveiled. The 7.9-inch slate was originally offered with 16GB of native storage, powered by Android. This model is priced at 999 Chinese Yuan, or $156 USD. This morning, at 10 am sharp in China, Xiaomi released the 64GB variant of the tablet which is offered with Android, or Windows 10 inside. Both models are priced at 1299 Chinese Yuan, or $203 USD.

If you weren't quick enough to score a 64GB Mi Pad 2, the bad news is that the tablet is now sold out in that configuration. It took less than a minute for all of the inventory to be sold in a flash sale. There were a few complaints made to the company's Tablet page on Weibo, but there isn't much that can be done except to wait for the company to churn out more units.

Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 Windows 10

In case you haven't had time to study the specs, the Xiaomi Mi Pad 2 keeps the 7.9-inch screen employed on the original Mi Pad, and even the 1536 x 2048 resolution is the same. Instead of the Tegra K1, which powered the OG model, the sequel has the Intel Atom X5-Z8500 chipset under the hood, with a quad-core 2.2GHz CPU. 2GB of RAM is inside along with 64GB of native storage. An 8MP camera is on back featuring an f/2.0 aperture, and the 5MP front-facing camera handles selfies and video chats. A 6190mAh battery powers the unit, and the slate features a Type-C USB port. Fast charging allows you to top off the battery quickly.

The quick sellout of the 64GB Mi Pad 2 will surely lead to the old glass half full/half empty game. Some will say that exceptional demand led to the quick sell out, while others will say that Xiaomi didn't produce enough units. Regardless of the reason behind it, the headlines say that the 64GB version of the Mi Pad 2 is sold out and that will look good for the company, which has uncharacteristically stumbled around a bit this year.

Highlights

- 2.24 GHz Intel Atom X5-Z8500 Quad-Core Processor
- 2GB RAM With 16GB ROM
- 7.9 Inch QXGA Display With 326 PPI
- 8MP Rear Camera
- Full Metal Body
- 5MP Front Camera
- Wifi
- Bluetooth 4.1
- USB Type-C
- 6190 MAh Battery

Bill Payment Via Twitter user will possiblr Soon in India

Twitter users in India may soon be able to pay their bills though the micro-blogging site, the media reported.

The company has announced a partnership with India-based startup Lookup to enable users send a direct message to @lookuplite in order to book appointments, inquire about services and make transactions with businesses, Techcrunch reported.

Lookup lets retailers and consumers chat with each other through direct messaging. It boasts of 1.2 million registered users despite listing merchants from Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.

Currently, users can buy directly within the social network thorough Twitter's 'Buy' button.

In the new arrangement, orders and payments would be fulfilled separately and offline with Twitter simply facilitating the conversation.

Lookup will use Twitter's API, as well as its monitoring capabilities, to handle connecting the customer to the prospective merchant.

Instead of connecting users through phone numbers, Lookup instead uses Google Maps to give users a view of all the retailers in their area.

Last week, a new study found that illegal online pharmacies are using Twitter to promote prescription drug abuse of controlled substances.

"This study is the first to establish an empirical link between Twitter content and illicit online pharmacies which promote the illegal sale of drugs that have significant abuse potential," said study co-author Timothy Mackey from University of California-San Diego.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), young adults are the biggest abusers of prescription opioid pain relievers, ADHD stimulants, and anti-anxiety drugs

Google 'Bubble Level' on Your Phone to Turn It Into One

Next time you need to hang a picture on the wall, but don't have a level measure next to you, just use your Android phone. Google has quietly introduced this capability in Search, letting anyone with Google Search app or Chrome browser use it by typing "bubble level."

The latest entrant to the list of handy features Google already offers, now users can type in "bubble level" in Google Search or Google Chrome on their Android smartphone and use the phone's sensors to check if something is level or not. Notably, users are reporting the feature works with some other mobile Web browsers, such as Xiaomi's proprietary offering for its smartphones.

Apple's iPhone users can also make use of it by searching for "bubble level" in Safari, Google Search, or Google Chrome app. Though, it is worth mentioning that you already have an app on your iPhone called Compass that offers some of these functionalities.

Some users on Reddit have pointed out that this feature might not work on every smartphone, and is not very accurate. The "bubble level" feature uses the edge of your phone -- the top, the side, or the back -- as the base, but it apparently requires the edge to be straight.

It's a handy feature, but do note that a digital representation of a bubble level might not be very correctly calibrated at all times. So if your job requires fixing things and keeping things at a precise level, you might want to carry a real level measure.

Source : NDTV

What Facebook is telling you by Free Basics

What is Facebook...now?

Everyone knows about the origin of Facebook as the social media website born out of a dorm room. We've all seen the movie, read the book and relived Facebook's invention in countless articles on the internet. But, since then, Facebook has expanded its prowess at lightning speed. Facebook is now the owner of WhatsApp & Instagram, the acquirer of virtual reality firm Oculus, and 50 other companies in the fields of travel, internet, file sharing, Mobile Ads, digital publishing, location services, face recognition, speech recognition, the list is long and exhaustive. Facebook is rapidly moving towards becoming one of the largest aggregators of user data in the world.

A research paper titled 'Ethical Implications of Data Aggregation' by Santa Clara University says,  "The myriad bits of information collected by Facebook can be used to compile a detailed and penetrating profile of an individual, one that is if anything even more personal. In the hands of a company that professes a philosophy of "radical transparency," this can leave the subject very vulnerable, not just to having personal information exposed but to being discriminated against because of it."

Facebook makes majority of its revenue by selling adspace and targetting advertisements to users whose data it collects and sells to advertisers. How else does an ad from an online ticketing firm appear on your feed just when you are planning a holiday or when you browse a particular product on an ecommerce website, Facebook instigates you to buy it by flooding your homepage with deals and discounts of the very product. Data aggregation and ownership is the biggest, most viable business in the world right now, and that's exactly what companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc are after.

What is Free Basics and why is Facebook being so philanthropic?

Simply put, Free Basics is an app you can download to access some particular websites and online services for free, sans any data cost. Currently, the app will only work with a Reliance communication connection, but for now the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has asked Reliance Communications to halt the service temporarily. A TRAI source told TOI, "The question has arisen whether a telecom operator should be allowed to have differential pricing for different kinds of content. Unless that question is answered, it will not be appropriate for us to continue to make that happen."

In the past few months, Facebook has been aggressively pushing its agenda for providing free internet to Indians. They have published full page ads in leading English national newspapers, they have hoardings in metropolises like Delhi and Mumbai, they have television ads, they are pushing notifications on our smartphones, they are promoting their "Save Free Basics" campaign through ads on our Facebook feeds and the countless emailers that follow. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg even made the effort to come down to India this year. The company is  doing all this to gather as much support as they can till the December 31 deadline of TRAI inviting comments on a consultation paper on net neutrality. TRAI is asking the same question as satated above- Should a telecom operator be allowed to have differential pricing for different kinds of content?

While Facebook is doing all that they can to 'Save Free Basics', a free internet platform for those who remain disconnected, the company's insistent agenda does not seem to include the very people this platform is being built for. Targetting the already internet friendly population, metro citizens and english daily readers, Facebook is calling on people who already are on the internet, instead of those that want to be.

Do we really need Free Basics to increase internet penetration in India?

While Facebook's Free Basics' ad proudly claims statistics like 50% faster adoption of mobile networks, 3.2 million petitions to TRAI in support of Free basics, and an 86% support from Indians for Free Basics, the fact is that we may not need Free Basics at all.

According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI), the country's internet user base grew 17% just in the first 6 months of 2015. In 2014, the base of Indian internet users clocked its fastest boom of 32% in a year. While internet penetration was slow for 10 years as it took a decade for the base to grow from 10 million to 100 million, the user base rose to 200 million in 3 years post hitting the 100 million mark, and only 1 year to rise to the 300 million mark. The report also says, that going forward, rural India will be the primary driver of internet growth with a whopping 75% participation, while urban India will grow at a rate of 16%.

This shows that not Facebook or Free Basics, but the proliferation of low-cost smartphones and local language content is responsible for the current and future surge in Internet penetration in India. The question is, will a handful of free internet services really transform our digital lives?

What will Free Basics 'not' provide?

According to Facebook's guidelines for developers to register for the Free Basics platform,

"Services should not use VoIP, video, file transfer, or photos larger than 200 KB."

"If websites are found to contain any of the above post-implementation, we will block them until we can confirm that the content has been removed."

"Your URLs may be re-written and embedded content (like javascript and content originating from another domain) removed. In addition, secure content is not supported and may not load."

So yes, you cannot watch videos through Free Basics, you cannot place video calls, you cannot share files, you cannot view quality images, there'll be no banking or money related transactions as secure content is not supported, and if you are the owner of a website, your content can be removed or blocked. Wasn't the whole point of internet supposed to be freedom? Why the custom user experience?

Fun facts for Facebook:

According to a report by Video on Demand firm Vuclip, 78% Indians prefer video content in local languages. Another report by video tech company Ooyala calims video consumption over mobile phones has spiked by 127% in the last year. So, for a country where people consume on-demand videos the most, is Free Basics literally so basic that it won't give users what they are actually looking for? 

Another interesting study by Deloitte states, "Social media and entertainment (Music & Video) are the two activities on which the Indian mobile internet users spend their time the most followed by games, general search, and emails." While Free Basics will definitely provide users the much wanted social media connect, the rest is conveniently forgotten about, or as Zuckerberg said, "It's not sustainable to offer the whole internet for free."

Moreover, Facebook has tied up only with Reliance communication, a network which according to the recent Mint-instaVaani survey, is the worst telecom service provider in India.

What will Facebook get by propagating Free Basics?

Free Basics will give more power to Facebook that ever. Even though the company says that Facebook on Free Basics will not have any ads, its developer guidelines clearly mentions, "Your name and logo may be included in Free Basics, product screenshots of the service and press releases, but we won’t use your brand in a larger marketing promotion without first asking for your approval."

Now, who wouldn't want "a larger marketing promotion" by Facebook? If you are a business, would you ignore this opportunity? If I tell you that I know the most influential business leaders of the country, wouldn't that automatically increase your trust and reliability on me? If I give you a platform where users can access your content for free and on priority, would you not pay me more to advertise on my associate platforms as well? Not to point out the obvious, but doesn't this seem familiar to a marketing pitch?

Will your Free Basics' data be secure?

Last but certainly not the least, security can also be a big concern when it comes to Free Basics. Facebook's guidelines for developers state that a website's content "passes through Facebook's servers." It goes on to explain, "When people use the Free Basics mobile website, information is temporarily decrypted on our secure servers to ensure proper functionality of the services and to avoid unexpected charges to people. We preserve the privacy of that information while it's decrypted by only storing the domain name of your service and the amount of data being used—the same information that would be visible using end-to-end encryption—as well as cookies that are stored in an encrypted and unreadable format."

If information passes through Facebook's servers and is temporarily decrypted, can it really be safe? If someone willingly hands you a treasure chest, would you only take one gold coin? The statement on security seems quite ambiguous as of now and makes for yet another question Facebook needs to answer. 

So there you have it, everything you did or did not know about Free Basics by Facebook. Do let us know what you think of the service and if you are in support or against such a platform in India.

Google testing new password-free login Method

Google is experimenting with a password-free login method. First discovered by Redditor rp1226, the scheme would let you use a phone to sign into your Google account on the desktop. The idea is that users will begin the login process on the PC, but authorize the login through smartphone notification. This update comes from a Reddit user who wrote about his firsthand experience. After that, though, his Nexus 6P popped up a message that said "Are you trying to sign in from another computer?"

Android Police According to a batch of screenshots you’ll be able to skip typing in a password when you sign on to a new device As noted by Android Police, once Paul's phone was enrolled to be used for sign-in purposes, he simply had to enter his Gmail address on his handset to log into Google on a nearby computer. So, in order to add security without too much complexity, it looks like Google is testing out an option to allow users to sign in on any device by using their phone, not a password. Since 2012, a White House program, the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, has backed a number of pilot projects aimed at finding new ways to identify people without a password. On Tuesday, Google confirmed it is trialing the tool on a small selection of its user base. This new method could fit the bill. According to Google, the current test is running on both Apple and Google's operating systems. Since Google hasn't announced the feature, the details on how this works are still unknown. The test is part of a broader effort among security experts, the government and major tech players to eliminate the traditional password, widely viewed as the most vulnerable part of any account. You'll find instructions and a submission form here: Information Week's Elite 100 2016. These mobile apps are designed to create and store secure passwords across all your devices.