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Google Chrome 64 for Android Automatically Cleans Up URLs While Sharing

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Google Chrome 64 for Android Automatically Cleans Up URLs While Sharing

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Users will see a primary link instead of a lengthy tracking string
  • Works on using the Share button or by copy and pasting a link somewhere
  • It does not affect referral information

Google Chrome 64 for Android- introduced in late January – has been spotted sporting a feature where it automatically cleans up messy referral links. Now, when users share a URL with someone, they will see the primary link instead of a lengthy tracking string. The new feature works automatically on Android handsets while sharing links from the Chrome browser, using built-in Share option to either share directly to an app or use the Copy to Clipboard option. somewhere else.

Quite often it is seen that URLs have a large amount of additional text attached to them. Users don’t prefer such huge amounts of junk included when a link is shared with them, as the link is unnecessarily long. For example, while sharing a tweet, it is often seen that the link includes a referrer to track how users landed up on the page. There are some URL shortener solutions to solve the issue, but since they are third-party apps, it is cumbersome to use all the time. But with Chrome 64, Google has taken care of the lengthy URLs. You can use the Share menu to copy the shortened link to the clipboard or share directly to another app.

Android Police had spotted the new feature on Chrome 64. The new feature removes anchor tags which are used to direct a user to a certain part of the page. This means that if you visit a link shared from Chrome for Android, it will take you to the top of that particular page. When we checked, the feature was found to work on links from Amazon, Flipkart, Google AMP, Wikipedia, and more. The clean up doesn’t work every time however. You can also manually copy the entire URL if you need it, by selecting the URL from the navigation bar and copying it.

The new URL shortener is a part of several other features rolled out by Google for Chrome, including an inbuilt ad-blocker. The search giant will begin using its Chrome browser to eradicate ads it deems annoying or otherwise detrimental to users.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Internet

Wikipedia Zero Free Access Programme for Developing Countries Killed Off

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Wikipedia Zero Free Access Programme for Developing Countries Killed Off

Citing low awareness of Wikipedia outside the US and Europe, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) has announced it will be stopping its “Wikipedia Zero” programme that provides the service free of charge on mobile phones, in developing countries.

According to the Foundation, since 2016, it has seen a significant drop-off in adoption and interest in the programme.

“This may be due, in part, to the rapidly shifting mobile industry as well as changes in mobile data costs,” the Foundation said in a blog post.

“The ‘Wikipedia Zero’ programme will end in 2018 while new partnership opportunities will continue to address critical barriers to participation in free knowledge around the world,” it said, adding that the Foundation has stopped forming new carrier partnerships.

The Foundation provided free access to more than 800 million people, through 97 carrier partnerships in 72 countries over the course of the programme’s life.

Launched in 2012, the free-to-access programme provided zero-rated Wikipedia access to more than 800 million people in countries such as Myanmar and Nepal.

Meanwhile, the organisation said it is exploring more ways to service the developing world, including campaigns designed to raise awareness of Wikipedia’s missions in various countries.

“We will explore other ways we can leverage the findings from our research and the Wikipedia Zero programme to direct future work with partners,” it added.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Online Marketing

Here’s a digital marketing playbook — and it’s yours for under $10

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Here’s a digital marketing playbook — and it’s yours for under $10

Did you know nearly 3 billion people around the world are social media users? According to stats from We Are Social, that’s a number quickly approaching 40 percent of the Earth’s population. Beyond air and water, there may be nothing else that touches more humans on this planet.

With mind-blowing figures like those, it’s almost malpractice at this point not to have a well-constructed, finely-tuned social media marketing plan for any business or cause. Thankfully, you’ll have the background to put that plan into motion with the Complete Digital Marketing Course, available right now for just $9 (over 90 percent off) from TNW Deals.

This may look like one course, but the package is really 12 courses in one. As you work through the modules, each examines a different facet of marketing fundamentals, including methods for research as well as the best use of the latest online tools to assemble a web campaign that succeeds by all metrics.

This course will teach you everything you need to know to build and grow an online brand to profitability. Along the way, you’ll use WordPress to create effective websites, email marketing and copywriting, employ ad servers and ad networks like Google Adwords and understand Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to maximize the reach of your brand message.

You’ll also take a focused look at each of the most popular social media venues, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and more, charting what works — and what doesn’t work — on each to best reach your intended audience.

Whether you want to get a business rolling or just market yourself as the digital man (or woman) with all the answers, this course is a roadmap to those answers.

With this limited time deal, you can get his intensive marketing training (a $200 value) for less than $10.

[“Source-thenextweb”]

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Gadgets News

LG V30 2018 Version Launch Set for MWC 2018, to Offer AI-Based Image Recognition

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

LG V30 2018 Version Launch Set for MWC 2018, to Offer AI-Based Image Recognition

LG on Tuesday announced that it is set to launch the 2018 version of the original V30 flagship at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2018 in Barcelona, Spain. The announcement follows another from earlier this year, when the company said it would be abandoning its annual smartphone cycle, and only launch phones when needed, with a focus on new variants of its established G and V-Series of smartphones.

The new LG V30 smartphone, which entered the rumour mills as the LG V30s earlier, is touted to feature a suite of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies focusing on camera and voice recognition. The South Korean company has also announced the extension of its partnership with Google to integrate as many as 32 exclusive voice commands on the upcoming handset. The LG V30 was launched at IFA 2017 in August last year with a FullVision display and a dual rear camera setup to take on Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

After spending more than a year in researching how AI should be implemented in smartphones, LG in a statement said it had developed its Vision AI that is acclaimed as the next-generation image recognition technology. The proprietary technology is designed to analyse objects and recommend the best shooting mode from among eight preset modes, including portrait, food, pet, landscape, city, flower, sunrise, and sunset. It also considers the angle of view, colour, reflections, backlighting, and saturation levels by analysing images from a database to understand the camera’s focus in order to recommend the best setting. Moreover, LG has collaborated with a partner in image recognition to analyse over 100 million images to ultimately build its image recognition algorithms. The company also says that it has created over a thousand unique image categories to develop more accurate image analysis and offer better shooting mode recommendations to end users than ever before.

Apart from recognising images for enhanced results, LG claims that its Vision AI is designed to provide shopping advice. The technology scan QR codes, initiate an image search and even provide shopping options such as from where to purchase a particular item at the lowest price and other similar products available in the market.

On the hardware side, LG has confirmed that the new V30 version will come with a dual camera setup that will include wide-angle, low-distortion lenses. This hardware will jointly work with a preloaded low-light shooting mode to brighten images in dim environments by a factor of two, the company said. The in-house Vision AI technology is claimed to measure the brightness of the actual image to adjust brightness level more accurately than conventional methods that measure external light levels to brighten final shots.

The LG V30 was debuted with exclusive support for 23 voice commands. LG has extended that area by uplifting its Voice AI technology and is set to give 32 exclusive voice commands on the new V30 model. Users will just need to say “OK Google” and then a particular voice command to perform actions on the smartphone. There are new commands to use a list of fresh features, including Panoramic Photo, Food Photo, Time-lapse Photo and Video, Slow-motion Video, Low-light Photo, AI Cam Photo, Image Search, QR Code Scanning, and Shopping Search.

It is quite certain that most of the new AI-powered features will be limited to the next LG V30 model. However, LG has stated that some of the new features will also be landed on its existing smartphones via OTA (over-the-air) updates.

“Creating smarter smartphones will be our focus going forward, and we are confident that consumers will appreciate the advanced user experience with the enhanced V30 that many have been asking and waiting for,” said Ha Jeung-uk, Senior Vice President and Business Unit Leader, LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, in a press statement.

The next LG V30 model, which as we mentioned is in rumours as the LG V30s, was recently reported to sport up to 256GB of onboard storage. This is far more than the 64GB and 128GB storage versions of the LG V30 and LG V30+. The smartphone is also said to hit stores in South Korea sometime in the second week of March with a price tag of KRW 1 million (approximately Rs. 59,300) to compete against the Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+. Besides, it is expected to come with a Snapdragon 845 SoC.

Last month, LG showcased its AI skills in televisions by unveiling the ThinQ AI brand at Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2018 in Las Vegas. The company also integrated Google Assistant within the new TV models alongside its native Electronics Program Guide (EPG) to deliver a smarter experience.

 

[“source=food.ndtv”]

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Online Marketing

Here’s how you can use digital marketing to secure investments for your startup

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

What conveys best to an entrepreneur that the idea s/he has invested in over some is truly worth the effort and resources? Investments.

When you can convince others – experienced others – to believe in your seemingly crazy idea, then you can really sit back for a bit and enjoy the moment when you realise that all of your time and money was not spent for nothing.

Thus, investments are often the lynchpin and measuring stick of any startup’s potential for growth and flourishing.

Subhendu Panigrahi, CEO at Skillenza and Co-founder at Venturesity, says: “We are always asked about how we reach out to customers and what the go-to-market strategy is in our investor pitches. The points that we focus on are channels used to reach out to customers. What is the Customer Acquisition Cost? If the CAC is low, the business is interesting.”

So what about the odds?

As many as 80 percent of all venture-funded startups fail, 45-50 percent simply shut their doors, and the rest fail to bring any significant profit to their investors. According to the Bath University, only 10 percent of startups happen to bring some returns to their investors.

Understandable why investors hesitate when approached by startups and asked for investments.

Your job is to convince them otherwise.

To realise what investors are looking for in your startup, you have to know what concerns they have when looking at a startup they probably never heard of before.

I’ve looked at tons of writings from investors who speak of successful or failed pitches they are subjected to daily. And one thing became very obvious – investors aren’t really looking for the utmost innovative product or service, what investors really need from you is to convince them that you have what it takes to navigate your business through the rough patches, and have a solid enough strategy to aid you in handling the grind. What you should also be able to showcase is that your company is not merely an ephemeral idea bound for success, but has already received some traction – via excellent feedback/reviews from existing customers, social Media buzz, appealing mentions from industry influencers, and so on.

So let’s remind us what should be in your Investor Pitch Deck.

Investor pitch deck

Essentially, an investor pitch deck is a 15-20-slide PowerPoint presentation, which presents your startup in an attractive way to potential investors. Forbes outlines what slides a typical presentation should contain:

  1. Company Overview
  2. Mission/Vision of the Company
  3. The Team
  4. The Product
  5. The Problem
  6. The Solution
  7. The Market Opportunity
  8. The Customers
  9. The Competition
  10. Traction
  11.  Business Model
  12. Marketing Plan
  13. Financials
  14. Q&A

The first slides have mostly to do with general intros – about the company, the employees, and eventually, the product itself. The real challenge, though, lies in the other sections.

Slides on HR solutions, financial information, and revenue models are pretty obvious – you state what you already have and plan to do. Every startup has those strategies and information in place. But the rest is a different story. As a startup, you probably cannot afford to conduct a thorough market research that includes focus groups, or pay an agency to analyse your competitive landscape and build up your visibility through publicity, and later send out a comprehensive report on the results.

That is when online marketing and SEO and digital marketing tools enter the stage to resolve some of the challenges you are faced with when creating a perfect Investor Pitch Deck.

Digital marketing/SEO & your investor pitch deck

Archit Gupta, Founder at ClearTax: “Investors look for the proof of sustainable growth in a startup. Understanding your customers and identifying the most cost-effective channels to acquire them become the task of a startup’s growth team.  At ClearTax, SEO, inbound marketing, and word-of-mouth advertising have helped us grow to a million-plus users today. We chose a more direct approach to reach our target audience instead of traditional advertising methods, and it has worked wonderfully for us. It’s also a proof of validation and brand presence for potential investors.”

Tools can’t directly give you all you need to get those desired investments; what they can do is make a big part of your pitching efforts easier.

So we will go through areas of your Investor Pitch Deck that can be covered by certain tools that can give you what you need and what investors are looking for – data-driven solutions and strategies.

Market opportunity

You can have the top product characteristics, the best user-friendly features, and the lowest prices, but if you fail to realise that you don’t have the customer base for your product, what’s really the point?

The very first thing you’d want to emphasise in your presentation is that you know for sure and you have the facts to prove that there is actually a market for your product.

There are various approaches to measuring the market opportunity. But what is it all about, anyway?

Establish your market size and roughly estimate what part of that market your company can get. SEO and digital marketing tools can reveal plenty of insights about your target market. As we mentioned before, it is very unlikely that your startup can invest in a thorough market research, with in-depth Nielsen-like reports and focus groups, but looking at digital usage will also uncover what others spend hundred thousands of dollars on.

Leverage keyword analysis to find your potential market size: SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, LongTailPRO, or Wordstream’s Keyword Tool can point out the search volume for any keyword that you are likely in need to target, and, since most people are going to the web to look for companies and their products, search volume is a great indicator of the number of customers you can potentially interest. By estimating how many users are Googling your product type, you can assume with a level of certainty that these people can potentially be interested in what you offer and can be converted into your prime audience.

LongTailPRO

Furthermore, the cost per click numbers for each keyword you target will give you an opportunity to forecast how much expenditure you should count on to get a designated market share.

SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool

According to Neil Patel, competitor analysis will also help you measure your market size and how much market share you can potentially gain.

 Competitors

Competitors won’t only show you your own market opportunities. In fact, investors expect you to know your field from inside out. And competition analysis is a huge part of that knowledge.

By showing your knowledge about your competitors and sharing ideas about their ups and downs, you will be able to showcase your own value proposition.

Ideally, create a table and highlight every feature that your competitors have and check where are your wins and losses, and what particular areas require investments, both money and resource-based. Don’t forget to communicate your competitive advantage.

Here is what you should do:

  • Determine your competitors
  • Define your competitive advantage
  • Showcase your wins against your competitors.

Any business model creation should begin with a comprehensive competition research. But for an investor’s pitch, the competitor research should work to your startup’s advantage and eventually build up your credibility. This is the time to “blow your horn”.

A two-time technology entrepreneur Caroline Cummings advises: “Impress the investors with what you and your team have accomplished to date.”

Note that your competitors are always of particular interest to your investors and they can also be the stumbling block for your investments. It’s in your hands to prove that you have your competitors covered and know where you’re going.

  • The Organic Research Report and SimilarWeb will measure website traffic and organic keywords for each domain of your choice to help you determine your biggest competitors within organic search.
SimilarWeb
  • And probably the most important aspect of competitor monitoring – Brand Monitoring – will allow you to learn from your competitors by discovering their performance and spying on their expenditures.

Once you’ve done your homework on your competitors, you can prove that your performance versus expenditures is more efficient than your competitors’, and that is how you showcase your advantages over your competition.

Your job is to impress investors. And by outwitting your competition even in the smallest areas like spending less to rank higher for the same keyword than one or two of your biggest competitors will play in your startup’s favour. But to gain even more credibility for your startup, you have to show your potential investors that you aren’t just another struggling company; on the contrary, you’ve already gained some publicity and traction from the market you know inside out.

Traction

Eighty-two percent of investors take your brand strength into account when making their final investment decision. You have to show that the traction you received resulted in some feasible evidence of success – increased traffic, higher customer acquisition, game-changing deals. Even some social buzz can do the job.

Here is what traction is all about:

  • Effective PR starts with effective outreach – to the relevant and the most beneficial media/sites. The Link Building Tool, Monitor Backlinks and Open Site Explorer can monitor your competitor’s backlinks to show you what traffic sources bring them the greatest outcomes (traffic, buzz) so that you know which sites you should target and which media/sites you can disregard. Thus, tracking and reverse engineering your competitors’ link-building strategy can potentially help with your own outreach efforts to reach relevant media, connect with the most relevant influencers, and make sure that no opportunity goes missing.
Monitor Backlinks
  • I’d like to find someone who managed to gain an impressive publicity and, thus, visibility without using paid advertising. Hence, a tool like Advertising Research or Moat will uncover your competitors’ advertising strategies and expenditures, show their ad copies, and reveal the particular keywords they target. Use that info to learn their best practices and build your own ad campaigns.
  • And, of course, what’s good traction without good old social media. No brand can afford to disregard social media. SM entails your visibility, customer service, support, Public Relations, and so on. And Social Media Tracker, Brandwatch, and OCTOBOARD can help you build the ultimate social media strategy by looking at your competitors and which channels return more benefits to their business, what content type engages their audience and, moreover, will also monitor and analyse your own social media activities.
Social Media Tracker

Key slides: customer acquisition & marketing strategy

What we considered above should help you eventually dive into the key area of your Investor Pitch Deck – your marketing strategy that will ideally result in some impressive customer acquisition outcomes.

According to Entrepreneur, when it comes to investing in a company, most VCs assign a great deal of importance to digital marketing and won’t invest in a startup that fails to show some solid tactical plan for digital marketing. Basically, that plan is the step-by-step description of how you are going to reach those people who will eventually purchase your product.

And all of the areas and tools we mentioned above can help you find answers to these crucial questions that should be addressed in your investors pitch:

  1. What will be your key marketing channels – paid advertising, social media, email marketing, content strategies etc.?
  2. Which channels already work for your startup and which ones brought you some early victories?
  3. Do you have a rough idea of preliminary customer acquisition expenses?
  4. What publicity-provoking tactics will you employ?
  5. Have you already attracted some early buzz?

Being based at Ahmedabad, the capital of Incubations [There are 25+ Incubation centres at Ahmedabad] and also, being a founder of a digital marketing agency, it’s been a great experience to mix both things. These are my inputs for your pitch deck. What tools are you using for the same?

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)

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[“Source-yourstory”]

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Online Marketing

Digital Marketing is a Must for All Entrepreneurs in 2018 and Beyond

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Even a couple of years ago, integration of a digital marketing strategy to a business plan was unheard of. We are talking about the end of the 2000s and beginning of the 2010s. However, as of a marketing survey report from 2012, almost 34% of all participating companies have a clearly defined and integrated marketing strategy. Approximately 49% of the companies have no defined plan although they are investing in digital marketing. The rest of them have established procedures, but they are described in a separate document.

How to start?

If you are one of the companies, which does not have a defined digital marketing plan, do not panic. Here is a two-step plan for you –

  1. Start with a separate digital plan. It should include all your digital marketing expenses and the transformation goals for your company.

  2. After the plan is in motion, start creating an integrated plan with the help of a digital marketing expert that incorporates a marketing database. It should be fully aligned with your company interests and brand principles.

What’s your motivation to adopt a digital marketing strategy?

Many companies that do not have a digital strategy are right now asking why they should invest in one. While the answer is quite straightforward, you can explore about nine different reasons to do so –

To know your market position

You need clear goals for your business. Any entrepreneur without defined marketing strategies is rather directionless. If you do not have the set goals, you will find it almost impossible to analyze the data in front of you and understand the progress of your business.

What is your market share?

How will you know your market share online unless you have a prominent online presence? It is critical for small startups and indie businesses, which are sprouting up in hopes of competing with the big guns. Your online presence will give you direct access to customer behavior, customer preferences, buying trends and competitor positions as well.

Creating a robust online value prop

It is one of the most critical reasons a business should have an online presence. An online customer value prop will give your business a human touch. You will find it much easier to retain customers. A conversion will also become much easier once you can establish your online value proposition through different digital marketing channels.

Who are your customers?

Even when you are selling out of a land-based store, you will find it difficult to acquire new customers after a point. You will need new forms of marketing for reaching out to new markets. Digital is one of the most “measurable mediums” for all companies ever. Do not forget to include user feedback add-ons and analytics tools to your digital strategy for accurate analysis of your potential market(s).

You are losing out

You are losing to big retailers and small online businesses alike. An Amazon may be a giant compared to your company, but your next-door cupcake shop is not! However, since they are online with the cutesy seller site, they are likely making more sales than you are right now. Check out Dell, Tesco and Zappos – these dynamic company sites stay in touch with their digital selves to keep their online audiences integrated with their land-based businesses.

Digital marketing is cheap

Well, you may not believe it, but digital marketing does not require a lot of green! It is cheap compared to a lot of traditional marketing media. Digital marketing through social networking channels is almost free unless you want to boost your post or post a sponsored content. Even then, you will be spending less than a pizza per day! Having a digital marketing plan that includes all social networking channels and social media options, is a great way to set short-term goals and measure your achievement levels.

Optimization is more important than ever

Your business needs to be visible. For that, you need search engine giants like Google and Bing by your side. You need to sign your business up on Google My Business and list yourself on almost all of the contemporary business directories. Collect more reviews, manage them and interact with your audience to gain more visibility. When in crisis, turn to Google Keyword Planner and UpStream for keyword suggestions. You can use relevant keywords for your posts or your website content to stay more visible every day.

You will get actual customers instead of window shoppers

Believe it or not! The conversion rate for PPC ads can be as much as a whopping 300%. Paid ads like PPC and CPC are one of the best ways to get high conversion traffic. The secret is – paid ads do not have to be costly. They rather act as lubricants to the digital marketing funnel, which provides your site with new visitors and potential customers.

Targeted investment

Here’s another reason for digital marketing to be more rewarding than traditional marketing techniques. You can reach out to specific audiences thanks to the art of keyword selection, hashtagging and filters on different social media platforms. Knowing your customer personality will help you invest more meaningfully and prevent you from wasting time on futile marketing efforts.

Going mobile or go home

Almost 91% of all adults in the USA rely on their mobiles for all daily activities including shopping. About 67% of all mobile users have also used their devices in the past to make purchases online. If you are not already online, working your digital strategy to reach this massive mobile audience you are missing an opportunity of your lifetime. As of the Mobilegeddon of April 2015, there is no more reason left for businesses not to go mobile right now.

These are reasons good enough for any business owner to shake off the inertia and invest in digital marketing. Digital marketing is easy if you have the right guidance. As of 2018, if you own a company or organization, digital marketing will soon become your lifeline for future businesses.

[“Source-ventsmagazine”]

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Gadgets News

Robot DJ Puts the Tech Into Techno for Czech Clubbers

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Robot DJ Puts the Tech Into Techno for Czech Clubbers

These days artificial intelligence is so advanced that robots trade shares, make restaurants suggestions and diagnose diseases. But can a robot get a dance floor jumping?

It is a question that Prague’s Karlovy Lazne Music Club has endeavoured to answer by employing a specially adapted former automotive industry robot as a DJ in the popular nightspot.

The robot is shaped like a giant arm capped with a pincer, and has shared deck duties at the club with its human programmer in an hourly rotation each night for the last three weeks.

“People are excited (about the robot), because they haven’t seen anything like this around Europe, and I am not sure if there is something similar in the world,” club manager Adam Lipsansky told Reuters.

The DJ robot was created after the club’s management challenged a robotics firm to the task.

Equipped with special software to help it choose songs and mounted on a stage above the club’s dance floor, the robot selects discs from nearby racks and puts them into one of three music players in front of it. It can scratch records and also dances.

While some clubbers told Reuters that they enjoyed the robot’s musical efforts, others remained unconvinced.

“I don’t like the robot,” said Marcia Lopes, 24, a tourist from Mexico. “It can’t feel what the people want to dance to. There is no emotion behind the music. When there is a real person, they know, what fun is like.”

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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Gadgets News

Honor 9 Lite India Launch Set for Today: Live Stream, Expected Price, Specifications, and More

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Honor 9 Lite India Launch Set for Today: Live Stream, Expected Price, Specifications, and More

Honor 9 Lite India launch is set for Wednesday, and will be unveiled at an event in New Delhi. The affordable quad-camera smartphone has been teased for launch in the country since earlier this month, and will be a Flipkart-exclusive. The Honor 9 Lite was first launched in China in late December, and is in fact the second major launch by the Huawei brand in the country this year, following the launch of the Honor View 10 earlier this month. To recall, the View 10 was exclusive to Amazon India. The Honor 9 Lite India launch will be live streamed, and you can check it out below. The launch begins at 12:30pm IST.

Honor 9 Lite expected price in India

Honor 9 Lite price in India can be expected to be roughly around the same as the smartphone’s China price. To recall, in China, the Honor 9 Lite price began at CNY 1,199 (roughly Rs. 11,700) for the 3GB RAM/ 32GB storage variant. Next up, the 4GB RAM/ 32GB storage variant was priced at CNY 1,499 (roughly Rs. 15,600), while the 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage variant ws priced at CNY 1,799 (roughly Rs. 17,500).

Notably however, the Flipkart listing indicates that the Honor 9 Lite’s 4GB RAM/ 32GB storage variant will be not be launched in India. Thus, only the 3GB RAM/ 32GB storage variant and 4GB RAM/ 64GB storage variants are expected to be made available in the country. For now, Flipkart has not teased any launch offers.

Honor 9 Lite specifications
The dual-SIM (Nano) Honor 9 Lite runs EMUI 8.0, based on Android 8.0 Oreo, out of the box. It bears a 5.65-inch full-HD+ (1080×2160 pixels) IPS display with an 18:9 aspect ratio and pixel density of 428ppi. It is powered by a Huawei HiSilicon Kirin 659 SoC (four cores clocked at 2.36GHz, and four cores clocked at 1.7GHz) coupled with either 3GB or 4GB of RAM.

The Honor 9 Lite bears dual camera setups on both the front and back, as we mentioned. In both the front and back, the smartphone sports a 13-megapixel primary camera with a 2-megapixel secondary camera. The rear camera offers PDAF autofocus, apart from LED flash, in addition. The Honor 9 Lite offers with either 32GB or 64GB of inbuilt storage depending on the variant, both of which are expandable via microSD card (up to 256GB) in a hybrid dual-SIM configuration.

Connectivity options on the Honor 9 Lite include 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS/ A-GPS, 3.5mm audio jack, and Micro-USB with OTG support. Sensors on board include accelerometer, ambient light sensor, magnetometer (digital compass), and proximity sensor. It is powered by a 3000mAh battery that’s rated to deliver a talk time of up to 20 hours on 3G, and a standby time of up to 24 days – it charges fully in about 2 hours 20 minutes, the company said. It measures 151×71.9×7.6mm, and weighs 149 grams.

[“source=gadgets.ndtv”]

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News Update

Twitter Doubles Tweet Limit to 280 Characters for (Nearly) Everyone

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Twitter Doubles Tweet Limit to 280 Characters for (Nearly) Everyone

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Twitter made the announcement in a blog post and tweet on Tuesday
  • Twitter first started testing expanded tweet limit in early September
  • Twitter says the move will make it easier and faster to express yourself

Twitter announced Tuesday it has doubled the limit for tweets to 280 characters, a bid to draw in more users and boost engagement at the social network.

Giving users twice the space to voice their thoughts ushers in a new era for the online platform, whose hallmark 140-character cap had encouraged users to craft succinct missives.

“We’re expanding the character limit! We want it to be easier and faster for everyone to express themselves,” tweeted the site, which started testing an increase to its limit in most languages in early September.

The changes will be rolling out in all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, in which space limitations have not been an issue, Twitter said.

It is the first time the tweet character cap has been raised since Twitter was founded 11 years ago.

Twitter, which has been lagging behind rival social networks in user growth and struggling to reach profitability, faced a dilemma over the change in that it could alienate longtime users and transform the nature of the service.

Product manager Aliza Rosen said in a blog post that the test showed most people still used 140 characters or fewer, suggesting the fast-moving nature of Twitter will not change.

“Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter,” Rosen said. “We’re excited to share we’ve achieved this goal and are rolling the change out to all languages where cramming was an issue.”

Brevity endures
Rosen noted that in the first few days of the test many people used the full 280-limit because it was new and novel, “but soon after behavior normalized.”

As a result, “the brevity of Twitter remained,” she said.

While Twitter itself changed the way people communicate in the internet age, doubling the tweet character limit promised to shift it once again, according to Jennifer Grygiel, an assistant professor of communications at Syracuse University.

“It will slow down the speed at which users consume information and will allow for more clarity,” Grygiel said.

“This might not be a bad thing during a time when world leaders are making military threats via the platform.”

US President Donald Trump favors the platform for making major policy announcements, as well as criticizing allies, taunting opponents and threatening North Korea with destruction.

He sent his inaugural 280-tweet while on South Korea as part of his Asia tour: “Getting ready to make a major speech to the National Assembly here in South Korea, then will be headed to China where I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory.”

Glances and Likes
Some users have worried that longer tweets could profoundly change the nature of the one-to-many messaging platform, which is popular with journalists and politicians but has failed to win the mass appeal of rivals like Facebook.

There was also worry that raising the character cap would give blowhards and abusers more room to spout.

“I will gladly give up my extra 140 characters if Twitter will delete Trump’s account,” author and civil rights commentator DaShanne Stokes said in a tweet fired off from @dashannestokes.

Stokes said Twitter’s move gives Trump “a bigger weapon with which to hurt more people.”

Twitter, which became a public company in 2013, has never reported a profit, even though it has built a loyal base of celebrities, journalists and political figures, including prolific tweeter Trump.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that longer test tweets got tended to prompt more engagement by others using the service.

“In addition to more Tweeting, people who had 280 characters received more Likes, Retweets, @mentions, Followers, and were more satisfied with Twitter. So, you’ll be getting 280 too — enjoy!” Stone tweeted.

Some analysts maintain longer tweets are not the fix Twitter needs, and may even change the appealing ability to take in messages with glances.

It also risks Twitter looking a bit more like Facebook, one analyst contended, and might prompt the leading online social network to respond to what it might see as a competitive threat.

Meanwhile, many users welcomed the news and said raising the character cap was long overdue. Some people already resort to long strings of rapid-fire tweets, known as “tweet storms,” to string together lengthy comment.

Last month, Twitter reported its loss for the past quarter narrowed as the company suggested it could reach profitability for the first time in the fourth quarter.

The update showed Twitter’s monthly active user base rose slightly to 330 million, roughly in line with forecasts.

For the biggest CES 2018 stories and latest updates, visit our CES hub.

[“Source-ndtv”]

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Education

Opposition calls for leadership on free higher education

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

UCT exam venues were disrupted in 2017. (YouTube screen grab)

Cape Town – Two opposition parties – the DA and the IFP – have called on government to provide leadership amid fears that chaos would break out once universities open for registration.

The fears come in the wake of President Jacob Zuma’s announcement of free higher education for some students as well as encouragement from EFF leader Julius Malema that matriculants who passed well should show up at universities of their choice to be registered.

DA spokesperson on higher education and training Belinda Bozzoli called on Minister of Higher Education and Training Hlengiwe Mkhize to intervene in the registration processes at higher education institutions across the country.

READ: ‘Don’t use free higher education as political football’ – USAf

Bozzoli described the process as “currently at risk of devolving into chaos as a result of President Jacob Zuma’s reckless announcement and the EFF’s inflammatory calls”.

“The DA notes the failure of Zuma and Mkhize to provide strong leadership in this matter and we accordingly call on her to decisively intervene in order to avoid a potentially violent crisis,” Bozzoli said in a statement.

Bozzoli described Zuma’s announcement as a tool of cheap politicking, which she claimed was aimed at scoring points ahead of the ANC national elective conference, in an attempt to salvage the legacy of his failed presidency.

“Similarly now, the EFF’s ill-considered call for walk-in registrations evidences a failure to understand that placements at higher education institutions across South Africa have not increased – higher education institutions generally formulate their intake figures at least a year in advance in order to ensure that resources are adequately allocated to meet the needs of incoming students.”

She said demanding that higher education institutions accept walk-in registrations was in direct contravention of many institutions’ registration procedures and placed undue strain on their systems and resources.

ALSO READ: UDM wants urgent explanation of free higher education

“In addition, given the precedent for walk-in registration processes to turn violent, these calls place students’ safety at risk.”

The DA believed all deserving students should have access to higher education and that financial support should be provided for poorer students within the confines of the law and the country’s available resources, she said.

“Quality higher education for South Africa’s youth can no longer be used as a tool for cheap politicking. Political parties must not allow Zuma to cause division as he departs. Moreover, students should refrain from participating in activities that go against the rules of tertiary institutions – registrations must take place in accordance with higher education institutions’ rules and procedures.”

IFP Youth Brigade national chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa called Zuma to take the nation into confidence about the implementation of free education at institutions of higher learning.

“Mr Zuma made a scant announcement in December 2017, devoid of details, and confusion now reigns supreme among prospective students, institutions of higher [learning] and government,” said Hlengwa in a statement.

“This confusion is bound to cause damage, stampedes and loss of life as students rightly flock to institutions of higher learning to claim their right: access to education, which for time immemorial has been the commodified persevere of the few.”

READ: The money has to come from somewhere – Heher on Zuma fees annoucement

He said Zuma could not suddenly “vanish into a sabbatical of silence” when the nation needed answers, information and details from him.

“The situation is now a virtual ticking time bomb as public rhetoric stirs the pot.”

Universities South Africa announced earlier this week that universities will not accept walk-in registrations, but the EFF renewed its call for financially needy, academically deserving students to report to colleges and universities for registration.

In an interview with eNCA on Tuesday, Mkhize described Malema’s statement as a “reckless political statement”, while she expressed her support for Zuma’s announcement on Twitter.

[“Source-news24”]

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