HDFC securities rolls out ‘Arya’ voice-based virtual assistant service on Google Home, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa

HDFC Securities today announced that it is rolling out voice-based services on Google Home, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. These voice skills will provide users with a self-service digital channel to interact with HDFC securities. Customers can now get assistance in account opening, investment ideas in equity and MF’s through 'Arya', Which is India’s first virtual assistant to offer services through voice IoT devices in the broking space. The company also said that 'Arya' would also be available on HDFC Securities mobile trading app, website and HDFC securities very soon. Furthermore, users can invoke ‘Arya’ and select the option for opening an account. However, the user will still have to authenticate by sharing the mobile number, following which the account opening team would connect and initiate the user’s onboarding process with HDFC Securities. Additionally, users can also opt for services like getting investment options, Investment in stocks, and  Investment in the Mutual fund Commenting on the launch, Dhiraj Relli, MD, and CEO – HDFC securities said: It is our continuous endeavour to offer a simplified experience to our customers. Our latest offering reflects our philosophy that disruptive technologies could lead to an enhanced customer experience. In our view, broking via voice based IoT is a path breaking innovation ...

Microsoft Translator for Windows gets Cortana integration, Windows Ink, image translation and more

Microsoft Translator app for Windows is getting a major update with Cortana integration, support for Windows Ink, image translation, AI-powered offline translations, and a newly redesigned modern user interface. It supports  60 languages, across text, voice, image, and Windows Ink translations. Users can listen to the translations, pin translations to view later within your History tab, save the translations to a text file, share translations through email, or any other Windows 10 apps such as OneNote, Skype, Twitter, etc. The live translator feature is available in 10 speech languages and over 60 text languages. Now you can use Translator with Cortana just by saying “Hey Cortana," and can ask Translator to join conversation ABCDE. The app also features the Phrasebook feature where you can browse phrases and quickly get the human-verified translation. It contains a variety of essential phrases for travel, directions, lodging, dining, and more. It also lets you import documents directly from the Text translation tab and save the translation in a text file. The redesigned Windows 10 app uses the AI-powered, neural machine translation technologies. Translate text and images when offline through neural-network powered offline translation packs, the company claims that these packs offer up to 23 percent better offline translation quality over competing best-in-class non-neural ...

Huawei P20 Pro and P20 Lite go on sale exclusively on Amazon India with launch offers

Huawei launched the P20 Pro, flagship smartphone and the P20 Lite in India last week. As promised, both the smartphones went on sale in the country today exclusively on Amazon.in for Rs. 64,999 and Rs. 19,999, respectively with several launch offers. Launch offers for Huawei P20 Pro Instant cashback of Rs. 5,000 for Axis Bank Card members till 7th May, 2018. Exchange offer of up to Rs. 6,000. No cost EMI options up to 12 months, starting at 5417/month. Launch offers for Huawei P20 Lite Axis Bank Card members can avail cashback up to Rs. 1500. No-cost EMI option for up to 12 Months, starting 1667 per month Exchange offer of up to Rs. 2,000. Both the phones come with Vodafone offer that provides additional 100 GB of free data over 10 recharges for a period of 10 months to the customers buying Huawei P20 Pro and P20 lite. Prepaid customers will be required to recharge with Rs. 199 or above to be entitled for the offer. At the same time, post-paid customers will get 10GB free data extra for 10 months on any Vodafone RED plan starting Rs. 399. Huawei P20 Pro specifications 6.1-inch ( 2240 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ OLED 2.5D curved glass display Octa-Core ...

Google to invest in startups that use Assistant technology

Google has announced a new investment program who are working to broaden Google Assistant hardware or features. This new program will provide startups with financial support, early access to Google tools, access to the Google Cloud Platform, and also offer promotional support. This new investment program will support the startups with investment capital from Google to provide additional financial resources for the development, hiring, and management of these startups. It will also offer technical advice from engineers, product managers, and design experts to share technical guidance and product development feedback. Google will also open up access to the Google Cloud Platform which is its cloud computing services that run on the same infrastructure that we use for products like Google Search and YouTube. Using the promotional support, Google marketing channels will drive greater awareness for the features and functionality of these new applications. Google is welcoming companies across a range of fields including startups that are developing technologies that broaden the Assistant’s set of features or are building new hardware devices for digital assistants, or that focus on a particular industry such as travel, games, or hospitality. The companies in the first-batch include GoMomentCreator of Ivy, a 24/7 concierge for hotel guests Edwin personal English tutor powered by AI, BotSociety, Pulse Labs. Source

Samsung introduces 16MP ISOCELL Slim 3P9 sensor with Tetracell technology for sleek smartphones

Samsung introduced its first 16-megapixel CMOS image sensor (S5K3P3) with 1.0μm-pixel size back in 2015. Today the company has introduced a new 16-megapixel sensor with 1.0μm-pixel size in its ISOCELL Slim 3P9 lineup targeted at sleekly designed smartphones. The sensor has Tetracell technology and a Plug and Play solution. The Tetracell technology  merges four neighboring pixels, so that the 3P9 can function as a 2.0μm image sensor for front-facing cameras that can take brighter pictures in low-lit environments, says Samsung. It also has  phase detection auto-focus (PDAF) with doubled auto-focus agent density than that of conventional PDAF sensors. It also has gyro-synchronizer that significantly stabilizes pictures and videos taken while in motion. This syncs frame exposure time from the sensor with movement data from the device’s gyroscope. Once the data is synced, the mobile processor can simply adjust the frames based on movement rather than rigorously analyzing each frame to detect and compensate for angular movement. The ISOCELL Plug and Play solution in rear camera module simplifies the process of optimizing a camera module, made up of parts from different providers by offering a turnkey ISOCELL sensor module tuned for Valued Camera eXperience (VCX)-grade image quality, along with other components, including lenses and actuators from preferred partners. "Since the ...

Facebook launches PyTorch 1.0 open-source AI framework for developers

With an aim to accelerate the path from AI research to production, Facebook today announced a new version of its open-source AI framework, PyTorch 1.0. With new framework, AI developers can seamlessly transition between a flexible, immediate execution mode for research.  The PyTorch 1.0 With new framework will be available in beta in the coming months. Apart from the PyTorch 1.0, Facebook also announced ONNX Expansion speeds AI development. ONNX format to allow AI engineers to more easily move models between frameworks without having to do resource-intensive custom engineering. ONNX is also adding support for additional AI tools, including Baidu's PaddlePaddle platform, and Qualcomm SNPE. Additionally, a production-ready converter for Apple Core ML technology. The Facebook's FAIR ( Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research) team has developed sophisticated game-playing AI bots for the board game Go and will soon bring it to the real-time strategy game StarCraft. It also said that it would open source code as well as the data sets and models for as much of our work as possible. Since advancements in AR and VR are linked with better connectivity, Facebook is focused on developing next-generation technologies that can help bring the cost of connectivity down so that it can reach the unconnected areas and increase the capacity. The company says that it ...

Twitter said to be testing bottom navigation bar for Android

With phone sizes becoming bigger and bigger every passing day, the U.I redesign of apps has become mandatory in order complement the larger screens. With the same thought, Twitter is now said to be testing bottom navigation bar, but there is no way you can to trigger the UI yourself just yet. The bottom navigation bar for Twitter contains the same setup as the ubiquitous top bar and in the same order. It has home, search, notifications, and messages over on the right. But it is unclear if you can swipe between the tabs like now, while some Reddit users claim that you cannot swipe between tabs like on the current implementation. This new U.I change is only live for some users on the latest beta of the Android client. With most Android apps adopting the new bottom navigation bar for shortcut menu, it about time top trending apps also follow the same. Since the U.I is in beta testing, it should be weeks before the official rollout. Source

Xiaomi files for an IPO in Hong Kong; seeks to raise at least $10 Billion at $100B valuation

Xiaomi opts Hong Kong to sell its shares giving the city world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) of 2018 and the pole position in a race with New York and Shanghai to be the global capital for raising funds. Xiaomi has submitted the IPO application to the Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Limited under new listing regulations for technology start-ups. While the application lacks financial terms, bankers familiar with the plan said that Xiaomi is seeking to raise US$10 billion, this in a sale that values the eight-year-old firm at US$100 billion. At US$10 billion raising, Xiaomi’s IPO would also be the 15th biggest of all time or the fourth-largest in Hong Kong. Xiaomi's listing is an early justification for Hong Kong’s securities regulator and exchange operator, which when put together makes through the biggest reforms in the city’s listing regulations in decades. On the other hand, Hong Kong, which was overtaken by Shanghai last year for the first time in the global IPO stakes, is now anxious to reclaim the top position in order to sustain jobs in the financial industry and maintain revenue from stock listings. Back in 2014, Alibaba picked New York over Hong Kong for it's US$25 billion, which still holds the record as ...

Worldwide smartphone shipments decline 2.9% YoY in Q1 2018, Xiaomi posts 87.8% YoY growth: IDC

Worldwide smartphone shipments have declined 2.9% YoY in Q1 2018. The smartphone vendors shipped a total of 334.3 million units during the first quarter of 2018. This is a sharp decline compared to the 344.4 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2017. According to IDC, a drop of 100 million in the first quarter in China led to the drop in the worldwide shipments. This decline is first since 2013 in the Chin market. According to the survey, despite the presence of flagships from Samsung, Huawei, and the iPhone X, users were unwilling to shell out big bucks on the flagships. As expected, Samsung retained the leader of the global smartphone market with a market share of 23.4% share despite a 2.4% decline from Q1 2017. The Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ lead the way as the new flagships, however, brisk initial sales of the new devices kept the overall yearly decline at a minimum as the bulk of the positive impact is expected to arrive in Q2 2018. On the other hand, Apple's first quarter saw a 52.2 million iPhones shipments representing a modest 2.8% year-over-year increase from the 50.8 million units shipped last year. Despite the rumors claiming that iPhone X is underperforming ...

ACT Fibernet upgrades existing plans at no extra cost in Chennai, Rs. 1999 plan now offers 200Mbps speed, 2TB FUP

After Bengaluru and Hyderabad, ACT Fibernet has upgraded its plans for Chennai users as well at no extra cost, about 9 months after the last upgrade.  In some plans speeds have also been upgraded, and ACT has also introduced a new Blast Promo plan that offers 100Mbps speed and 1000GB FUP. ACT Fibernet’s Retail 1999 plan now offers 2TB (download+upload) of FUP, and the speed has been upgraded to 200Mbps. The company's SOHO Plan has also been upgraded. The Rs. 2999 ACT SME Swift plan now offers 200 Mbps Speed and 3TB FUP.  ACT SME Flash Rs. 3999 and Rs. 4999 ACT SME Force plans now have 4TB and 5TB FUP, respectively. Plan Name Tariff (Rs.) Old Speed New Speed Old FUP New FUP (Download + Upload) Speed Post-FUP RETAIL ACT Basic 799 30Mbps 30Mbps 80GB 80GB 512 Kbps ACT Blaze 999 75Mbps 75Mbps 200GB 300GB 512 Kbps ACT Blast Promo 1049 NA 100Mbps NA 1000GB 1 Mbps ACT Storm 1099 75 Mbps 100Mbps 260GB 500GB 1 Mbps ACT Lightning 1299 90Mbps 100Mbps 350GB 1000GB 1 Mbps ACT Thunder 1499 100Mbps 150Mbps 450GB 1500GB 1 Mbps ACT Incredible 1999 150Mbps 200Mbps 700GB 2000GB 2 Mbps SOHO ACT SME Swift 2999 150Mbps 200 Mbps 900GB 3000GB 2 Mbps ACT SME Flash 3999 200Mbps 200Mbps 1100GB 4000GB 2 Mbps ACT SME Force 4999 200Mbps 200Mbps 1400GB 5000GB 2 Mbps All these plans are already live in Chennai. ACT is expected to upgrade its plans in Delhi as well soon.