India Business

In a bid to compete with other established instant messaging services, Hike, a free cross-platform messaging app from  Bharti Soft Bank (BSB) , has announced major updates. The 2.2.0 version of Hike adds features like stickers, walkie talkie, offline messaging and support for four new languages. The updates are currently being rolled out for apps on iOS, Android and Windows Phone platform, according to the company blog. First up, the more than 5 million user app has added a walkie-talkie feature which is push to talk service that lets users send quick voice messages to each other. The feature is similar to that of WeChat that allows conversation in real time with your contacts. On opening a chat with a friend, you will notice a little icon that appears in place of the send message button that now allows you to send a voice message. The icon changes back to a message icon as soon as you start typing. Other new features introduced in v2.2 of hike include a mode called Last Seen, which allows users to share with chosen friends when they were last online. Finally, Hike has added ’hike Offline‘ feature which allows users to send offline messages to friends. The message will go as a free SMS to that person. The reply from the offline user comes back into hike for other online users. The latest update also brings support to four new foreign languages- Spanish, French, Russian, and Portuguese. I wonder why it has not added support for Indian languages like Hindi, Gujarati etc. This move suggests that it is targeting global audience. Apart from this, Hike has introduced stickers with different emotions and characters which can be used while chatting. These stickers include  Miley the cat, Snuggles the dog, Expressions, Rage Faces and Bollywood pack. Earlier in April this year, Hike secured  a funding of $7 million from BSB. In May, BSB partnered Nokia to pre-load Hike on its smartphones. According to the company about 60% of hike’s user base comes from India  and the rest global led by Middle East and Europe. The update from Hike is obvious considering the extremely competitive instant messaging market. Hike faces tough competition from apps PlusTxt and GupShup. Although it is way behind the more established ones like WhatsApp, Nimbuzz and WeChat. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

Finally after the lot of speculation, we got a chance to get closer with the launch of Ford EcoSport. This time grass is looking greener than before, and we had all the reasons to prove it right in terms of speculations. We recently learnt that Alan Mulally, Ford President and Chief Executive Officer who recently flew down to India will be there for the rollout, which is expected to happen on 26th June 2013. Smelled, Ford to carry out this launch in Delhi, and rumor follows other metro cities may get the same dose on further dates. Well, we too hope that Ford now will reveal the complete product in the market, not leaving price to be there under cover for more of the time yet. “The EcoSport looks fantastic. The Chennai team, together with our supplier partners, have done an outstanding job in delivering our customers a great looking, fuel efficient, safe, compact utility vehicle with impressive functionality and connectivity, at a very affordable price,” said Mulally, who was recently in Chennai to congratulate Ford employees on the first EcoSport shipments. Already known much about it, but still confirming once again, 1.0L turbocharged EcoBoost engine is also going to debut in India with EcoSport that had already claimed a lot of accolades on its name throughout the world. It will be interesting to see how we locals will perceive it performing on the crumbling yet almost broken Indian roads. Escorting the EcoBoost will be the normally tuned 1.5L petrol and diesel engines to compete various segments more aggressively here. This and again, we say it may be the last speculation for EcoSport, and the next time we emerged to you with this topic will be given down with the launch invitation in our hands.

Chinese telecoms giant Huawei on Tuesday launched what it said was the world’s thinnest smartphone, which it hopes will take on high-end rivals like Apple and Samsung in the global market. The Huawei Ascend P6 is 6.18 mm in depth and thinner than competitors like the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4 (7.6 mm and 7.9 mm, respectively). This new model is now the flagship smartphone in Huawei’s Ascend P series. The smartphone comes in with a 1.5GHz quad-core K3V2+ processor as well as 2GB of RAM. The internal memory that the phone features stands at 8GB, which is expandable via the microSD card slot. The Ascend P6 will also feature an 8 megapixel camera with a F/2.0 BSI lens on the rear and an 5 megapixel front camera. The Ascend P6 will run on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, in addition to the Huawei’s customary Emotion User Interface. “Our theme for this product is elegance with an edge,” Richard Yu, the chief executive of Huawei’s consumer business group, told an audience of industry figures and journalists at the Roundhouse. Huawei is already a well known brand in China where it grew to become the country’s biggest maker of telecom equipment after being founded in 1987.It has recently shifted to Android, and seems to have found appreciable success in targeted growth markets. It just announced that it is betting big on the Indian markets, and has willed to invest more than $ 30 million to establish and develop a brand image in India. Huawei is definitely on the right path when it comes to smartphones. The company has courted controversy in the Western markets over issues of National Security. Pricing could help it win the favor of consumers both in India as well as other markets with potential growth possibilities. Product Link | Huawei Ascent P6 Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

Internet corporation Yahoo is reportedly eyeing Qwiki, maker of a popular iOS app for an estimated deal worth 50 million dollars.

Tata Motors Wednesday unveiled eight new variants across its five passenger car brands under a new marketing strategy to arrest falling sales.

India ranked fourth among countries targeted by phishing attacks and accounted for 8 % of the total phishing volume in April,says RSA, the security division of EMCndings in its May 2013 Fraud Report.  US topped the list of nations in terms of the total phishing attack volume, with a share of 46 %. The UK accounted for 11 percent of that volume while 48 other countries put together accounted for another 18 percent. Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. The report revealed that in April, 26,902 phishing attacks were launched globally, marking a 10%  increase in attack volume from March this year.“Phishing attacks in April 2013 have so far only shown a moderate increase over the previous month, but with constant headlines such as the recent announcement of over 40,000 Facebook accounts allegedly hacked, we may see a surge before the quarter is out,” the report said. The RSA report also stated that India ranks third in phishing attacks on brands.Brands in the US, UK, India, Brazil and Australia accounted for almost 54 % of phishing attacks in April, it added. In April, 311 brands world over were targeted in phishing attacks, marking a 20 per cent increase from last month. Of these, 52 per cent endured five attacks or less, it said.  Brands in India, Australia and Brazil collectively accounted for 15% of the phishing volume. Banks were the primary targets for the attacks, followed by financial companies with online presence, e-commerce and insurance Web sites. The US also became the top hosting country in April this year, when it hosted 47% of the global phishing attacks. Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, UK and Russia together hosted just over 20 % of additional volume. Sixty-one other countries put together accounted for hosting 32 %of global phishing attacks. India is currently under a wave of cybercrime, and is experiencing rapidly rising phishing attacks across the country. A recent Symantec report said that phishing attacks have increased 0.018 percentage, taking the global average rate to one in 466.3 emails (0.214 percent) since January 2013. Also, in April we reported that Telugu movie Brindavanam was being used by phishers in a phishing scam. Last month, Prime Minster’s Office(PMO) approved a Rs. 1000 crores fund in a bid to strengthen its cyber security. Image Courtesy |  economictimes Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

The Indian rupee fell to 58.91 against a dollar Wednesday, fractionally less than the record low of 58.98 hit last week, on concerns that the US Federal Reserve might signal cutting back on stimulus that will strengthen the greenback further.

Atul Singh, Coca-Cola's president and CEO (India and Southwest Asia), will take over as deputy president (Pacific Group) from July 1, the company said Wednesday.

Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd has launched ‘Activity Reporter‘, a software that records each and every activity, including internet monitoring, of a user on Android tablets without the knowledge of the user. The internet monitoring tool captures every internet activity like chat conversations, emails, Web sites visited, Web searches etc. It records all activities in real time and generates reports as per requirement of Administrator. The Activity Reporter captures application activities, incoming and outgoing calls, clipboard contents, sent and received SMSs and generates email logs upto 90 days. Furthermore, it also tracks GPS locations  at defined time intervals (which may vary from minimum of 1 minutes up to 120 minutes). The software which requires minimum of 512 MB of RAM space on a tablet works on Android 2.3 and above. By using the Activity reporter one can also captures all internet activities and records the websites names, windows titles and date & time of visit.  It also captures ICQ, Miranda, Skype, Google Talk, MSN, AIM, AOL, Yahoo, QIP chats. The software is being targeted towards companies as it can maintain the logging working hours for tablet users. The Activity reporter also records clipboard activities and display the text which has been copied / cut in a particular application. It also captures every application activity performed on the tablet. A time log can be maintained for specific applications including name of the person who used the application and the date & time when the application was started. As youth today own smartphones and tablets on a large scale it can help parents take a close look at their child’s activities on the device. Speaking about the launch Alok Gupta, Managing Director of Unistal Systems Pvt. Ltd., said in a company statement, “We constantly come across the need to manage and  monitor our employees’ or child’s device. In the era of tablets, we believe our solution would assist productively in achieving this.” A recent IDC report says that Indian IT spending row to $44.8 billion in 2014 from $35.1 billion in 2012.  I believe such monitoring softwares will be in demand with growing popularity of BYOD culture in schools and companies. Theis best solution for monitoring and recording detail of computer and Internet activity in your home or office. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? - Contact WATConsult - India's Leading Social Media Agency

The 50th anniversary celebration of Lamborghini hadn’t ended yet, trailed the fans till Italy, carmaker now launches new Gallardo LP 550-2 India Limited Edition for Rs. 3.06 crore ex showroom Maharashtra. It is specifically made for India and that too in the very specific number “6”, out of which1 is already sold out. The car wears tricolor strip at centre and also the “India Serie Speciale” badge on driver-side’s quarter glass for the outer exclusivity. Whilst, the interiors too is given a feel of same, black colored dominance is captioned with orange and green stitches running across seats, dash and door trims. That’s all to say about it, yet nothing had been changed in technical terms. It frays existing 5.2 litre V10 petrol engine producing 550PS and 540 NM of torque, transmitting all the power to rear wheels via 6 speed manual gearbox. “The India edition car represents a powerful and sophisticated tribute from the house of the raging bull, symbolic of our common ethos in aspiring for perfection. This reiterates our commitment to the India and enthusiasts of Lamborghini,” concludes Pavan Shetty, head of operations, Lamborghini India, for its top whack of 320 kmph and the 0-100 kmph run in 3.9 seconds.