India's IITs Are 4th Largest Source of Billion-Dollar Startups in the World

Here's a great news to start your week with. If you're one of those who aspires to build themselves a billion-dollar business in India in the near future, then enrolling yourself in one of the country's IITs is your safest bet to success.

Sage, a UK-based accounting and payroll company, recently carried out a study in which it listed universities all around the world that can be credited with having produced the most unicorn founders. According to the report published, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which are considered premier institutes in the country, are the fourth largest producer of unicorn startups in the world. The first position was bagged by US-based Stanford University for having churned out 51 unicorn founders and the second position went to Harvard University with 37 unicorn founders. The third rank was occupied by California with 18 unicorn founders, which was followed by IIT for fourth rank with 12 billion-dollar founders.

For the unversed, a unicorn startup is the one that has more than a billion-dollar valuation. Currently, India houses 10 unicorn startups that have been responsible for putting the country on the world map of startup ecosystem.

India is home to 10 unicorn companies making them the poster boys of the country's startup ecosystem. From e-commerce biggies Flipkart, Snapdeal and ShopClues to restaurant aggregator Zomato, mobile adtech firm InMobi, analytics company Mu Sigma, classified ads platform Quickr, cab aggregator Ola, digital payments company Paytm, and messaging app Hike, these 10 are the members of the elite group of unicorn companies in India and almost all of them have founders from one of the IITs.

When it comes to IITs, IIT Delhi has churned out the maximum founders and has names like Flipkart's Sachin and Binny Bansal, Quikr's Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas, Snapdeal's Rohit Bansal, ShopClues' Sanjay Sethi, and Zomato's Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah as its esteemed alumni. Inmobi's founders Naveen Tiwari, Abhay Singhal and Amit Gupta went to IIT Kanpur while their co-founder Mohit Saxena was a student of IIT Roorkee. Ola's founders Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati are a product of IIT Bombay.

According to a statement given by IIT Delhi director V Ramgopal Rao, who is himself an alumnus of IIT Bombay to TOI, "Good students and faculty is a given with IITs. What is probably the differentiator with IIT Delhi is the culture of the institute which has been cultivated over several decades. They are more connected to the society and have a deep awareness of the problems that exist. Hence, they are able to look for solutions and become entrepreneurs."

According to industry observers, while in the earlier days it was the rigorous entrance exams and competitive spirit among the students that gave birth to such establishments, nowadays the institute is placing a special effort in fostering unicorns.

Sage's elaborate study also revealed that for over a 60% of the unicorn founders, the current unicorn was the only business that they had built and nurtured. However, the study also indicated that experience surely does play a crucial part in success as the study found out that people who have founded more than one company have, on an average, had a 34.5% higher valuation than those who founded just one.

When it comes to counting the number of unicorn companies that a country houses, US emerges at the top with 144, followed by China with 47. Here, India settles for the third position with 10 unicorn companies.

Sage's study also said that the year 2007 emerged as the bumper founding year as many as 29 companies joined the unicorn companies club, including Indian ecommerce biggie Flipkart. Further, the study also identified the year 2015 as the year of the unicorn as many as 86 companies added the unicorn credibility to their companies. However, the year 2016 wasn't that great as only 41 companies joined the unicorn club.

India’s Largest Banks To Test An Interbank Blockchain Platform

It was only yesterday that we had reported about how business world biggies Cisco Systems Inc, Bosch Ltd and several others have formed an Internet of Things consortium to brainstorm on how blockchain technology can be used to secure and improve IoT applications. And now, some of India’s largest banks have joined hands to build a consortium aimed at testing an interbank blockchain platform.

The move, which is expected to further strengthen the country's cutting edge adoption of bitcoin’s underlying technology, has come just a couple of weeks after RBI’s research arm, the Institute for Development & Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), had published a white paper report stating that it had successfully tested the blockchain technology for core banking processes in the country in a pilot and stated that now the time is right for the technology’s wide adoption in India.

The Indian banks which are actively involved the larger pilot are currently working with MonetaGo, a New York-based startup, which will be providing the platform. It is important to note that startup also dispensed the duties of a technology provider in IDRBT’s pilot.

Speaking to ET, Jesse Chenard, CEO of MonetaGo has said that the startup is soon
going to start a pilot with about 15 of India’s largest banks to test out the platform. While the banks have been individually doing work on their own blockchain pilots, MonetaGo will create a platform that everyone will be building on.

The names of all the members of the consortium are still unknown, but according to experts there would soon be an announcement about the same when the pilot gets officially kickstarted. However, MonetaGo's CEO in his conversation with ET revealed that all the banks involved in the consortium make up for more than 80 percent transactions in the country.

For the unversed, a blockchain is basically an anonymous online ledger that makes use of a data structure to make the process of transaction an easier and simpler process. It provides users the ability to manipulate the ledger in a safe way without seeking the support of a third party. It is said to ensure maximum transparency, zero errors in the process, and significantly reduce turnaround times.

A blockchain system, unlike the currently existing technology systems allows the banks to maintain a copy of the transactions. As and when a transaction occurs, the blockchain system updates all the records simultaneously, thus doing away with the need and work of reconciling transactions between different banks.

MonetaGo's CEO Chenard in his conversation with the Indian economic daily also said that since his startup's platform integrates with the banks’ existing technology systems, it makes it easier for the banks to adopt the platform. According to him, the pilot, which he expects will be lasting about nine to twelve months, would be costing a bank a fraction of a million dollars.

While a fraction of a million dollars does sound a big amount, but according to Chenard, once this becomes a working consortium model, banks that will be putting in more servers and computing would be soon paid back by the banks that are making a use of the technology.

The platform is expected to take about six months to set up and get into production. Then, it is most likely take another three months or so to share the data and talk to the different governing bodies in the country.

While a lot of different sectors are currently working towards ways through which they can make use of the blockchain technology, it is the financial sector that is currently fairing much better than any other sector in making efficient use of the technology.

The year started with Yes Bank announcing the usage of blockchain technology for vendor financing, which was followed by Axis Bank announcing the usage of blockchain solutions for its operations just a few weeks later. While Yes Bank and Axis Bank began their blockchain journey this year, it was the ICICI Bank that had first announced about using the blockchain solutions for international trade finance and remittances in October last year.

10 Things in Tech You Need To Know Today [23-28 Jan'17]

It proved to be a good week for the tech industry as we saw a lot of new inventions and innovations coming to fore. Here, we at www.indianweb2.com give you the Top 10 things that happened in the tech sector this week.

1) Google Is Bringing AI To Raspberry Pi

Tech giant Google is reportedly in the planning stages of bringing the gifts of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to the tiny in size but big on features Raspberry Pi in the year 2017.

According to The Raspberry Pi Foundation, Google has reportedly developed a huge and diverse range of tools right for home automation, machine learning, Internet of Things, robotics, wearables, and it is now floating a survey amongst the Raspberry Pi fans in order to understand what tools they want them to provide.

Google’s range of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology can enable the maker community to come up with more innovative and powerful projects than they were previously unable to do because of the limited features.

2) Use of Drones & UAVs Will Change The Working of Indian Mining Sector

India’s Ministry of Mines has decided to give a major push to using of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in order to increase India’s mining sector efficiency. Whether it is area inspection, preparation and monitoring of mining plans, production and dispatch, or even checking and curbing illegal mining, drones can prove to be effective in every mining process.

Piyush Goyal, Union minister of mines, who is also incharge of power, RE and coal ministries, has reportedly asked mining companies in the country to make use of all the modern and latest technologies that would help the future of mining in India. In addition to this, the Ministry of Mines has also ordered Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL), its exploration company, to purchase one or two drones soon and start using them in order to set an example for others to follow their lead.

3) Miyubi Is Longest Virtual Reality Movie Ever Made

Miyubi, a movie released by prolific VR studio Felix & Paul, has registered itself a place in the history books by becoming the longest virtual reality (VR) movie. Though just a 40-minute film, it is still almost twice or even three times the duration of the majority of the cinematic VR experiences currently available in the market.

An Oculus production, Miyubi is a full-fledged scripted comedy, a genre which VR isn’t quite famous for. It is most likely to be available on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, sometime in February or March this year.

Considering its a VR movie, Miyubi is still able to offer viewers a clear, mature narrative. The movie’s 360-degree format gives it a rather refreshing naturalistic feel. While there’s usually a single visual focus for each scene, but you can let your eyes wander over the interesting details around the room.

4) Reliance Jio Asks Foxconn, Chinese ODM Partners To Make Its LYF Brand of 4G smartphones in India

Reliance Industries has recently asked its Taiwan-based and China-based original device manufacturers (ODM) to make its smart set-top boxes, home automation and automobile telematics devices, and its much-famous Lyf branded 4G smartphones among others in its home country, India.

Foxconn, which is the world’s largest contract manufacturer and also one of Reliance Industries’ ODM will soon start the production of VoLTE handsets for Reliance Retail’s Lyf brand of 4G smartphones in the Indian subcontinent. The company’s other manufacturers will be following Foxconn’s footsteps thereon.

Reliance Retail, which is retail arm of Reliance industries, is currently procuring its 4G VoLTE smartphones and pocket routers from a number of China-based ODMs like Wingtech, Tinno Mobile, ZTE and CK Telecom.

5) Samsung To Launch ‘Samsung Pay’, Its Mobile Payment in India

Tech giant Samsung seems to be all ready to debut itself mobile payment service called Samsung Pay in India. While Samsung hasn’t made an official announcement about the launch yet, but it did drop in some hints this week.
The week saw Samsung finally rolling out the much-awaited Android Nougat update to its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge devices. The users, when turned on their devices after the update was completed, noticed a message saying “The future of payments is coming soon!” This signalled that Samsung has something planned for making payments by mobile sleeker than ever in India. At the top of it, the Nougat update also brought the Samsung Pay app to the company’s flagship devices, cementing the earlier signal that said the future of payments is coming soon to India.

One of the things that makes it stand out from the rest in the market is the fact that it makes use of both Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) as well as NFC, which makes Samsung Pay compatible with a majority of card readers and hence users will be able to make use of the service in a majority of restaurants, shops, and petrol pumps etc. across the nation.

6) India To Manufacture $80 Billion Worth of Smartphone Components, Says Study

By increasing its smartphone shipments by a good 15 percent during Q4 2015, India overtook the United States to become the second largest smartphone market in the world last year. And now, according to a new study, India is most likely to manufacture about $80 billion worth of mobile phone components over the next five years and become a global manufacturing hub with advanced local manufacturing.

According to the study done collectively by IIM Bangalore and market research firm Counterpoint Research, the $80 billion figure shows that there is a huge opportunity just from domestic demand perspective to manufacture mobile phones in India and increasingly source components locally, thus, reducing the country’s vast dependency on imports.

After becoming the second largest global smartphone market in terms of users in 2016, India is now all set to cross the half a billion smartphone users mark by 2020. The study has also revealed that the contribution of locally manufactured mobile phones has increased from 14% in the year 2014 to 67% in 2016. This number is estimated to reach 96% by 2020.

7) Here’s Why India is Hesitant for Apple To Manufacture iPhones in India

Tech giant Apple has been meaning to set up its shop in India for a long time now. But, according to a recent statement given by the country’s trade minister Apple is most likely to fail in its mission to earn tax incentives to make iPhones in the country as the government is not willing to make any exceptions for the US-based tech company.

Apple has been asked by the Indian government to source at least some of the iPhone components locally from the country so as to boost the country’s floundering manufacturing sector. In order to make this possible, Apple has asked the government to provide it some tax concessions, including lower manufacturing and import duties.

Commenting on Apple's demand, India's Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has reportedly said that if the Indian government would agree to give any such concessions, it would most likely extend the same olive branch to all smartphone manufacturers, and not just give a special treatment to Apple.

8) The Internet is Unhealthy and Urgently Need Attention, Warns Mozilla

According to Mark Surman, executive director of Firefox maker the Mozilla Foundation, while we have been in awe of what all internet has made possible over the last three decades, we somewhere have turned a bling eye to the perilous state of the Internet, and how we, as its users, need to help save it.
Pointing towards the rise of Internet of Things, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence, Surman said that internet’s safety has now become more important than ever because now we don’t just use a computer, “we live inside it.” According to Surman, How the internet works — and whether it’s healthy or now — now has a direct impact on our privacy, our economies, our democracies and ultimately, our happiness.

Surman’s insights on the internet's health coincides with the release of nonprofit Mozilla’s first ‘prototype’ of the Internet Health Report, which is a detailed report on the various healthy and unhealthy trends that are shaping the modern day internet. The report talks about five key areas: decentralization, open innovation, privacy, digital inclusion, and security, and web literacy.

9) Smartphone Penetration is on Rise in India Elevating M-Commerce Payments Sector: Ken Research

Ken Research in its recent publication on “Consumer payments country snapshot: India 2016,” offers deep insights on the consumer payments market in India, considering payment cards, online payments, P2P payments, and newer payment technologies such as mobile wallets and contactless.

The publication offers a shrewd examination of the main regulatory players in the Indian market and analyzes the consumer attitudes to financial services by life stage and the major payment card types in terms of both card holding and usage. It also identifies the major competitors in card issuing and how their positions in the market have evolved over the last five years. This publication helps in exploring the online payment market in India by merchant type and payment tool, as well as providing a five-year forecast for the development of the market.

According to the publication, India is the second largest consumer market globally with India being a cash-driven economy. However, digital payments will see growth in the Indian market. The key opportunity is the digitization of payments only if they are as easy to access, convenient, and secure as cash then they will contribute to the growth of financial inclusion in the country. The driving factors in such process will be the expansion of Smartphone penetration, enhancing access to the internet, and the development of a digital payments infrastructure

10) Cisco, Bosch, Foxconn, Others Tie-up To Develop Open Blockchain Protocol For IoT

Business world biggies Cisco Systems Inc, Bosch Ltd and several others have come together to form a consortium to brainstorm on how blockchain technology can be used to secure and improve “internet of things” applications.

The group, which also includes Foxconn Technology Group, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, security company Gemalto and several blockchain startups like BitSE, Consensus Systems and Chronicled Inc apart from Cisco Systems Inc and Bosch Ltd, have said that they will join hands to come up with a shared blockchain protocol for IoT – the concept that makes everyday objects, right from shipping containers to washing machines, to connect to the internet and send and receive data.

Cisco, Bosch, Foxconn, Others Tie-up To Develop Open Blockchain Protocol For IoT

Business world biggies Cisco Systems Inc, Bosch Ltd and several others have come together to form a consortium to brainstorm on how blockchain technology can be used to secure and improve "internet of things" applications.

As sectors beyond finance are now seeking to look for ways through which they can benefit from bitcoin’s underlying technology, setting up such a consortium is a welcome move.

The group, which also includes Foxconn Technology Group, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, security company Gemalto and several blockchain startups like BitSE, Consensus Systems and Chronicled Inc apart from Cisco Systems Inc and Bosch Ltd, have said that they will join hands to come up with a shared blockchain protocol for IoT - the concept that makes everyday objects, right from shipping containers to washing machines, to connect to the internet and send and receive data.

While having more and more internet connected devices spells a golden period for both businesses and consumers, but it also increases the scope of the devices that can be hacked.

For the unversed, a blockchain is basically an anonymous online ledger that makes use of a data structure to make the process of transaction an easier and simpler process. It provides users the ability to manipulate the ledger in a safe way without seeking the support of a third party.

While a bank's ledger has connections to a centralised network, a blockchain is anonymous as it helps in protecting the identities of the users. This is what makes the technology of blockchain a safer way to carry out transactions than any other existing processes. Blockchain's algorithm reduces the dependence on people to verify the transactions. This technology, which is currently being used for recording various transactions, has the true potential of completely disrupting the financial system in the near future.

According to experts, the technology, which is still in its nascent stages, could provide additional security and better identity management features to internet of things applications.

The newly formed IoT consortium is one of the several collaborative efforts being made by big companies to advance the development of blockchain technology. Last year, we reported about how R3 CEV, a famous New-York based financial technology company, has formed a consortium of more than seventy of the biggest financial institutions in the world to focus on ways to make use of the blockchain technology in the global financial markets. Tech companies such as IBM Corp and Hitachi Ltd are also a part of a consortium being led by the Linux Foundation.

While companies from different sectors are working towards ways through which they can use the blockchain technology, it is the financial sector that is currently fairing better than any sector in making efficient use of the technology. In fact some financial firms have announced that they are planning to deploy new blockchain systems by the end of this year.

The formation of the internet of things consortium highlights how companies are planning to make bigger moves in blockchain technology this year.

[Image: Shutterstock]

Deshpande To Set Up India's Largest Startup Incubator at Hubli

US-based Silicon Valley entrepreneur Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande is a known name in the business. Although he has a primarily expertise in IT and telecom sector, the Karnataka-born serial entrepreneur has went on to play the role of a mentor to several profit and non-profit ventures, and is also a philanthropist. And now, he as added another feather to his cap as Desh's philanthropy arm, The Deshpande Foundation, has decided to launch India's largest startup incubation centre yet at Hubballi (earlier Hubli) in Karnataka.

Spread over an area of 85,000 sq ft, the startup incubation centre will be built alongside the new campus of information technology giant Infosys and will be able to house 1,200 people at a time. Currently, the biggest incubator in India is Nasscom's 40,000 sq ft warehouse in Bengaluru with a capacity of 100 startups and 500 people.

The Deshpande Foundation's startup incubation centre will be built at a cost of Rs 30 crore, and is expected to be completed by September this year. Once completed, the centre will boost of a makers lab, a 3D printing lab, hardware labs and Internet of Things (IOT) lab.

With this move, the foundation, which aims to promote entrepreneurship in India’s tier-II and tier-III cities, is trying to encourage entrepreneurs from any background and across the sectors, to come up with innovative new-age solutions.

According to a statement given by Naveen Jha, chief executive at Deshpande Foundation India, India is currently in need of 10 million new entrepreneurs and roughly a million of them will be come from the country's tier-I cities.

While over the years, Bengaluru has acquired the status of being called India's startup capital, Desh strongly believes that smaller towns and cities, if given a chance, are capable of playing a crucial role in giving birth to new companies and jobs in the country. This very belief had encouraged him to set up the Deshpande Foundation about ten years ago in this city, and thus establishing a ‘sandbox’ location to entrepreneurs where they can test and nurture their ideas right from scratch.

Talking about the foundation, Desh said, “It takes a lot of patience and experimentation. Maybe the next one does not have to be this long and this expensive. It’s taken about 10 years and Rs 200 crore but seems to be working. The sandbox is a cultural change, and a cultural change cannot happen top-down; it has to happen bottom-up."

The IIT Madras alumnus feels that if entrepreneurs wish to efficiently solve local issues, they should be situated in close proximity to the problem. According to him, while Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad might be on the path of becoming world-class startup hubs, but in order to solve the various issues of the 800 million countrymen that even in the 21st century do not have basic amenities, ideas/solutions will have to come from around them.

This is the reason that the Deshpande Foundation has built two more sandboxes, one in Varanasi and the other in Telangana.

According to sources, while the Hubballi startup incubation centre centre will be completely funded by the Deshpande Foundation but for its new ones, the foundation is currently on a lookout for other philanthropists with a vision to do similar work in the field. This means, as of now, the plan is that the foundation will either help in setting up these sandboxes or make them function with funding received from external sources.


[Image: Shutterstock]

India To Manufacture $80 Billion Worth of Smartphone Components, Says Study

By increasing its smartphone shipments by a good 15 percent during Q4 2015, India overtook the United States to become the second largest smartphone market in the world last year. And now, according to a new study, India is most likely to manufacture about $80 billion worth of mobile phone components over the next five years and become a global manufacturing hub with advanced local manufacturing as a result of it.

According to the study done collectively by IIM Bangalore and market research firm Counterpoint Research, the $80 billion figure shows that there is a huge opportunity just from domestic demand perspective to manufacture mobile phones in India and increasingly source components locally, thus, reducing the country's vast dependency on imports.

Speaking at the event where the study findings were released, Aruna Sundararajan, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India said, “India can potentially be the world leader in mobile phone manufacturing ecosystem and this has to be done in a phased manner."

After becoming the second largest global smartphone market in terms of users in 2016, India is now all set to cross the half a billion smartphone users mark by 2020.

Statistics have also revealed that the contribution of locally manufactured mobile phones has increased from 14% in the year 2014 to 67% in 2016. This number is estimated to reach 96% by 2020.
While on the surface the numbers look promising but 67% of the domestically produced handsets in India make just 6% of the true local value addition with most of the OEMs still importing Semi Knocked Down components.

According to the study, “Out of 50 facilities from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to original design manufacturers (ODMs) and electronics manufacturing services (EMS) to component suppliers involved in manufacturing of mobile phones in India, almost three-fourth are Indian manufacturers, followed by Taiwanese with 10 per cent and Chinese with 10 per cent."

The phase I plan, which will extend from 2016 to 2018, includes components like battery, chargers, cables, housing, packaging and others that can be localised completely, thus will help in increasing the true local value addition from the current 6% to 17% in just a period of two years.

The components under phase II plan, which will extend from 2018 to 2020, like display, camera and their sub components can further help in taking the increase value addition from 17% to 32% by the year 2020.

The phase III of the plan will include the possibility of localising the semi-conductor components post the year 2020 including setting up semi-conductor fab. This will help in upping the true local value addition much beyond the 33% that will be achieved by the year 2020.
The study also said that going by the proposed plan, they can estimate that more than $15 billion worth components will be sourced domestically over the next five years through 2020 and create more than a million direct and indirect jobs in the country.

[Top Image – Shutterstock]

Samsung To Launch 'Samsung Pay', Its Mobile Payment in India

Post the demonetisation announcement, India saw the popularity of its mobile payment service sector increasing by many folds. While the already existing players in the market jumped to action to cash on the opportunity, several new one came up to get a piece of the pie. And now, it seems, Samsung is all ready to debut itself mobile payment service called Samsung Pay in India very soon.

While the tech biggie hasn't made an official announcement about the launch yet, but it did drop in some hints recently.

Yesterday, Samsung rolled out the much-awaited Android Nougat update to its Galaxy S7 and S7 edge devices. The users, when turned on their devices after the update was completed, saw a message saying “The future of payments is coming soon!” This signalled that Samsung has something planned for making payments by mobile sleeker than ever in India. At the top of it, the Nougat update also brought the Samsung Pay app to the company’s flagship devices, cementing the earlier signal that said the future of payments is coming soon to India.

Samsung seems to have adopted tease but don't say anything strategy for launching Samsung Pay in India, and as far we can say and assess, it surely is proving out to be a huge success and has got many people interested in what's coming.

Samsung Pay has been having a good run in a lot of countries around the world and has acquired a unique status in the global mobile payment service sector. One of the things that makes it stand out from the rest in the market is the fact that it makes use of both Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) as well as NFC. For the unversed, MST supports supports older magnetic credit card machines as well. Both NFC and MST support makes Samsung Pay compatible with a majority of card readers and hence users will be able to make use of the service in a majority of restaurants, shops, and petrol pumps etc. across the nation.

Keep watching this space to know the exact date when Samsung Pay will hit the Indian market.

[Top Image: cbronline.com]

Here’s Why India is Hesitant for Apple To Manufacture iPhones in India

Tech giant Apple has been meaning to set up its shop in India for a long time now. But, according to a recent statement given by the country’s trade minister Apple is most likely to fail in its mission to earn tax incentives to make iPhones in the country as the government is not willing to make any exceptions for the United States- based tech company.

Apple eagerly wants to establish its stores in the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, but it has been asked by the Indian government to source at least some of the iPhone components locally from the country so as to boost the country’s floundering manufacturing sector. In order to make this possible, Apple has asked the government to provide it some tax concessions, including lower manufacturing and import duties.

Commenting on the demand, Trade Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has reportedly said that if the Indian government would agree to give any such concessions, it would most likely extend the same olive branch to all smartphone manufacturers, and not just give a special treatment to Apple.

There hasn't been any official response by the tech giant on Sitharaman's comment yet.

Tim Cook, Apple's Chief Executive, came down to Indian to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year in May to discuss about the company's plan on entering the Indian manufacturing and retail space. The US-based company wants to cash on the growing smartphone market in the country, where it currently holds only a roughly 2% market share.

Reuters recently reported that Smartphone component maker Wistron, which also has tech giant Apple among its long customers list, has recently applied for a permission to expand its manufacturing plant in the city of Bengaluru.

Prior to asking tax incentives, the tech giant had pleaded the Indian government to provide a permanent relaxation from rules that require at least 30 percent of local sourcing for foreign retailers setting up single-brand outlets in the country. This demand was rejected by India's finance ministry. The country has relaxed these rules for just a three years window for single-brand foreign investors.

For now, the future of Apple in India for sure seems bleak.

Use of Drones & UAVs Will Change The Working of Indian Mining Sector

Moving with the changing times is how one keeps ahead, and India's Ministry of Mines seems to have got this one correctly. The ministry has decided to give a major push to using of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in order to increase India’s mining sector efficiency.

Whether it is area inspection, preparation and monitoring of mining plans, production and dispatch, or even checking and curbing illegal mining, drones can prove to be effective in every mining process.

Piyush Goyal, Union minister of mines, who is also incharge of power, RE and coal ministries, recently posted a tweet about utilisation of drone technology by Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited (MECL) in geological mapping to help determine its potential in regional exploration of greenfield land.

The minister has reportedly asked mining companies in the country to make use of all the modern and latest technologies that would help the future of mining in India.

In addition to asking the country's state governments and public sector mining units into focusing on exploring the usage and deployment of drone technology in their respective organisations, the ministry has also ordered MECL, its exploration company, to purchase one or two drones soon and start using them in order to set an example for others to follow their lead.

At a recently held event, Balvinder Kumar, union mines secretary, asked Tata Steel to showcase the usage of the drones technology at its Noamundi Iron Mine (NIM), which is the first mine in the country to have successfully introduced drone in mine monitoring.

Bengaluru- based firm Skylark Drones, which specializes in drone application in various industries conducted the event. In addition to the union mines secretary, the event also saw the presence of some officials from Tata Steel and India Bureau of Mines.

“We have initiated mining surveillance system using space technology along with a mobile app. This will help in stopping illegal mining, monitoring mining plan, production, dispatch and royalty payment. We requested Tata Steel to demonstrate it in Noamundi iron mine,” said the secretary at the Skylark Drones organised event.

While mining sector has started thinking about drone-related possibilities in the field, power sector has already been extensively making use of drones and helicopters to execute transmission projects in extremely difficult terrains and much ahead of time.

Since assuming office, Minister Goyal has laid a lot of focus on using the latest technology in order to increase the efficiency of the Indian mining sector and lift it to an international level.

Balvinder Kumar recently gave a statement to DefenceAcviationPost that he had asked all Public Service Units (PSUs) including National Aluminium Company, Hindustan Copper Limited, National Mineral Development Corporation, Steel Authority of India Limited, Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, Mineral Exploration Corporation Limited, Bharat Gold Mines Limited and MOIL to start making use of drones to significantly cut down on the time taken to complete a project.

A number of academic institutions of the country like the IITs are also contributing towards helping the mining ministry and PSUs in adopting the drones technology and how they can be designed as per the requirements of a mining organisation.

While Indian mining industry has started taking baby steps towards making use of drones in mining sector, globally, the usage of drones in mining is quite popular. For example, Rio Tinto, a global mining major, has been using drones to survey its mining pits for quite sometime now.

[Image: miningmagazine.com]

10 Top Delhi Based Startups To Look Forward in 2017

The capital city of India, Delhi had an eventful year last year, startup wise. From IoT wearables to heath-tech, from fashion to Smartphones, Delhi witnessed a number of new and promising startups and entrepreneurs emerging in the year 2016. Here, we list the Top 10 Delhi Startups that made headlines in the startup world in the year 2016.

1. Leaf Wearables

IoT/Wearables

Founders: Manik Mehta, Chiraag Kapil, Ayush Banka, Paras Batra, Avinash Bansal

Leaf Wearables is a smart Jewellery startup that designs special pendants, bracelets and key chains that have a small circular device at their heart called SAFER. Whenever user double clicks the device, the corresponding app is triggered about a potential threat. Further, upon receiving the threat, the app sends an alert to the user’s network. In order to make sure that the jewellery looks appealing, the device comes with a rust-proof, non-corrosive stainless steel casing with fashionable crystals of highly refractive diamond-cut glass that have the safety mechanism below it.

SAFER's GPS function acts as the user's constant companion and let’s their loved ones know about their location every minute of the day or night. The user just needs to add her destination and the time she is leaving, and the user’s network can track her movement the entire time. Along with this, it also comes with a map showing the nearest hospitals and police stations to the user’s location.

Leaf Wearables aims to make 1 million families safe by the end of year 2017.

2. Hyve Mobility

Smartphones

Founders: Aditya Agarwal, Abhishek Agarwal, Sharad Mehrotra

The startup, which offers mid range smartphones in India, is one of the few companies offering Pure Android Experience on its smartphones through strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Google India and MediaTek.

Hyve Mobility entered the Indian smartphone market with a bang last year in June with its two launches — Buzz and Storm — priced at Rs. 13,999 and Rs 8,499, respectively. Later in the year, the company, in collaboration with MediaTek, launched a new smartphone “Pryme” at Rs 17,999.

3. Flyrobe

Fashion Rentals

Founders: Shreya Mishra, Pranay Surana, Tushar Saxena

Flyrobe is an online fashion rental platform that supplies western wear on-demand with a three-hour delivery timeline and ethnic wear on advance booking. Having 50 designers onboard, including industry leaders like Ritu Kumar, Masaba Gupta and Shehla Khan, the startup is currently live in Mumbai and Delhi and plans to branch out to Bengaluru and Hyderabad very soon.

The startup was in the news last year for raising $5.3 million in Series A funding led by IDG Ventures. The round also saw the participation from Flyrobe's existing investor Sequoia Capital and GREE Ventures, a Tokyo-based fund which made its first investment in India. With the conclusion of this funding round, the total funding raised by Flyrobe reached a whopping $7 million.

4. Morph.ai

Chatbot

Founders: Pratik Jain, Abhishek Gupta,Vipul Garg, Niyati Agarwal

Morph.ai is an end-to-end solution that aims to empower companies to make their services available over websites, apps and messengers by making use of natural language understanding and artificial intelligence (AI) powered chatbots. A part of Nasscom 10000 startups, Morph.ai helps businesses in making, deploying and training their own chatbots so as to better engage with their customers. In what could be considered as a big achievement, the startup is currently powering Manchester City chatbot.

5. CoinSecure

Bitcoin

Founders: Mohit Kalra, Benson Samuel

CoinSecure is an ISO certified company that offers Bitcoin wallet, trading, exchange, and merchant services along with several other Blockchain based services. While the company's head office is based out of Delhi, its Research and Development division is in the city of Bengaluru. The company launched its bitcoin exchange for the domestic market on January 1, 2015.

Coinsecure offers an algorithmic trading bitcoin exchange where users can buy and sell their bitcoins for actual Indian money at a fee of 0.3 percent of the amount bought or exchanged, which according to the company is the lowest in India.

CoinSecure was in news last year for raising a whopping $1.2 million from a group of undisclosed Indian angel investors.

6. 8Minutes

Solar Energy for Households

Founders: Dev Arora, Anuj Gupta, Arjun

8Minutes is on a mission to solve the biggest problem being faced by our planet Earth today – climate change by leveraging the power of solar energy. The startup help customers in saving money on their energy bills by installing solar panels on their rooftop with little or no upfront cost by providing them an access to financing and connecting them with the nearest installer.

Within just six months of their launch, they had successfully signed on about 865kW – including industries, corporates, societies, homes and educations institutions. For people thinking why is the startup named 8Minutes, it is because it takes about 8 minutes and 20 seconds for the sun rays to travel from sun to earth.

7. Cube26

IoT/ Mobile Software

Founders: Saurav Kumar, Abhilekh Agrawal

The idea of Cube26 originated from the basic thought that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) around the world were scouting for new, innovative ways to stand out from the crowd as hardware specifications were getting commoditised. The founders of Cube26 believed that they could successfully leverage their skills and expertise in machine learning and natural language processing to add gesture control features and help OEMs market their product better with software differentiation.

Cube26's product IOTA Lite, which is a smartphone-operated smart bulb under the IOTA (IOT-Architecture) category has garnered a lot of eyeballs since its launch. There are two main things that makes the smart bulb stand out from the rest- firstly, a user can switch it on or off from their phones. Secondly, a user can also adjust the intensity of the light bulb so that they're not constantly caught between switching lamps and light-bulbs on or off, or just flooding their room with an overly bright tube light.

8. GoBOLT

Tech-Logistics

Founders: Parag Aggarwal, Sumit Sharma, Naitik Baghla

GoBOLT is on a mission to innovate India's logistics sector with its hybrid asset ownership models, cutting edge technology and extensive network. The logistics technology startup provides transportation solutions such as right vehicle selection, route/delivery planning, reliable documentation and control, real time tracking, and reduced transit time to its clients. The startup, which has both owned as well as aggregated trucks, serves everyone from e-commerce to pharma to automobile and food processing companies. It's clients list includes A-list companies such as PepsiCo, Philips, Cadbury, Tupperware and Panasonic, amongst various others.

The startup was in the news last year for raising pre-Series A funding from startup incubator MCube8, which is a division of financial advisory firm MCube Capital.

9. iCHR

Health-Tech (Cloud-based Healthcare)

Founders: Harpreet Singh

Integrated Child Health Records or iCHR aims at bringing medical help closer by integrating doctors, hospitals and medical help all in one application for the parents. The startup provides automated vaccination records and monitors the growth schedule in addition to maintaining data for research purposes. By leveraging the power of modern technologies like Cloud Computing, iCHR is offering an opportunity to India's urban and rural population for an early stage detection of obesity and malnutrition respectively as well.

The Oxyent Technologies Pvt. Ltd. backed startup was in the news last year for raising Rs 3 crore (over $450,000) from a senior partner with financial advisory firm EY. It plans to raise as much as Rs 30 crore ($4.5 million) in its next round.

10. CustTap

Customer Intelligence Platform

Founders: Amar Parkash

The startup offers data analytics and marketing services to offline stores, and aims to help them in making optimum use of data and technology. When it comes to brick and mortar stores in India, a majority of them don't make use of any technology whatsoever to better engage with their customers. This very fact made Amar, an ex-employee of PayPal and Goibibo leave his job and start CustTap.

According to Amar, the basic challenge that CustTap is currently facing is educating SMBs about the importance of data and why they should focus on leveraging it to increase their business. Within a short period of time, the startup has been successful in attracting paying customers across Delhi-NCR, Chandigarh and Bengaluru. It plans to expand to more cities in the year 2017.

[Top-most Image - Shutterstock]

Miyubi Is Longest Virtual Reality Movie Ever Made

Miyubi, a movie released by prolific VR studio Felix & Paul, has registered itself a place in the history books by becoming the longest virtual reality (VR) movie. Though just a 40-minute film, it is still almost twice or even three times the duration of the majority of the cinematic VR experiences currently available in the market.

An Oculus production, Miyubi is not an experimental art movie, a sponsored tie-in, a documentary, or yet another cartoon in the market. It’s actually a full-fledged scripted comedy, a genre which VR isn't quite famous for. It is most likely to be available on Oculus Rift and Gear VR, sometime in February or March this year.

Conceived by Felix & Paul and written with the help of Funny or Die, Miyubi is set in the 1980s and puts its viewers right in the body of a Japanese robot named Miyubi. The movie shows a year in the “life” of Miyubi, a toy robot given to an American child named Dennis (played by Owen Vaccaro) for Christmas in 1982 by his father.

The movie actually underlines the concept of obsolescence as Miyubi isn’t built to last long, and his capabilities are surpassed very quickly by the incoming generation of robots. The Japanese robot's fate is simultaneously mirrored in the movie by Owen's grandfather whose deteriorating mental health is already a sense of tension in the American household. Being set in 1980s, the spectre of industrial automation looms in the background of the movie, making even a simple robot like Miyubi look a little life threatening.

Miyubi’s story takes a complicated turn when the viewers factor in an unlockable hidden scene, which opens up possibilities that are never really explored.

Like a majority of virtual reality films, even Miyubi ends up giving its viewers a "Can we do that?" feeling. The movie's script is able to strike a good enough balance between serious, modern drama, comedy and also has some corny sitcom gags included to cater to every type of audience.

Considering its a VR movie, Miyubi is still able to offer viewers a clear, mature narrative. For less than half duration of the movie, the movie asks its viewers to spend time in a headset, following multiple mini-plotlines involving each member of the family. It keeps the pace brisk with brief, self-contained chapters, each one ending with Miyubi rebooting.

While less than half the length of a feature film, Miyubi asks viewers to spend a long time in a headset, following multiple mini-plotlines involving each member of the family.

The movie's 360-degree format gives it a rather refreshing naturalistic feel. While there's usually a single visual focus for each scene, but you can let your eyes wander over the interesting details around the room.

At the end, Miyubi leaves its viewers with a feeling of nostalgia and sympathy.

[Image:fsmedia.imgix.net]

Google Is Bringing AI To Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, here's something big coming your way this year. Tech giant Google is reportedly in the planning stages of bringing the gifts of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools to the tiny in size but big on features Raspberry Pi in the year 2017.

According to The Raspberry Pi Foundation, "Google is going to arrive in style in 2017. The tech titan has exciting plans for the maker community."

The Foundation also added that the tech giant aims to make a range of smart tools available by the end of this year. Google's range of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology can enable the maker community to come up with more innovative and powerful projects than they were previously unable to do because of the limited features.

Google has reportedly developed a huge and diverse range of tools right for home automation, machine learning, Internet of Things, robotics, wearables, and it is now floating a survey amongst the Raspberry Pi fans in order to understand what tools they want them to provide.

Google's survey mentions natural language processing and sentiment analysis, as well as face- and emotion-recognition and speech-to-text translation. In addition to the aforementioned tools, the advertising-to-cloud-computing giant will also be providing Raspberry Pi with an extremely powerful technology for bots, predictive analytics, and navigation.

According to The Raspberry Pi Foundation, not only will the survey help Google in getting a feel for the Raspberry Pi community, but it'll also help the community in getting the kinds of services they need.

Selling over ten million units, this tiny, low-cost Raspberry Pi board has scripted an unexpected success story. It's developers had initially thought that they won't be able to sell more than 1,000 units, so the sales figures came as a pleasant surprise for them.

Raspberry Pi started its journey in February, 2012 with an initial aim of inspiring more and more UK students to take up computer science, but over the years, the Pi has been successful in having a far more wider impact than that.

[Image: Alphr.com]

How To Define Your Minimum Viable Product?

It's not everyday that one comes up with an out-of-the-box innovative idea. So, whenever such an idea strikes anybody, they try their best to get the idea straight out of their minds on to the paper and then make it come alive in reality. If you think have one such innovative mind, then you should make yourself aware of the term "Minimum viable product" (MVP), if you don't know about it already.

While a particular idea might sound great in our minds, but until and unless there's an audience or customer base which accepts the idea or will use the product, there is no use in putting so much hard work and brains into it. This is where MVP comes into the picture.

MVP, in product development, is a term used to refer a product which has just enough features to gather validated learning about the product and its continued development. In layman terms, it can be referred to as a trial product used to gather customer feedback.

When we think about making a billion order product, the first phase of process involves coming out with a minimum viable product to test the products acceptability among the people and garner constructive feedback which can help us make the product better.

Hence, deciding the MVP is the first most important and difficult step in the execution process.

How to decide the MVP for your next billion dollar idea?

1) Scalability Of Idea

Once you have an idea in mind, you need to invest some time in finding out if your idea is feasible or not. You need to focus on the cost effective features that are important and will not difficult for you to implement. Hence, you need to spend your energy and brains on entering the market first and once that is successfully achieved, you can spend to scale the product in a later stage.

2) Target Audience

After all, a product or service is developed to be sold to the people and earn some profits. Hence, finding your target audience is one of the most important part of the process.

A target audience can be identified on the basis of the following factors:

a) Age and Gender

Spend your time in analysing and understanding which particular age bracket or gender is more likely to be interested in your products and will spend their hard-earned money in buying them. This will help you in better spending your marketing budget on campaigns catering to that particular gender and age bracket and may even help in bettering the product by adding some features specific to the target audience.

b) Region

Understanding the market behaviour and customer needs in the market in which you're planning to launch your product is very important. For example, if you decide to launch a LTE enabled smartphone in an area with limited Internet connectivity, there's a huge possibility that no one will buy your product.

Start by launching your product in a limited market so as to get a better idea of the customers needs and feedback and then use the feedback constructively to better the product for the global market.

c) Price

If the product is priced too high for the target audience, then it is almost similar to digging once own grave. Hence, launching the product in the relevant market will act as a guiding factor in the product's conversion later on. Here, conversion means cost per unit and the number of units sold.

d) Market Research and Survey

Before deciding to dive into an idea/product fully, do a market research and survey to understand what do the people think about that product. Try analysing the current market of the product and find out the gaps people think that need to be catered, and then contemplate how you can fill those gaps with your product.

3) Top 3 Features

There's a necessity for you to make your product distinct from others in the market because clones hardly win the final race. Hence, at any point of time, you should be able to name at least 3 features that are going to attract the target audience towards the market and make them take their money out of their pockets and pay for the product.

According to experts, it is better to go with minimum features initially as that gives you flexibility and courage to pivot on your idea. You can add several more features in the later versions of the product.

4) Cost Of Releasing

Start small but aim to go big. This is the mantra that you should follow. Start by manufacturing your product for a small market and then use the money earned to expand to bigger markets. Try to stay away from running into debts and focus your energy into the product and expanding its features rather than wasting time worrying on getting yourself out of debt.

5) Regional Knowledge

You should have a basic knowledge about your users which you should keep in mind while defining your minimum buyable product. For example, if you're launching a movie trailer in Kolkata, then you must implement Hindi to Bangla subtitles so as to make sure the product reaches a wider audience there.

How is MVP beneficial to the entrepreneur ?

1) Idea Validation

Sometimes some ideas sound better in our minds than they actually are; hence, a MVP helps you in getting a validation of the idea that the idea will also find acceptability in the public when fully launched.

2) Initial Seed Funding

Your MVP will not only help in garnering feedback from the target audience but will also help you prove your credibility to venture capitalists and earn you your initial seed funding.

3) Demand Of Features

Your MVP will help you garner constructive feedback on what all features the users feel that need to be added in order to make the product more sellable.

4) Brand Name

Your initial set of customers will be the most loyal ones if they find your products useful. Not only this, they will also be your biggest marketers as even now nothing works more effectively than word of mouth.

With Non-Carbon Emission Electricity India Will Meet Paris Commitment 3 Years Early

Whether we acknowledge it now or not, Climate change is going to be one of the greatest problems that the world will be facing in the coming years. In fact, the effects of climate change have already started being seen across the Earth.

According to the 5th Assessment Report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC), since the year 1880 there has been an increase in average surface temperature of 0.85⁰C. While on the surface it might look like a very small number compared to changes in daily temperature that we see, however to put into perspective how small global temperature changes can have a large effect, if the Earth’s surface temperature was lowered by 5⁰C, we would end up being in a full ice age.

In order to stop from this becoming a reality, the COP21 Climate Change conference in 2015 produced the Paris Agreement, which is a Global agreement between nations that aims to keep the rise in temperature to 1.5⁰C and to ensure that the temperature rise stays well below 2⁰C above pre-industrial times. In order to successfully achieve this, the global greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) emissions must be stabilized and then reduced.

CO2 emissions, in the past 800,000 years before the industrial revolution struck the world, had fluctuated between 180ppm (when the Earth was in an ice age) to a maximum of 280ppm (in a warmer interglacial period). Never in the recent history or during the times in which the humans have inhabited the Earth has the atmospheric CO2 concentration been as high as it is now.

India being the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas emitter was initially hesitant of officially formalizing the Paris agreement as the country feared that it did not have the ability to meet its targets. But after much deliberation, the government ended up ratifying the agreement on Oct 2, 2016.

And now, according to a recent government forecast, in a period of ten years, India could be getting as much as sixty percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources.

A draft of India's 10-year energy blueprint has revealed that the government is expecting as much as 57 percent of the country's total electricity capacity to come from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2027 — a significant increase over the country’s Paris agreement targets, which has asked the member countries to reach 40 percent non-fossil fuel electricity by the year 2030.

Commenting on the Indian government's forecast, Tim Buckley, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the Guardian that India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago, and this is indeed absolutely transformational.

Private investments have played a crucial role is boosting India’s renewable goals over the last couple of years, even as the Indian government has somewhere lagged when it came to allocating funds to renewable projects.

Over the period of past one year, India has been successful in attracting a whopping $20 billion dollar investment in the country's solar energy sector from Japan’s Softbank, and another $2 billion from EDF, a famous French energy company. Recently, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), which is the U.S. government’s development finance institution, joined hands with the Indian government's to launch a $20 million finance initiative to help fund renewable energy in India . Though the fate of this initiative can't be predicted under the current U.S. President Trump, who has time and again stated that he doesn't believe in climate change and will be cancelling all wasteful climate change spending when he takes over the White House.

Reliance Jio Asks Foxconn, Chinese ODM Partners To Make Its LYF Brand of 4G smartphones in India

Reliance Industries seems to have taken the Indian government's Make in India initiative quite seriously. The company has recently asked its Taiwan-based and China-based original device manufacturers (ODM) to make its smart set-top boxes, home automation and automobile telematics devices, and its much-famous Lyf branded 4G smartphones among others in its home country, India.

Foxconn, which is the world’s largest contract manufacturer and also one of Reliance Industries' ODM will soon start the production of VoLTE handsets for Reliance Retail’s Lyf brand of 4G smartphones in the Indian subcontinent. The company's other manufacturers will be following Foxconn's footsteps thereon.

According to an article by ET, "it is a contract clause for these partners to locally make/assemble their devices over a period of time. They [Reliance] have told everyone to do it."

Foxconn has its own set of handsets that it will be manufacturing for Reliance’s Lyf. Local sourcing is expected to significantly cut down the prices of these devices. While Foxconn will be coming to India for Reliance has been established, when exactly will the production be starting is still unknown. The production of 4G handsets in India is crucial for Reliance as affordable 4G handsets will lead to a wider adoption of the group’s telecom company Reliance Jio Infocomm's 4G mobile services.

Foxconn is expected to be the biggest partner for Jio, as nobody else can quite match up to the scale that the Taiwanese contract manufacturer has.

Foxconn had made a re-entry into the Indian smartphone market back in 2015 by setting up a mobile phone assembly plant in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The Taiwanese contract manufacturer has been successful in expanding to five plants with a total capacity of a good 12-13 million a year. It is currently in the process of setting up a factory in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra with an initial investment of $20-30 million, which will be initially making mobile phones and then gradually moving on to other products.

Reliance Retail, which is retail arm of Reliance industries, is procuring its 4G VoLTE smartphones and pocket routers from a number of China-based ODMs like Wingtech, Tinno Mobile, ZTE and CK Telecom.

After securing a massive 72 million 4G mobile users in the country courtesy free data and voice services, Jio is now on the way of entering the automobile telematics sector by launching a car connected device that the telecom has been successful in developing in house. The device in question will be capable of controlling a vehicle's movement and alert owners about fuel and battery levels whenever either of them is running low through a mobile application. This will be in addition to providing WiFi.

According to rumours going around in the industry, the hardware device will be initially imported from China, but the vendor has been instructed to start its production it in India after the initial launch is complete.

In addition to this, Jio is also in the planning stages of scaling up its fibre to the home (FTTH) project. The company has decided to run a pilot for the same in some of the Indian cities including the metro cities of Delhi and Mumbai. Jio's FTTH service will come with JioMedia share device, smart set top box, routers and Power Line Communication devices.

These products will provide a helping hand to Jio in offering its customers a variety of services such as Video on Demand and HD TV and JioCloud offering under the home entertainment category. It also includes a landline phone service.

The FTTH project will also enable new services such as home automation that will allow users to convert basic electronic products into smart products with the installation of 6 to 7 Smart Plugs. These plugs will allow people to control their entire home right from their mobile devices.

Further, Jio is also in the midst of planning to launch a complete home surveillance suite, which will include a smart doorbell, smart lock, smart camera and chime alarm. Users will be able to manage all of these products right from their mobile devices.

The Losses of Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal is Nearly Equal To Cost of Printing Notes Post Demonetization

In the race to outdo each other and fund their growth, India’s leading e-commerce firms -- Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal— have somehow managed to increase their losses by a whopping 51% in just one year to Rs 11,754 crore.

The losses of the top three ecommerce companies is a big figure by every measure. In fact, according to some reports, the government’s cost to print new notes post the demonetisation announcement was estimated at Rs 11,000 crore, which is still 745 crores less than the losses incurred by the three ecommerce giants.

According to database company Howindialives.com, the two-way printing cost comes at Rs 5,932 crore for the old lot of demonetised notes, and Rs 4,929 crore for the new notes.

For the financial year 2015-16, Flipkart incurred a loss of Rs 5,223 crore, Amazon’s losses stood at Rs 3,571 crore, and Snapdeal posted a loss of Rs 2,960 crore. Their combined losses stood at Rs 11,754 crore, a figure which is drastically more than the 2014-15 figure of Rs 6,031 crore.

These growing figures, combined with falling valuation, paint the picture of the dwindling business model in the Indian e-commerce sector. The year 2016 wasn’t a good one for a majority of Indian startups. Funding dried, demonetisation happened, many startups shut their shop, and many of them are still struggling to keep their head above waters.

Experts predict the situation is only going to worsen in the coming months. According to a statement given by Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and founder, Greyhound Research to a national daily Hindustan Times, “This has deeply hurt the sentiment of investors who were expecting big bang returns in near term. This change can only be expected to intensify in the coming January to March quarter.”

However, Indian e-commerce startups know about the crisis heading towards them. While Flipkart’s valuation has dropped by a whopping two-third from its peak valuation to $5.5 billion., Snapdeal, on the other hand is scouting for another pivot. According to Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal, the company is now looking to shift its focus from gross merchandise value to unit economics.

There is an urgent need for top companies to bring in a change in their business model. If they keep progressing the way they are currently, none of them will be able to make profits.

Recently, Flipkart announced about the appointment its new CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy, who replaced co-founder Binny Bansal, who was promoted to Flipkart Group’s CEO. According to sources, with Krishnamurthy now at the top position, the company is most likely not to see anymore exits.

Increased competition, multiple rounds of devaluation and frequent leadership changes have only made things worse for the Indian startup ecosystem. While startups shifting the focus to tangible outcomes like revenue, cash flow among others is going to cheer up the investor community, it is surely going to hurt the consumer community who have now become used to heavy discounts and offers.

The growing marketing and advertising spending is only expected to increase the losses by several hundred crores. Snapdeal recently went for a major image makeover, and the marketing campaign for the same costed the company a whopping Rs 200 crore. Amazon, too, has increased its advertising budget by a good 23 percent to Rs 946 crore in the year 2016.

The e-commerce business also took a major hit during the post-demonetisation phase as almost 60% to 70% of their business was dependent on cash-on-delivery orders. Since the first two months of demonetisation announcement, ecommerce sales have dropped by about 25%, according to RedSeer Consultancy

The Internet is Unhealthy and Urgently Need Attention, Warns Mozilla

Internet has become an indispensable part of our personal and professional lives. Whether it is keeping in touch with a relative abroad or doing business all around the world, internet has made all this possible. But, what if I tell you that the thing you're this dependent on is very unhealthy and urgently needs attention? Well this is exactly what Mozilla has to say.

According to Mark Surman, executive director of Firefox maker the Mozilla Foundation, while we have been in awe of what all internet has made possible over the last three decades, we somewhere have turned a bling eye to the perilous state of the Internet, and how we, as its users, need to help save it.

From last year's very dangerous Mirai attack that had single-handedly caused one of the worst distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyberattacks that the world and infected internet-connected devices in over 177 countries all around the world to government surveillance, market concentration and data breaches, censorship and policies that are putting an axe on innovation, all these are signs that the internet is dangerously unhealthy and needs immediate attention.

Pointing towards the rise of Internet of Things, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence, Surman said that internet's safety has now become more important than ever because now we don't just use a computer, "we live inside it."

According to Surman, How the internet works -- and whether it's healthy or now -- now has a direct impact on our privacy, our economies, our democracies and ultimately, our happiness.

Surman's insights on the health of internet coincides with the release of nonprofit Mozilla's first 'prototype' of the Internet Health Report, which is a detailed report on the various healthy and unhealthy trends that are shaping the modern day internet. The report talks about five key areas: decentralization, open innovation, privacy, digital inclusion, and security, and web literacy.
Mozilla is looking to officially launch the first report after October, once it has successfully incorporated all the feedback received on the prototype.

While according to statistics available, currently, there are more than over 1.1 billion websites running on mostly open-source software, which is being considered as a good sign for open innovation, but Mozilla thinks that the internet has to constantly dodge hardballs from bad policy, such as outdated copyright laws, restrictive digital-rights management, and secretly negotiated trade agreements,

Mozilla also notes that since mobiles have ben responsible for putting more than three billion people online today, there were a total of 56 internet shutdowns last year, a number significantly up from 15 shutdowns in the year 2015.

The report also highlights Mozilla's fears about how even though internet's decentralized design is protected by laws, it is under a serious threat by a few players, including Google, Apple, Facebook, Tencent, Alibaba and Amazon, who are monopolizing the messaging, search and commerce sectors.

According to it,"While these companies provide hugely valuable services to billions of people, they are also consolidating control over human communication and wealth at a level never before seen in history."

Mozilla is in favour of the wider adoption of encryption in communications and on the web, but it wants us to keep an eye out for the new emerging surveillance laws, such as the United Kingdom's Snooper's Charter.

The report wants to draw the world's attention towards the policies on web literacy which just focus on learning coding or how to use a computer, while completely ignoring other literacy skills, such as separating ads from search results and educating them on how to spot fake news.

The report also called for safety standards, rules and accountability measures in the light of the Mirai malware attack that happened last year and abused unsecured webcams and other IoT devices in over 177 countries.

[Top Image – Shutterstock]

10 Things in Tech You Need To Know Today [16-21 Jan’17]

With another working week coming to an end, we at www.indianweb2.com bring to you the top 10 things that happened in the tech world this week.

1) Infosys Replaced 9,000 Employees With Automation, Artificial Intelligence

Software giant Infosys made headlines this week when it confirmed that the company has “released” 8,000-9,000 employees in the past one year because of automation of lower-end jobs. The released employees are now working on more advanced projects, so it's not that automation or AI has stolen their jobs but the scenario is surely transforming.

Infosys is currently releasing about 2,000 people every quarter as a part of its Automation, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning adaptation drive. Though it is training the released employees in special courses in order to help them in their new assignments.

According to a research report released by Infosys itself, as much as 85 per cent companies plan to train employees about the benefits and use of AI, and 80 percent of companies replacing roles with AI technologies will retrain or redeploy displaced employees.

2) Great News For Virtual Reality and Chatbot Startups

A recent report named “Virtual Experiences Can Replace Reality”published by global computer company Oracle has put forth some interesting research about the upcoming marketing trends we could see in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) startups. The report, which involved taking a survey of approximately 800 companies in total, states that 78 per cent of companies interviewed are considering to offer virtual reality experiences to their customers by the end of year 2020.

According to Oracle’s report, about 40 per cent of the companies surveyed stated that a vast majority of their customers prefer gathering the information for themselves rather than contacting the company directly. The only time they contact the company’s customer service is when they’re considering purchasing the product.

Apart from VR, the other comparatively newer technology that is talked about in the report is chatbots. According to statistics revealed by the report, about 80 per cent of the companies surveyed are interested in making use of chatbots within a period of next 4 years so as to take their customer service to another level.

3) Govt. Join Hands With Reliance Group’s UNLIMIT To Launch India’s First-Ever IoT Contest

In order to provide the Indian youth a platform to ideate, create and make the best use of the Internet and connected devices, Invest India, an investment promotion and facilitation agency of the Government of India has joined hands with Reliance Group’s IOT venture UNLIMIT to launch the country's first-ever Internet of Things (IoT) contest — interThrone.

The contest will feature five categories in three stages (Ideation, Concept & Research and Prototype) and will run over a period of six months.

interThrone will be playing the role of an incubator for young turks and technocrats participating in the contest and help them in building their IoT businesses by providing guidance of several industry experts and stalwarts. The contest will also involve institutional and individual investors, who will evaluate the submitted ideas and invest in the winning projects.

4) Lack of Skilled Manpower Could Hurt Blockchain, AI, IoT Growth in 2017

IT industry analyst firm CompTI in its IT Industry Outlook 2017 says that though the emergent technologies are going to have a good run in coming years, but they will be facing a strong opposition/resistance from some of the most oldest and pervasive problems of the industry: less inclination towards security issues, lack of qualified people, and whether or not they represent solutions still looking out for a good problem.

A big hurdle being faced by emergent technologies is the lack of good expertise. The CompTIA analysis finds out that all the emergent technologies have a hard time in finding the right people with the right skills. “Finding workers with expertise in emerging tech fields” acquired the top place on the firm’s report on list of “factors contributing to a more challenging hiring landscape in 2017.” The second and third rank were acquired by “insufficient pool of talent in locale” and “competing with other tech firms.”

5) Google’s New Update Will Now Let You Search Offline

The week saw Google rolling out an update for its Android app which makes it drastically easier to search the world wide web with a spotty internet connection. The update enable the Google app to provide users whose search fail midway due to a spotty network to get their results as soon as a connection is available, meaning they can resume the search when the connection is available once again with just a single click/tap.

With the new update, the search results get saved as soon as they are retrieved, even in the scenarios when the user loses the connection instantly after pressing the search button or goes into an airplane mode.

For people concerned if the update will lead to increasing data charges and decreasing battery life, don’t worry at all. According to Sharad, Product Manager, Google, the feature will most definitely not be draining out the user’s battery as by getting streamlined search results pages, Google had made sure that the feature has minimal impacts on the user’s data usage.

6) India’s Tata To Test Autonomous Cars On Indian Roads

Tata Elxsi, which is a design company part of the Tata group, has applied for permission from Bengaluru authorities to test an autonomous car on the roads of the city.

Tata Elxsi isn’t an autonomous car built from the scratch. In fact, the design firm has repurposed two sedans, including one manufactured by Tata Motors itself, and assembled and adjusted them with a range of sensors and cameras to make them into autonomous cars. The repurposed cars have already had a successful spin around a facility on the outskirts of Bengaluru city.

According to Tata Elxsi’s head of marketing Nitin Pai’s statement to the Business Standard, the company’s main objective is to come up with an autonomous car framework that combines sensors, cameras and communications between vehicles and infrastructure, which could then be made available to the automotive industry all around the world

7) Twitter Sells Fabric Mobile Developer Platform To Google

The week saw social-networking giant Twitter selling Fabric, a division it conceived in the year 2014 with an aim of enabling developers to create better mobile apps, to tech giant Google. Though the financials of the deal haven't been disclosed yet, the Fabric team and technology will be soon joining Google’s Developer Products Group to work with the Firebase team.

According to details unveiled so far, Fabric, Crashlytics, Answers, and all the other related products will continue to operate as normal — the only difference being who will be maintaining them with Twitter in the short-term and Google thereafter.

8) 3D-Printed Phone Attachment Could Help Identify TB And Ebola

A team of researchers have been successful in using mobile phone 'case' to detect cancer-related mutations in DNA for the first time. By making use of a microscope attached to a mobile phone it was possible for the molecular scientists to diagnose problems with tumours. The team of international biologists behind the discovery said that it involved "next-generation" DNA sequencing and called it a "new milestone for mobile-phone-based biomolecular analysis and diagnostics".

According to the research paper, the device can be used to genotype cancer patient biopsies directly in situ. The camera was used to analyse cells and tissues that had been removed from the human body and preserved for study. Tests were conducted in secured chambers in a lab.

9) You Can Now Animate Your VR Drawings Using Google’s New Tilt Brush Toolkit With Unity integration

The week saw tech giant Google doing some major changes in its open-source release of Tilt Brush Toolkit, which includes Python scripts and a Unity SDK for exporting Tilt Brush projects. By allowing the users to use Tilt Brush sketches in Unity itself with the same materials, shaders, and even the audio responses from the Tilt Brush app, the tech giant is specifically highlighting the Unity integration.

10) Amazon Patented A Highway Network That Controls Self-Driving Cars And Trucks

Amazon recently earned itself a patent for a highway network that manages self-driving experience and explains how can autonomous cars navigate reversible lanes. Since reversible lanes lead to a change in direction of traffic with an overhead signal, they often prove to be a potential disaster zone for self-driving cars that haven’t yet been programmed to understand those signals.

In the patent, Amazon highlights a highway network that can communicate with self-driving vehicles so they can adjust to the change in traffic flow, which is specifically very important for self-driving vehicles traveling across state lines onto new roads with unfamiliar traffic laws.

7 Open Source IoT Operating Systems

It was almost two decades ago that the open source movement started its journey in the tech world. Over the years, with the overwhelming success of projects like Linux, Ubuntu, MySQL, Apache, etc., the niche has grown into becoming a mainstream movement. Such has been its success that tech biggies like Apple, Microsoft, and IBM have also embraced it and have started using the open-source software development model.

Nowadays, companies like Samsung, Google, Huawei, and ARM etc. have also started embracing the open source model in the Internet of Things (IoT) space by exposing several of their projects, including both hardware and software, to the developer community and even inviting them into participating towards contributing and creating a world that is technologically robust and more reliable.

In the light of progress achieved in the open source niche, we at IndianWeb2 have listed 7 of the best operating systems for IoT devices that are open source and currently being put to use in a wide range of smart devices.

1) Contiki

Supported on hardware platforms such as TI CC2538, nRF52832, TI MSP430x, Atmel AVR, TI MSP430 and Atmel Atmega128rfa1, Contiki was created by Adam Dunkels 15 years ago in the year 2002. Released under a BSD license, the open source software now boosts of developers from all around the world. It supports a built-in Internet Protocol suite (TCP/IP stack) and can easily work on even constrained devices that have 30KB of ROM and 30KB of RAM. It also provides multitasking.

2) Huawei LiteOS

Supporting interconnection technologies such as LTE, NB-IoT, Wifi and 6LoWPAN, Huawei LiteOS as the name suggests is a product of China-based telecom biggie Huawei. Released under a ISC license in the year 2015, LiteOS is a 10KB real-time operating system (OS) which boosts of advanced features such as auto networking, zero configuration and auto discovery. It can be easily installed on Android devices, and can also relate to several other third-party devices. Kernel of LiteOS even supports multi-CPU architectures such as ARM, DSP, MIPS and x86.

3) Ubuntu Core 16

Compatible with Qualcomm Dragonboard, Samsung Artik, Intel Joule and Raspberry Pi2 and Pi3, Ubuntu Core 16 has been conceived and released by Canonical. Sometimes also referred to as Snappy because the OS gets delivered as a Linux application package known as snaps, Ubuntu core 16's base file is just 350MB. All the other files after installation are stored on the OS in the format of images.

4) Brillo

Supporting intercommunication technologies such as Wi-Fi, bluetooth and thread, Brillo by tech giant Google is an Android-based OS meant for embedded devices. It supports various architectures such as ARM, Intel and MIPS, and can easily run on even low-end devices which have at least 32MB of RAM and 128MB of ROM. Since it makes use of secure boot and signed over-the-air updates, Brillo is much more secure than others.

5) Zephyr

Supporting architectures such as ARM, x86, ARC, RISC-V and NIOS-II, Zephyr was launched in February last year as a collaborative project under the Linux Foundation. Now available under a Apache 2.0 license, Zephyr is a real-time OS which can even function on a device with 8KB memory. The OS is completely secure from any compile time attacks as it has no loadable kernel modules. The kernel in Zephyr OS has been statically compiled into a single binary executable file. The biggest USP of Zephyr OS is its interconnectivity technology, which includes bluetooth, bluetooth LE, Wi-Fi, 6LoWPAN, CoPA and NFC.

6) RIOT

Supporting architectures such as MSP430, ARM7, Cortex-M0, M3 and M4, and x86, RIOT is an Internet of Things OS with some real-time capabilities. The OS, which is developed by a consortium of universities in Germany and France, is based on microkernel architecture and functions on 8-32bit microcontrollers. The OS boosts of multi-threading and the entire IoT network stack including 802.15.4 Zigbee, 6LoWPAN, ICMP6, Ipv6, RPL and CoAP. It can even run on low-end devices with a minimum of 1.5KB of RAM and 5KB of ROM.

7) Apache Mynewt

Supporting boards such as Arduino Zero and Zero Pro; Arduino M0 Pro with ATSAMR21G18a Cortex M0; Arduino 101 (Bluetooth controller only) and Arduino Primo (Bluetooth controller and host), Apache Mynewt is a real-time IoT OS. Released under the under the Apache License 2.0, the OS can effectively function on low-end devices with a minimum of 8KB of RAM and 64 KB of ROM. Apache Mynewt's Kernel is just 6KB but easily supports multi-stage software watchdog, priority-based scheduling, preemptive multithreading and memory heap and memory pool allocation. Currently, the OS only supports Bluetooth low energy, but Bluetooth 5, Wi-Fi and Thread are in the pipeline.

Lack of Skilled Manpower Could Hurt Blockchain, AI, IoT Growth in 2017

The year 2016 was a good year for emergent technologies like Blockchains, AI, internet of things (IoT). And now, according to IT industry analyst firm CompTIA, the year 2017 is only going to be better.

Well, if you thought it is all going to be good in the tech world, here's a catch. While CompTIA in its IT Industry Outlook 2017 does say that the emergent technologies are going to have a good run in coming years, it also mentions that these technologies will be facing a strong opposition from some of the most oldest and pervasive problems of the industry: less inclination towards security issues, lack of qualified people, and whether or not they represent solutions still looking out for a good problem.

According to CompTIA, the emergent technologies of the coming years will include software-defined components, which are the enablers of "hyperconverged infrastructure", blockchain technology, and machine learning/artificial intelligence. The firm's IT Industry Outlook 2017 also mentions that as with the cloud environments most of these emergent technologies will grow in, they're "primarily focused on the back end, and [we] will see initial adoption at the enterprise level before moving downstream into the SMB space."

One of the most difficult problems would be funding out where all these could efficiently be used. Bitcoin, which was blockchain's first and original brand application, has now emerged out to be only one of the various uses of the innovative tech, with tamper-proof databases and automated contracts also figuring out on the same list. Currently, blockchain is a hot deal in the tech market with technology biggies like Microsoft and IBM making use of it for various purposes. When we talk about small businesses, the tech is being mostly used by small tech companies in things that they already know about (eg: databases), and not necessarily on fully new applications.

While most of us believe that machine learning and AI have already achieved a lot and are currently being used in various different kinds of applications, but CompTIA believes it has potential to offer much more. According to it, machine learning and AI "will provide a new layer for technology interaction." This means, AI still has the potential to massively enhance the utility of any given tech.

Internet of Things, which has been hailed as a game-changing tech since its inception, also earned itself a mention in CompTIA's IT Industry Outlook 2017, but unfortunately it came along with a lot of caveats. According to the analysis, "The complexity of IoT and the regulations and protocols required for integration will drive a long adoption cycle." When this is combined with security/privacy threats, a patchwork of competing standards, and a lack of good expertise--it gives us all the reasons that why IoT has always been a game changer on paper but we haven't seen anything dramatically game-changing happening in real life.

Another big hurdle being faced by emergent technologies is the lack of good expertise. The CompTIA analysis finds out that all the emergent technologies have a hard time in finding the right people with the right skills. "Finding workers with expertise in emerging tech fields" acquired the top place on the firm's report on list of "factors contributing to a more challenging hiring landscape in 2017." The second and third rank were acquired by "insufficient pool of talent in locale" and "competing with other tech firms."

CompTIA's report also has a list on "emerging job titles to watch for" in the coming years which has numerous AI and data-centric specializations: data visualizers, AI/machine learning architect, chief data officer, and data architect. The report also mentions about how the "cloud services engineer" title could be expanded to include ML/AI, as cloud platforms have a lot more to offer. While grasping machine learning is getting much easier because if such services, but they still need knowledgeable developers to extract most out of them.

CompTIA's list also reflects the firm's strong belief that many of the technologies that have already hit prominence still suffer from lack of manpower. For instance, Data visualization is not something new, but the way in which data is being accumulated and analyzed in the company-- and the whole army of new tools available -- has led to analytics gaining a whole new importance and an urgent requirement for data visualization experts.

Security is another major skill set that finds a mention on CompTIA's list. "Information assurance analyst/security auditor", "computer security incident responder," and "risk management specialist" all are visible on CompTIA's list, showing that the firm believes that security for enterprises and small businesses will be getting worse before it sets on the path to get better.

The report also mentions though as bad as "headline-making breaches" of the past few years have been, big enterprises have still been successful in shrugging of their costs, and based on it analysis, the firm believes any event that "creates a tipping point will need to have greater consequences before there is a broad shift in transforming security technology, processes, and education."

According to CompTIA, one of the many reasons that tech biggies go on playing a catchup game on technology moves when it comes to security, is the disproportionate distribution and the diverse affects that security breaches can cause. For instance, the growth of healthcare firms has crippled heavily by attacks because of the heavy payoffs involved.

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