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Google‘s Indian Payment App Google Tez Becomes Google Pay

Google, India, News, Product, Product Management, Tech News / By
GooglePay
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Google launched its payment app Google Tez, last September, and after almost a year, it has earned as many as 22 million monthly active users, having done over 750 million transactions. On Tuesday, Google has announced the re-branding of Google Tez as Google Pay, at its annual event, Google for India.

Noticeably, the Google-created app operates on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and in a year, there have been the transactions of an annual average of 2 lakh crore. The rebranding of the app has also got many new features added to it. Google has announced its partnership with the private banks in India, including ICICI, Kotak Mahendra, HDFC, etc. that will offer an easy loan through Google Pay app. The users will be able to get their loan sanctioned in a few clicks, with a minimal paperwork. After all the verification work, the bank will transfer the money into the user’s account instantly and safely.

After the success of Google Pay in India, various other countries have also shown their interest in the Google’s payment app and contacted Google to work with them for their payment app development. Google has also announced that the app will be working globally soon, and will also be available for the online merchants like RedBus, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, GoIbibo, Freshmenu, etc.

Caesar Sengupta, the manager at Google Pay, said at the event that the app is created for India, so the features can be modified for other countries. Also, with the rebranding, some global features will be added to the Indian Google Pay app. He also stated that in future Google Pay is also going to help more than 1.2 million local businesses in India.

Citation 500 : Harman Kardon’s $700 Google Assistant Speaker

Google, News, Product, Tech News / By
Harman Kardon Citation-500
Image Source: pocket-lint.com

Harman Kardon is a leading speaker producer company that is known for its unmatched audio quality. The company is about to launch its new range of speaker Citation 500 that is going to be a high-end Google Assistant speaker.

Unlike, the other Harmon Kardon speakers, the Citation 500 is higher in price, i.e. about $700. The company has rendered the speaker in two shades, grey and black, and is covered with the similar coloured woollen fabric. The speaker boasts 200W of stereo audio having high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz support and is smart enough to receive your commands, responding in the same way. But, with the LCD screen and the playback control buttons, available on the top of the speaker, you can adjust the volume, skip the songs or select a particular song manually without shouting at it.

The Citation 500 is a high-end Google Assistant speaker that you get at a mid-range price. It is like a smart-home hub that is feature-rich and goes with your decor.

Harmon Kardon is planning to unveil the smart speaker at the IFA 2018, in Berlin, later this week. And, will start taking preorders, by the end of the September, from its customers, in Europe only. The company has not commented on when the speakers will be available in other regions of the world.

Qualcomm Announces new Flagship Chip featuring 5G connectivity

Product, Tech News / By
Qualcomm Snapdragon
Image Source: mybroadband.co

The world’s largest semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm has announced its new flagship processor, built on the 7-nanometer mode process. Noticeably, the Apple’s A12 processor and Huawei’s Kirin 980 processor are also built on the same technology. And now Qualcomm is also about to produce its own high-performance processor.

The processor is considered to be the Snapdragon 855, and Qualcomm has claimed that the processor will provide better speed, improved battery backup, and performance. The flagship chip is likely to be the first mobile platform that will be 5G-capable and will be implemented in the premium flagship smartphones when used with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X50. Although Snapdragon X50 5G modem is not new to the technical world, it will be used in a smartphone for the very first time. And, according to Qualcomm, it has already begun coupling the processor with OEMs developing next-generation consumer devices.

The President of Qualcomm Incorporated stated, “We are very pleased to be working with OEMs, operators, infrastructure vendors, and standards bodies across the world, and are on track to help launch the first 5G mobile hotspots by the end of 2018, and smartphones using our next-generation mobile platform in the first half of 2019.”

Qualcomm is already considered as a leader in 3G and 4G mobile technologies. Now this time it is coming with the 5G technology with its faster, smaller and power efficient Snapdragon 855 to be used with high-end smartphones.

Huawei & Other Chinese Companies Banned from Australia’s 5G network

News, Tech News / By
Huawei
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The national security is a critical issue and the Australian government has given this reason to ban the world’s third largest smartphone company Huawei from its 5G network project. The news of banning Huawei started hitting the headlines in the month of June this year, and finally, on the last Thursday, it was officially imposed on Huawei.

Noticeably, as a result of the friction between the US and China, U.S. had also banned Huawei in its lucrative market over national security concern. Now this time, Australian intelligence agencies have also raised the same matter by saying that Beijing can force the Chinese companies to share sensitive data with them.

According to the reports, Australia’s acting Home Affairs Minister Scott Morrison said that the Government’s priority would “always be the safety and security of Australians”. Another government official stated, “Huawei owns political committees and they have to serve the Chinese intelligence agencies, under the Communist law if requested”.

Huawei Australia has denied all the connection with the political parties and has given an assurance that all the shares of Huawei are owned by its employees and the Chinese Government has nothing to do with its functioning. It also came on to twitter saying, ”This is an extremely disappointing result for consumers. Huawei is a world leader in 5G. Has safely & securely delivered wireless technology in Aust for close to 15 yrs”.

The ban on Huawei is only for Australian 5G network. It is already supplying equipment for the 4g network in Australia and will continue to do so. Along with Huawei, some other Chinese companies are also banned from the Australian 5G network, including ZTE.

Apple Pulls Out 25000 Illegal Apps From China’s App Store

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App Store
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The news of Google re-entering into China has already created many controversies, even within the company resulting in a mass protest by its employees. Now again Apple, an American company is facing some regularity issues in China.

Noticeably, the State media broadcaster CCTV had recently criticised Apple for allowing many illegal apps on the App Store. The media has been giving a negative feedback to Apple for its no control over such apps. Apple has removed over 25000 apps from its App Store and allegedly, 4000 of them, were based on gambling. With the removal of these illegal apps, Apple has also removed those developers that distribute them.

Gambling is not allowed in China and most of these apps had used Gambling as a keyword. China media had criticised Apple for not doing enough to stop this kind of illegal activities. Apple has even made guidelines for uploading Apps on to the App store and has restricted these type of apps.

“Gambling apps are illegal and not allowed on the App Store in China,” Apple said in an emailed statement sent to Bloomberg on Monday. “We have already removed many apps and developers for trying to distribute illegal gambling apps on our App Store, and we are vigilant in our efforts to find these and stop them from being on the App Store.”

It is a tough task for an American company to maintain a business in world’s largest economy and Apple is trying hard to fall in line with Chinese authorities. Last year Apple pulled out nearly 700 VPN apps from its App Store. Apple has been entangled in conflicts with China in the past. Also, the growing friction between Washington, D.C. and Beijing is also causing the American companies in China to follow all the rules carefully to keep China on their side.

Mozilla & Chrome Supports the Latest Transport Layer Security 1.3

Google, News, Tech News / By
firecrome
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It has been more than eight years, when the last version of TLS, i.e. TLS 1.2, was updated. TLS stands for Transport Layer Protocol and, is responsible for secure communication between web browser and the server. It took a long time for Internet Engineering Task Force to develop this new encryption protocol update, TLS 1.3. Late but nevertheless, it has come with high-security features and enhanced performance. It uses symmetric cryptography with faster the encrypted connections. Although it is a successor of TLS 1.2, it is loaded with more features.

1) Full Handshake Signature: The TLS 1.2 included a multi-steps communication thread added with renegotiations, that was completed in an average of 300ms. In the latest updated TLS 1.3, the data transmitted by the client to the server comprises the supported cypher, guesses key agreement protocol, key share and sent in one go, at which the server responds by negotiating the security settings, saving the number of steps in the communication thread making the communication faster.

2) Downgrade protection: The earlier version of TLS failed in the case of security as it came to be vulnerable to the downgrade attacks. A downgrade attack includes a middle-person in the client-server communication, who uses the weakest cypher supported by both parties to hack the data. In the TLS 1.3, the server automatically provides a key in the handshake process, the client or the middle-person has no authority to use any older forms of encryption.

Along with the speed and enhanced security features added to the TLS 1.3, it has eliminated a few features that were included in the TLS 1.2, like Static RSA handshake, Compression, Renegotiation, etc. Also, it has been already updated to a few famous browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Even Facebook has already been using it for quite a sometime now.

Security is a must for the data sharing online. The TLS 1.3 claims to give the highest security for the client-server communication, avoiding any kind of vulnerability to the various exploits like SLOTH, Lucky 13, POODLE, CRIME, etc. The TLS 1.3 has been a bit late but is going to last more than 20 years due to its high-security measures and speed.