In an investor conference call following Apple’s release of fiscal quarter three earnings on Thursday, Cook said some four million people are running beta software on their iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV devices. “In June, we hosted an extremely successful developers conference that previewed many major advances coming this fall to our four operating systems: iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS,” Cook said. “Developer and customer reaction has been very positive and we have over four million users participating in our new OS beta programs.” The number of beta program participants is not something that Apple typically releases, so…
Author: Loknath Das
Days after Facebook’s stock suffered the largest drop in Wall Street history, a shareholder sued the company, accusing the social media network of making misleading statements about its user numbers and operations. The plaintiff, James Kacouris, filed the lawsuit Friday seeking class-action status and to recover damages. Kacouris alleged that Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, violated federal securities laws by misleading shareholders about the company’s number of active users and the slowing growth of its revenue. Kacouris also named Facebook chief financial officer David Wehner in the lawsuit, filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Facebook said in…
Although WhatsApp recently limited forwards on the app, Ministry of Electronic and IT Secretary Ajay Kumar Sawhney on Monday noted that this alone would not be enough to tackle the growing problem of circulation of fake or speculative news. “It (WhatsApp) has become a publishing medium, so there should be rules made for it, as publishing is from one to many. Some steps have been taken, some more measures are all also needed,” Sawhney told reporters. Meanwhile, cyber expert Pawan Duggal said that although WhatsApp’s move is welcome, it would not have a substantial impact. “WhatsApp has taken a great step, but it would…
In line with its efforts to curb abuse and harassment of users on its platform, Twitter has now selected two research projects that aim to develop metrics to measure the “health” of public conversation. “An update! We’ve selected 2 partners from 230 idea submissions. Our first goal is working to measure the ‘health’ of public conversation, and that measurement be open and defined by third parties (not by us),” Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in a tweet on Monday. Earlier this year, the microblogging site said it would work to increase the collective health, openness, and civility of the dialogue on its service. As…
Sony Corp. on Tuesday reported a record first-quarter operating profit on the back of strong sales of game software, giving support to the new management’s strategy of focusing on stable sources of revenue. The electronics firm posted profit of ¥195.0 billion for April-June, up 23.7 percent from ¥157.6 billion a year prior. With the previous year’s one-time gain of ¥36.8 billion excluded, Sony logged even sharper first-quarter growth of 61 percent. That gain came from the sale of Sony’s camera module unit and the receipt of insurance payouts for earthquake damage. When earnings in the year that ended March 31…
The fifth edition of Vampire: The Masquerade, the classic tabletop role-playing game first released in 1992, is set to launch later this week. In light of several public controversies surrounding the game’s development, publisher White Wolf has elected to create a revised version of the core rulebook. Vampire will now feature a new foreward that doubles as an explicit content warning, as well as a detailed appendix full of strategies for players dealing with mature themes at the table. The change comes just days before the physical product is due to go on sale at the nation’s largest tabletop gaming convention, Gen Con…
One of my all-time favorite games is Mother 3. Its combat represents the pinnacle of the franchise; the characters are wonderful; its story is engaging, emotional and tragic. But I don’t think I’ll actually ever go back to finishing that story, because I can’t for the life of me remember what’s going on. A crashed computer and a mountain of schoolwork meant I lost my Mother 3 save file, and the fear of starting over made me spend months avoiding the game entirely. Eventually, a friend convinced me to return to it … at which point I couldn’t remember where I was in the…
Industrial products maker Fortive Corp said on Tuesday that it would buy software maker Accruent from private equity firm Genstar Capital for about US$2 billion in cash. Accruent’s software is used by more than 10,000 customers to manage real estate, facilities and assets and the company is expected to generate revenue of about US$270 million in 2018, Fortive said in a statement. The Accruent deal will help complement strengths in its Fluke Digital Systems unit and its recent acquisition of construction software company Gordian to create a technology portfolio consisting of connected devices, software enabled workflow and data analytics, Fortive…
India is known for its rich cultural, religious, and linguistic diversity but this often plays a role in hampering communications throughout the country — a problem that can be easily resolved using the cutting-edge technology that we see around us today. Taking this idea forward, the Indian government has launched e-Aksharayan — a desktop software for converting any scanned or printed Indian language documents into fully editable text. Screenshots Of What Appears To Be e-Aksharayan Software At Work (source-Wikipedia) The application, which is available in seven Indian languages, was launched yesterday by Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). At the…
Facing an intense public scrutiny over data leaks amid privacy concerns, Facebook has now called for the entire tech industry to come and protect people’s data. According to David Baser, Director of Product Management at Facebook, nearly every day, news comes out from a different company about personal data that got into the wrong hands. “Even if we’re all taking steps to shore up our privacy protections, we won’t find the answers in a silo. Companies are connected and our technology ecosystem can’t be reversed. “So we need to work together on standards and best practices to make data portability a reality…