great relief for whatsapp users in india

Users of WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and other apps won't have to shell out any extra charges as the telecom regulator has decided against a proposal of carriers to make companies that offer these popular services share part of their revenue with them or the government. 

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has also shelved plans to initiate a consultation process as it feels that operators are able to offset their losses through growth in data revenue, people familiar with the matter told ET. The industry had estimated a minimum annual loss of Rs 5,000 crore due to subscribers opting for free messenger services and voice over internet calls. "One-third of the incremental revenue of the telecom industry is coming from data services itself. As far as the voice services are concerned, there is an upswing in the realisation rates," one of the Trai officials told ET, explaining the rationale for not intervening for now. 

"There is no proposal for a consultation paper (on regulating companies offering free messaging and calling services)," he added. 

Indian mobile phone service providers, that have invested billions of dollars in creating networks, want over-the-top-players (OTTPs) to be regulated so that both parties operate on a level playing field. OTTPs are all apps that users download onto their mobile devices. Telcos have a problem with those that provide free messaging and voice calls over the internet such as WhatsApp, Viber and Skype. Many subscribers use these apps rather than their telecom operator's normal voice call and SMS services, eating into a carrier's revenue. 

Operators want the OTTPs — which use their telecom networks — to pay all the fees that carriers pay to the government, which in turn will force the app makers to charge for what is currently free, bringing them on par with telcos. 

OTT players, however, say that any move to regulate and seek payment — either to the government or to the carriers — is against the concept of free internet or "net neutrality". 

A top executive at an app maker said that if OTTPs "were forced to pay, in all probability the cost would be passed on to the users." Trai recently held a seminar, bringing several OTT players faceto-face with operators, setting off speculation that this was a precursor to regulating the app space in India. 

"We do understand that there is some (revenue) erosion there. For instance, our data confirms that the number of SMSes per person per month have fallen from 27 two years ago to about 17," a second senior official said. 

However, he said that SMS continues to be a minuscule part of an operator's overall revenue. For example, SMS and value-added services contributed 5.5% of Bharti Airtel's mobile revenue, down from 8.3% a year earlier. Data revenue, on the other hand, grew to 12.4% from 8.2%. "Riding for free on our network puts a certain amount of strain on our network. That has to be admitted," said Rajat Mukerjee, chief corporate Affairs Officer at Idea Cellular, India's No. 3 carrier. 

"With that background, this particular discussion needs to be fair and frank, from the fair and frank, from the standpoint of providing equal competition." 

In a recent presentation to Trai, an Indian telecom major estimated that the industry loses close to Rs 5,000 crore in revenue annually due to the free voice and SMS services offered by OTT players. Over the past four quarters, the industry has lost close to 42% of SMS revenue and 19% of voice revenue to OTTPs. Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India, the GSM industry body, told ET that the loss for telcos could "balloon five times, or to some Rs 24,000 crore, in the next three years if OTTPs aren't brought under regulation." 

Viber's founder and chief executive officer Talmon Marco said that any demand for payment on OTTPs would amount to censorship. 

apple ipad keyboard ????????????????

IBM wants to create better touchscreen apps so it can sell more Big Data analytics software, and it turned to Apple to get some iPad tablet love. Nice. I get that -- but plenty of business users need to type, too, in more than 140-character blips. If Microsoft can make a decent keyboard cover, you would think Apple could, right? Is Apple willing to address the most obvious weakness of the iPad?

 keep wondering when Apple is going to hear the alarm and respond to the real iPad keyboard wakeup call. Apple can point to touch-based apps all it wants -- even going so far as to partner with IBM to help the company deliver better enterprise mobile apps -- but the fact remains: Some people just want to type on their damn iPad, and Apple's touchscreen solutions suck.

I also keep hoping that Apple will turn its design acumen and considerable tech and manufacturing resources toward building a real, physical keyboard specifically for use with iPads. It could be a case or it could be a cover like the one that Microsoft manufactures for its Surface Pro 3.

It needs to be thin, light, and integrated. The current Bluetooth keyboard that you can pair with an iPad? The keys are fantastic, of course, but it's clunky and doesn't really connect seamlessly to the iPad in any physical way, much less make sense for travel.

A real physical keyboard is the design challenge that Apple needs to throw a bit of time and effort at -- and just complete the job.

Why Not 3rd-Party Keyboards?

The world is littered with dozens of keyboard/case/cover solutions for the iPad, manufactured by third-parties. Some of these are good, many have flaws, and most don't have a particularly great balance of quality and cost. Which one should a consumer buy?

There are so many different choices, some with cramped and mushy keys, some that force your iPad into a clunky laptop form factor, and some that just cost too much. A consumer in this space has choices -- but really, I think a good many consumers end up getting that deer-in-the-headlights look of frozen confusion. So they don't act at all.

Enter Schools

I'm wondering if Apple is paying attention to what's going on in schools these days. While it has sold 13 million iPads to education customers globally -- and while the iPad is the tablet of choice in 85 percent of school districts in the United States, at least a handful of schools seem to be rethinking their iPad investments.

In fact, some schools are selling their iPads and ditching their tablet programs in favor of Chromebooks, according to a reasonably researched piece in The Atlantic.

Chromebooks are essentially very low-cost laptops that run only when connected to the Internet, with access to files and apps from the cloud.

Why the switch? Mostly, it seems, because sometimes students have to work -- to write, to type. You can build all the pretty Keynote presentations you want, and swipe through narrated content about lemurs in Madagascar, but kids ultimately are going to need to write essays and reports -- and yes, blog. Even for super adaptable kids, typing on a real physical keyboard is easier and more efficient.

IBM's latest neurosynaptic processor

BM has announced the latest version of its neurosynaptic processor -- that is, a processor whose workings are inspired by the human brain.

Built on Samsung's 28nm process technology, it has 5.4 billion transistors and an on-chip network of 4,096 neurosynaptic cores.

IBM claims it is the first neurosynaptic chip to achieve 1 million programmable neurons, 256 million programmable synapses, and 46 billion synaptic operations per second.

The size of a postage stamp, the processor consumes just 70mW of power during real-time operations -- about as much as required by a hearing-aid battery, according to IBM.

ntel's Broadwell: What Happens When the MacBook Air Is Thinner Than the iPad Air?

Apple will resist putting touch on a MacBook Air because it wants customers to buy both a laptop and an iPad, but Microsoft doesn't have those concerns. The Broadwell version of Surface running Windows 9 could become both a MacBook Air and an iPad killer. I don't think customers will buy both a light laptop and a tablet if presented with an alternative that does an excellent job replacing both.he prototype tablet Intel is showcasing with the launch -- which runs full OSes like Windows and OS X -- is actually both thinner and lighter than an iPad Air, which creates an interesting problem for the slowing tablet market. What if you could get full Windows and OS X in a form factor thinner and lighter than an iPad Air?

Nokia 130 lasts more than a month, costs 19 euros

Nineteen euros won't buy you much in this day and age, but it will buy you a no-frills Nokia phone. The Nokia 130 is an old-school mobile phone at an old-school price for developing markets, with basic smartphone features like music and video in a phone that will last over a month before it needs juicing up.

This new phone is one of the first to be announced since Microsoft bought the phone-manufacturing part of Finnish company Nokia -- and, per Microsoft's plans to ditch the brand, perhaps one of the last phones to have Nokia written on it. Before the brand disappears, however, Microsoft will use the Nokia name as a trojan horse to build up Windows Phone in regions where the smartphone market is still in its relative infancy. Although the 130 isn't a Windows Phone, it is an opportunity for Microsoft to build on Nokia's popularity to corner more of the budget end of the market in these regions.

Microsoft says the Nokia 130 will go on sale in selected countries, including China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Vietnam. Exact release dates are yet to be confirmed, but it will be "this quarter" -- so between now and September. Both the single and dual-SIM models will cost the equivalent of 19 euros (about £15, $25, or AU$28) when bought unlocked and SIM-free. Nokia traditionally gives its prices in euros, and it looks like Microsoft is continuing that policy for the moment.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) apparently wants to try wringing money out of messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, Skype and WeChat on behalf of itself and mobile service providers who feel that they have the right to be compensated for revenues lost when people use such apps instead of making phone calls and sending SMS messages.

This is the same sort of logic that leads certain countries and municipalities to impose taxes on home solar panels because local coal-fired power plants are losing business.

One issue here is that service providers are banding together to try to extract more money than they already get because they sense an easy target. Another is that they're trying to use a neutral government agency to "regulate" their own competition. More importantly, the ideal of network neutrality is now under threat, because certain services might be burdened with some sort of tax or fee just for the privilege of being able to conduct business as usual.

Trai's plans are similar to recent moves by Internet service providers in the USA to lobby for the ability to set up Internet "fast lanes" and charge those companies able (if not willing) to pay more for priority (read: non-degraded) consumer experiences. Web startups and smaller companies would have a tough time surviving if they had to pay ISPs in order for consumers to be able to use them - regardless of the fact that ISPs are already being paid fees by users who should be able to use their bandwidth quotas in any way they like.

There's no question that handing service providers the ability to throttle certain services is bad for everyone involved - Internet users, entrepreneurs, and the tech economy as a whole. We need to be even more concerned that these service providers are trying to put themselves in a position of power over their competitors. Yes, long-distance telephony revenue has fallen thanks to VoIP, and people send fewer SMS messages because free Web messengers are available. So what? Business landscapes change all the time.

Everyone needs to adapt, not cling to the past. Cellular operators are not expected to compensate landline phone companies for the reduced usage of public pay-phones. Besides, the operators don't provide 2G/ 3G connectivity for free; there are monthly charges as well as data usage charges, and they aren't particularly fast, reliable or cheap.

Russian Cybergang Stockpiles 1.2B Unique Stolen Credentials

A Russian cybercriminal gang so far has stolen 4.5 billion credentials, of which 1.2 billion appear to be unique, Hold Security announced Tuesday.

The credentials belong to more than 500 million email addresses.

Two reports, also released Tuesday, may help explain why the cybergang was so successful.

About 92 percent of the 800 top consumer websites evaluated, and 96 percent of the top 50 United States federal government agencies checked, failed the Online Trust Alliance's (OTA) 2014 Email Integrity Audit.

Also, Trustwave cracked about 92 percent of 637,000 stored passwords collected during penetration tests in 2013 and 2014, according to its Global Security Report 2014.