A strong plea was today made in the Lok Sabha for ensuring net neutrality with demands that the recent consultation paper brought out by TRAI should be scrapped and attempts by certain telecom and internet service providers be scuttled.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, M B Rajesh (CPI-M) alleged that the consultation paper brought out by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India was “blatantly supporting” assault on net neutrality by telecom and internet service providers.

He said some telecom and internet providers were trying to form a cartel to kill net neutrality and such attempts should be scuttled.

Concerns over net neutrality could be gauged from the fact that the TRAI has got a million emails since it has come out with the consultation paper, he said, adding MPs are also getting thousands of emails in the matter.

Noting that the Competition Commission of India was going into the whole issue, he said it was time government make its stand clear and declare net as a “public utility”.

Several opposition members wanted to have their say on the issue. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said a notice should be given for a half-an-hour discussion and she would allow it.

PTI

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Karbonn expands its budget phone portfolio in India with the all new Alfa A120 priced at Rs 4,590. The smartphone is available both in retail and online stores.
Sporting a 4.5-Inch FWVGA IPS display, the Alfa A120 comes powered by a 1.3GHz dual processor. It includes 512MB RAM. On the storage front, it gets 4GB onboard space that can be expanded further up to 32GB via a microSD card slot.
The smartphone runs Android KitKat 4.4.2. The device supports multi-gesture and 22 Indian languages. The device also gets a 5MP rear snapper with LED flash and also a VGA front-facing camera. The connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.
A 3000mAh battery completes the package, promising up to 240 hours of standby time and 18 hours of talk time. The dual-SIM smartphone sports a 5 megapixel rear snapper and a VGA front camera.
Last month, Karbonn entered the mobile accessories business and said its revenues from this vertical may touch Rs 100 crore by March, 2016. The move is aimed at offering consumers the choice of technologically superior mobile auxiliaries that are affordable, Karbonn Executive Director Shashin Devsare had said in a statement.

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A new technology that can increase the bandwidth of WiFi systems by 10 times, using LED lights to transmit information, has been developed.

The technology could be integrated with existing WiFi systems to reduce bandwidth problems in crowded locations, such as airport terminals or coffee shops, and in homes where several people have multiple WiFi devices.

Experts say that recent advances in LED technology have made it possible to modulate the LED light more rapidly, opening the possibility of using light for wireless
transmission in a “free space” optical communication system.

“In addition to improving the experience for users, the two big advantages of this system are that it uses inexpensive components, and it integrates with existing WiFi systems,” said Thinh Nguyen, an Oregon State University associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Nguyen worked with Alan Wang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, to build the first prototype.

The prototype, called WiFO, uses LEDs that are beyond the visual spectrum for humans and creates an invisible cone of light about one meter square in which the data can be received.

To address the issue of a small area of usability, the researchers created a hybrid system that can switch between several LED transmitters installed on a ceiling, and the existing WiFi system.

“I believe the WiFO system could be easily transformed into a marketable product, and we are currently looking for a company that is interested in further developing and licensing the technology,” Nguyen said.

The system can potentially send data at up to 100 megabits per second.

Although some current WiFi systems have similar bandwidth, it has to be divided by the number of devices, so each user might be receiving just 5 to 10 megabits per second, whereas the hybrid system could deliver 50-100 megabits to each user, researchers said.

In a home where telephones, tablets, computers, gaming systems, and televisions may all be connected to the internet, increased bandwidth would eliminate problems like video streaming that stalls and buffers.

The receivers are small photodiodes that cost less than a dollar each and could be connected through a USB port for current systems, or incorporated into the next generation of laptops, tablets, and smartphones.

PTI

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Considering the increasingly social online world we are living in, there are moments when we update statuses or tweets or pictures which may seem fun at the time, but in retrospect can be embarrassing. Some posts can even cost you your jobs. Like it happened with the developer of Clear, an app that helps you delete those cringe-inducing statuses from your social networks.

Clear basically connects with your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts and analyses your history so far. It will flag certain posts which the app thinks has inappropriate content. To separate out these posts from the harmless ones, Clear uses a combination of algorithms and IBM supercomputer Watson to filter results.

App developer of Clear, Ethan Czahor, made this app after he lost a job because of his tweets. Czahor who joined as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for American politician Jeb Bush’s campaign, had to resign from his post after a series of tweets from last couple of years were unearthed. In his defence, Czahor says that he was part of an improv comedy group back in the day and the tweets were meant to be joke material, which was taken out of context.

Czahor developed Clear, which identifies certain keywords and also zeros in on posts that mentions groups of people, such as women, LGBT community, nationalities and so on.

Sentiment analysis is done by IBM’s Watson which highlights posts with negative language. You then get a score at the end depending on how many posts have been flagged. You can then proceed to delete those posts.

According to Czahor quoted in Mashable, the app is still a work in progress and the accuracy will increase over time. In the near future Clear will also support identification of offensive or embarrassing photos.

The app is currently in Beta and is available on the iOS platform. You will be put on a waiting list before the app will be available to be downloaded.

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Google announced major updates for its Android Wear software for smartwatches in a bid to increase usability and access to a range of information and apps right on one’s wrist.

The slew of new features include always-on modes to provide useful information such as locations on a map or lists — all available to the eye without turning on the screen — increased Wi-Fi function, extra usability gestures and the ability to draw emojis, according to the official Google Blog.

But that doesn’t mean drawing skills are necessarily a prerequisite. The new function allows users to respond to a message by drawing a picture — e.g., a smiley face or thumbs up — and Android Wear translates the picture into a corresponding emoji using a new handwriting recognition technology launched by Google last week.

All seven Android Wear watches will have access to the update over the next few weeks, starting with the soon-to-be-released LG Watch Urbane.

AFP

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ARM Holdings, the British chip designer favoured by Apple, beat expectations for first-quarter profit thanks to demand for the iPhone 6, and said its royalties would grow as its latest technology is used in more smartphones.

Shares in the Cambridge-based company rose to an all-time high of 1,233 pence after it posted a 24 percent rise in first-quarter pretax profit to 120.5 million pounds ($179.1 million).

That beat analysts’ expectations of 115 million pounds, according to a company-provided consensus. The shares were up 4.6 percent at 1,204 pence at 0717 GMT.

“In the second half of 2015 we expect to benefit from the increasing deployment of ARMv8-A technology, our latest generation of processors, in the newest smartphones and tablets,” Chief Financial Officer Tim Score said on Tuesday.

“These chips typically have a slightly higher royalty rate than the previous generation.”

Royalty revenue, collected a quarter in arrears from a record 3.8 billion chips shipped, rose 26 percent on an underlying basis, ARM said.

Analysts at Citi said they expected full-year consensus expectations for ARM’s revenue would edge up to reflect the encouraging performance in royalties.

ARM’s processor licensing revenue dipped 2 percent, missing market forecasts, but Score said he expected licensing revenue to rise 5-10 percent in the longer term.

Industry-wide revenues had slipped after a busy fourth quarter, in line with normal seasonal trends, which would be reflected in its second quarter, Score said. But overall second-quarter revenue would be in line with market expectations, which stand at $354.6 million.

Reuters

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Micro-blogging site Twitter has brought in some significant changes to its feature, ‘Direct Messages’. Users will now be able to receive Direct Messages from anyone, even if they don’t follow them. Users can head to the Security and privacy settings page to enable the new feature. However, users who do not wish to receive messages from unknown people can take suitable steps to stop them as well.

Twitter announced that the new changes have been rolled out to users worldwide starting April 20. Twitter’s Official Blog stated, “Direct Messages are the best way to take your public Twitter conversations private. Today, we’re changing how direct messaging works so that it’s even easier for you to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people, anywhere in the world.”

Apart from the ability to receive messages from anyone, Twitter has also updated its messaging rules, which means that users can now reply to anyone who sends them a Direct Message, regardless of whether or not that person follows them. Also, there is a new Direct Message button on profile pages for both Android and iOS. According to Twitter, these new changes can be useful for small businesses and celebrities as users will be able to communicate with them easily, without the need of a connection on Twitter.

Earlier this month, Twitter also revamped its homepage with a newer and fresher look in an attempt to woo users. The new homepage will mark a shift from the earlier simple log in page with a background photo.

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One of the biggest debates over net neutrality were how programs like Internet.org and Airtel Zero will destruct the startups community in India.

We’ve been hearing about how Net Neutrality is extremely important for small business owners, startups and entrepreneurs, who can simply launch their businesses online, advertise the products and sell them openly, without any discrimination on the basis of cost or speed. It is essential for innovation and creating job opportunities. Big companies like Google, Twitter and several others are born out of net neutrality. With increasing Internet penetration in India and given that we are becoming a breeding ground for startups and entrepreneurs, the lack of net neutrality could be worrisome.

Now, the team at savetheinternet.in, with its several members from startups, have drafted an open letter to PM Narendra Modi. The team is urging everyone who is a part of India’s startup ecosystem to sign the letter, asking TRAI to preserve the open, competitive internet by enforcing net neutrality.

The letter talks about how one of the Indian startups could go on to become the next Google or Amazon. It urges PM Modi to preserve the startup ecosystem and explains net neutrality will be in the public interest.

“We dream that an Indian startup may one day become the next Google, Facebook or Amazon. We know that you share our dream. We share another dream with you, the dream of a Digital India. We dream of this as Indians, and also as businesses that wish to serve a fast-growing Indian internet market. These dreams cannot be achieved without the open Internet,” the letter says.

The letter also talks about how startups will help fulfill his dream of Digital India. “Bringing them (people in India) online is not merely a question of infrastructure or affordability; there should first be demand for Internet access. No-one will begin using the Internet just because access is cheap or even free, if all the content and applications are in foreign languages and don’t solve their problems. The key to attaining a Digital India is to let Indian startups experiment and build the must-have apps for the next 100 crore Internet users,” it further adds.

The letter emphasizes on the effects of zero rating and its discrimination. “They (apps) are not free but bundled with a paid mobile connection, just as when a toothbrush is given “free” with toothpaste, it is really priced together as a bundle. They don’t even pretend to provide Internet access — the Internet has 100 crore websites and the freedom to start your own, while these offers only have a few dozen cherry-picked websites,” it reads.

The letter is also marked to Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Communications and Information Technology and Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry.

Read the complete letter below:

To

Shri Narendra Modi
Prime Minister of India

Copy to
Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
Minister of Communications and Information Technology

Copy to
Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman
Minister of State for Commerce and Industry

Dated: April 24, 2015

Subject: Protect the Open Internet in India

Dear Sir,

We are writing to you as founders and stakeholders of Indian technology startups.

Each of us set out on this entrepreneurial journey with a dream to create a world-leading technology company from India. We dream that an Indian startup may one day become the next Google, Facebook or Amazon. We know that you share our dream.

We share another dream with you, the dream of a Digital India. We dream of this as Indians, and also as businesses that wish to serve a fast-growing Indian internet market.

These dreams cannot be achieved without the open Internet.

Preserving the Startup Ecosystem
The Internet is a fountain of creativity because it is a single, global market where anyone can offer a product and be reachable by every user. This results in global competition and exchange of ideas, and drives innovation and progress.

If startups or online service providers had to first obtain a government license, or pay each Internet Service Provider in the world (there are tens of thousands of them), this global market, competition and innovation would disappear.

This is what we stand to lose if telecom operators are allowed to strike deals to favour some online services over their competitors. Under these deals, companies may pay the ISP to make their competitors’ websites inaccessible, slower or more expensive to access than their own.

These practices, if allowed, will exclude promising startups from the Internet and end our dream of seeing them flourish. The western companies that dominate the Indian internet ecosystem today will use their deep pockets to perpetuate their position. The few startups that can afford it will be forced to find growth in foreign markets before they can return to India with the funds to pay ISPs, while the rest shut shop.

This would be a catastrophic outcome for our startup ecosystem.

Building a Digital India

India has the fastest growing internet user base in the world, but over 100 crore Indians still don’t use the Internet.

Bringing them online is not merely a question of infrastructure or affordability; there should first be demand for Internet access. No-one will begin using the Internet just because access is cheap or even free, if all the content and applications are in foreign languages and don’t solve their problems.

These content and applications will not be created by the large western companies that dominate the Internet today, but by Indian startups like us. We can only do this if there is a level playing field, freedom to innovate, and yes, competition to drive us. Which of our apps solves these problems best is a decision for each user to make, and not for a corporate gatekeeper.

As consumer demand rises, and the profitable market for data will drive an expansion in infrastructure. Cellular operators claim, contradicting their own annual reports, that providing internet access is not profitable enough to expand infrastructure. The fact that they haven’t increased prices and continue to advertize their internet plans heavily show that these claims are untrue.

The key to attaining a Digital India is to let Indian startups experiment and build the must-have apps for the next 100 crore Internet users.

Zero Rating is Harmful Discrimination

Some telecom operators and large foreign companies try to use Digital India against the open Internet. They attempt to justify a form of discrimination called zero-rating by saying it allows them to offer “free internet for the poor”. We must point out that these offerings are neither “free”, “the internet” nor “for the poor”.

They are not free but bundled with a paid mobile connection, just as when a toothbrush is given “free” with toothpaste, it is really priced together as a bundle. They don’t even pretend to provide Internet access — the Internet has 100 crore websites and the freedom to start your own, while these offers only have a few dozen cherry-picked websites. Finally, these plans are not marketed to the poor or those who currently lack access, but only to existing internet users of competing operators.

Some argue that even with these flaws a few bundled websites are better than none. On the contrary, permitting these plans will cause serious harm — as a proprietary alternative to the public Internet, it will slow down Internet adoption and delay Digital India. It must be noted that websites of government departments, educational institutions, healthcare providers and others are not accessible in these plans. In addition, these offers will also cause a collapse of competition as crores of Indians will be locked into a few cherry-picked services, resulting in a decline in quality of service and progress.

There are other, equally economical ways to offer non-internet users a bundled data plan to get acquainted with the Internet, that does not take away their freedom.

Net Neutrality is in the Public Interest

Our desire for a level playing field on the Internet is shared overwhelmingly by consumers. Over the last two weeks over 10 lakh of India’s best-informed citizens have written to TRAI to ask it to uphold equality on the Internet.

Many foreign nations share these views as well. Several, most recently Brazil, have passed laws to ensure “network neutrality” or non-discrimination by ISPs; many more countries like the US and European Union are in the process of doing so.

The Way Forward

We sincerely wish that our government would also protect the open, competitive Internet in India. We request that network neutrality is enforced and all discriminatory practices by ISPs are forbidden — including zero-rating, throttling, blocking, paid prioritization, toll-gating and others. We also hope that the regressive proposal to license online services will be dropped.

We, the startups that are at the forefront of creating the next wave of online applications, request you to take action now. We need you to protect our nation’s innovation ecosystem.

Best regards,

(Signatures)

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Media Studies Group, a communication studies think-tank, has sought an extension of the deadline for comments on the Trai consultation paper on net neutrality.

The group is of the view that the April 24 cut-off is “unreasonable and should be extended.”

It also wants the telecom regulator to bring out the document in regional languages as well.

“The issue of net neutrality is complex in nature and masses need to be educated in simple and non-technical jargon so that a fair opinion can be generated on the functioning of the internet,” Media Studies Group said in a statement.

It added that English language has the potential of altering the fair access to the internet by a large number of users of Hindi and other regional languages.

Media Studies Group held a meeting yesterday on internet neutrality in light of Trai’s consultation paper on over-the-top (OTT) services.

The meeting dwelt on various technical, legal and social aspects of the Airtel Zero and internet.org initiative of Facebook.

he group has also decided to give a detailed representation to Trai on the issue of net neutrality with a holistic view seeking protection of fundamental principles and rights enshrined in the Constitution of India.

The principle of net neutrality calls for equal treatment to be accorded to all internet traffic, without discrimination or priority for any person, entity or company.

PTI

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Samsung has introduced two new tablets namely Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 and Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 for the US market, as of now. Both the tablets are similar in terms of design and specifications. Differences would include display size, battery capacity and a few others.

In terms of specifications, both the tablets – Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 and Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 – sport a 1024 x 768 PLS LCD display. The devices are powered by 1.2 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor paired with 1.5GB RAM. On the memory front, the device has 16GB/32GB variants and can be further expanded upto 128GB via microSD card.

Samsung’s tablets come equipped with a 5MP rear-facing camera along with a 2MP front facing camera. The devices will run on Android 5.0 Lollipop and supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0 and USB 2.0. The Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 measures 208.4 x 137.9 x 7.5mm and weighs 313g while the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 9.7 measures 242.5 x 166.8 x 7.5mm and weighs 449g.

The devices will be available for pre-order from major retailers and at Samsung.com. Galaxy Tab A will be in stores nationwide, including Best Buy, HH Gregg and Amazon starting on May 1. Consumers will have the choice between the 8.0-inch Galaxy Tab A at $229.99 (approx Rs 14,500) and the 9.7-inch version at $299.99 (approx Rs 18,800) – both offered in White, Smoky Titanium and Smoky Blue. Additionally, a 9.7-inch Galaxy Tab A version in Smoky Titanium will include an S-Pen for $349.99 (approx Rs 22,000) and will be available for sale starting May 17.

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Nokia, the company that once dominated the Indian phone market, had succumbed to the fierce competition from Samsung and Apple. While we thought the company has already turned to ashes, a new report now claims that Nokia is far from dead and planning to make a comeback in 2016.

Citing two sources related to the matter, Re/Code reveals that the company will join the mobile market as early as next year. It isn’t just mobile market, but Nokia reportedly also plans to foray into ‘ambitious technology product space’ including virtual reality.

Now, if you are wondering how is it possible since Nokia sealed the deal with Microsoft and sold its devices and services to the software giant. The report says that this move is driven by Nokia Technologies, which is the smallest of the three businesses that remain after the Microsoft deal. Nokia Technologies is known for licensing the company’s portfolio of over 10,000 patents.

“Unlike other patent houses that do little more than license intellectual property, Nokia Technologies has designed new products and licensed them to other companies. So far, these ambitions have been small in scale,” adds the report.

This division launched two products namely, Zlauncher program and the N1 Android tablet design that is being sold in China by another manufacturer using the Nokia brand name. It is believed that this tactic will be used by Nokia to bring other devices in the market too.

Richard Kerris, a former Nokia executive has told the news site that ‘Nokia is a company that is not going away’ and ‘people will be blown away if some of the stuff he saw comes to market’.

However, all this won’t come until late 2016, owing to some negotiations between Nokia and Microsoft. The Finnish company can sell smartphones under the Nokia brand only after December 2015.

“The company can’t license its brand for any smartphones until after Q3 2016. The N1 appears to take advantage of a loophole that allows for the Nokia brand on tablets,” points out ReadWrite.

Recently, Nokia was also rumoured to have agreed to acquire Alcatel-Lucent in a bid to take on Ericsson. The company is also considering to sell off Here Maps.

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Nvidia launched the high end Maxwell cards – the GTX 980 and the GTX 970 – last year. Towards the end of January, Nvidia also released the GTX 960, which was meant to provide the sweet spot as far as performance to price ratio went. The Asus Strix GTX 960 is a factory overclocked card which sports impressive specs. Let us how well it performs.

Build and Design: 8/10

Asus Strix GTX 960 has an exceptional build quality. The first thing that jumps out at you are the dual 75mm fans which have the owl-eye inspired design in the centre. The two fans are housed in a sturdy plastic shroud which is placed above the DirectCU II cooler. As we have seen with past Asus cards, the cooler tends to extend beyond the printed circuit board, length wise.

Four heat-pipes help to dissipate the heat from the GPU. You can see them protruding out at the base of the card. Another interesting aspect of the Strix GTX 960 is the presence of a GPU back-plate to protect the rear side of the PCB. This is generally seen on higher end cards. There is a 6-pin power connector on the right hand top corner along with a single SLI slot on the left hand side of the card.

Coming to the display ports, you have one DVI port, one HDMI port and three DisplayPorts.

Features: 7/10
Nvidia had introduced the Maxwell architecture with the lower end GTX 750Ti last year and that was quite an impressive card for its value proposition. Also it was a PCIe port powered card. With the GTX 980 and GTX 970 launched in September last year, we saw the high end Maxwell GPU being employed. Nvidia used the GM204 GPU with these two cards. But with the GTX 960 Nvidia is using the newer GM206 GPU.

Made on the 28nm manufacturing process, the GM206 GPU has around 2.9 billion transistors. There are two fully enabled Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC) each with four SMM’s. Since each SMM has around 128 CUDA cores, you get a total of 1024 CUDA cores on the GM206 GPU. There are 32 raster operators (ROPs) and 64 texture mapping units (TMUs).

The GTX 960 is supposed to have a base clock of 1127MHz and a boost clock of 1178MHz. But since the Strix GTX 960 is a factory overclocked card, we get a base clock speed of 1291MHz and boost clock speed of 1317MHz. The card comes with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM. There’s a 128-bit memory bus.

It supports Nvidia ShadowPlay, MFAA, dynamic super resolution, voxel global illumination, G-Sync and other Nvidia-specific features.

Test Setup
Processor: Intel Core i7-4770K
Motherboard: ASRock Z87M Extreme4
RAM: 2 x 4GB GSkill RipjawsX
Drive: Intel SSD, 80GB (boot drive)
Additional Drive: Western Digital Velociraptor, 150GB (secondary)
PSU: Cooler Master 800W Silent Pro Gold
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
Monitor: BenQ GL2250

Benchmarks Performance: 7/10
3DMark 11
3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by Futuremark Corporation to determine the performance of a computer’s 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. The latest version makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11, including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. We used the “Performance” preset for this benchmark.

Metro: Last Light
Metro: Last Light is a first-person shooter video game that continues Metro’s legacy of being one of the most demanding games for the best of GPUs. The game has a lot of DX11 eye-candy, which really puts a strain on any GPU. All DX11 features were enabled for the benchmark and we used the built-in benchmark for this test.

Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite developed by Irrational Games uses a modified version of the Unreal Engine. It’s a first-person shooter which takes place in a fictional floating city called Columbia. We ran the benchmark using the Adrenaline Benchmark tool and used the Ultra and Medium settings. In the Ultra settings you have FXAA On, Ultra texture detail, 16x AF, Ultra dynamic shadows and with the Medium settings you have FXAA On, High texture detail, 8x AF and High dynamic shadows.

Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider is a third-person shooter which is a reboot of the famous series with Lara Croft as the protagonist. In this reboot, she is ship-wrecked on a mysterious island which presents its own set of challenges which Lara has to overcome. The game is based on a customised CrystalEngine. It also features the AMD TressFX technology which adds more realism to hair rendering and physics. We ran the benchmark using the in-built benchmark tool at the Ultimate and Ultra settings. On the Ultimate preset, you have TressFX activated, 16x AF, FXAA whereas the Ultra preset has Normal hair quality, 16x AF, FXAA.

Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs is an open-world third-person action-adventure game developed by United Front games and Square Enix London Studios. Set in modern-day Hong Kong the game involves you playing as Wei Shan, an undercover cop, who infiltrates a local Triad gang. We ran the benchmark using the Adrenaline Benchmark tool and used the Ultra and Medium settings.

Temperature: 8/10
We noted the temperature of all the participating cards at idle and load states. The fan speeds were kept on auto. We noted maximum load temperatures after running benchmarks such as FurMark at 1080p preset, 3D Mark 11, Battlefield 3 and Metro: Last Light and taking an average.

Power Consumption: 8/10
We used an energy monitoring device to measure the power consumed by the total rig with the graphics cards on them. The Cooler Master 800W PSU was plugged into the power meter which gave out the power consumed in Watts on the display. After powering on the system we let it stay unused for a good five minutes to get the idle power reading and then ran three instances of FurMark 1080p preset to get the maximum load power.

Verdict and Price in India
The GTX 960 proved to be a good upgrade over the GTX 760. In terms of percentages, you are getting around a good 25-28 per cent improvement in benchmark scores over the GTX 760. This is achieved while keeping the power consumption as well as temperatures under check. In fact, at a load temperature of 63 degrees Celcius, the Strix 960 is the coolest running card in the chart. Also its power consumption numbers are the lowest. The fan noise is also minimal. All in all a great package with good performance numbers.

The price of Rs 20,500 though is steep for a mid-range card. You can find the card online for around Rs 16,500 which seems like a better price, but at around Rs 15,000, this would make for a great upgrade for someone using a two generation old card. When compared to competition, it outperforms the Rs 20,000 plus AMD R9 280X in some games and is at par with it on other benchmarks.

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Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart will shut down its website within a year whereas its fashion retail website Myntra will become app-only entity from May 1. According a senior executive quoted in The Times of India, Flipkart will move to an app-only format within a year.

Michael Adnani, vice president (retail and head of brand alliances) at Flipkart said that although last year despite getting more app users, Flipkart continued to be on the web platform, next year it would be mobile only. “A year ago, 6% of our traffic was coming from mobile. In less than 18 months, that traffic is 10-fold. That shows the significance of what a mobile phone is doing for the consumers and consequently doing for us,” he told the newspaper.

Flipkart becoming an app-only platform has been speculated before as well. Earlier in a report in Mint, sources in Flipkart had hinted that the website would be shutting down. According to the Flipkart spokesperson, the app has gained relevance because it allows the users to stay logged in all the time and also the shopping is quicker with faster checkouts as compared to the website.

This move isn’t surprising considering the response the apps are getting from consumers. Just to give an example, Myntra, the online fashion retailer which was acquired by Flipkart, has around 90% traffic and 70% of orders coming from its mobile app.

According to Prasad Kompalli, head of Myntra’s ecommerce platform, while seamless shopping experience is one aspect of a mobile e-commerce app, the other advantage include saving on costs. Maintaining a website, advertising and reaching out to consumers on the web platform is a tedious process whereas on an app-platform, things are relatively more focussed. Collecting relevant user data and targetted marketing is easier on the app than on the website according to people familiar with the matter.

Flipkart has around 40 million registered users and around 30,000 merchants selling over 20 million products online. According to the TOI report, Boston Consulting Group expects more than 580 million people in India to be online by 2018 out of which 70-80% will be accessing the web through their phones only. That’s a huge market to tap for mobile apps, since a majority of this population will not be able to afford a desktop to log on to the Flipkart website to shop.

According to Adnani, Myntra’s growth on the app has been higher than Flipkart which has lead the company to decide to shut down the web operations by May 1 and all transactions going forward will happen only on the Myntra app.

Recently, Flipkart was caught in the middle of a storm after news reports emerged that it was going to be part of the Airtel Zero marketing platform – which lets app developers pay for consumers’ data usage charges, provided they are using the said developer’s app. Flipkart which was initially supposed to be a partner in the Airtel Zero program, later withdrew support following backlash from netizens, who went to the Play Store and downvoted the Flipkart app to 1 star rating. Many thousands of users even uninstalled the Flipkart app. While the net neutrality debate is still on, Airtel has refused to back down from its Airtel Zero platform.

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OnePlus One has been one popular phone among the geeks as well as regular buyers. But one of the things holding it from reaching the hands of many consumers is the invite-based system of purchasing the device. But come April 20, and you will be able to buy the OnePlus One without any invite, forever.

OnePlus has been observing Open Sale days, where OnePlus allows you to buy the One without invites for a limited time period. But now prospective buyers can purchase the 64GB Sandstone Black and the 16GB Silk White variants by a regular online transaction without any invite or flash sale or pre-registration.

According to co-founder and head of global, Carl Pei, “By rigorously testing and improving our logistical structure over the last one year, we are far more confident that our processes have matured enough for us to handle the increased production and after-sales support. This current shift from an invite system to a non-invite system is a big step, one from which we will learn a great deal before the OnePlus 2 launch, with invites, in the third quarter of this year.”

Apart from adopting a non-invite based sales model for the One, OnePlus will also be selling its accessories at a flat 50 percent discount. You can buy the OnePlus JBL E1+ earphones, OnePlus Flip Cover (white) and the OnePlus Premium Matte Screen Protector at 50 per cent discount till April 23.

Recently OnePlus released its own custom ROM – the OxygenOS – for OnePlus One users. Those interested in flashing the new OS can download the update from OnePlus’s microsite.

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Oppo has launched its all new budget smartphone dubbed Joy Plus at Rs 6,990. The company says the device will soon be available in stores across India, but hasn’t mentioned any specific date.

The dual-SIM smartphone sports a 4-inch display with 480 x 800 pixels of resolution, and pixel density of 245 ppi. It comes powered by MediaTek MT6572 dual-core 1.3GHz processor coupled with 1GB RAM. The 4GB onboard storage is expandable up to 32GB via a microSD card slot. The device comes with Sony’s second generation stacked CMOS camera sensor, fitted with a 3MP rear snapper and a 0.3MP front-facing camera.

The smartphone runs Color OS 2.0 based on Android 4.4, and comes fuelled by a 1700mAh Li-Ion removable battery. It measures 124mm×63mm x 9.9mm and weighs 125 grams.The white unit gets a frost matte gold frame and a pearlescent rear cover. It is also available with a blue rear cover and electroplated frame.

Commenting on the new launch, Tom Lu, CEO, Oppo Mobile India said, “Our aim at OPPO India is to provide our customers with ground-breaking technology at affordable prices. The Smartphone market in India is constantly evolving and we intend to reach across sections through our budget Smartphone, Joy Plus. We are looking at aggressive market penetration this year and we are confident that Joy Plus, packed with latest features will provide our customers more personal and reliable mobile experience.”

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While there is no official word on the long-time-rumoured 12.9-inch iPad Pro, new leaked images circulating the web show how big the device will be. Images of the iPad Pro case leaked by a French website named Nowhereelse compare it to to the iPad Air 2.

It was just last month that the news site had revealed the upcoming larger variant of the iPad will measure 305.7 x 222.6 x 7.2 mm.

iPad Pro = 305.7×222.6×7.2mm #Apple #iPadPro #iPadAirPlus

— OnLeaks (@OnLeaks) March 9, 2015

The case is said to be similar to the one seen in some of the pictures published by Apple insider Sonny Dickson, points of BGR. The design suggests the iPad Pro to be almost similar to the iPad Air 2. However, it will come with some changes like openings for stereo speakers on the bottom and top of the case, an additional opening on the left side that could be for the Lightning or USB-C port, adds the report.

The large ‘12.9-inch iPad’ first hit headlines way back in 2013. Earlier this year, reports claimed that Apple will delay the start of production on the larger iPad Pro until around September due to problems involving the display panel supply.

The production of Apple’s larger iPad Pro was to start last year. However, it was delayed due to excessive demand for the iPhone 6 Plus.

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Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you must have at least heard or read the word ‘net neutrality’ over the last week. That’s the hottest ongoing debate all over the Internet/social media, in India at least, whether some apps can be made available for free by asking developers to pay for data consumed by its users.

Now, this has led to a broad array of views from how several startups will be at disadvantage and change the way we use Internet. Some have also taken the middle ground, urging users to discuss the issue in such a way that neither telcos nor startups have to suffer. So, everyone has an opinion on what’s happening and what can be done.

If you are wondering what exactly sparked the net neutrality debate and how it emerged to become such a big topic of discussion, here’s a quick timeline:

Firstly, lets get into some background. Throughout last year, Indian telecom companies have been quite vocal about their dislike for over-the-top (OTT) services such as messaging and calling apps eating into one of their biggest revenue streams – voice calling and SMSes. Telcos had started seeking TRAI recommendation on regulation of OTT services, and were trying hard to make a strong case to TRAI about OTT services hampering their revenue. Last year, Airtel even floated a new data plan which would charge users for VoIP calls, but had to back off after public outrage.

Over the last couple of weeks, the net neutrality debate has picked up pace thanks to the deadline for the user responses on the TRAI consultation paper as well as a campaign floated by Airtel, called Airtel Zero which will let app developers pay data charges of customers, so long as they are using the developer’s app. Here’s a timeline of events from the end of last month.

March 27, 2015

TRAI published the 117-page document known as ‘Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services’. This consultation paper talks about net neutrality in India and how it changes the way we consume data. TRAI is seeking public views on it and the deadline for comments is April 24.

April 6, 2015

Airtel launched a new marketing platform, Airtel Zero, allowing customers to access apps of participating app developers at zero data charges. It instantly faced criticism from netizens for violating net neutrality.

April 9, 2015

While Flipkart was already rumoured to be in talks with Airtel as a participating app for its Zero platform, Sachin Bansal’s tweet defending the program added further fuel to the fire.  The tweet didn’t go down well with several net neutrality supporters who decided to downvote the Flipkart app on Android to ‘one star’ rating.

April 11, 2015

While tech enthusiasts and netizens were already in support of net neutrality, it was the AIB video that helped reach out further to the masses. AIB created a nine-minute long ‘Save the Internet’ video on net neutrality, which states that Internet service providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equally, not discriminating or charging differentially by user, content, site, platform or application.

April 13, 2015

More than one lakh emails were sent to TRAI in support of net neutrality. The campaign (http://ift.tt/1ckVbM5) asking the public to send submissions to the TRAI that seeks views by April 24 started picking pace. This site already has ready answers for all the 20 questions that TRAI has put forth. All you need to to is copy the QnA in your mail client and send a response to TRAI. You can also edit some answers.

April 14, 2015

Public outrage forces Flipkart to pull out of Airtel Zero partnership. The company tweets from its official handle stating it strongly believes in the concept of net neutrality and the company exists because of the Internet.

April 15, 2015

Flipkart is soon followed by Cleartrip withdrawing from Internet.org. It was also followed by others like NDTV, and some properties by Times Group. By this time, Facebook’s Internet.org started hitting headlines for violating the principles of net neutrality. Earlier in February, Facebook teamed up with Reliance Communications to bring Internet.org in India. Just like Airtel Zero, Facebook’s Internet.org too violates net neutrality.

It was this day, that reports about Trai chief’s comments about corporate war between a telco and a media house further sparked the debate.

April 16, 2015

As the debate over net neutrality in India got fierce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg spoke in defense of Internet.org and how it is important and can co-exist with net neutrality.

April 18, 2015

There were reports about Bharti Airtel’s CEO Gopal Vittal sending mails to several CEO/CXOs and influencers explaining how its zero-rating plan does not violate the principle of net neutrality.

April 19, 2015

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) reaffirmed its support for ‘net neutrality’, but also made a strong pitch for ‘net equality’ that will enable access to Internet for a billion Indians as part of the governments digital India vision.

April 20, 2015

Over 9 lakh emails have been sent to TRAI in support of net neutrality.

By now, reams have been written about why we should all support net neutrality. Social media pages are filled with articles and petitions about keeping net neutrality intact in the country. Looks like it is bound to become one of the biggest concerns gripping internet users in India. Many believe that it is a hurdle in government’s ‘Digital India’ dream. The number of responses being sent to TRAI is fast approaching the 10 lakh mark. This is the highest number of responses TRAI has ever received from the public on a policy making decision.

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