TechnoBiz News Feed

Auction site eBay today unveiled two upcoming search options featuring images. Find It On eBay and Image Search are both coming this fall to the eBay app and mobile platform. The new features take advantage of machine-learning to allow shoppers the use of images when searching for matching items.The first feature, Find It On eBay, designed to leverage social media advertising and the covetous nature of fashion aficionados takes advantage of the share feature in apps. This lets users share an image to the eBay app where it will then compile a list of related objects. This is gonna save collectors a lot of time. I’ll be able to search for the Nikes I want on Amazon, and then share the image to eBay where they price-match. What a world. What ever happened to eBay having auctions? Or Amazon just being a bookseller, for that matter. Also new is “Image Search”, which has a far less-impressive name, but seems pretty useful. The feature lets you take a picture, or select a photo from your d...

Imagine a world where your car drives itself, your fridge does the grocery shopping, your coffee machine senses you nearby and automatically pours you your favorite brew and robots work alongside you. The times that we are living in are probably one of the most exciting and equally challenging to be alive in. We are in the midst of a scientific and technological revolution. Space travel and robots working alongside humans are no longer termed as science fiction. Technology is driving most of the changes and is making the world smaller as we speak. Disruption has become a new normal. In the fast changing technology landscape, it is interesting to analyse what the future will holds when it comes to us, our jobs , the workplaces, industries at large, and finally, our planet. The biggest development in recent times have been in the area of artificial intelligence. Everything is going to be able to move around the world autonomously as AI will help people make decisions and enhance li...

“Slow progress is still progress.” “Have faith in the process.” “It’s mind over matter.” These are just a few in a very long list of quotes that people will hear — or see on an inspirational poster in their doctor’s office — when they begin a long and frustrating road to recovery in physical therapy. Patients recovering from injury or illness, or dealing with chronic pain, face a difficult battle, and many grow impatient or quit. In fact, about 25 percent don’t make it through their programs. Why do they quit? For many, physical therapy is an inconvenient chore that takes time away from work and family, and patients often don’t see results for weeks or months. The drudgery of persevering without immediate results can be emotionally demanding. But what would happen if there were ways to show patients tangible results, offering immediate data to provide more efficient treatment programs? Or if patients could be treated at home, not bound to a facility and a therapist’s schedule? ...

Mastering the ability to distinguish hot dogs from not hot dogs is truly one of mankind’s greatest achievements. Attempting to one-up that sort of masterstroke would surely be flying too close to the sun — but researchers at MIT are trying nonetheless. The team’s pic2recipe system uses neural networks to determine the recipe of a given food, in an attempt to gain “valuable insight into health habits and dietary preferences,” based on images of food pulled from social media. pic2recipe was built using the Food-101 Data Set, a food-identifying algorithm built by Swiss scientists in 2014, using a database of 101,000 food images. That information is cross-referenced with the CSAIL team’s own Recipe1M database of one million recipes pulled from popular sites like All Recipes and Food.com. The system is far from perfect. At the moment, it’s able to correctly identify the recipe around 65-percent of the time. The biggest problem with the tech is the images themselves. “...

Amazon announced news in the spring that Alexa would be coming to the company’s shopping app and, after integrating it into iOS on Thursday (July 20), it announced integration with Android devices. According to a report in TechCrunch, Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated digital assistant, had already been integrated into Amazon’s main iOS shopping app and confirmed to TechCrunch that it’s now part of its Android shopping app as well. While Alexa already has its own app, TechCrunch speculated it is aiming to reach as many people as it can, including consumers who may not understand Alexa or what the digital personal assistant can do, which is why it’s including it in the main shopping apps. The in-app version of Alexa can answer basic questions, provide updates on the daily news and aid in shopping for products and services. It also provides information about weather and traffic, play music and shop. The in-app Alexa can also take control of smart home devices like Echo, hail a ride f...

Google Maps has added a helpful feature to navigation that should make it a little easier to plan your next journey. The app will now tell you how long your travel time may be depending on when you leave. A bar graph compares your current estimated time of arrival to what it would be if you left in the next half hour, or even two hours into the future. The feature is already live on our devices, so Google might not be doing a lengthy rollout with this particular new feature. The information is presented as a bar graph that looks very similar to the one used to denote hours when businesses are busiest. You can even look one hour in the past, to kick yourself over how much time you might have saved if you just left a little earlier. The feature is only available in the United States and United Kingdom, according to Android Central, and didn’t accompany an app update — meaning users in other regions will have to wait for Google to flip it on. Google sources traffic data all d...

For US-based fitness trackers and wearable technology maker Fitbit Inc, which is staring at challenges in terms of falling sales and share price in the US market, India remains one of its biggest opportunities.  The company, which has launched its products in the country in July 2015, has decided to increase its investment in marketing, promotions and distribution, said Steve Morley, vice president and general manager of APAC at Fitbit Inc.  “In some mature markets, our growth is slowing, but it doesn’t apply to India,” said Morley. "As per GFK data, we have 82 per cent market share in the activity tracker market in India. This is not shipping, but actual sales data. Even if you consider every connected wrist devise, which also includes smart watches — a segment we don’t participate yet — activity trackers, running watches, etc., we control over 50 per cent market share in India."  When it launched in India, Fitbit first offered its products exclusively vi...

Halli Labs, a Bengaluru-based company that specialises in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), has been acquired by Google . The startup came into existence barely four months ago. The Halli Labs team will be joining Google’s Next Billion Users effort, the Internet giant’s initiative to bring the next billion users from emerging markets like India online. This is said to be the first acquisition of an Indian company by Google . It’s not entirely clear how large Halli Labs is, but its core team members, including Pankaj Gupta and Pradhuman Jhala, were previously at marketplace Stayzilla. Gupta, who founded Halli Labs and assumes CEO position, was the chief product officer and chief technology officer at Stayzilla, while Jhala was the chief architect. Stayzilla shut shop earlier this year. Some of the things Halli Labs has been working on includes "speed recognition" and natural language processing. It never shipped any technologies to consumers — again th...

E-commerce site Amazon is set to kick off its first Amazon Prime Day Sale in India, along with 12 other countries worldwide. The Amazon sale will see some major price discounts, offers, and deals on varied smartphones, electronic products, and other items across many categories on July 11. The Amazon sale begins on Monday, July 10 at 6pm IST , while the main sale day is on Tuesday, July 11. A reminder that this sale is only applicable for Amazon Prime members and the yearly membership for Prime is at Rs. 499. Amazon sale deals on mobile phones, and other gadgets Talking about smartphones first, the Xiaomi Redmi 4 will be made available in an open sale at Rs. 6,999 starting at 5pm IST today. OnePlus is offering its 6GB RAM/64GB storage OnePlus 5 variant with an extra Rs. 2,000 off on exchange offer in the form of Amazon Pay balance; both variants of the smartphone will get the buyer a Rs. 250 discount on Marsboy portable speaker. Smartphones from Honor (Huawei’s Terminal brand) ...

Snap Inc. has rolled out a handful of new updates that allow users to insert links to their snaps, add backdrops to photos, and modify their voice with filters. The image messaging app now lets users add hyperlinks to their Stories and snaps before sharing them with friends using the new Paperclip feature. The tool is perhaps the most significant in this latest update as it essentially unchains users from Snap Inc.’s long history of detachment from other apps. Users can include a website to their snaps by just tapping the Paperclip button. Your friends can then view the links from within the app by swiping up on your message. Another new feature that comes to Snapchat is the ability to alter your voice with filters. Previously available in Snapchat’s animated lenses, voice filters now allow you to remix your voice after you recorded a snap. By tapping the speaker icon at the bottom of your phone’s screen, you can see all the available voice filters that you can use to add more l...

Amazon's virtual assistant makes it easy to assemble a voice-activated smart home. Here's how to put her to work. You've probably noticed an awful lot of stories about Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa -- particularly the many ways in which she can take control of the connected home. There's good reason for that. Voice control has become the smart home's gateway drug of choice, and Alexa's been right at the tip of that spear , with standardized control over lights, locks, and more as a core use case. In the meantime, Amazon's sold millions of Echo and Echo Dot smart speakers, and third-party manufacturers have put Alexa into everything from lamps  and thermostats to TV sets and refrigerators . In sum, Alexa is just about everywhere these days -- and that means that there's an ever-growing number of people looking for ways to put her to good use for a smarter, more convenient living space. If that sounds like you, and you're looking for...

Social network giant Facebook has reached yet another milestone! The total number of monthly active Facebook users is now much more than the population of any country in the world! Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced, "Facebook community is now officially two billion people." Its colossal user base is roughly a quarter of the world's population, which is about 7.5 billion. Growth numbers: Facebook continues to grow steadily Critics, who said Facebook's growth would be slow as users are attracted to other social networks, have been proven wrong again. The internet giant has reached the major milestone of 2 billion monthly users only 13 years after being launched. In Oct'12, Facebook crossed one billion monthly users only two years after it announced that 500 million people monthly use it. Fact: Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his college dormitory room When Zuckerberg founded "The Facebook" in 2004, he was still at Harvard University. ...

There's no denying the fact that the banking sector is the life-line of the bustling Indian economy and it caters to millions every day. Over the years, the banking sector has been including a lot of technology in its system. The objective here is simple - get rid of repetitive tasks, provide better services and make the sector run smoothly. Banking: Things will always change In order to provide better services to the populous nation, banking needs all the help it can get. Automation is not a dirty word. While it takes over certain jobs, it gives birth to several more. Recently, the 50th anniversary of ATM was celebrated. ATMs radicalized the system of bank withdrawals. That was needed then; this is needed now. Change is the only constant. Robot: You have got a "Mitra" to help you out There is hardly any point in deploying skilled labor on a task which is basic or repetitive in nature. Now, if one walks into the Canara Bank head office, he/she will be gree...

Android O  was the most awaited segment at  Google I/O 2017 . The update will be crucial for Google now that it already has 2 billion active users on its platform. To test waters the search giant has also released Android O in a public beta. Users wanting to try the new operating system can do so by enrolling in the  Android O beta . Do keep in mind that you’ll need to have an eligible  Google  smartphone. Currently, the only supported phones for the Android O beta are the  Nexus 5X ,  Nexus 6P ,  Google Pixel , and the  Google Pixel XL . We installed the Android O beta on a Google Pixel, to see what's changed. Here are our first impressions of Android O, and a deep dive into the new features it brings. Redesigned Settings At first glance, there aren't major design changes that you'll notice. The Android O UI is quite similar to  Android Nougat  but there are a few tweaks that enhance the overall look of the OS. The settings m...

Summer is nearing, and workplaces everywhere are awaiting the arrival of this year's interns to help out on extra projects and shoulder the seasonal load. But among certain companies, they're likely doing more than getting coffee and making copies. Or at least, they're being paid that way. According to a new  report  by the jobs site Glassdoor, the 25 best-paying companies for internships each pay their median summer worker more than $4,500 a month. That amount, if it was paid over the course of a full year, would be north of $54,000, exceeding the median annual pay for a U.S. worker, according to Glassdoor's own  local pay reports  ($51,350), and the annual figure calculated from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest weekly earnings  data  for full-time wage and salary workers ($44,460). Topping the list was Facebook, where the median pay for interns is $8,000 a month, according to the reports from the ne...

 The truth is there's no such thing as an objectively "best" smartphone. There's a fastest smartphone, and a phone with the best screen, and maybe a phone with  the best camera  . But, so long as it hits a baseline of  good  enough performance, the best total package is the one that works best for you. I say this because over the past year I have come to appreciate Apple's iPhone SE much more than I anticipated. I am someone who cycles through phones like it's my job (because it is), and I only bought Apple's small-screen handset on a lark last April, after shattering the screen on my old Moto X. Nothing about the iPhone SE's  spec sheet  is particularly impressive. It runs on Apple's A9 chip, which is more than a year old. Its screen isn't anything special by modern standards. There's no 3D Touch. Its back camera is easily outclassed by today's flagships, and its front camera is entirely average. Most notably, its whole design is ...