IntellectBeat

Amidst the growing debate on net neutrality in India, caller identification app Truecaller has also joined the campaign against social networking giant Facebook's Free Basics service. The controversial Internet platform, earlier titled Internet.org, was recently renamed as Free Basics and offers free access to a set of websites and services with the objective of introducing Internet to the people. However, Internet advocates have been voicing concern about the initiative with Truecaller being the latest joining the league. The app's founder Alan Mamedi posted a tweet about his support for net neutrality. @Truecaller  is pushing this message out to over 100M users in India right now. Let the people chose by understanding pic.twitter.com/p2SB2K98fE — Alan Mamedi (@AlanMamedi) December 23, 2015 Truecaller has been sending out push messages to over the 100 million users it has in India asking them to choose wisely if they want the dubious free basics or the idea of equal...

Tablets for kids getting more advanced amidst increased competition Associated  Kiddie tablets have grown up. Tablets designed just for kids are getting more sophisticated as they face increased competition from regular tablets. The new products also have better screens, speedier chips and fashionably slim bodies. They let older children do more, yet hold their hands until they're ready for unsupervised access. Although many of the tablets were originally conceived as educational toys for kids as old as middle schoolers, they've been more popular with younger children. Older kids have been apt to reject them in favor of their parents' tablet or smartphone. That shift has prompted companies to focus more on preschoolers and kindergarteners, as they create super-durable products that can withstand repeated abuse and develop games and apps that teach reading and math. But now, some of those companies are looking to take back some of the sales to older kids that they...

Facebook has suspended a 175-year-old British pub's social media account over its "offensive" name, saying it was derived from a black cockerel -- a male chicken, the media reported. The manager of the Blackcock Inn in Llanfihangel Talyllyn, a small village in Wales, in November this year received a message from Facebook saying the pub's account he created had been suspended for "racist or offensive language", he told the Independent in an interview. Garrett has since been unable to log into the account and all its posts have been removed, he said, adding that his pub's name is derived from a black cockerel -- a male chicken -- and nothing else. While the company makes clear in its 'Terms of Service' that users should have the right to freedom of speech, it reserves the right to remove postings or accounts that may negatively affect others. Facebook follows a strict policy on user accounts. In recent years, it has been removing all kinds of ...

Reliance Jio is gearing up for the mega launch event of its 4G service for its employees with offers like free subscription till commercial roll out and steep discount on handsets. "For the first time in India's corporate history, an employee launch will see 35,000 strong attending the event at the venue itself. Over 1 lakh employees would attend an event on physical and virtual platforms who can avail free 4G service of Jio at least till commercial launch," a source aware of the development at Reliance Jio told PTI. Reliance Jio also plans a 25 percent discount on company's LYF mobile handsets, the source said. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan and musician A R Rahman will host the function on December 27. When contacted, a Reliance Jio Infocomm spokesperson said, "Team Jio is working at war footing to prepare for upcoming Employee Launch Event on the eve of our Founder Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani's 83rd birthday anniversary." Though main function will ...

After unexpectedly going offline during the busiest time of the year, popular PC game distribution service Steam is now back online and completely usable. Valve, the company behind Steam, issued a statement confirming the same. "Steam is back up and running without any known issues," a Valve spokesperson told GameSpot. "As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved. We believe no unauthorised actions were allowed on accounts beyond the viewing of cached page information and no additional action is required by users." Christmas day saw users logging into the service only to find themselves viewing account details of other users rather than their own. These included full names, addresses, and credit card information. While no new purchases could be made nor account details be modified, the information vi...