IntellectBeat

Indian computer hardware and electronics manufacturer Amkette on Tuesday announced the launch of an upgraded version of Evo Gamepad Pro, the Bluetooth gamepad for use with Android devices. The Gamepad Pro 2 comes with media control buttons and over 400 compatible games curated through the Evo Gamepad App available on the Google Play Store. “We have received great response for the Evo Gamepad Pro. It has become huge with smartphone gamers. The upgraded version has some enhanced features and has the potential to become a necessity for Android gamers," Amkette Director Rajiv Bapna said at the launch of the device. The new Evo Gamepad Pro comes with an improved clamp spring for easy, safe and convenient docking of smartphones. Its specifically improved trigger and bumper buttons provides softer control buttons made for an enhanced user experience. Multimedia keys for easier volume control during gameplay have also been included. One of the key features in the Gamepad Pro 2 is the...

Motorola is now offering its Moto G and Moto G Turbo edition smartphones on Amazon India. The phones were Flipkart exclusive but now will also start selling on the alternative platform. The company recently slashed the prices of its Moto G (3rd gen) and Turbo edition smartphones. The 8 GB variant with 1 GB RAM of the third-gen Moto G now costs Rs 9,999 while the 2 GB RAM variant with 16 GB storage is available at Rs 10,999. The Moto G Turbo smartphone, on the other hand, is now available at Rs 12,499. In addition to offering the phones on Amazon India, Motorola is also giving EMI offers on both the products. The Moto G (3rd gen)features a 5-inch HD scratch-resistant display with 294ppi that spans edge to edge. Under its hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with 1.4 GHz quad-core GPU. It is 4G LTE compatible and powered by Android Lollipop 5.1. The further includes 13 megapixel rear camera coupled with a 5 megapixel front snapper that offers 72-degree field of view. The Moto...

A team of international scientists has discovered hundreds of hidden galaxies hidden from view until now by our own galaxy, the Milky Way, some 250 million light years away from the Earth. The discovery may help explain the mysterious gravitational anomaly dubbed the Great Attractor region which appears to be drawing the Milky Way and hundreds of thousands of other galaxies towards it with a gravitational force equivalent to a million billion Suns. According to lead author professor Lister Staveley-Smith from University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), the team found 883 galaxies, a third of which had never been seen before. " The Milky Way is very beautiful and it's very interesting to study our own galaxy but it completely blocks out the view of the more distant galaxies behind it ," he said. Scientists have been trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious Great Attractor since major deviations from univer...

This was a poser from the Delhi High Court today to Google which was asked to give a reply. "We have been taken through the agreement between Google Ireland and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) dated February 1, 2013. An issue has arisen as to whether Google is making money out of MIB content which is placed on YouTube? " Counsel for Google Inc and Google India shall take instructions or file an affidavit answering the above query ," a bench of justices Badar Durrez Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva said. The matter came up when the court was hearing a PIL by filed by former BJP leader K N Govindacharya raising questions on social media usage by the government. Govindacharya's lawyer, Virag Gupta, claimed in the court that YouTube generated revenue from contents uploaded by the government, prompting the court to raise the query. Gupta also said that since the entity allegedly earned revenue from government content, it should pay taxes. Meanwhile, Additio...

Nestle India will bring back the chicken variant of its popular Maggi noodles online through Snapdeal from February 11 with pre-registration for the limited edition packs to be open till 2300 hours tomorrow. In November last year, Nestle and Snapdeal had partnered to re-launch the masala version of Maggi in India, following a ban in many states after food safety regulator FSSAI stated that it was "unsafe and hazardous" for consumption due to presence of lead content beyond permissible level and traces of monosodium glucamate(MSG), a taste enhancer. The popular brand of noodles had passed tests by three government-accredited laboratories, as ordered by the Bombay High Court which in August had lifted ban on the instant noodles that was imposed by food safety regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). It paved way for Nestle India to bring back Maggi in the market after it was banned in June. In December, Nestle India had said it will launch other varia...

Rejecting telecom operators' contention that questioned its call drop report, regulator TRAI today said it will conduct another test in April and may add more cities for this. " My sense is whatever test drive we have done, they have been done very objectively and in a transparent manner. If there are any more suggestions for transparency, we are certainly ready to look at it ," TRAI Chairman R S Sharma told reporters on the sidelines of the India Digital Summit. " Typically, we have been doing them (call drop tests) in three months. Approximately, in other three months, it will be done again. Sometime in April. This time, we covered seven cities. We will cover those seven and if required, we will extend it to more cities ," Sharma said. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recently released its findings on the call drop tests carried out across seven cities in December and January. Most telecom operators, including the state-owned MTNL, failed the ...

On Tuesday social network Twitter took a first serious step toward addressing its biggest on-going problem. The Twitter Trust & Safety Council will be a core element of Twitter's future strategy as the company and its services develop to ensure that " People feel safe expressing themselves " via Tweets. Announcing the new council, Patricia Cartes, Head of Global Policy Outreach said that Twitter's existing 320 million strong user base, plus the sheer volume of tweets sent on a daily basis "Makes it extraordinarily complex to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power." Therefore the council will attempt to be as diverse and wide reaching as Twitter's current audience, with groups including Anti-Bullying Pro, GLAAD, EU Kids Online and the Anti-Defamation League among the initial 40 member organisations.

As BlackBerry's restructuring program continues with the announcement of 200 job cuts, the Canadian smartphone maker has seen miserably low handset sales with barely a handful of devices still on the market. As a result, BlackBerry seems to be changing direction, shifting focus to applications for consumers and services for business. BlackBerry now only has a tiny market share of global smartphone sales, reaching a paltry 0.3 per cent in Q3 2015, according to Gartner research firm. However, the software sector -- more specifically business security software -- is becoming a more fruitful field for the brand, which has been forced to diversify its activity. BlackBerry switches to Android BlackBerry ditched its homegrown operating system with the arrival of the Priv smartphone, released in 2015, a device designed to transition the brand to the Android OS. However, BlackBerry has allowed the use of Android applications on its phones since the 10.2.1 update to its OS in early 2014. ...

According to a Logitech survey of British and American parents, 92 per cent of children aged between two and seven now have regular access to a smartphone or tablet. However, respondents are unsure whether letting their children get to grips with mobile devices so early is a good idea. Just over half (51 per cent) of all parents surveyed think it is ok for younger children to use a tablet or smartphone but 60 per cent of British parents think that kids should not be allowed to use devices until they are at least five years old. Nevertheless, 35 per cent of UK parents surveyed and 40 per cent of US parents said that their children already had their own device.

On Tuesday the organisation representing the world's mobile operators, the GSMA, published its first Internet of Things security guidelines. Developed in association with and supported by the entire industry, the guidelines have been created to ensure best practice when it comes to cyberthreats, data protection and other potential security issues surrounding the emerging consumer technology. "As billions of devices become connected in the Internet of Things, offering innovative and interconnected new services, the possibility of potential vulnerabilities increases," said Alex Sinclair, Chief Technology Officer, GSMA. "These can be overcome if the end-to-end security of an IoT service is carefully considered by the service provider when designing their service and an appropriate mitigating technology is deployed. A proven and robust approach to security will create trusted, reliable services that scale as the market grows." As well as make devices and services...

An eagerly awaited function has just been added to Instagram, as the photo-sharing social network now lets users switch between several different accounts directly within the platform's iOS and Android applications. Thanks to the multiple-account switching function, users can now change quickly and easily from one Instagram account to another without having to sign in and out each time. This function is accessible in the application settings, where users can add up to five different accounts. Instagrammers can manage accounts via the profile tab or by pressing on their username for a few seconds. In removing the hassle from posting to several accounts, this new feature could encourage the site's users to create different profiles for specific purposes. Multi-account switching is available in version 7.15 of the Instagram application for iOS and Android, available to download free from the App Store and Google Play. Instagram has 400 million active users worldwide. Over 40 ...

Technology giant Google will make public emergency alerts for floods available in India as part its efforts to make critical information more accessible around natural disasters. "Users in India can now find 'flood alerts' along with 'river level' information for more than 170 areas in which the Central Water Commission (CWC) has active observation stations," Google said in a statement today. These alerts are available on web search, Google Now Cards on the Google app, maps as well as Google Public Alerts homepage, it added. These can be accessed on desktop and mobile devices. The alerts will be created and shared using data provided by the CWC, Google said. "Timely information is the first step in disaster preparedness and has the potential to save thousands of lives lost to natural disasters each year," Google Product Manager Payal Patel said. By making critical information more widely available to people, Flood Alerts will enable citizens ac...

US vehicle safety regulators have said the artificial intelligence system piloting a self-driving Google car could be considered the driver under federal law, a major step towards ultimately winning approval for autonomous vehicles on the roads. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc, of its decision in a previously unreported Feb. 4 letter to the company posted on the agency's website this week. Google's self-driving car unit on Nov. 12 submitted a proposed design for a self-driving car that has "no need for a human driver," the letter to Google from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Chief Counsel Paul Hemmersbaugh said. "NHTSA will interpret 'driver' in the context of Google's described motor vehicle design as referring to the (self-driving system), and not to any of the vehicle occupants," NHTSA's letter said. "We agree with Google its (self-driving car) will not have a ...