Demonetisation: Deposits in banks cross Rs 1.5 lakh crore, more ATMs go live

MUMBAI: Crowds continued to throng bank branches on Sunday, the fifth day after demonetisation, but there were fewer customers waiting to exchange and deposit notes and a large number to withdraw funds. Card transactions at the PoS machines of a leading private bank faced problems even as more ATMs went live (at least for an hour) until cash ran out.

The total cash deposited in banks since the announcement of the withdrawal of the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes has crossed Rs 1.5 lakh crore, according to estimates received from different banks. SBI received total cash deposits of Rs 75,945 crore and exchanged currency worth Rs 3,753 crore.\

Against this, there had been withdrawals of Rs 7,705 crore in currency notes of Rs 100 and Rs 2,000 until Sunday.

On Sunday, banks took measures to speed up cash transportation, giving more power to officials to improve availability of currency in branches. On Monday, banks will be closed in several states on account of Guru Nanak Jayanti. Cash deposits are expected to pick up next week with utilities ceasing to accept old high-denomination currency notes from November 14.

Branches in eight states - Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Haryana - will be open for transactions on Monday.

Bankers said they had streamlined the queue system at their branches.

Most banks have started a token a system and separate queues for senior citizens.

"Branches have been strengthened with additional staff to efficiently handle the extraordinary crowd. The services of retired staff are also being utilised. Additional cash counters have been set up with separate counters for senior citizens. Shades/pandals have been placed outside branches and other amenities are provided to make the public more comfortable," said Canara Bank MD & CEO Rakesh Sharma.

The Reserve Bank of India, meanwhile, notified the introduction of the new Rs 500 currency note.

Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and SBI have recalibrated some of their ATMs for the new notes. These machines will be tested for a day for accuracy in dispensing the new notes following which they will be loaded with the new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes.

HariChasing site: Wait 2-3 weeks for normal banking, time needed to ...

HariChasing site: Wait 2-3 weeks for normal banking, time needed to ...: NEW DELHI: With anger and chaos over lengthening queues at banks rising after currency ban +  imposed by the government, finance minister  ...

Wait 2-3 weeks for normal banking, time needed to recalibrate all 2 lakh ATMs: Jaitley

NEW DELHI: With anger and chaos over lengthening queues at banks rising aftercurrency ban+ imposed by the government, finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday tried to soothe tempers, but said it could take two to three weeks for ATMsto function normally.

Jaitley said at a news conference here on Saturday that each ATM will need to be recalibrated to dispense the new notes, and that is why the whole process would take time+ . He urged people to be patient, citing larger economic benefits from the move to replace old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denomination notes with new ones

"Such a massive currency replacement+cannot take place mechanically overnight. It takes time," the FM said. The machines need to be calibrated to the size and weight of new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes. Refuting the charge of mismanagement, he said SBI alone undertook 2.28 crore transactions while queues had been long but orderly.

A finance ministry statement later said a total of over 7 crore transactions took place from November 9 up to mid-day of November 12 for deposit, exchange of old notes and withdrawal from ATMs and over the counter. Old notes of Rs 500 and 1000 denominations amounting to about Rs 2 lakh crore have been deposited with banks

RBI’s new Rs 2000 notes do not have a Nano-GPS chip

The government of India has demonetised the current Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, but it plans to replace these with new Rs 500 and Rs 2000 notes. However, rumours are spreading about the upcoming Rs 2000 note, with messages being circulated on WhatsApp which claim the new higher denomination currency comes with a Nano-GPS chip installed on it.

The message claims these notes are embedded with Nano-GPS chips which act as a signal reflector, giving precise location coordinates of the currency in order to allow every note to be tracked. Apparently the chip is so strong that one can track these Rs 2000 notes even if they are kept 120 metres below the ground level, according to the message

Aila! Internet Calls Sachin's Son Arjun Tendulkar 'Indian Justin Bieber

Once upon a time in Bollywood, siblings, especially twins, would keep getting lost and separated in the Kumbh Mela. Well, according to the Internet, that seems to have been the case with cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar's son Arjun and Canadian singer and pop icon Justin Bieber.

It was 17th birthday of the u-19 all-rounder on September 24th and a Facebook page called 'Circle of Cricket India' posted a candid picture of the Jr Tendulkar with his dad. Now, instead of wishing the birthday boy, every one noticed how Arjun bears an uncanny resemblance to Bieber.
The idea has since gone viral on social media with users posting photos of Arjun Tendulkar and commenting on the striking resemblance to the 'Sorry' hitmaker.
Well, while some called the two -- Arjun and Justin -- twins, others, commenting on the uncanny resemblance, decided the Sachin's son was 'Indian Justin Bieber'.

Samsung to offer digital assistant service in Galaxy S8

Samsung Electronics said Sunday it will offer an artificial intelligence assistant service in the upcoming flagship smartphone, as the South Korean firm seeks recovery from its global smartphone recalls.

The Galaxy S8 will let users order food or perform other tasks without going through a third-party application but by simply asking the phone's virtual assistant, Samsung said in a statement. The artificial intelligence service will also be made available in Samsung's other consumer electronics products, such as refrigerators.

The company declined to disclose what specific tasks the S8 phone will perform through its artificial intelligence feature.

Samsung is expected to unveil the next iteration for its flagship Galaxy device in spring as it has typically done in the past. Sales of the Galaxy S8 will be crucial for the recovery of Samsung's mobile business, which saw its latest quarterly profit nearly wiped out by two global recalls of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. Samsung estimates it has lost at least $5.3 billion as it discontinued the model, which overheated and caught fire.

The company said last month that it has not figured out what went wrong with the Note 7 phones.

The South Korean company joined the race to create the digital assistant service when it acquired in October Viv Labs Inc., a Silicon Valley startup launched by the same entrepreneurs who sold Siri to Apple. Past and current Samsung phones offer a voice assistant service called "S Voice" developed internally, but the feature did not gain much traction.

Samsung's acquisition of the Silicon Valley firm was seen as its taking another step to seek independence from Google, which offers its brand of virtual assistant service in Android-powered devices.

Executives at Samsung and Viv Labs said that the biggest difference between the existing digital assistant and the one they are jointly developing is that the latter will be an "open AI platform," meaning that third-party developers will be able to offer their services through Samsung's AI platform.

"Our Galaxy smartphones don't provide services that enable consumers to order pizza or coffee, but does provide third party applications. But the new AI platform will enable consumers to do things that they would usually do through a separate third party application," Samsung's statement said.

Pixel XL and iPhone 7 Plus vs DSLR cam: You can't tell the difference

Technology. It marches on and on and slowly, gradually but assuredly, sweeps aside everything that is old. The smartphones, in every measure marvels of technology, are doing it since 2007. And finally in 2016, they have reached a position where they are threatening even the mighty DSLR cameras when it comes to clicking photos. At least, the high-end phones like the Google Pixel XL and the iPhone 7 Plus are doing that. 

No, the phones are still not better than a proper DSLR or a large sensor camera. But the likes of the Pixel XL and the iPhone 7 Plus are so good that for many people, they will be good enough. And in most cases, these high-end expensive phones are definitely better than many cheap compact cameras, even in low and tricky light. 

So, just what is going on? Two things. One, the image sensors and lenses etc have become good in the phones. And two, which is actually the bigger deal, the phone companies are winning it on the basis of their software and all that computing horsepower they are putting in the phones using powerful processors. This refined software and computing power allows phones to process the images in a way that ensures that even if technically, at pixel level, these images aren't as good as the dedicated cameras, they are good enough -- in some cases even better -- compared to images clicked with high-end cameras.

Google Pixel is expensive because its price is about sending a message

Recently when Google announced its "first" two phones the Pixel and the Pixel XL, it surprised a number of its fans with the pricing of the new devices. A lot of Android users, who like the stuff coming from Google because they have been on a Nexus phone, also associate the Google phones, or at least the phones that Google supported, with value for money. Even last year when Google and its hardware partners launched rather expensive Nexus 5X and the Nexus 6P the two phones were relatively affordable compared to the latest iPhone or the Galaxy Note. But this year the Pixel phones are priced just like the iPhones or for that matter the top-end Samsung Galaxy phones.

Now, the high price in itself is not that much of an issue. After all, a high-end premium phone will indeed cost more. The stranger bit with the pixel price is that these phones don't seem to be in the same league as the Galaxy S7 or the iPhone 7 as far as the pure hardware is concerned. And yet, Google is pricing them in such a way.

The design and build quality of the Pixel phones is definitely not as great as the design and build quality of the iPhone 7 or the Galaxy S7. In fact last year's all-metal Huawei Nexus 6P looks more stylish and polished compared to the large-screen Pixel XL this year. The two Pixel phones also lack a few features that other high-end phones have. Unlike the iPhone 7 and the Galaxy S7, the Pixel phones aren't waterproof. They also don't have stereo speakers.

And yet the Pixel phones cost almost as much as the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus in India. The question is why? Why would Google price these two phones at a level where they seem overpriced? The reason is because it has to.

Google formally rejects EU antitrust charges

Google on Thursday formally rejected European Union antitrust charges of unfairly promoting its shopping service and blocking rivals in online search advertising, paving the way for EU regulators to rule next year on these issues and potentially impose hefty fines.

The U.S. technology giant's rebuttal in the shopping case came six years after the European Commission opened an investigation prompted by complaints from rivals such as Microsoft and a host of European and U.S. rivals.

The EU regulator followed up with an anti-competitive charge against the company in April last year and added more evidence in July this year. It also issued a separate charge sheet against its online search advertising product AdSense for Search at the same time.

Google's general counsel Kent Walker said on a blog that the accusations had no factual, legal or economic basis, and that the company's actions were driven by its users rather than any plan to squash rivals.

"We never compromised the quality or relevance of the information we displayed. On the contrary, we improved it. That isn't 'favouring' - that's listening to our customers," Walker said.

He said the Commission had failed to take into account competition from Amazon, merchant platforms, social media sites, mobile web and online advertising by companies such as Facebook and Pinterest.

The EU executive said it had received Google's response.

"In each case, we will carefully consider Google's response before taking any decision on how to proceed and cannot at this stage prejudge the final outcome of the investigation," Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email.

Google may find it difficult convincing the EU regulator with its latest arguments, said Michael Carrier, professor at New Jersey-based Rutgers Law School.

"Google has a point that its search results help consumers by allowing them to directly buy the item. But the Commission worries about the effect on rivals. This likely will outweigh the consumer point," he said.

Google also rejected a Commission proposal which would let the company charge rivals for displaying their services prominently, with the amount corresponding to its operating cost or a nominal amount based on the lowest reserve price for AdWords which is currently 0.01 euro per click.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Mirantis cut OpenStack staff

Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Mirantis - two of the most instrumental companies in the open source cloud computing project Open Stack - have each laid off employees in recent weeks, according to the companies.

The full extent of the layoffs at HPE is unknown but ComputerWorldUK last week quoted Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth as saying that HPE had laid off their “entire OpenStack team.” An official with HPE confirmed there has been a restructuring but would not say how many OpenStack workers were cut, adding that Shuttleworth’s statement is exaggerated.

Shuttleworth also said that Mirantis cut about 300 OpenStack developers, but the company’s co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Boris Renski says the number of cuts at the company is less than 100.

Officials from the OpenStack Foundation – who are in charge of developing the open source code that makes the project – would not comment on the layoffs specifically but said they’re not indicative of weakness within the open source community, which they say is healthy and growing.

HPE’s tumultuous two years

A spokesperson for HPE confirmed there were cuts made in mid-October as part of a “company-wide strategy to give HPE the needed workforce to be a more nimble customer and partner-centric company.” Spokesperson Erik Denny added that reports that HPE cut all of its OpenStack employees was incorrect; the company still employs OpenStack technical experts, he says.

Sources familiar with the layoffs at HPE says the cuts have been motivated by multiple factors. First, there’s been a broad restructuring since the November 2015 split of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from the consumer and printer company HP Inc. In April of 2016 HPE announced a spin-off/merger of its non-core software assets with Micro Focus as part of an $8.8 billion deal, which caused a new shakeup of employees.

A source close to HPE says that since that deal was announced most of the workers in the company's platform as a service (PaaS) business and IaaS cloud business have been laid off. The source, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, said there are rumors within the company that HPE may sell its OpenStack Helion software assets but continue to white-label market them. Suse, a Linux distribution company which has its own OpenStack distribution, is seen as the most likely target to buy HPE’s cloud assets. Earlier this year HPE announced that Suse was it's "preferred" Linux partner and that the companies would work together on OpenStack. 

Mirantis cuts stem from acquisition

The cuts at Mirantis happened after the company acquired TCP Cloud, a company that offered a hosted version of the open source cloud that it sells to customers as a service. Following that acquisition Renski said there was a need to “balance pure software engineering culture with operations expertise.”

Two groups at Mirantis were impacted by the cuts. The Fuel project, which made a simple OpenStack installer, is being re-architected to focus on “infrastructure as code,” Renski said. A second group of employees who focused on an internal PaaS project will shift to work on growing the company’s support for the open source container orchestration project Kuberentes. “We are not abandoning OpenStack and we are not exiting (the) OpenStack distribution business,” Renski wrote in an email.

What it means for OpenStack

HPE and Mirantis have been two of the most influential companies in the OpenStack community. In 2015 workers from HPE and Mirantis were the top two contributors of new Open Stack code. In the latest release named Ocata that will be available next year, HPE dropped to contributing the sixth most amount of code to the project, according to the website Stackalytics.com. Mirantis’ contributions have dropped from contributing 19% of the code in the Newton release this year to 12% for next year’s Ocata release.

OpenStack Foundation Director Jonathan Bryce could not comment publicly on the layoffs, but said the overall OpenStack project is healthy and growing “We continue to add new companies and contributors,” he said. “You want to have a broad base of companies participate. The way they participate may shift and change, but that’s healthy for an open source project, which is measured by the sum of its parts not just by any individual or company.”

Foundation Chief Operating Officer Mark Collier added that the latest release of Open Stack had a record number of contributors. “What we see at the macro level are ebbs and flows between different organisation over time,” he said. “For us, it’s about the aggregate more than just the headlines.”

Moto M full specs and photos leaked, it's bye bye stock Android

Lenovo's latest Moto Z and Moto Z Play reached India just last month, and the company is already prepping to launch another phone, Moto M, possibly globally. Moto M is reported to launch on November 8 and just a week ahead of the launch its full specifications and several live images have leaked online. 

The famous tipster, Steve Hemmerstoffer aka OnLeaks, has posted the upcoming Moto phone's photos and full specifications on Twitter. 

The latest reveal goes somewhat against the earlier reports. The phone was first rumoured to come with Qualcomm's Snapdragon 625, then it was said to be powered by MediaTek Helio P10. Now according to OnLeaks, the Moto M will run on MediaTek Helio P15 running at 2.2GHz

The Helio P15 is an octa-core Cortex-A53 processor and is coupled with Mali-T860 MP2 GPU. According to the company, the P15 delivers 10 per cent jump in performance compared to Helio P10.

The Moto M features a 5.5-inch FullHD display and packs in 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage. The phone has a 13-megapixel camera on the back and an 8-megapixel camera on the front. Leaked images show that the phone runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

Earlier reports had said that the Moto M is powered by a massive 5,100mAh battery. But according to Hemmerstoffer, the phone has a 3,050mAh battery. 

The software running on Moto M doesn't appear to be stock Android. Motorola has always kept its OS as close to pure Android as possible, the UI in the leaked photos look heavily customised. 

It is not certain yet if Lenovo is in fact doing away with stock Android on Moto phones or it is just a launcher running on the leaked Moto M phone.