Smartphone apps may help reduce depression

Smartphone apps are an effective treatment option for depression, a finding which may pave the way for safe and accessible interventions for the millions of people with the mental disorder, researchers have confirmed.

The results showed that smartphones open up non-stigmatising and self-managing avenues of care for the people with depression because smartphones can help them monitor, understand and manage their own mental health.

"The majority of people in developed countries own smartphones, including younger people who are increasingly affected by depression," said lead author Joseph Firth, postdoctoral research fellow at Australia's National Institute of Complementary Medicine (NICM).

"Smartphone devices may ultimately be capable of providing instantly accessible and highly effective treatments for depression, reducing the societal and economic burden of this condition worldwide," Firth added.

Importantly, no difference was found in apps which apply principles of mindfulness compared to cognitive behavioural therapy or mood monitoring programmes.

Apps, which are used as an "integrative medicine" approach, can be particularly useful for improving mood and tackling symptoms in patients with a range of mental health symptoms and conditions including major depression, mild to moderate depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and insomnia, the researchers said in the paper published in the journal World Psychiatry.

"Given the multitude of apps available - many of them unregulated - it's critical that we now unlock which specific app attributes reap the greatest benefits, to help ensure that all apps available to people with depression are effective," emphasised co-author Jennifer Nicholas, doctoral student at the Black Dog Institute -- a Sydney based not-for profit organisation.

For the study, the team systematically reviewed 18 randomised controlled trials which examined a total of 22 different smartphones-delivered mental health interventions.

The studies involved more than 3,400 male and female participants between the ages of 18-59.

IANS

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Zomato data breach sixth biggest in first half of 2017

The malicious outsider attack on food delivery app Zomato that exposed 17 million records was the sixth biggest data breach globally in the first half of 2017, a new report said on Thursday.

According to the "Breach Level Index" released by digital security firm Gemalto, a total of 203.7 million data records were compromised in 18 data breaches in India in the firsh half.

Compared to the last six months of 2016, the number of lost, stolen or compromised records increased by 167 million with 61 per cent of data breach incidents being identity theft.

The continuous attacks on Aadhaar data was another significant data breach related to financial access and identity theft in the country.

Globally, a large portion of the 1.9 billion stolen or compromised data records came from the 22 largest data breaches, each involving more than one million compromised records, the report said.

"IT consultant CGI and Oxford Economics recently issued a study, using data from the Breach Level Index and found that two-thirds of firms breached had their share price negatively impacted," said Jason Hart, Vice President and CTO, Data Protection, Gemalto, in a statement.

"Out of the 65 companies evaluated the breach cost shareholders over $52.40 billion," he added.

A total of 918 data breaches were recorded worldwide, in which more than 500 (59 per cent) had an unaccounted number of compromised data records.

The primary sources of data breaches included malicious outsiders, accounting for 74 per cent of the total -- an increase of 23 per cent from last six months of 2016.

While malicious insider attacks only made up 8 per cent of all breaches, the amount of records compromised was 20 million, up from 500,000 (4,114 per cent increase).

Identity theft was the leading 'type' of data breach, acco

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itel 'SelfiePro S41' launched at Rs 6,990

China-based Transsion Holdings on Thursday launched itel Mobile's "SelfiePro S41" smartphone at Rs 6,990 in India.

"The final form of 'S41' has emerged as a feather in the cap of itel's' extensive product portfolio with a potential to acquire an overwhelming response from users across the country," said Sudhir Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, itel and Spice Devices, in a statement.

The smartphone is the first VoLTE smartphone with 3GB RAM and fingerprint sensor at this price point, the company claimed.

The device is powered by 1.25 GHz quad-core Mediatek processor coupled with 3GB RAM and 16GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 32GB

A 2700mAh battery powers the smartphone. There is an 8MP auto-focus rear camera with flash and an 8MP full-frame selfie camera with flash.

'S41' also has a fingerprint sensor. The device sports a 5-inch HD IPS curved full-laminated display.

The device runs Android 7.0 Nougat operating system (OS). In terms of connectivity, 'S41' comes with 4G VoLTE/ViLTE capability.

The smartphone would retail in slate grey and obsidian black colours.

IANS

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US to put more sanctions on N. Korea: Trump

US President Donald Trump on Thursday said that the US would impose more sanctions on North Korea.

Before his meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session in New York, Trump told reporters that his administration will put "more sanctions" on North Korea, Xinhua reported.

North Korea confirmed that it conducted another medium-range ballistic missile test last Friday.

The missile launch, which violates UN Security Council resolutions, came just days after the council imposed fresh sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear test on September 3.

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5G adoption growing rapidly across top tech firms

Underlining rapid 5G adoption worldwide, 96 per cent of large technology companies plan to leverage 5G and 83 per cent will have 5G solutions deployed within the next 24 months, a new survey claimed on Thursday.

According to the network solutions provider Ixia, 5G adoption is happening much quicker than predictions and 67 per cent organisations have evaluated or will evaluate 5G technologies in the next 12 months.


"Many industry analysts talk about 5G as if it is far in the future but this study shows that 5G rollout and adoption is ramping much quicker than predictions," said Kalyan Sundhar, Vice President, Mobility and Virtualization Products, Ixia in a statement.

Nearly 13 per cent of respondents surveyed have already deployed 5G networks, while 34 per cent will publicly release 5G solutions in the next 12 months.

The top three reasons driving 5G adoption were flexible and scalable network (59 per cent), customer demand (55 per cent) and market leadership (46 per cent), while the top industries driving the need for 5G technology include telecom, technology and financial services.

"Developers can ensure their networks and applications are ready to take advantage of the speed and increased device connectivity promised by 5G," added Sundhar.

The survey also noted that over 45 per cent of the organisations are driven by first-to-market pressures to secure and satisfy customers, but lack of resources, expertise and standards are hindering their developments.

IANS

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Google acquires HTC's Pixel team for $1.1bn

Ending months of speculations, Google on Thursday announced to acquire part of the Taiwan-based HTC Corporation's mobile division team for $1.1 billion.

Certain HTC employees - many of whom are working with Google to develop its Pixel smartphones - will join the US tech giant.

However, HTC will continue onward with its own smartphone business even after sending a good portion of its talent and operations over to Google.

Separately, Google will receive a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property (IP).

"HTC has been a longtime partner of Google and has created some of the most beautiful, premium devices on the market," said Rick Osterloh, Senior Vice President of Hardware at Google, in a statement.

"We're excited and can't wait to welcome members of the HTC team who will be joining Google to fuel further innovation and future product development in consumer hardware."

The transaction was expected to close by early 2018.

This is the second time Google has acquired a smartphone manufacturer. It announced a $12.5 billion buyout of Motorola Mobility six years back and in 2014, sold it again to Lenovo.

HTC will continue to build the virtual reality ecosystem to grow its VIVE business, while investing in other next-generation technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality and artificial intelligence (AI).

HTC will also continue to have best-in-class engineering talent, which is currently working on the next flagship phone, following the successful launch of the HTC U11 earlier this year.

Google will have access to HTC's IP to support the Pixel smartphone family.

Additionally, the agreement also represents a significant investment by Google in Taiwan as a key innovation and technology hub.

"Our unmatched smartphone value chain, including our IP portfolio, and world-class talent and system integration capabilities, have supported Google in bolstering the Android market," said Cher Wang, Chairwoman and CEO of HTC.

"This agreement is a brilliant next step in our longstanding partnership, enabling Google to supercharge their hardware business while ensuring continued innovation within our HTC smartphone and VIVE virtual reality businesses."

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Australia restrict India to 252 all out in second ODI

 Skipper Virat Kohli missed out on a hundred as India failed to capitalise on their good start to eventually post 252 all out in 50 overs against Australia in the second One Day International (ODI) at the Eden Gardens here on Thursday.

Kohli (92 off 107 balls) and Ajinkya Rahane (55 off 64) stitched together a 102-run stand for the second wicket. The former later joined hands with Kedar Jadhav (24 off 24) for another 55-run association before Nathan Coulter-Nile (3/51) took the wickets of Kohli and Jadhav.

Kane Richardson, playing in place of fellow pacer James Faulkner, also scalped three wickets giving away 54 runs.

Brief scores: India 252 all out (Virat Kohli 92, Ajinkya Rahane 55; Nathan Coulter-Nile 3/51, Kane Richardson 3/55)

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GoDaddy launches hosting platform for small businesses in India.

Expanding its services in the country, US-based web hosting company GoDaddy on Wednesday launched its easy-to-manage hosting platform "Business Hosting" for small businesses.

The Business Hosting platform is optimised for high-traffic websites, e-commerce and resource-heavy websites, and offers products for small businesses who need advanced solutions with more power but may not have deep technical expertise to manage it.

"GoDaddy Business Hosting is designed to simplify and enhance the customer experience by eliminating the limitations of shared hosting with the assured availability of dedicated resources," Nikhil Arora, Vice President and Managing Director at GoDaddy India, said in a statement.

"In India, currently around 40 per cent of SMBs are influenced by technology, with the number set to increase to 90 per cent by 2020. With Business Hosting, fast-growing small businesses can now have a powerful option for hosting their demanding websites," Arora added.

Business Hosting offers three different plan options.

"Prime" is for fast-growing, high-traffic websites where performance and speed are key. It includes 1GB RAM, 60GB storage and one CPU.

The "Premium" option is made for data-heavy websites, community forums and basic eCommerce sites. It includes 2GB RAM, 120GB storage and two CPUs.

The "Enterprise" variant is ideal for social media, business listings and advanced eCommerce sites. It includes 4GB RAM, 240GB storage, two CPUs and free one-year malware removal.

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Netmagic deploys NetApp's 'SolidFire' Cloud storage system (Lead)

 Managed Cloud service provider Netmagic, the Indian arm of Japanese telecom major NTT Communications, on Tuesday announced that it has deployed NetApps' all-flash, scale-out storage system at five of its data centres in India.

NetApp's 'SolidFire' storage architecture will support Netmagic's Cloud offerings with automated and scalable guaranteed application performance.

"The enhanced capabilities of the on-demand storage services based on the NetApp's 'Solidfire' platform will help our customers grow their storage infrastructure seamlessly and in a granular way both in terms of capacity as well as performance," said Sharad Sanghi, Managing Director & CEO,
Netmagic, in a statement.


NetApp's 'SolidFire' enables businesses' IT infrastructure quickly and seamlessly at scale, while enhancing developer productivity and improving time-to-market of new applications through simplified storage operations at the same time.

"Our SolidFire storage platform simplifies end-user cloud experiences, while reducing internal complexity with its unique QoS and scale-out architecture which helps realise business results faster," added Anil Valluri, President, NetApp India & SAARC.

NTT Communications recently announced plans to invest more than $160 million for its data centre expansion in India.

To become operational by April 2018, two new data centres are located in Mumbai and Bengaluru, the construction of which was initiated by Netmagic.

"India has been a key strategic market for us with the accelerating shift of IT services from traditional enterprise data centres into the Cloud-based services," said Tetsuya Shoji, President and CEO, NTT Communications, in July.

"With further expansion of data centre footprint and addition of international data network services to our service portfolio, we aim to meet the growing market needs for mobility, e-Commerce, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud and Big Data," Shoji added.

The data centres in Mumbai and Bengaluru will add nearly 500,000 square feet of gross floor space, accommodating 2,750 racks per 22MW power and 1,500 racks per 15MW power respectively.

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Microsoft, Amazon team up to integrate Cortana, Alexa digital voice assistants

Microsoft and Amazon have reached an agreement under which Cortana users will be able to use Alexa, and vice-versa. The move will give the two firms a big advantage over the competition, which includes Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri digital voice assistants.

According to a report in the New York Times, the two rival tech firms have been coordinating behind the scenes for the past year to make artificial intelligent assistants Alexa and Cortana communicate with each other.

The partnership will allow people to summon Cortana using Alexa, and vice versa, by the end of the year.

In simpler words, someone using an Alexa device will have to say “Alexa, open Cortana” to get to talk to Microsoft’s digital assistant, and someone using Cortana will have to say “Cortana, open Alexa” to talk to Amazon’s.

According to the report, this cross-platform integration will also allow Alexa users to access some of the more unique aspects of Cortana. Microsoft has built its digital assistant directly into its office products and now Alexa will get that functionality via Cortana.

Amazon, Apple (with Siri), Microsoft and Google (with Assistant) are pouring huge amounts of money into making digital assistants smart.
While Amazon, Apple and Google have already launched smart speakers, Microsoft is preparing to launch a Cortana speaker with Harman Kardon and push its digital assistant into cars, thermostats and more devices.

After a partnership with Microsoft Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos also welcomed Apple and Google to offer similar integration saying he would support it.

“There are going to be multiple successful intelligent agents, each with access to different sets of data and with different specialized skill areas,” Bezos said.

“Together, their strengths will complement each other.”

Nadella also appears to welcome the idea of collaboration with Apple and Google, saying “Hopefully, they’ll be inspired by it”.

HT News

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