Chingari to Trell: Desi apps upbeat after India's digital strike on China

While the Indian alternatives are seeing a huge surge in usage, experts believe that their dream run could be short-lived if the government decides to overturn the ban

The ban on TikTok is proving to be a ‘demonetisation moment’ for desi social apps like Chingari. Its co-founder Sumit Ghosh has had sleepless nights ever since the government banned 59 Chinese apps, including TikTok. He is trying to find ways to equip the app so that it can handle the unprecedented and sudden spike in traffic. Chingari is adding up to 600,000 users per hour, crossing a total user base of 7.5 million.

Ghosh said the app has a creation tool, which is as good as TikTok’s, hence a lot of influencers are moving to their platform. The idea behind starting Chingari, he says, is not to build a TikTok clone but to position itself as a super app for India like WeChat. “We just wanted to penetrate the market with short videos, which have already taken off in India. We are now working on live streaming and chat functions, which will be rolled out soon,” said Ghosh.

The app, which also has a news feature, is hoping to close a Series-A round of funding next week. Chingari has a reward point feature in which every time a content creator uploads a video, he earns points that can be encashed later through partner UPI platforms.

Experts say top content creators and influencers make between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 5 lakh per post on platforms like TikTok, and such influencers can have at least four deals a month. “In the short term, many (content creators) would have lost their livelihoods. Now they have realised and won’t keep all their eggs in one basket,” said Rahul Singh, chief executive and co-founder at Bengaluru-based influential marketing firm Winkl…Read More

You can no longer book an Uber cab ride directly from Google Maps app

The ability to book an Uber through Maps allowed users to avoid the official Uber app

 

Google has reportedly killed the ability of direct Uber ride booking from inside Google Maps without giving any reason.

The feature allowing users to book Uber rides through Google Maps was added in January last year, with which users could enter a location, identify their route, check Uber prices and request a ride without leaving the Maps app.

On one Google Maps Help page, Google simply says “you can no longer book Uber rides directly in Google Maps”, Android Police reported late on Monday.

Uber integration was pulled from Google Maps on iOS earlier than on Android, according to the report.

The ability to book an Uber through Maps allowed users to avoid the official Uber app, which has previously been criticised for its aggressive location tracking.

Click Here : Technology

Flipkart's PhonePe ties up with Ola, bets on micro-apps for growth

Through the AutoPay feature, users can link their credit or debit card for an Ola ride in the PhonePe app once, and the ride-fare would automatically be paid at the end of every ride

Flipkart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe has tied up with homegrown cab aggregator Ola, where users can book a cab or an auto using a micro-app built on its payments platform.

The company has gone live with three such micro-apps, including that of redBus and Metro services, and plans to go live with 5 to 10 more in the ongoing quarter.

“Ola’s scale and reach, topped with our AutoPay feature will enable greater convenience and control to our users while making payments seamless,” said Rahul Chari, co-founder and chief technology officer, PhonePe.

ALSO READ: Flipkart's digital payments arm PhonePe crosses 100-million user mark

The company, which has built its payments platform primarily on top of the National Payments Corp of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), crossed the 100-million user milestone last month.

Through the AutoPay feature, users can link their credit or debit card for an Ola ride in the PhonePe app once, and the ride-fare would automatically be paid at the end of every ride.

The company has already integrated mobile wallets such as FreeCharge and Jio Money on its platform to give more options to users.

Click Here : Flipkart

Facebook violates privacy policy, allows phone makers to access users' data

While the device partnerships allowed Facebook to expand its reach, it let the phone makers offer customers popular features of the social network



Raising fresh concerns about Facebook's privacy protection policies, a New York Times report has exposed how the social network allowed about 60 device makers, including Apple and Samsung, to access personal information of users and their friends.

Even before Facebook apps were widely available on smartphones, Facebook had data-sharing partnerships with the device makers, the report said citing company officials, adding that most of the deals remain in effect.

While the device partnerships allowed Facebook to expand its reach, it let the phone makers offer customers popular features of the social network, such as messaging, "like" buttons and address books.

The deals raise concerns about the company's privacy protections and compliance with a 2011 consent decree with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), The Times said.

Facebook, which is already under scrutiny for misuse of millions of its users' data after the Cambridge Analytica data leak scandal became public, reportedly allowed the device companies access to the data of users' friends without their explicit consent.

While Facebook's leaders said that the kind of access exploited by the political consulting firm in 2014 was cut off by the next year as it prohibited developers from collecting information from users' friends.

But the company officials did not disclose that such restrictions were not applicable to makers of cellphones, tablets and other hardware, the report said.

However, Facebook officials denied the device partnerships violated its privacy policies, the FTC agreement and pledges to users.

They said its partnerships were governed by contracts that strictly limited use of the data, including any stored on partners' servers, adding that they knew of no cases where the information had been misused.

"These partnerships work very differently from the way in which app developers use our platform," Ime Archibong, a Facebook vice president was quoted as saying.

Apple blocked our service updates globally, says Telegram messaging app CEO

Without updates, Telegram would not work properly with the latest version of the iPhone operating system and it was out of compliance with the new European data privacy law

Apple has prevented the Telegram messaging service from updating globally ever since Russia banned the service and ordered Apple to remove it from its online store, Telegram's chief executive and founder claimed on Thursday.

Pavel Durov said on his Twitter and Telegram accounts that while the application was available from Apple, Telegram has not been able to deliver technical updates to installed versions of the product anywhere.

He wrote that without updates, Telegram would not work properly with the latest version of the iPhone operating system and it was out of compliance with the new European data privacy law. While Russia makes up 7 per cent of Telegram users, updates for all Telegram users were being restricted, Durov said.

Apple declined repeated requests for comment.

Apple's control over the apps in its store enables it to inspect and approve or disapprove of every new version, including updates that fix minor technical issues. If it does not approve an updated version of the software, it cannot be distributed through the App Store.

"Russia banned Telegram on its territory in April because we refused to provide decryption keys for all our users' communications to Russia's security agencies. We believe we did the only possible thing, preserving the right of our users to privacy in a troubled country," Durov, a pioneer of Russian social media, said on his official Telegram Channel...Read More

In middle of a WhatsApp voice call? You can switch to video call instantly

WhatsApp calls are only available in one-on-one conversations but might be available to group chats soon

WhatsApp has launched a feature in its beta version that will let users switch to video calls from voice calls at the touch of a button.

According to a report in the Independent, if you are in the middle of a WhatsApp voice call and want to switch to a video call, you just need to tap that button to make the switch.

Tapping the button will send a request to the person on the other side, asking if he or she wants to switch from voice to video.

If the offer is accepted, the call will be switched.

If the offer is declined, the voice call will continue as normal. In the current version of WhatsApp, you need to end a voice call to make a video call.

WhatsApp calls are currently only available in one-on-one conversations but it might be available to group chats in the near future, the report said.

The new feature was spotted by watcher of the popular chat app WABetaInfo, which said that the feature is only available to those who have signed up to the beta version of WhatsApp....Read more

Going out for dinner? Google to soon show wait time at restaurants on maps

Google will now include a pop-up box that appears when you click on a time frame in the popular times' chart

Tired of long queues at restaurants? Relax as Google is soon rolling out wait times on Google Search -- followed by Google Maps -- that will show you the estimated wait-time at your favourite eating hangouts.

To see wait times for nearly a million sit-down restaurants around the world that allow walk-ins, just search for the restaurant on Google, open the business listing, and scroll down to the "Popular Times" section.

"There, you'll see the estimated wait time at that very moment. And by tapping on any of the hour bars, you'll see the estimated wait for that time period," Google said in a blog post on Wednesday.

You can even scroll left and right to see a summary of each day's wait times below the hour bars, so you can plan ahead to beat the crowds.(technology news)

Wait-time estimates are based on anonymised historical data, similar to how Google computes the previously launched 'Popular Times' and 'Visit Duration' features.

In the case of restaurants, Google will now include a pop-up box that appears when you click on a time frame in the popular times' chart.

The box shows the live or historical data labelled as "busy", "usually busy", "usually not busy", etc., along with the wait time, TechCrunch reported.

WhatsApp's 'Delete for All' feature for photos, text, GIFs: Learn to use it

Starting today, iOS, Android and Windows phone users can recall the wrongly sent messages

 

 

Are you guilty of ever sending a text message to a person it wasn't meant for? These mistakes are followed by embarrassment and waste of the receiver's time. The moment you hit enter, you are met with this sinking feeling of doom, knowing that you can't revoke the message. WhatsApp, however, has now come up with a feature that may come to your rescue. Starting today, iOS, Android and Windows phone users can recall the wrongly sent messages or messages that are mistakenly sent to the other chats, through WhatsApp's newly developed feature. According to wabetainfo.com, the messaging application owned by social media giant Facebook had been working on this feature since 2016.

Delete for All feature

The Delete for Everyone feature works for any message type in WhatsApp: text messages, images, videos, GIFs, voice messages, stickers (in future), contact cards, files, locations, quoted messages and status replies.

WhatsApp's Delete for Everyone feature doesn't work for in every circumstance:

     — Message contained in a quoted message cannot be revoked

     

     — Users can delete messages sent in a Broadcast List

     

     — Messages can be recalled only within 5 minutes of time frame

    

    — The feature works only if both sender and receiver are using the updated version of                                WhatsApp

     

    — The feature does not work for Symbian OS

Learn to use this feature

Step 1

Select the messages you want to delete.

WhatsApp will ask for a confirmation - Delete for Everyone, Delete for me and Cancel.

Step 2

After you select "Delete for All" option, WhatsApp will reflect a warning - "Messages you selected will be deleted for everyone on the latest version of WhatsApp in this chat. It's give you the option to tap on OK and learn more"....READ MORE