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  During her Union Budget speech on February 1st, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the government’s plan on the issuance of  e-passports  embedded with an electronic chip in order to enhance convenience for citizens in their overseas travel. VO2> According to the proposal, the e-passport will be a combination of paper and electronic passport, with a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip. An antenna will be embedded as an inlay in the back cover. The passport’s critical information will be stored in the chip and printed on the data page. The characteristics of the e-passport are specified by the International Civil Aviation Organization, an agency of the United Nations. The government clarified that data of the citizens obtained for e-passport will be used only for the purposes of issuance of the passport and related services. There will not be any secondary use of the data, thereby safeguarding privacy concerns. Further transaction processes ...

  According to Arvind Gupta, the head of Digital India Foundation, a public platform is something that is built around the concept of openness, standard and trust. It is backed by the government and not by any private entity. There are about nine platforms with billion plus users each across the world.   Five of them are in the US and four in China. And none of them are government backed. With Aadhaar, India built the world’s first and largest public digital platform. It is now being used in banking, KYC and several other fields. It led to some sort of digital revolution, like the birth of  UPI  which ended the duopoly of two international operators in India. It allows you to send or receive money irrespective of the payment platforms on which you are registered. And now, Nandan Nilekani -- who helped the government create the biometric identification for almost 1.4 billion people after co-founding Infosys -- believes that Open Network for Digital Commerce or OND...

Microsoft  and  Google  have joined hands to help web developers get their Progressive Web  Apps  (PWAs) into the Play Store. Progressive web  apps  use emerging web browser APIs and features, along with traditional progressive enhancement strategy, to bring a native app-like user experience to cross-platform web applications. Microsoft's PWABuilder and Google's Bubblewrap are now working together to help web developers. PWABuilder.com is Microsoft's open source developer tool that helps build high-quality PWAs and publish them in app stores. Bubblewrap is Google's command line utility and library to generate and sign  Google  Play Store packages from Progressive Web  Apps. PWABuilder is now using Bubblerwrap under the hood,  Microsoft  says, and is giving back some integration features to PWAs on Android. After months of collaboration, the two tech giants have announced two great new features...

Once a part of contingency plans, work-from-home is now the new working standard for businesses to operate amid the on-going  coronavirus  pandemic. While a make-do workstation at home can get you moving, there are things like dual-band wireless router, cloud storage, thumb drives, wireless keyboard and mouse, etc. that help elevate user experience and improve productivity and work efficiency. Business Standard  lists five things to make work-from-home functional Routers and internet dongles You cannot establish a work-from-home set-up without internet connectivity. There are multiple ways to connect to the internet, but the most efficient in current scenario is wireless. If you have just the notebook or desktop, a simple 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi router would work just fine. However, if there are multiple devices like printer, scanner, external display, etc., then you need a dual-band wireless router to connect and manage all your connected devices. Besid...

The world's first fully Blockchain-powered smartphone BOB (Blok on Blok) that runs two different operating systems (OS) at the same time seamlessly is now available for purchase for $599 (nearly Rs 43,000). The smartphone can be bought in various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin via digital asset wallet app Xwallet. The users of the app will get the device for $539 as pre-order discount from November 30 to December 14, Singapore-based Pundi X Labs which is the maker of the device said on Thursday. The XWallet mobile app connects regular digital asset wallets with the Pundi X payment ecosystem. Built entirely on and for the Blockchain by Pundi X Labs, a leading developer of blockchain-powered devices, the smartphone has Android 9.0 as base OS, allowing it to function like a regular Android smartphone. Read Complete Article

Amazon added a new device to its Echo lineup today in India. Called Echo Flex, the plug-in device is a multi-functional smart speaker. The Amazon Echo Flex plugs directly into a standard electrical outlet and comes with built-in Alexa voice support that lets you control other smart home devices, the official release notes. The smart speaker also comes with a USB-A port that allows you to charge a phone or other devices. The Amazon Echo Flex is available for pre-order starting today and will ship next month. It is priced at INR 2,999. Read Complete Article

US-based search engine giant Google has finally released the Android Auto for phone screens, what it promised back in May at I/O 2019. The app is now live in the Play Store, it is basically the same as the previous app but just adds an icon that is slightly different and it is only compatible with Android 10 on certain devices. "This app lets you use Android Auto on your phone screen with a phone running Android 10. If you have Android 10 and an Android Auto compatible car, you can project to your car display without downloading this app. Simply plug in your phone to get started," the company noted recently. "Android Auto is your smart driving companion that helps you stay focused, connected, and entertained with the Google Assistant. With a simplified interface, large buttons, and powerful voice actions, Android Auto is designed to make it easier to use apps that you love from your phone while you're on the road," the company added. Read Complete A...

Google has started combining G Suite users' Gmail photos with their Google account profile photos. "We are combining the Gmail photo with the Google account profile photo for G Suite users. Now, when you go to change this setting in Gmail, you'll be directed to the 'About me' section of your Google profile settings to set your profile picture," the company said in a statement on Monday. Currently, profile pictures set in Gmail are only displayed in Gmail. This means a profile picture in Gmail may be different than the Google account profile photo, which can make it difficult to know which picture will be displayed where. This new change simplifies things by allowing a user to set a single profile picture in one place and then displaying that single photo across all Google apps. "When you visit Settings > General > My Picture in Gmail on the web, you will be directed to change your picture in the 'About me' section of your Google ...

HCL will recruit talented students and train them for entry-level jobs HCL Technologies   has started hiring talented high-school students to offer them a career in software engineering. The fourth largest technology services provider of the country will train 200 students for one year beginning April and absorb them in different entry-level software jobs within the company. Through this early career training programme, HCL will provide a combination of academic learning, in the form of a course, for nine months and on the job training for three months to 100 students each in its Lucknow and Madurai training campuses. As part of the programme, they will learn application development, software or product testing, application support and infrastructure management service. After completion, these students will get a certificate in information technology from SSN College of Engineering. They will also be taken on various projects of HCL Technologies at a starting salary of Rs...