Interchangeable resin lenses, 10MP+ camera rumored for iPhone 6

No one outside of Cupertino is really sure what Apple's next smartphone might offer, but supply chain leaks can occasionally offer a glimpse at what's in store - or send rumor seekers completely off the beaten path.
G4Games reported Tuesday that Apple may be looking to wow iPhone owners again this year by further improving upon the camera optics introduced with last year's iPhone 5S model.
Already widely hailed as one of the most-used smartphone cameras, this year's alleged iPhone 6 could make the leap to 10 megapixels "or more," capable of packing even more image quality into those mobile images.
Of course, Apple executives have frequently reminded us that megapixel count alone isn't everything, so next-generation iPhone buyers could have some other goodies to look forward to as well.

ARTON or bust

According to an unverified report on Chinese website IT168, the so-called iPhone 6 could also benefit from a wider f/1.8 aperture capable of throwing even more light onto its image sensor than last year's model.
More intriguing, the same report cites unnamed sources from within Apple's Taiwanese supply chain who claim a Japanese company called JSR will be providing "interchangeable resin lenses" for the very same camera lens.
Such lenses would reportedly be made from a new, transparent resin known as ARTON, which JSR says offers superior "optical characteristics" and "dimension stability" that are "best suited for optical applications."
Lending credence to the last bit of this rumor is the fact that Apple was recently granted two patents for interchangeable camera lenses for the iPhone, although it's too early to know if they'll actually make their way onto this year's model.

YouTube Starts Auditing Videos For Fake Views

In a move to keep all the video views authentic, YouTube has announced that it has started ‘audit’ of videos. The move is aimed at checking fraudulent views which will ensure advertisers that their campaigns on the portal reach a genuine audience. The video sharing site said the new system would help stop videos being artificially inflated in perceived popularity.

“As part of our long-standing effort to keep YouTube authentic and full of meaningful interactions, we’ve begun periodically auditing the views a video has received”, wrote YouTube’s  Software Engineer Philipp Pfeiffenberger,in a company blog post. However, the firm said that it does not expect the new approach to affect “more than a minuscule fraction of videos on YouTube”.

The blog post further stated that YouTube’s scan software previously checked for spam when a video was posted. It will now revisit videos at various times after they are uploaded. Fraudulent views can be used to raise profile of the person who posted a video or as a way of attracting advertising – raising revenue for both the owner and Google.

Analysts said the site’s latest move to clamp down on fraudulent views was also aimed at advertisers that are aggressively advertising on YouTube. The video site which get over 40% views from mobile concluded warning users to be extra careful when working with third-party marketing firms as unfortunately some of them will sell you fake views.

YouTube is not the only social media that has faced the issue of artificially inflated likes and comments. Facebook likes  and Twitter followers are buyable by the many online. There are various examples of certain IT firms that misuse social media platforms such to help politicians artificially boost their popularity with fake ‘likes’ and ‘followers’, and running campaigns against rivals. Last month, YouTube rolled out comment management tool that lets video creator manage them.

Sponsored: How to move to Office 365

Many small businesses are migrating to the cloud. The great thing about such a move is that you only pay for what you use, allowing you to scale up and down as and when necessary.
A move to Office 365 away from local storage and Exchange servers can increase your business's ability to share and collaborate on documents and data.

What to move and what you need to know

There are a few main areas to consider when moving your productivity apps onto Office 365: email accounts and data; documents; websites and management.
Migration can be a complex task. Small businesses with few users may wish to consider starting from fresh. Larger organisations with hundreds or thousands of users will require a lot of advanced planning and the process for moving users can be monotonous.
You should also ask yourself some difficult questions about the migration. How does the organisation prepare for the move? What regulatory or compliance issues are there? Where is the data stored and is it secure? What skills are needed for migrations and does it require external help to carry out?

Spring clean the infrastructure

The first task of any migration to Office 365 is to spring clean the infrastructure. This means fixing Active Directory by running a health check and making sure all Active Directory objects are in good shape.
You will also need to disable, delete, or archive users, organisational units, mailboxes, Public Folders, and SharePoint libraries and sites. After this, you then need to make a list of what content needs to move and what can be safely ignored. The more time put into preparation for migration will shorten the time it takes and cuts down on error.

Document how email works in your organisation

Email in an organisation isn't just email addresses. There are workflows built into the system. Before migration, document how email comes into the network and how Exchange processes it. You should also document how users connect to the mail server to get emails.
You should also list email and related servers and the network components (alongside LAN and WAN diagrams. Any applications or devices using MAPI or SMTP to relay emails should be recorded. As well as this both internal and external DNS MX and A records should be noted.
It is also important to list any public secure web (SSL) certificates as well as encryption and archiving settings.

Assemble the migration toolkit

The right tools can make migration easier. The OnRamp for Office 365 carries out pre-migration checks on Active Directory and its environment. Office365 Lync Online Transport Reliability IP Probe (TRIPP) will let you know how good the connection to Office 365 is and whether you need to upgrade your broadband connection. The Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer can test external access portions for Exchange and Office 365.

What migration path

There are four migration paths for Office 365 an organisation can take: IMAP migration; Cutover Exchange migration (CEM); Staged Exchange migration (SEM) and hybrid deployment.
IMAP migration extract email form source email systems by IMAP, MX records are changed and workstations configured to connect to Office 365. Only email is moved; contacts and calendars stay put.
CEM is the same as IMAP migration but uses RPC over HTTPS to extract mailboxes from Exchange Server 2003 onwards.
SEM is similar to CEM but will transfer batches of users at a time and allows on-premise Exchange and Office 365 to operate at the same time for a period of time. This requires Directory Synchronization with on-premises AD
Hybrid deployment is used in situations where organisations need onsite and cloud email systems to co-exist for longer periods of time. This manages users that are both on-premise and in the cloud.

Conclusion

It may seem complex, but the move to Office 365 is no more complicated than any upgrade to your email systems carried out periodically, and will quite possibly be the last one you'll ever need to do.

How to Automatically Backup Photos on Android

How to Automatically Backup Photos on Android is a post by Cory Gunther from Gotta Be Mobile.These days one of the most used features on our smartphones is the camera, but most users tend to snap away yet don’t know how to manage all those photos. Nothing is more convenient than taking a photo and have it automatically backed up to the cloud. So here’s how to do exactly that.
There’s plenty of options available for Android users, and we’ll mention a few, but the biggest one is Google’s own option. The Google+ mobile app automatically backs up your photos through a feature called Google+ Auto Backup, or Instant Upload, if enabled. This feature is available in Google+ Android and iOS mobile apps. It saves a copy of your photos privately on Google’s cloud services, available only to you, whenever you want to access them.

These photos are all saved privately, and no one but you has access. Secondly, most Android users have a Google+ account for using YouTube or leaving comments on the Play Store, so no setup or signup is required. Going through my Google+ Photos instant upload stream I found awesome photo I’d long since lost from 3-4 years ago, and it was awesome that Google saved full resolution copies, all for free.
Google+ Instant Upload doesn’t cost a thing, allows for 1TB of photos (1,000 GB) so you’ll probably never run out of space. For all those Galaxy S4 owners that have used up that 16GB of internal storage, this is a much better solution. Whenever you take a photo, Google+ will automatically back it up without any prompts from the user. Once you enable it you’re set. Below is the simple steps for you to do the same thing.

Google+ Auto Backup for Photos & Video

Most phones already come with Google+ preinstalled (Google’s social network) so all you need to do is sign in and head to settings. Start by finding the red G+ icon in your app tray, and opening Google+. From here you’ll tap menu and settings, or the 3-dot settings button and right up top you’ll see Auto Backup, select that.

Enable Auto Backup for the Gmail account you’d like to use by simply switching the feature on with the blue on/off switch at the top, and then scroll down to “Backup settings” which is important for smartphone users. Here you can select whether it backs up all photos, as you take them, even while on mobile data. For those on a shared family plan or small data plans with a carrier, you’ll only want to backup photos and video over WiFi.
Google+ defaults to only backup when a WiFi connection is available, as that’s usually faster, and you won’t incur data charges from your mobile carrier. It’s also a good idea to leave the roaming option unchecked, and for those concerned about battery life you can opt to only backup while you’re phone is charging to preserve battery life.

Read: How to Cut, Copy & Paste on Android

That’s it, you’re done! Now head back to the main Google+ launch page and swipe to the left screen and tap photos, which will take you to a gallery of your camera roll, as well as a highlight of all backed up photos. It may take a while, especially if you’re like my mother with 8,000 photos, so give it some time.

You can access these from any smartphone or tablet with the Google+ app, as well as on the web with any browser by heading into Google+ from the menu bar at the top of any Google page inside Chrome, Firefox, and more.
Alternatively you can delete, share, or download these photos whenever you’d like, so it’s quite nice. Then of course users can opt for a very similar service using Dropbox, but they only give users 5GB of free storage vs 1,000 from Google. Box.net offers photo backup, Amazon Cloud services, Microsoft Skydrive and even Flickr offer similar options. All which can be enabled with nearly the same steps in settings, and enable photo backup.

For those on Android, Google+ Auto Backup is the easiest, simplest, and fastest solution without lifting a finger. Not to mention it comes at no cost to you, the user.

Should You Use This Feature?

Of course many users may be concerned with the fact that Google is backing up each and every single photo you take, and saving it to a database, so naturally some will be hesitant. You can always disable the feature, or delete them from the Auto Backup gallery, but again this is completely optional.
You don’t need to enable auto backup of photos, but if you do you’ll never lose a photo again if you lose a phone, or a micro-SD card fails inside that Galaxy S4 or your smartphone of choice. It’s safe, secure, and easy.

Are You Making These 10 Dangerous Smartphone Mistakes?

Are You Making These 10 Dangerous Smartphone Mistakes? is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.If you own an iPhone or Android smartphone odds are you are making at least one of these dangerous mistakes that can put your personal information or details at risk.
There are two types of dangerous smartphone behavior that stand out, carrying an iPhone into a hot tub with a beer in your hand is one type, while the other is leaving a smartphone and the data on it unprotected from loss or theft.
Despite advances in software and hardware many iPhone and Android owners don’t take the simplest steps to protect the data on their smartphone from theft.
Read on to find out if you are guilty of these 10 dangerous smartphone mistakes and how you can fix them.
Protect Your Bubble is one of the top smartphone insurance options we found last year and they’ve rounded up data on dangerous smartphone behavior. The list below and the infographic shows the Top 10 dangerous smartphone mistakes users make.

1. No password
2. Saving banking login information
3. Taking, sending and saving nude photos
4. Clicking on risky links
5. Posting photos while on vacation
6. Posting photos with location settings turned on.
7. Giving out personal information to random callers
8. Using it without a case
9. Connecting to unsecure WiFi networks
10. No smartphone insurance or warranty

It’s not surprising that a smartphone insurance company lists this as one of the options, but these are all valid items that users should be aware of and take steps to be safe. Check out the infographic to see more about the behaviors and read on to learn how to use your smartphone safer.

Secure Your Smartphone

iPhone and Android smartphones make it easy to secure your information with a passcode, pattern, facial unlock or fingerprint. Yes, it adds an extra step to login, but it also is one big roadblock in someone taking your personal information.
A quick trip to settings will let you lock your iPhone, Android or Windows Phone with a passcode of some kind. It’s an important first step.

Saving Financial Logins

It’s annoying to type in a complex banking password on a smartphone, but if you aren’t using passcodes you’re leaving yourself open to trouble and identity theft if someone steals your phone.
A better option is to use a tool like LastPass to keep your passwords secure but easy for you to access on your iPhone or Android.

Taking Nude Photos

The easiest solution is to not take them in the first place as it is all too easy to send one to your mom by accident, let them slip into the hands of a thief or accidentally show up in a slideshow. If you must take them, secure your phone, exclude the folder from gallery and be very careful who you send them too.

Clicking on Risky Links

We often see risky links come from text message and email alerts claiming to offer important information about our bank account and we aren’t alone. Keep in mind that most banks won’t send you a text asking you to login or call them at a number provided. If you get an alert call your bank at a number you trust. If you need to verify something don’t click the link in an email. Instead go to the address and login like you would normally. It is too easy for a scammer to trick you with a long url that is hidden after the page loads.

Photos on Vacation and with Location Data

While on vacation it’s natural to want to share photos, but some experts suggest doing this invites burglars to target your house. The safest bet is to post the photos when you get back, but many users will have trouble waiting.
When you snap a photo on the iPhone or Android the camera can embed the location into the photo. This is handy for looking at photos grouped by location on the iPhone, Android or on a computer, but when you send a photo by email or message it can pass on your location to the recipient. This could unwittingly reveal your home or work location to someone.
Thankfully Twitter and Facebook appear to strip this location data out of photos share don the services.

Answering Fishy Calls

The safest strategy when it comes to answering an unknown caller is to simply avoid talking to the person. If you get an unknown call don’t answer it. If they leave a message and claim you are in financial or legal trouble, find the right number for your bank or city instead of calling them back. Scammers will often use a phone call to get users to reveal the information needed to get into accounts.

Using a Smartphone Without a Case

Using a smartphone without a case is most dangerous if you can’t afford to replace the phone or don’t have insurance or accidental damage protection. A case is an easy way to prevent cracked screens that can kill a smartphone and to help keep resale value high by preventing scratches.
If you need a start, here are a few case roundups to look at.

• Best iPhone 5s Cases
• Best Galaxy S4 Cases
• Amazing iPhone 5 Cases
• Best Nexus 5 Cases

Not everyone needs a case, but if you don’t have the cash to replace a damaged phone a case is a good investment.

Connecting to an Unsecured WiFi Network

When on the go many users connect to a WiFi network at a coffee shop or other public place which can open you up to unwittingly sharing personal information or login details. Granted a nefarious individual may not be sniffing around your coffee shop, but it is a good idea to make sure you connect to any websites on these accounts using a https web address, or simply use your mobile connection instead of risking it. PCWorld shares the risks and how to stay secure.

Using a Smartphone Without Insurance or a Warranty

The final dangerous smartphone behavior is debatable as not everyone needs insurance or a warranty on a smartphone, but for many users it is a good idea.
If you have kids, pets that like to chew things, party too hard or work in a hazardous setting you definitely need to consider insurance or a warranty. Other users who need to be concerned about loss or theft should also consider insurance, but the choice isn’t as easy compared to high-risk users.
Insurance protects against loss and theft, while warranties will cover defects and some will cover accidental damage like drops or water damage.
Check out Gotta Be Mobile’s top iPhone 5s insurance and warranty options to see how the options compare. Other than the AppleCare+ option most of these are available on any smartphone. Readers rank Protect Your Bubble as the top option with AppleCare+ and Squaretrade in second place.

Indian IT firms face more challenges in domestic market

 

 Nasscom, India's IT lobby that has weathered many a challenge in the industry's biggest markets overseas, is setting its sights closer to home. For Indian IT firms, the home market has been far more challenging than the US or Europe. 

IT executives often point to dysfunctional policies, a lack of project management and delayed payments as important reasons for conflict in IT contracts with the government, the country's largest spender on technology and related services. Nasscom wants to proactively try to change that, its new president R Chandrasekhar, a long-time bureaucrat, told ET in a recent interview. 

"The procurement policies focus on transparency which is a good thing. But they are not geared for the procurement of services and certainly not the procurement of technology services. That is something we are going to work with the government to address," R Chandrasekhar, said. Cracking the Indian market is of key importance as the Indian IT industry hopes to nearly triple its revenue to $300 billion in 2020, an estimate by Nasscom. 

Emerging markets such as India will be in focus as Nasscom holds its annual India Leadership Forum in Mumbai next week. The Indian IT services market will be worth $11.2 billion (Rs 70,000 crore) this year, according to research firm Gartner. Last year, the government IT market alone was worth $6.4 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) but many Indian players approached the growing segment with caution. 

"Part of the problem is because what the government is buying is technology that is tied to skills. And skills are not always easy to rate and quantify. And IT companies cannot just ignore the government market because that is where the spend is," said Sanjoy Sen, senior director at consultancy Deloitte. 

The way contracts are structured is a major problem, according to Chandrasekhar. "If you are procuring hardware you can say that all payment will be made after the product is delivered but it cannot be like that in services." Services contracts need more flexibility, Chandrasekhar added. 

The upcoming general elections will make implementing changes hard in the next six months, but Nasscom intends to work with the bureaucracy to suggest process-related changes during the election time and work on policy-related changes when the government has been formed, Chandrasekhar added. 

Every decision was facing additional scrutiny and bureaucrats were making the strictest possible interpretation of contracts for fear of attracting allegations of corruption , said an IT industry executive , who works with the government on condition of anonymity. 

The defence ministry, in particular, has slammed the door shut on billions of dollars worth of contracts for software companies wishing to participate in defence offset deals after the AgustaWestland scandal, ET had reported. Chandrasekhar said the government's "draconian" interpretations were leading to Indian firms backing away from contracts and the lack of payments had driven smaller firms to the brink of bankruptcy. 

Deloitte's Sen said that given the prolonged slowdown in the country and the number of e-governance projects underway, the government would likely be more open to looking at ways the procurement could be made easier for IT firms.

Sony to sell PC business to investment fund: Reports

Sony is in talks to sell its personal computer business to a Japanese investment fund as part of the electronics giant's wider restructuring, reports said Wednesday. 

The leading Nikkei business daily said Sony was looking to sell the division to Japan Industrial Partners for between 40 billion yen and 50 billion yen ($396 million to $495 million). 

The fund would set up a new company that will continue selling PCs and laptops under the Vaio brand, in which Sony would retain a small stake, the Nikkei and other local media reported. 

Sony had just a 1.9 percent share of the global PC market in the first nine months of last year, according to the Nikkei. 

A Sony spokesman said the reports were "not based on anything we have announced so we decline to comment on them, but we are studying various options for our PC business". 

Sony shares rose 4.57 percent to 1,600 yen in Tokyo Wednesday, recovering its losses the previous day on the back of a broad market sell-off. 

The reports come after public broadcaster NHK said at the weekend that Sony was in talks with Chinese computer giant Lenovo to set up a joint venture for its overseas PC business. 

It added that Sony was doing a separate deal for its domestic business with an investment fund at home. Sony, which reports its latest financial results on Thursday, has called the NHK report "inaccurate". 

Last week, Moody's cut its credit rating on Sony to junk, saying the once-dominant firm had more work to do in repairing its battered balance sheet. 

Japan's embattled electronics industry, including Sony rivals Panasonic and Sharp, has been undergoing painful restructuring to stem years of huge losses, largely tied to the low-margin TV business.

Two in five workers plan to change jobs this year: Survey

 

Two in five workers in the country are planning to changes their jobs before the year ends due to reasons like need for higher salary and better work-life balance, says a survey. 

According to a CareerBuilder.co.in survey, forty-four per cent of full-time workers plan to change jobs in 2014. 

Moreover, 11 per cent have not decided if they will stay with their current employer or pursue another. 

"During the economic downturn, fewer people voluntarily left jobs because the chances of finding a new or better job were low compared to a healthier economic cycle. That trend seems to be slowly beginning to shift," CareerBuilder, Managing Director -India, Premlesh Machama said. 

With more than half of their workforce potentially heading out the door this year, employers would look to adjust their retention strategies to save some of their top talent. 

Some of the best retention strategies include, increase in salary, increase employee recognition, flexible work schedules, increase training/learning opportunities and increased benefits. 

"Offering frequent recognition, performance bonuses, training programs and clearly defined career paths are important ways to show workers what they mean to the company," Machama said. 

According to the survey, those who are satisfied with their jobs mostly cited factors like good work/life balance, rapport with people they work with, satisfactory salary and comfortable job title. 

Those who are dissatisfied with in their current roles expressed concerns over salary and growth prospects in their current organisation. 

The national survey was conducted online in January 2014, and included a representative sample of 1,000 employees across industries and company sizes.