BlackBerry, Boeing working on self-destructing phone

BlackBerry is working with Boeing on Boeing's high-security Android-based smartphone, the Canadian mobile technology company's chief executive said on Friday.

The Boeing Black phone being developed by the Chicago-based aerospace and defense contractor, which is best known for jetliners and fighter planes, can self-destruct if it is tampered with.

The Boeing Black device encrypts calls and is aimed at government agencies and others that need to keep communications and data secure.

"We're pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES 12 platform," BlackBerry CEO John Chen said on a conference call held to discuss its quarterly results.

"That, by the way, is all they allow me to say."

The BlackBerry Enterprise Service, or BES 12, will allow clients such as corporations and government agencies to manage and secure not just BlackBerry devices on internal networks, but those that run on rival operating systems such as Google's Android and Apple's iOS.

The Boeing phone uses dual SIM cards to enable it to access multiple cell networks and can be configured to connect with biometric sensors and satellites. Boeing has begun offering the phone to potential customers.

Flipkart raises $700 million, files to go 'public'

India's largest e-commerce player Flipkart said it has closed a $700 million fresh financing round which saw new investors like Baillie Gifford, Greenoaks Capital, Steadview Capital, T Rowe Price Associates​ and Qatar Investment Authority get on board the seven-year-old venture. Its existing investors DST Global, GIC, ICONIQ Capital and Tiger Global, also participated in the latest fund-raise valuing Flipkart at around $11 billion, pre-money.

The new round catapults Flipkart right up into the top-tier of the world's most valued privately-held tech startups like Uber, Snapchat, Airbnb and Dropbox. With this, Flipkart has raised around $2.5 billion in funding till date.

TOI had reported in its November 24 edition that the e-tailer had raised fresh capital of around $600 million giving it ammunition to fight out rivals Snapdeal and Amazon in a fiercely competitive online commerce market.

"As with previous funds raised, these funds will be used towards long-term strategic investments in India and to build a world-class technology company, delivering superior customer experiences," a company statement said.

Significantly, Flipkart Limited, which is incorporated in Singapore, has filed with ACRA, the national regulator of business entities and public accountants in Singapore for conversion to a public company. This is a mandatory procedure for all companies where the number of shareholders exceeds 50. This filing ensures we are in compliance with the laws of Singapore and is in no way indicative of any upcoming IPO or of any corporate activity that the company is engaged in either in Singapore or any other part of the world, the statement said.

This is the third fund-raise for Flipkart this year having raised an eye-popping billion dollars in July valuing it at $7 billion then. Sources said the latest move was part of Flipkart's regular fund-raising plans till it readies itself to go public on the US bourses in the next 36 months.

As reported by this newspaper, the company could raise anywhere between $2 billion and $3 billion within this time frame. Flipkart was founded by two ex-Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related) — who were also batch mates at IIT-Delhi — as an online bookstore in Bangalore. Since then, the company has expanded to become a horizontal e-commerce player selling electronics, fashion and baby care, among many other categories.

In October this year, Japan's SoftBank pumped $627 million into Delhi-based online retailer Snapdeal, signaling the investor exuberance around India's consumer internet story buoyed by the rapid adoption of internet-enabled smartphones.

Flipkart has already hit a $4 billion revenue run rate, as reported earlier by TOI, on the back of exclusive tie-ups with mobile handset makers Motorola and Xiaomi, and its growing market share in the fashion category post its acquisition of Myntra.

Online shopping does not always end well for users: Report

 A recent survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International found that almost half of those respondents who lost money in fraudulent online transactions did not get all — or sometimes any — of their funds back.

The survey said that although many financial institutions show a willingness to reimburse money lost due to cybercrime, only 56% of respondents reported that they could fully recoup their losses. 16% of victims received only partial compensation, and 28% could not recover any money at all. In some regions, such as Russia, 58% of those surveyed said there was no hope of getting any money back, and 13% received only part of the stolen sum.

"Even if you are sure that the financial company or online store will refund any stolen money in the event of online fraud, you should still be cautious. You may indeed get all the money back -- although the figures suggest this only happens about half the time -- but the time and stress you will suffer are impossible to compensate. That's why it's important to pay special attention to the protection of confidential information, including your financial data," said Elena Kharchenko, head of consumer product management, Kaspersky Lab.

As the festive season approaches, people go out and buy more--this applies to online purchases just as much as in the shops — Kaspersky Lab reminded device users to make sure they always protect their transactions online. Experts said that unfortunately, internet shopping does not always end well for the buyers
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From water to women’s security, Dharavi girls create apps to lift their quality of life

                             The app is called Paani Hai Jeevan (Water is Life). It requires you to register yourself and check for notifications to know the best time to fetch water from the neighbourhood communal tap. The idea is to cut the long queues and long arguments through a well-organized system to tell someone it's their turn. The app is not live on any app store yet. The three-month-old prototype is being tested and polished by the developers who happen to be a team of three 12- to 13-year-old schoolgirls from Dharavi.

Two more app prototypes have come out of a small room in Asia's largest slum—all three from schoolgirls aged between 10 and 17. The girls, who only learned how to operate a computer in February, made the apps using the MIT App developer. It has a simple drag-and-drop interface to create mobile apps. The girls, who have also come up with a women's security app and a primary school lesson app, say they developed them after a brainstorming session with documentary filmmaker Nawneet Ranjan.

"We put up a chart paper and wrote down all the problems we face every day. Then, for the next three months, we learnt how to use the app maker and made these," says 13-year-old Sapna Krishna Telunga, who along with her friends Roshni Yasin Shaikh and Kiran Verma made the app 'Padhai Hai Mera Hak'.

The app logo was put together on MS-Paint. The app has just three screens, one that displays the English alphabet, one that displays the Hindi one, and another that has a Math sum.

"It also works on simple phones. Our moms never went to school. We can teach them with this," says Shaikh who wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up. Fauzia Aslam Ansari (12), who built the water app with her friends Sheetal Rathore and Sudha Chalwade, says she wants to improve certain features on her app, like notifying others when there's dirty water in the supply. "There are always fights over whose turn it is. This way you will know how long you have to wait, and people won't fight," says Ansari, a Class VIII student who plays football.

Ranjan, the filmmaker who works out of San Francisco and Mumbai, enlisted the help of friends from both cities when he started the project in Dharavi. He got involved when he visited the slum in 2012 for his film 'Dharavi Diaries'. Between getting the girls to meet investors, finding them mentors from the engineering staff of an internet company, and raising funds to turn the small rented room they meet in every afternoon into a full-fledged lab, Ranjan is also prepping them to participate in the 'Technovation' competition next year.

The international competition held in the US invites entries in the form of technology projects from young girls and women from across the world. A selected few make a pitch to international investors in San Francisco and the winners see their projects come to fruition. Ranjan says they initially got older women in the area visiting the "lab" where they could stitch, embroider and design bags. He would help them connect with designers over Skype, who would give them tips.

These women visit the lab even today. The room, which they call 'Technovation Design Studio' also doubles up as an informal tuition centre. Ranjan plans a regional pitch night in Dharavi to raise funds for the girls to be able to continue their app-development. Competing on an international scale, and most possibly against those from the first world with a head start in technological exposure does not weigh on the girls' mind right now. App-making is their idea of fun. "Ye banane mein bahut maza aata hai (this thing is a lot of fun)," is a line that 14-year-old Ansuja Maniwal repeats while showing you the backend program that runs her app. The one she made with her team is one for women's safety called "Women Fight Back". In the league of women's safety apps, this one also sends the user's location with an alert message. An added feature is the "distress call", which lets out a 'scream' on tapping the screen. "It's like a horror film, no?" chuckles Telunga. "When girls come back from classes or late night duty, they get harassed. No one ever calls the police. This can help," says Maniwal, whose app is in the process of going live on Google Play Store.

There are other problems. "Gutters are never clean," says Rani Shaikh. Roshni wants to build an app that can do basic medical diagnostics. "It should have something to contact the municipal doctor directly," she says. Will it? Possibly, if their imaginations run just as wild as they have so far.