Heena Sharma Blog

With weak or stolen passwords accounting for an average of four out of five global data breaches, a new study has said it is safer not to have a password . The new report released by the World Economic Forum, here during its 2020 annual meeting, said that freeing ourselves of passwords will actually make individuals safer and businesses more efficient. Cybercrime is set to cost the global economy US2.9 million every minute in 2020, and some 80 per cent of these attacks are password-related. Knowledge-based authentication whether with PINs, passwords, passphrases, or whatever we need to remember is not only a major headache for users, it is costly to maintain, the study found. For larger businesses, it is estimated that nearly 50 per cent of IT help desk costs are allocated to password resets, with average annual spend for companies now at over US1 million for staffing alone. "Passwordless authentication does not mean removing all security barriers to our digitalize...

An Indian ban on downloading TikTok , one of the world's most popular mobile applications, has heightened industry worries that technology companies could now face increased scrutiny and regulatory challenges in one of their most important markets. TikTok, which allows users to create and share videos with special effects, has become a sensation in India, where it has been downloaded by nearly 300 million users so far, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, out of more than 1 billion installs globally. Its runaway popularity has attracted criticism from some politicians, however, in a largely conservative society that can have a low boiling point for even moderately racy content. In the case of TikTok, 15-second dance clips and memes dominate the platform, although some videos do show youngsters, some scantily clad, lip-syncing and grooving to popular tunes. Local media have also reported several accidental deaths when users attempted to make videos with knives and gu...

Chip supplier Qualcomm Inc on Tuesday unveiled a new generation of mobile phone processor chips that will power 5G smartphones in the United States as soon as next year. The key feature of the Snapdragon 855 chip, launched at an event in Hawaii, is a so-called modem for phones to connect to 5G wireless data networks with mobile data speeds of up to 50 or 100 times faster than current 4G networks. Mobile carriers are investing in 5G networks and are eager to sell 5G phones and data plans to recoup investment costs. Qualcomm, the largest supplier of mobile phone chips, said Snapdragon 855 would power Samsung 5G smartphones that Verizon Communications Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Monday would be released in the United States in the first half of 2019. The modem would also enable "computer vision" to help phones recognise objects and faces, and support a new Qualcomm fingerprint sensor that can read a user's fingerprint through the glass...

Music streaming platform Saavn, now a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), on Tuesday launched JioSaavn , which according to the company is South Asia’s largest streaming, entertainment and artist platform. JioSaavn represents the official integration of JioMusic and Saavn , and the new JioSaavn app will be available across app stores like Jio app store, JioPhone, and www.jio.com/jiosaavn. RIL had in March this year acquired Saavn and announced at the time that the implied valuation of the combined entity, at over $1 billion, made it the most valuable music streaming platform in South Asia, and among the most popular in the world. Telecom and data company Reliance Jio Infocomm is part of the RIL group and is India’s largest digital services network with over 252 million subscribers. The integrated music app has a massive addressable market opportunity both in India as well as for the Indian diaspora, according to the company. Read More Business Stand...

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled its much-anticipated foldable phone in San Francisco on Wednesday, urging Android developers to start writing apps for it. Samsung needs to get the foldable phone right to reverse steep declines in profit for its mobile division and restore some of the cachet its brand has lost to Apple Inc . Foldable phones promise the screen of a small tablet in a pocket-sized device. Justin Denison, senior vice president of Samsung Electronics America's Mobile Product Strategy and Marketing, showed a prototype with a screen he said measured 7.3 inches diagonally. Folded in two it appeared to resemble a thick phone, but Samsung did not give media or developers a chance to touch or see the device up close. Dave Burke, vice president of engineering for Google's Android software platform, told a Google conference in California that Samsung planned to introduce a new Android-based device early next year. "We expect to see folda...