Just an hour behind, PM Narendra Modi's flight was on same route as MH17! 

New Delhi: The ill-fated MH-17 flight crashed over Ukraine on Thursday with 295 people on board including 15 crew members. It is learnt that the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could have been at the same place just an hour later as his flight was supposed to follow the same corridor.

According to a report published in The Hindu, PM Modi’s flight Air India-001 had taken off from Frankfurt at 11:22 GMT, which is two hours before the crash. It had been in the same flight corridor and these conditions were bound to put the flight of PM over the Ukraine Flight Information Region (FIR) about an hour later.

An aviation official said that pilot would have got to "decide whether to divert over Russia or the Black sea instead," and the area through which the flight was supposed to pass would have been same as MH-17.

"There was no danger to the PM's plane, but obviously the area that they would have flown over would have been the same. The pilot would have to decide whether to divert over Russia or the Black sea instead, "said the official.

The flight MH-17, which got crashed midway, had come down at Torez, near Shakhtersk. This place is around 40 km from the Russia border in Ukraine.

 

It has not been confirmed yet that the flight had any Indian passenger or not as the officials said that they have no information about it.

Facebook pays this police officer's salary, and residents aren't too happy about it

Thirty-four year-old Mary Ferguson is just your average police officer, patrolling the city of Menlo Park, California. But what separates her from her peers is that her salary comes from an unusual place: Facebook. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the social media giant pays Ferguson's annual salary of $194,000. 

Apparently company-funded police officers isn't necessarily a new thing. In the 90s, tech companies helped pay police salaries for computer-crime departments. But this definitely isn't all that common. 

The deal benefits Facebook since part of Ferguson's job is to help large businesses plan for emergencies like break-ins or natural disasters, but Ferguson is also in charge of working with juvenile offenders and keeping kids in school.

 

"We just identified a need in the community," Genevieve Grdina, a company spokeswoman, told the Wall Street Journal. "It's not the 'Facebook officer'; it's the officer for the whole community." 

Facebook says it doesn't expect any special treatment, but not everyone is thrilled with the situation. 

Police ethicists are worried about a conflict of interest. For instance, a Facebook-sponsored cop may have a tough time making decisions that are related to the company itself. 

"That raises some potential conflicts that, if I was the chief, I am not sure I'd want to wrestle with," Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal-justice professor at University of South Carolina, told the Wall Street Journal. "What do you tell your officers about how to treat people who work at Facebook?" 

Some residents are also upset because they believe that Facebook is just trying to clean up Belle Haven, the lower-income neighborhood of Menlo Park, where the social media company is currently expanding. 

Matt Henry, a Bell Haven resident, thinks that Facebook is just worried about the crime stats in the area and want some extra protection so that they can expand the headquarters. 

And whether or not any of these issues are of real concern, the "Facebook Cop" will most likely not be a welcome move for the Bay Area residents who are up in arms about the tech world taking over their cities.

Sony SmartBand SWR10 review

As more device makers start exploring the wearables market, it has become critical for each one of them to bring in some differentiation. Smartwatches and fitness trackers are the hottest categories, but so far the mainstream brands, including the likes of Samsung and Sony, have not been able to hit it big.

Coming back to differentiation, Sony introduced its new SmartBand SWR10 as an accessory to log your life and not just your physical activity. The company is positioning it as an essential companion to your smartphone and even bundling it with its flagship phone. Is the SmartBand SWR10 just another fitness band or it offers something more to the users? We try to find out in our SmartBand SWR10 review.

Look and feel

Sony SmartBand SWR10 is a rather plain looking, discreet device especially with its default Black colour wrist bands. The SmartBand is made of two components — the wristband and the core. The core, which is a small pen drive like device that fits into the wristband, is the heart and soul of the SmartBand while the band is its face. Sony has bundled two rubbery looking bands of different sizes for different wrists. The core features a single button, micro-USB port and status lights.

At first glance, we were a little surprised that the band does not sport a display but the LED light substitutes it to an extent.

While the band is not uncomfortable to wear and feels light, we faced problems while trying to strap it on our wrist. It's not intrusive and once you get used to wearing it, you'll forget there's one on your wrist.

The SmartBand is IP58-certified waterproof, this means you can wear it even while taking a dip in the pool or a shower.

You'll need to take out the core out of the band each time you want to charge it but it's not a cumbersome process.

Setting up

You can set up the SmartBand via NFC with an NFC-enabled phone or via Bluetooth with other phones. The band is compatible with phones that run Android 4.4 KitKat and support Bluetooth Low Energy standard.

It took us some time to figure out the pairing process. We feel Sony should have included a detailed instructions booklet. Using the band with an NFC-enabled Sony Xperia Z Ultra was relatively simple as it comes preloaded with the Sony Smart Connect app. You can turn on the device by pressing the button on the band and tapping it with the phone. Following the pairing, you need to download the SmartBand app and the Lifelog app from the Play Store to use the phone.

Connecting an HTC Desire 816 was a little problematic as it did not support NFC and pairing was manual. We also experienced frequent disconnections. Sony says it was not able to test the band's compatibility with the HTC phone as it was released at a later date.

The SmartBand's settings can be controlled through the Smart Connect app via the SmartBand panel, while the actual activity tracking takes place inside the Lifelog app. There are permanent notifications in the Android notifications panel to let you know if the band is connected or not and whether the Lifelog app is tracking your activity.

Lifelog and usage

Lifelog is the visual interface that displays the final output after the band tracks your activities and also lets you set goals. You can login via Google accounts on other phones and Sony Entertainment Network account on Sony Xperia phones, which is a little irritating. It also suggests goals for activities based on your age, height and weight.

The app is capable of tracking physical activity as well as recording your phone usage pattern. It can act as a pedometer tracking steps, calculate total minutes of walking and running and calories burnt. There's a sleep tracker to check hours slept (complete with a split for deep sleep and light sleep). Other activities include calculating number of photos you've taken with your phone, time spent communicating (including social networks, email, calls) and time spent listening to music and watching videos, playing games, surfing the web and reading ebooks.

The activity tracker detects running and walking automatically without the need to tap a button on the band or the phone.

In addition to these, one can record a moment as a 'Life Bookmark' by pressing the button on the band twice. The app will record what you were doing at that time along with other things such as the weather conditions.

The app is a stat-lover's delight offering detailed daily, weekly, monthly and yearly statistics for each activity. It offers a beautiful timeline view of your day with an animated avatar. You can even replay your day's activity.

For outdoor walks and running, the app and band plot your track on a map in tandem with the phone's GPS, which we felt is an interesting feature.

Unlike the Samsung Gear devices, the SmartBand doesn't track hiking or cycling. In our tests, we found that the band was moderately accurate in tracking our steps and distance covered. It was also able to log our treadmill run, however, accuracy was mixed. At times it fell short of a few minutes.

The band tracks sleep in the night mode which can be manually (by pressing the button on the band) or automatically initiated at a given time. The Lifelog app displays hours of sleep, splitting them between light, heavy and awake. Since the measurement is based on the movement of your body, it's not very accurate and we observed that it registered some sleep time as awake and vice versa. It still gives you a rough idea.

The band was also able to detect the number of pictures taken with the phone. We're not sure if everyone will find it useful. Same is the case with tracking web, music and video use. You can set goals if you want to regulate them or just get some analytics of your daily activity.

Having said that, the band doesn't always accurately track time spent listening to music if you're using third-party apps like Spotify instead of the music player.

With moderate to high usage, the SmartBand lasted us almost four days and charging was pretty swift with the device gaining a full charge in an hour.

Notifications and Control

The SmartBand also offers some additional functionality. It can alert you of calls, messages and of notifications from other apps by vibrating. Of course you won't know what the notification is for until you check your phone. You can also set the phone to vibrate with the phone alarm.

The other function that the SmartBand can perform is of a controller. You can set the app that you wish to control through the settings and use the band's sole button as a remote control. You can control Music (one tap for playing or pausing; two for next track; three for previous track) or for invoking the camera shutter.

Verdict

At a price of Rs 5,990, the Sony SmartBand SWR10 is an interesting accessory for your smartphone if you like to casually track and analyse your daily activity (both physical and digital) and regulate them. However, the smartband is a jack of all trades and master of none. It tries to do a lot but doesn't do justice to a single feature. As an activity tracker it's not very accurate. Notifications would have been much better if it sported a display.

Having said that, it's not intrusive and with some improvements can be turned into a perfect wearable smartphone accessory.

Indian IT cos beat MNCs in major deals

Indian IT firms are continuing to gain global market share, trumping MNC rivals in large IT outsourcing contracts. 

Almost half of 26 large IT outsourcing deals in June were won by India-centric IT service providers. Some of the significant wins include Wipro's $100 million IT infrastructure management contract from Netherlands-based media company Sanoma and Infosys' $100 million deal from Microsoft, as per data compiled by US research firm HfS. 

Large MNCs bagged the remaining 12 deals, and many of these too have sizeable offshoring components, especially those in the finance and accounting space and in application development & maintenance (ADM) deals won by global service providers such as Capgemini and Accenture, HfS said. Accenture won a S$26.5 million deal from the Singapore government, and French IT major Capgemini bagged a 30 million euro contract from Denmark-based industrial company Danfoss. 

Even in May, Indian IT firms had some big wins, including HCL Technologies' $500-million contract from Pepsi and $400-million contract from DNB Bank, Norway, and Wipro's $400-million contract from Takeda Pharmaceutical, Japan. 

The $118-billion Indian IT sector competes with MNCs like IBM, Accenture, and Capgemini. One study that looks at the top MNC and Indian IT firms shows that the Indian IT players have almost doubled their share in the group in the last five years, from 7.7% in the 2009 fiscal to 14.3% in the 2014 fiscal. 

Many of the contracts in the past two months have come from Europe, indicating a growing appetite for offshoring in that continent.

Competitive and cost pressures look to be forcing a change in the continent, which in the past tended to be inward looking. 

The April-June quarterly numbers of many Indian IT companies also show an increase in the proportion of revenues from Europe. "Nordic countries are active," said Pareekh Jain, principal analyst in HfS Research. "Out of the 26 deals, 11 either originated out of Europe or have a large European component.

In Europe, seven deals are from Nordic countries like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. Each of the four Nordic countries has witnessed at least one deal in June," he said. TCS, for instance, won a 5-year deal from Netherlands-based insurance major SNS Reaal recently . 

Digital, and social, mobility, analytics and cloud (SMAC) are beginning to take centrestage in new deals. Out of the 26 deals, nine have a combination of digital and SMAC components. "IBM and Wipro are winning deals in IT cloud services. Out of the 26 deals, four were in the IT cloud services space. Out of the four IT cloud deals, IBM won three deals and Wipro won one," said Jain. 

Traditionally, BFSI (banking, financial services & insurance) has made up a large chunk of IT outsourcing contracts, but manufacturing led the deal chart in June, with six contracts, followed by BFSI and public sector with five and four deals respectively.

Apple, IBM partner to push iPhones, iPads into offices

WASHINGTON: International Business Machines will partner exclusively with Apple to sell iPhones and iPads loaded with applications geared at enterprise clients this fall, the company announced on Tuesday.

The announcement, just two days before IBM releases its second quarter earnings, comes as the company attempts to shift its focus to software and services as its hardware unit continues to slump, and follows a string of mobile software acquisitions. The company hopes software sales will contribute half of its total profit by 2015.

The company will release more than 100 apps targeting industry specific issues in retail, healthcare, banking, travel, transportation and telecommunications, IBM said.

"We wanted to focus on creating an absolutely irresistible workflow and processes and a design of apps that can be used by every user in the organization," Bridget van Kralingen, IBM's senior vice president of global business services told Reuters from Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California.

"We wanted to remove some of the existing barriers of mobile in enterprise," she said adding that chief information officers worry about security, utilizing cloud and installing apps in mobile devices.

The partnership, which was six months in the making, will offer services geared at security, mobile device management and big data and analytics. The company also plans to develop cloud services optimized for Apple's mobile operating system, iOS. The devices will operate through wireless carriers chosen by the client, she said.

BlackBerry shares were down 3% following the announcement. The Canadian smartphone maker has increasingly targeted its secure software at businesses as part of an effort to turn the company around after losing ground to Apple's iPhone and Samsung Electronics.

Apple and Samsung have steadily expanded their share of the mobile enterprise market in recent years, mostly at BlackBerry's expense, while Microsoft Windows phones have made little headway.

Increasingly, Apple's expansion has been driven by employees bringing in their own devices and requesting corporate support, the so-called bring-your-own-IT trend.

Hooking up with IBM may help address lingering concerns about smartphone software security and data privacy, in the form of a veteran partner that's led in enterprise IT for decades.

"This deal is a very targeted attempt by Apple with the help from IBM to focus on the enterprise, corporate market which has really been the main business of Blackberry," said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer at Solaris Group in Bedford Hills, New York.

IBM shares were up 1.9% and Apple shares rose 1.3% after the bell following the announcement.

The apps will be supported through AppleCare, Apple's hardware warranty and customer service.

Intel: Worst is over for battered PC industry

SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp believes the worst is over for a personal computer industry hammered by the mobile revolution. 

The Santa Clara, California chipmaker forecast third-quarter revenue above Wall Street's expectations, sending its stock 4% higher in extended trade. 

Investors have pushed shares of PC mainstays Microsoft Corp and Intel to decade-highs, partly on bets that the global slump in PC demand that began with Apple Inc's launch of the iPad four years ago is hitting bottom. 

"PCs have stabilized," chief financial officer Stacy Smith told Reuters after Intel's report. He said he expects shrinking demand from consumers in China and other developing countries to rebound, just as it recently has in the United States. 

From the end of 2010, the year the iPad was launched, to the end of 2013, annual global PC shipments shrank a total of 12%, according to IDC. 

Intel now expects the market's recovery to help it grow its full-year revenue about 5%, slightly higher than prior expectations. 

Chief executive officer Brian Krzanich told analysts on a conference call that improved demand from companies replacing old PCs would last at least through the end of 2014. 

Also, Intel has increased its share buyback programme by $20 billion. It plans to repurchase about $4 billion of stock in the current quarter, underscoring its confidence in a turnaround and a growing crop of "two in one" devices with detachable keyboards and screens. 

"My presumption would be that if they're confident enough to boost it that they see this (PC market) upside maintaining," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said. "God help them if they're wrong." 

Intel said in a statement it expects third-quarter revenue of $14.4 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Analysts had expected $14 billion on average, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. 

Revenue from Intel's PC group rose 6% in the quarter while its data center group, a big contributor to gross margins, had revenue jump 19%. 

Intel has made little progress expanding from the PC industry into chips for smartphones and tablets. For the second quarter, Intel said its mobile and communications group's revenue fell 83% to $51 million and had an operating loss of $1.12 billion. 

Intel's second-quarter revenue was $13.8 billion, compared with $12.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. In June, Intel revised increased its second-quarter revenue outlook to $13.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million, citing stronger-than-expected demand for PCs used by businesses. Intel posted second-quarter net income of $2.8 billion, or 55 cents a share, compared with $2.0 billion, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp (INTC.O) believes the worst is over for a personal computer industry hammered by the mobile revolution. 

The Santa Clara, California chipmaker forecast third-quarter revenue above Wall Street's expectations on Tuesday, sending its stock 4 percent higher in extended trade. 

Investors have pushed shares of PC mainstays Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Intel to decade-highs, partly on bets that the global slump in PC demand that began with Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) launch of the iPad four years ago is hitting bottom. 

"PCs have stabilized," Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told Reuters after Intel's report. He said he expects shrinking demand from consumers in China and other developing countries to rebound, just as it recently has in the United States. 

From the end of 2010, the year the iPad was launched, to the end of 2013, annual global PC shipments shrank a total of 12 percent, according to IDC. 

Intel now expects the market's recovery to help it grow its full-year revenue about 5 percent, slightly higher than prior expectations. 

Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich told analysts on a conference call that improved demand from companies replacing old PCs would last at least through the end of 2014. 

Also on Tuesday, Intel increased its share buyback program by $20 billion. It plans to repurchase about $4 billion of stock in the current quarter, underscoring its confidence in a turnaround and a growing crop of "two in one" devices with detachable keyboards and screens. 

"My presumption would be that if they're confident enough to boost it that they see this (PC market) upside maintaining," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon said. "God help them if they're wrong." 

Intel said in a statement it expects third-quarter revenue of $14.4 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Analysts had expected $14 billion on average, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. 

Revenue from Intel's PC group rose 6 percent in the quarter while its data center group, a big contributor to gross margins, had revenue jump 19 percent. 

Intel has made little progress expanding from the PC industry into chips for smartphones and tablets. For the second quarter, Intel said its mobile and communications group's revenue fell 83 percent to $51 million and had an operating loss of $1.12 billion. 

Intel's second-quarter revenue was $13.8 billion, compared with $12.8 billion in the year-ago quarter. In June, Intel revised increased its second-quarter revenue outlook to $13.7 billion, plus or minus $300 million, citing stronger-than-expected demand for PCs used by businesses. Intel posted second-quarter net income of $2.8 billion, or 55 cents a share, compared with $2.0 billion, or 39 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter. 

Intel shares closed up 0.70% at $31.71 in regular trade on Nasdaq. 

BRICS create development bank, 'mini-IMF'

ORTALEZA, Brazil: The BRICS group of emerging powers on Tuesday created a Shanghai-based development bank and a reserve fund seen as alternatives to Western-led institutions.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa agreed to launch the institutions to finance infrastructure projects and head off future economic crises.

"We took the historic decision to create the BRICS bank and the reserve agreement — an important contribution to reconfigure the system of international economic governance," Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said at a summit in the northeastern seaside city of Fortaleza.

Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the agreements as "a very powerful way to prevent new economic difficulties."

The five emerging nations first unveiled their plans last year. The New Development Bank will mirror the Washington-based World Bank while the reserve is seen as a "mini-IMF."

"We need to work to improve economic governance at a global level, increase the representations and voice of developing countries," said Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Rousseff pressed again for urgent changes in the International Monetary Fund's voting shares "to reflect the unquestionable weight of emerging countries."

The development bank will have initial capital of $50 billion that could rise to $100 billion, funded equally by each nation to avoid concerns that one country has more power than the other.

After drawn-out negotiations about the bank's location, BRICS leaders agreed to put its headquarters in Shanghai. The first president will be Indian while the first board chair will hail from Brazil.

An Africa Regional Center will be based in South Africa, whose President Jacob Zuma failed to convince his peers to place the bank's headquarters in Johannesburg.

The bank will help fund infrastructure and sustainable development projects, the summit declaration said.

The Contingent Reserve Arrangement will have $100 billion at its disposal to head off potential economic volatility linked to the United States exiting its stimulus policy.

China is making the biggest contribution, $41 billion, followed by $18 billion each from Brazil, India and Russia and $5 billion from South Africa.

Rousseff left open the possibility of using the fund to help non-BRICS nations, saying the group would be willing to "examine" any request from Argentina, which is in danger of defaulting on its debt.

The bank and fund, however, have to be ratified by each BRICS country's legislature before coming into force.

The summit comes as the economies of BRICS countries, which together represent 40 percent of the world population and a fifth of the global economy, are cooling down.

The talks in Fortaleza opened a series of summits in Brazil, with BRICS leaders meeting with South American presidents in Brasilia on Wednesday.

The Fortaleza talks allowed Xi and India's new Prime Minister Narendra Modi to meet face-to-face for the first time.

Modi said the BRICS must act as a "united and clear voice for a peaceful, balanced and stable world."

For Putin, who visited Argentina and Cuba before coming to Brazil, the trip has given him a chance to hammer home his calls for a "multipolar" world amid tensions with the West over the Ukraine crisis.

Russia has been kicked out of the G8 group of industrialized nations over the Ukraine crisis.

The United States is threatening to impose new economic sanctions on Russia over accusations that it is backing pro-Moscow separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The BRICS summit declaration voiced "deep concern" over the situation in Ukraine and called for "comprehensive dialogue, the de-escalation of the conflict and restraint from all the actors involved, with a view to finding a peaceful political solution."

Rousseff said BRICS leaders "lament the lack of concrete progress" in Ukraine and other hotspots, including Iraq, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

After Wednesday's BRICS-South America summit, Xi will launch the China-Latin America forum on Thursday, highlighting Beijing's growing interests in Washington's backyard.