Most popular app, movies, games and more on Google Play Store in 2017

Google has announced Google Play's most India popular apps, games, music, movies and books in 2017. The list also includes top five apps, games, movies, books, TV shows and music, globally.

Check out Google Play's top lists for the most popular content in 2017 below.

Google Play's India best of 2017 lists

Most popular apps of 2017

1. Photo Editor - Beauty Camera & Photo Filters

2. Messenger Lite: Free Calls & Messages

3. Selfie Camera - Beauty Camera & Photo Editor

4. ALTBalaji

5. Paytm Mall: Online Shopping

Most popular games of 2017

1. Baahubali: The Game

2. WWE Champions Free Puzzle RPG

3. Super Mario Run

4. Dr. Driving 2

5. Pokemon Duel

Top books of 2017

1. An Unsuitable Boy, by Karan Johar

2. India 2017, by New Media Wing

3. Khullam Khulla: Rishi Kapoor Uncensored, by Rishi Kapoor

4. I Do What I Do, by Raghuram G. Rajan

5. Adiyogi: The Source of Yoga, by Sadhguru

Top movies of 2017

1. Dear Zindagi

2. Moana

3. Wonder Woman

4. The Boss Baby

5. Doctor Strange

Most streamed songs of 2017

1. Saahore Baahubali, by M.M. Keeravaani

2. Ik Vaari Aa, by Arijit Singh

3. Mercy, by Badshah

4. Main Tera Boyfriend, by Arijit Singh

5. Cheez Badi, by Neha Kakkar

Google Play's Global best of 2017 list

Most popular new apps of 2017

· Photo Editor - Beauty Camera & Photo Filters

· What The Forecast?!!

· Boomerang

· TopBuzz Video: Viral Videos, Funny GIFs &TV shows

· Yarn - Chat Fiction

Most popular new games of 2017

· Super Mario Run

· Bubble Witch 3 Saga

· Magic Tiles 3

· CATS: Crash Arena Turbo Stars

· Ballz

Top 5 streamed songs of 2017

· HUMBLE. by Kendrick Lamar 

· Shape of You by Ed Sheeran 

· DNA. by Kendrick Lamar 

· Mask Off by Future 

· Body Like A Back Road by Sam Hunt

Top 5 movies of 2017

· Moana (2016)

· Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

· Wonder Woman (2017)

· Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

· Doctor Strange (2016)

Top 5 TV shows of 2017

· Game of Thrones

· Rick and Morty

· The Walking Dead

· The Big Bang Theory

· Doctor Who

Top 5 books of 2017

· The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson

· It by Stephen King

· The Battlemage by Taran Matharu

· Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

· Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Microsoft picks 4 IITians for Rs 1.3 crore on Day 2

One of seven students on the IIT Bombay campus has been placed in the first three slots of this year's placement. A total of about 250 graduating IITians were picked by the time evening set in on Saturday, day two of the placement.

Meanwhile, these numbers would rise as the frenzy of the second day's placement ends a little after midnight. By Saturday night Samsung Bangalore picked 24 candidates, the largest recruiter so far. Domestic salary packages also went up by about 15%-20% as compared to last year.

Day one saw about 20 international offers from companies like Uber, Microsoft, Optiver, NEC Japan, Rubric. Atotal of 142 students were selected on day one. In addition, minus one placement day saw ISRO and BPCL select 13 students taking the total count to

155. Last year, 158 students were picked by the end of day one.

Four students were picked by Microsoft Redmond for USD 2.1 lakh (around Rs 1.3 crore). NEC Japan, which picked 7 students gave a package of 45.7 Japanese Yen. First time recruiter from the Powai campus Rubrik picked three students and Palantir Technologies picked one candidate.

Friday saw 34 companies participating. "For domestic roles, highest number of offers were made by Goldman Sachs, Qualcomm, IBM, Microsoft, Boston Consulting Group, Cairn, McKinsey Knowledge Centre and Tata Steel," stated the placement cell. Compensation-wise, the highest packages came from Blackstone (Rs 45 lakh), WorldQuant (Rs 39.6 lakh) and Microsoft (Rs 39 lakh).

Day two saw companies like Samsung Bangalore, Intel, Oracle, Visa, Murata, Adobe, Walmart, Quadeye, UBS, Flow Traders, MasterCard, Yahoo Japan, Ab Inbev, Flipkart, ICICI, American Express, Eaton Technologies, JP Morgan Chase, Mathworks, Mercedes Benz, Flock, Deloitte Consulting, Maxlinear, Citicorp.

At IIT-Guwahati, the day one offers went up to 178 as opposed to last year's 154. This is in addition to the 75 pre-placement offers that were given to students. Kaustubha Mohanty, professor-in-charge of training and placements at the institute, said, "This year we had 41 companies visiting the campus on day one, 11 more than last year. There is a mix of profiles for analyst, software, core engineering offered to students." Majority of the profiles are for software, followed by research and development, analyst, consultant and management profiles. Only two students from the institute got international offers.

Day one at IIT-Madras saw 195 offers from 33 companies - almost 35 more than 2016. Last year, 160 offers were made by 27 companies. Not only the number of companies visiting the institute increased, but the requirements at some of the firms were more this year, said Manu Santhanam, professor in-charge of placements at the institute. He said that companies like Samsung, Qualcomm, EXL Services, Goldman Sachs picked more than 10 students from the campus. Their requirement was more than last year, he added. The institute got 11international offers, of which at least nine were for US profiles, which were more in numbers.

Google Maps helps police trace family of girl lost in Delhi

Technology came in handy in reuniting a seven-year-old girl with her family. Police zeroed in on the girl's village with the help of satellite images provided by Google Maps.

The incident took place on Wednesday night, when seven-year-old Rashmi (name changed) had come to a family wedding in south Delhi's Malviya Nagar from Meerut.

The child, who was playing while her parents were busy in the wedding proceedings, somehow managed to come out of the venue and lost her way back. Panicked, she started crying and was spotted by constable Vikram, who took her to Malviya Nagar police station.

"She was unable to tell us about her village and just said that she had come to a wedding with her parents," said DCP (south) Romil Baaniya.

When asked about the duration of her journey, Rashmi told cops that it took them four hours to reach Delhi. A perimeter was chalked around the capital, with all major cities and towns within that distance being marked out. Information was then shared with respective police stations to ascertain if there was any corresponding lead from their end.

The child told cops about the places which she saw during her journey to Delhi. It was deciphered that the girl had probably come from Uttarakhand or western UP. Further information pointed out that Meerut could be the city from where the girl had boarded the bus.

After zeroing in on Meerut, cops used Google Maps and checked all villages which had a lake nearby, as told by the girl. A list of villages with the matching description was noted and the sarpanch of these villages were contacted by sleuths.

Rashmi was ultimately found to be from Kol village, 44 km from Meerut. The village's sarpanch confirmed that a child matching Rashmi's description had gone missing from Delhi. After verifying the claims, the girl was handed over to the family.

Does cellphone-sweeping 'StingRay' technology go too far? AP | Nov 26, 2017, 09.00 AM IST

Does cellphone-sweeping 'StingRay' technology go too far?

 New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas are among scores of police departments across the country quietly using a highly secretive technology developed for the military that can track the whereabouts of suspects by using the signals constantly emitted by their cellphones.

Civil liberties and privacy groups are increasingly raising objections to the suitcase-sized devices known as StingRays or cell site simulators that can sweep up cellphone data from an entire neighborhood by mimicking cell towers. Police can determine the location of a phone without the user even making a call or sending a text message. Some versions of the technology can even intercept texts and calls, or pull information stored on the phones.

Part of the problem, privacy experts say, is the devices can also collect data from anyone within a small radius of the person being tracked. And law enforcement goes to great lengths to conceal usage, in some cases, offering plea deals rather than divulging details on the StingRay.

``We can't even tell how frequently they're being used,'' said attorney Jerome Greco, of the Legal Aid Society, which recently succeeded in blocking evidence collected with the device in a New York City murder case. ``It makes it very difficult''

At least 72 state and local law enforcement departments in 24 states plus 13 federal agencies use the devices, but further details are hard to come by because the departments that use them must take the unusual step of signing nondisclosure agreements overseen by the FBI.

An FBI spokeswoman said the agreements, which often involve the Harris Corporation, a defense contractor that makes the devices, are intended to prevent the release of sensitive law enforcement information to the general public. But the agreements don't prevent an officer from telling prosecutors the technology was used in a case.

In New York, use of the technology was virtually unknown to the public until last year when the New York Civil Liberties Union forced the disclosure of records showing the NYPD used the devices more than 1,000 times since 2008. That included cases in which the technology helped catch suspects in kidnappings, rapes, robberies, assaults and murders. It has even helped find missing people.

But privacy experts say such gains come at too high a cost.

``We have a Fourth Amendment to the Constitution,'' said Jennifer Lynch, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, referring to the protection against unreasonable search and seizure. ``Our Founding Fathers decided when they wrote the Bill of Rights there had to be limits placed on government.''

Lawmakers in several states have introduced proposals ranging from warrant requirements to an outright ban on the technology; about a dozen states already have laws requiring warrants. Federal law enforcement said last year that it would be routinely required to get a search warrant before using the technology _ a first effort to create a uniform legal standard for federal authorities.

And case law is slowly building. Two months ago, a Washington, D.C., appeals court overturned a conviction on a sex assault after judges ruled a violation of the Fourth Amendment because of evidence improperly collected from the simulator without a proper warrant.

In the New York murder case argued by the Legal Aid Society, judge in Brooklyn last month ruled that the NYPD must have an eavesdropping warrant signed by a judge to use the device, a much higher bar than the ``reasonable suspicion'' standard that had previously been required.

``By its very nature, then, the use of a cell site simulator intrudes upon an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, acting as an instrument of eavesdropping and requires a separate warrant supported by probable cause,'' wrote state Supreme Court Judge Martin Murphy.

New York City police officials disagreed with the ruling and disputed that a StingRay was even used in the case, even though there had been a court order to do so. Police officials also said they have since started requiring a higher stander of probable cause when applying for the devices.

Legal Aid Society's Greco said he hoped the ruling will push the nation's largest department into meeting the higher standard, and help judges better understand the intricacies of more cutting-edge surveillance.

``We're hoping we can use this decision among other decisions being made across the country to show that this logic is right,'' Greco said. ``Part of an issue we're facing with technology, the judges don't understand it. It makes it easier if another judge has sat down and really thought about it.''

How China’s handset maker Xiaomi came first in India

A maverick, defines Merriam-Webster, is an individual who does not go along with a group or party. Of the over 4,70,000 words in the American dictionary, that is the one Manu Jain, the India head of Xiaomi, world's fifth largest smartphone maker, chooses to define himself. "I am a maverick. I challenge status quo," says the 36-year old, underlining the risk-taking streak in his nonconformist personality. "I have done exactly the opposite of what other mobile brands in India have been doing," he claims.

Sample this: At a time when rivals were deeply entrenched in brick-and-mortar stores across the country, Jain shunned it. Xiaomi India, launched in July 2014, took the online route to sell products. "People labelled us crazy.

We didn't care. We just wanted to experiment," recalls Jain. When competitors were splurging millions of dollars on advertising and in hiring Bollywood biggies to market their products, Jain bet on word-of-mouth. "We never had the Khans, but we had our blockbuster fans," he grins. While opponents aggressively pushed handsets to make money, Xiaomi took a different route. "We don't make money from hardware. Monetising software is the trick," says Jain, who is also the global vice-president of the company.

It's a string of such unusual moves that has propelled Xiaomi to the top of the heap in a little over three years of setting foot in India. From a meagre 3% market share in 2015, the Chinese brand — billed as the Apple of China — leapfrogged to 23.5% in the third quarter of this year to share the top slot with Samsung. From shipping just 1,00,000 units in Q3 of 2014, Xiaomi has surged to 9.2 million units in the same quarter this year.

Mi First
Apart from numbers, what's staggering is the speed with which Xiaomi has climbed the smartphone ladder: no handset brand in India has topped the chart in three years. What's more, no player, Indian or foreign, has come so close to dislodging Samsung from the top slot.

Now, Xiaomi stands a realistic chance of going ahead of the South Korean biggie that has been stagnating in India over the last few quarters. "I never chased numbers but always believed that we could be No. 1," says Jain. (See interview, "Innovation for All is Our Philosophy")

Xiaomi, say mobile analysts, has been successful in luring consumers through smart marketing, aggressive devices and a strong focus on online channels. "No other brand comes remotely close to Xiaomi in online sales where it dominates," says Tarun Pathak, senior analyst (mobile devices and ecosystem), Counterpoint Research. Online buyers, he says, usually compare products at different levels before making a purchase. "Xiaomi was smart enough to hit the sweet spot by offering the best deals at cost-sensitive price bands," he says, adding that Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4 and Redmi 4A were the top three smartphone models in this quarter.

Aggressive pricing of smartphones, loaded with high-end features, has turned out to be one of the prime reasons Xiaomi is making it big in India. Take, for instance, its bestseller handset, Redmi Note 4. Powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and with 4 GB RAM, 64 GB of internal storage, a metal body and up to two days of battery life, Note 4 has been the top-selling smartphone brand for over 10 months now. Any comparable smartphone with 64 GB storage and 4GB RAM, say analysts, costs between Rs 18,000 and Rs 25,000. Redmi Note 4, on other hand, comes for Rs 13,000. "It just blew up the market," recounts Jain, when the phone flew off Flipakart's shelves at the flash sale earlier this year, crashing the site.

It must have brought back memories of the maiden flash sale of Mi 3 in July 2014, the month Xiaomi arrived in India. That was when he got a whiff of what was in store for the brand. "It was July 22 and the sale was about to start on Flipkart at 2 pm," says Jain, who recalls every detail even three years on. He had decided to have only 10,000 units on sale. Reason: it was an obscure brand in India, and had not announced its entry with TV commercial, print advertisement or outdoor hoarding.

While rivals called the flash sale a cheap marketing gimmick, critics jumped the gun to predict its failure. Jain, understandably, was jittery. All he could bank on was the 10,000 fans on the company's Facebook page in India. "My only aim in life was to sell 10,000 units," he laughs. What happened at 2 pm startled Jain. Flipkart crashed. More than half a million people came online, and the server couldn't take the pressure. "If we crashed Flipkart, it means we have arrived in India," says a beaming Jain, who still teases Flipkart co-founders about that day when he made India's largest e-commerce marketplace crash for the first time.

What happened next week, at the second flash sale on Flipkart in July, only reinstated Jain's belief in the brand. Just two seconds after the sale started, 10,000 units disappeared. Jain thought the server had crashed again. This time Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal had good news: all the units were sold out. Jain was ecstatic. It was not a flash in the pan. "The flash sale was not a gimmick," he says.

The critics were taken aback and rivals started aping the model. "But it didn't work," he says, adding that selling only online in the first year of its operations in India was a huge risk and a massive leap of faith. "It paid off," says Jain. Xiaomi, says handset expert Faisal Kawoosa, didn't look at online as just a selling channel.

It nurtured the medium through Mi Fan community and active engagement with fans on social media. "Jain let potential buyers and Xiaomi fans directly connect with him. It played positively for the brand," says Kawoosa, principal analyst (telecoms), CyberMedia Research.

Less is More
Mi Community, an official forum for Xiaomi to interact with users, has over 2.9 million registered users since its launch in June last year. The platform not only facilitates bonding with users, it also helps Xiaomi incorporate the feedback from users in its products. Take dual-SIM smartphone Redmi Y1 with a micro SD card. "Over 90% of Mi fans wanted such a feature," says Jain, adding that users can access two WhatsApp accounts on all dual-SIM smartphones of the brand, the only company to offer such a feature. Jain says if Xiaomi had not managed to build a cult following in India, similar to what the brand did in parent country China, then it could not have reached where it is today.

Another crucial element that made Xiaomi strike gold in India — it crossed the billion-dollar mark in sales in India last year and claims to be profitable — was Jain's swearing by the philosophy of less is more. "Do fewer things, but try to do them right," he says, explaining how the brand stole a lead on rivals.

While Xiaomi launched only two phones in its first year, it had three models in 2015. In 2017, the company has launched eight phones so far. "Each phone is a bestseller," claims Jain, adding that while others focused on having a wider portfolio, Xiaomi opted for a leaner and meaner look. "We never launched 40-50 phones like other brands. That really helped a lot," he concedes.

The company prefers less not only in the number of products but also in the size of its operations.

For the first two months after joining Xiaomi, Jain neither had an office nor any team. Working from home and cafes made it daunting to convince potential business partners to come on board. Renting a six-seater room and transforming it into a tiny office in the third month didn't make things easier. While visitors, shocked to see Jain serve tea and coffee personally, feared Xiaomi was a Ponzi scheme, Jain figured out a way to handle the perennial question on the size of his team. "I am the head, the tail and the one-man army," he began to reply.

Cut to November 2017 and a lot has changed. Xiaomi has over 300 people on its rolls. The company has forayed into offline and is making inroads into the hinterland in what be its biggest opportunity and challenge.

What has not changed, says Jain, over three years is the nature of Xiaomi's business model. Think of Xiaomi as a three layered company. First, it's a technology company like Google or Facebook as it has its own operating system that is built over Android. Second, it's a software and a hardware company making television, routers, shoes and fitness bands. And, last, it's a retail company. "We don't want to make money by selling phones. We want to monetise our software," he says. Mi.com, the online selling platform of Xiaomi, is the eighth biggest e-commerce platform in the world, the third biggest in China and the fourth biggest in India. "It's a unique business model, unparalleled in the world," he adds.

The Hat-tricks
What perhaps made the going easy for the fledgling startup is an aging leader: Samsung. From having a market share in the heady 30s till a few years back, Samsung has been slipping.

What has made matters worse for the South Korean company is that it is battling on two fronts: it is facing onslaught from a battery of Chinese players such as Vivo and Oppo at the lower and middle end of the market, and is getting knocked by Apple and OnePlus at the higher end. Samsung, says Pathak of Counterpoint Research, must come up with a different value proposition to regain the attention of consumers. Though it has an offline edge over Xiaomi, it's going to be a very close race between the two.

Technology analyst Deepak Kumar agrees that Samsung faces a real threat from Xiaomi. It must act on multiple fronts to protect its turf, says the founder analyst at B&M Nxt. From devising new pricing strategies and strengthening channel partners to a repositioning to appeal to young buyers looking for value-for-money, Samsung needs to get its act together.

Meanwhile, Jain is getting ready with his new act: not behaving like an arrogant leader. "One needs to keep one's feet on the ground, shun arrogance and stay away from overconfidence," he says. Xiaomi, Jain maintains, will always act like a nimble startup: aggressive in execution, nimble in decision-making, and maverick in risk-taking.

Though it's yet to be seen if the gambit pays off in the long run, for the time being, it's been a great show, Xiaomi.

Why it won't be a happy new year for India's telecom sector

As you enter the first-floor offices of Reliance Industries at Maker Chamber IV in Mumbai's Nariman Point, you are greeted by a set of photographs on the wall. Most are about the various industries the group is into. Petrochemicals, refining and energy security are the dominant themes. However, there is no photo that represents Jio, Reliance's latest and probably the biggest gambit in telecom. Or, maybe there is.

In the centre, right above the receptionist is a photo of smiling schoolchildren rushing out — a scene from one of the many schools Reliance Foundation runs. It may be symbolic of catch 'em young and watch 'em grow market that Jio envisages in India's demographic dividend.

Well-funded by petrochem and refining profits, Reliance has already invested in excess of Rs 2 lakh crore in Jio and will continue to pump in Rs 7,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore every quarter.

The company is often called the bada babu (top honcho) or the bada bhai (elder brother) for precipitating the inevitable consolidation in the Indian telecom sector.

The consolidation sparked by Jio's entry in September 2016 has already acquired clear contours with only three large private sector players — Bharti-Airtel, Idea-Vodafone merged entity and Reliance Jio — and the public sector BSNL-MTNL left standing. The rest have fallen or gobbled up by one of these.

Aircel, Tata Teleservices, Anil Ambani- promoted Reliance Communications are expected to either merge into one of the larger entities or survive as niche players. But is this enough for the industry or will the inevitable asset and manpower rationalisation bring in further pain? With revenues moving southwards across industry (see "Under Pressure"), the sector is desperately seeking some answers.

Raja Balakrishnan, MD and co-head of India investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofAML), feels this is a phase of "normalisation" for the Indian telecom industry.

BofAML has been an adviser in the Idea-Vodafone merger in March as well as in the sale of their tower assets to American Towers Company (ATC) recently. Balakrishnan feels Jio entered the market as a low-cost player, the only way possible.

"Jio's entry put pressure on the larger players, but made the business case of the smaller players completely unviable."

Ripe for Rationalisation
March 2017 onwards, there has been a spate of mergers and acquisitions among telecom operators (See Deal Street), and it included the telecom tower players as well. Telecom towers are a crucial piece of the business.

Some more consolidation is awaited in this part of the sector. Towers started off as being part of the operator setups in the 1990s but through the decade of 2000-10, most tower assets were hived off. Bharti Infratel, Indus Towers and GTL Infra are the major players. As suppliers to telecom operators, it's time for these companies to feel the squeeze.

In a November 2017 report titled "Telecom India", Kotak Institutional Equities analyst Rohit Chordia wrote that since tower rentals are the single largest cost-line item, telecom operators would do well to look for savings there. Chordia points out that the leading tower company Bharti Infratel shows a return on capital employed at 30% plus, while India's leading telecom operator Bharti's RoCE struggles to get to 5%. Clearly, there is a case for squeezing the tower operators a little more.

Manpower is the next area for cutting costs. With large mergers ahead, like Idea-Vodafone or where Bharti is expected to take over the wireless business of Tata Teleservices, duplication of roles would be inevitable. However, having already shed almost 75,000 jobs over the last year as ET reported last week, job cuts may have already peaked for the sector.

What will definitely happen, point out senior officials in two of the telcos that are going through the process of merging, is that the vacated positions will not be filled up. With a 15-18% attrition rate for manpower, that can mean significant passive job reduction in a year. "You have to reap the benefits of synergies of a merger.

This doesn't stop here," points out Raja Lahiri, partner, Grant Thornton India. He says this is a sector where pricing has gone down while capital expenditure has gone up and the industry will have to leverage synergies through cost optimisation and network infrastructure to achieve improved financial results.

A debt overhang is another problem flagged in June this year by the then SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya. She said that with Rs 4 lakh crore of debt and earnings before interest, depreciation, tax and amortisation (EBITDA) of Rs 65,000 crore only, the sector was unstable.

Networks too can be optimised and the industry can benefit from a better tax structure. P Balaji, Vodafone India's executive director for external affairs, CSR and regulatory, suggests that the government allow the licence fee and spectrum usage charges to be subsumed in the GST as one measure to ease pressure on the industry.

Only Big Fish Win
Most telecom industry experts recall nostalgically the early 2000s, when there were only four operators per circle, and one round of consolidation was paving the way for pan-India telecom players to emerge. The subsequent 2008-15 period, where many more players were allowed to get spectrum, distorted the industry and restarted a second round of consolidation, they point out.

Now, it is back to four operators. However, Jio entered a sector that was being largely dominated by three players: Bharti, Vodafone and Idea Cellular. The trio had certain advantages over others.

By virtue of being pan-India players, these operators could price calls within their own network differently. The second advantage was their domination of the towers, either directly or indirectly. Any new entrant would end up getting unfavourable slots on towers, typically lower in height than the incumbent's.

Jio's two-pronged strategy was designed to counter these advantages of the incumbent. First, it went with zero charge for voice calls, nullifying any advantage any other operator could offer for within-network calls. The second was to invest heavily in infrastructure. It built 65,000 towers of its own while also signing up on an equal number of towers. With its deep pockets, Reliance Jio could afford such a strategy.

The other obvious play was to focus on data, provide humongous amounts of data at much lower cost and force existing players to respond. Average data consumption in India shot up to 10 GB/ month from 700 MB/ month a year ago, says an industry expert, not willing to be quoted for this story.

He says that all operators have ultimately benefitted.

India's top telco Bharti announced its own Rs 25,000 crore investment programme, while for the next two, Idea and Vodafone, the March merger pooled resources. Vodafone's Balaji says: "Telecom in India is a game of scale. It's a large market and it needs a low-price, low-margin strategy with a large setup."

Two Can Play the Game
In this mix, though, not all success stories have to be large. A consolidation phase means smaller players can look at better chances of being bought out by larger players. One turnaround story, still unfinished, is GTL Infra and CNIL, the towers companies promoted by Manoj Tirodkar that were in severe trouble. In September 2016, the lenders of the two companies invoked the strategic debt restructuring (SDR) mechanism and, in March 2017, converted parts of their debt to equity and now lenders own 61% in the company.

In a way of redeeming itself and also a testimony to the success of the SDR process, the company in October did an exchange of bonds, effectively reducing its bond debt level to $86 million from a high of $207 million in 2012. Tirodkar says that the only saving grace for him, when caught up in a debt trap, was to focus solely on improving the quality of debt.

"Over the last six years Global Group, across its companies, has discharged over Rs 18,000 crore towards repayment of interest and principal without raising any new debt and equity. We remain committed to recovering full value of debt and enhanced value of equity for our lenders and investors," says Tirodkar.

The process of finding a strategic investor in the company to buy out the banks is on and Tirodkar is hopeful of a favourable outcome soon. It has to be completed within 18 months of the start of the SDR process. It has been reported that Aircel was the first choice of lenders to pick up the towers.

Yet, there seems to be many other options today. The current atmosphere of consolidation in the sector works for Tirodkar.Smaller consolidations have also happened in the industry. Bharti has picked up spectrum assets from Telenor, Aircel, Tikona and Tata Teleservices. In June Vodafone picked up a cable internet company called You Broadband. Reliance Jio has yet to dip its toes into the consolidation waters yet — mainly because it uses only 4G and does not want to be saddled with 2G or 3G assets.

However, if RCom's assets are in the market, it might be interested. As Kotak's Chordia says in his report, "Uncertainty remains the only certainty in the Indian wireless space."

EA gives details on Need for Speed Payback progression changes

Electronic Arts has been making headlines this month for its Star Wars Battlefront 2 row. It also recently faced some heat for the Need For Speed Payback title for the exact same reason. However, it has already fixed some issues, the company did give details on the updates in a blog post that fixes the issues. It has also mentioned the future fixes that will be coming to the title.

The gaming firm said that it has made changes in car upgrade times in addition to others.

"There's also been changes to the way events, bait crates and roaming racers work. Completing any of these tasks will now grant you more in-game bank as well as more REP. The increase in winnings will allow you to purchase more cars, as well as parts. The increase in REP will have a side effect of awarding you more shipments, which in turn will lead to more bank, more part tokens and more vanity items," it said.

Here are the changes that have already been rolled out:

-Decreased the time it takes for new parts to appear in Tune-Up shops, down from 30mins to 10mins.
-Increased the amount of REP awarded by taking part in events.
-Increased the amount of Bank awarded by taking part in events.
-Bait crates now reward increased REP.
-Bait crates now reward increased Bank.
-Competing against a Roaming Racer will reward you with increased REP.
-Competing against a Roaming Racer will reward you with increased Bank.
-Increased rate in which parts are rewarded within Ranked Speedlists.
-Air Suspension will now appear more frequently.
-Slightly increased REP and Bank for finishing an event outside of first place.

As for what coming, EA also gave a glimpse at what all improvement Need for Speed Payback will see in the upcoming patch. The firm says it will be improve the game performance, tune up shops and increase the level of parts awarded to users. it was not mentioned exactly when this patch will be rolled out.

Here are the improvements coming in future patch:

-Tune-up shops now stock higher quality parts.

-Improved quality of cards from targeted rolls in the Tune-up Shops.

-Increased the level on parts awarded from winning events.

-Multiple fixes to Improve stability.

-Improved game performance.

BMW to spend $237 million on battery cell centre

BMW will bundle its battery cell expertise in a new competence centre, the German luxury carmaker said on Friday, adding it would invest 200 million euros ($237 million) in the site over the next four years.

"By producing battery-cell prototypes, we can analyse and fully understand the cell's value-creation processes. With this build-to-print expertise, we can enable potential suppliers to produce cells to our specifications," BMW board member Oliver Zipse said in a statement.

"The knowledge we gain is very important to us, regardless of whether we produce the battery cells ourselves, or not."

The centre will open in early 2019, BMW said.

Brands pull YouTube ads over images of children

Lidl, Cadbury maker Mondelez , Diageo and other big companies have pulled advertising from YouTube after the Times newspaper found the video sharing site was showing clips of scantily clad children alongside the ads of major brands. Comments from hundreds of paedophiles were posted alongside the images, which appeared to have been uploaded by the children themselves, according to a Times investigation. One video of a pre-teenage girl in a nightie drew 6.5 million views.

The paper said YouTube, a unit of Alphabet subsidiary Google , had allowed sexualised imagery of children to be easily searchable and not lived up to promises to better monitor and police its services to protect children.

In response, a YouTube spokesman said: "There shouldn't be any ads running on this content and we are working urgently to fix this".

German discount retailer Lidl, Diageo - the maker of Smirnoff vodka and Johnnie Walker whiskey - and Cadbury chocolate maker Mondelez confirmed they had pulled advertising campaigns from YouTube.

"We have suspended all of our YouTube advertising with immediate effect," the UK arm of Lidl said in a statement in response to the Times investigation.

"It is completely unacceptable that this content is available to view, and it is, therefore, clear that the strict policies which Google has assured us were in place to tackle offensive content are ineffective," a Lidl spokeswoman said.

Diageo said it was deeply concerned and had begun an urgent investigation. "We are enforcing an immediate stop of all YouTube advertising until we are confident the appropriate safeguards are in place," the company said.

The Times investigation alleged that YouTube does not pro-actively check for inappropriate images of children but instead relies on software algorithms, external non-government organisations and police forces to flag such content.

On Wednesday, YouTube announced a crackdown on sexualised or violent content aimed at "family friendly" sections of YouTube.

Johanna Wright, YouTube's vice president of product management, promised tougher application of its user guidelines, removing inappropriate ads targeting families, blocking inappropriate comments on videos featuring minors and providing further guidance for creators of family-friendly content. 

Avatar therapy can help schizophrenia patients

 An experimental therapy for people with schizophrenia that brings them face to face with a computer avatar representing the tormenting voices in their heads has proved promising in early stage trials.

Scientists who conducted a randomised controlled trial comparing the avatar therapy to a form of supportive counselling found that after 12 weeks, the avatars were more effective at reducing auditory hallucinations, or voices inside the head.

More research is needed to investigate the approach in other healthcare settings, so the therapy is not yet widely available.

But if further trials prove successful, experts said, avatar therapy could "radically change" treatment approaches for millions of psychosis sufferers across the world.

Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that affects around one in 100 people worldwide. Its most common symptoms are delusions and auditory hallucinations.

These voices are typically insulting, tormenting and threatening, causing much distress and anxiety in patients. Drug treatments can reduce symptoms in most patients, but around one in four continue to be affected by hallucinations.

This study, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, involved 150 patients in Britain who had had schizophrenia for around 20 years and who had been experiencing persistent and distressing auditory hallucinations for more than a year.

Of these, 75 were given avatar therapy and 75 had a form of supportive counselling. They all continued with their usual antipsychotic medication throughout the trial.

The avatar therapy was given in 50 minute sessions delivered once a week over six weeks. Before starting treatment, patients worked with a therapist to create a computerised simulation, or avatar, of the voice they most wanted to quieten - including what the voice said, how it sounded, and how it might look.

Tom Craig, a professor who led the study at Britain's Maudsley Hospital and King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, said the results provided "early evidence that avatar therapy rapidly improves auditory hallucinations".

"So far, these improvements appear to last for up to six months for these patients," he said. "However ... more research is needed to optimise the way the treatment is delivered and demonstrate that it is effective in other ... settings."

Ann Mills-Duggan, a expert from the Wellcome Trust health charity which funded the trial, said the results were very encouraging: "If the researchers can show that this therapy can be delivered effectively by different therapists in different locations, this approach could radically change how millions of psychosis sufferers are treated across the world."

Xiaomi India Head Teases 'Desh Ka Smartphone', Entry-Level Handset Likely

Xiaomi India Head Teases 'Desh Ka Smartphone', Entry-Level Handset Likely

Xiaomi India Managing Director on Twitter teased the launch of another handset in the country. Being promoted by the company as ‘Desh Ka Smartphone’ it is likely to be an entry-level model considering how heavily the mobile phone market of India is skewed towards the low-end segment. Incidentally, Reliance Industries’ Jio Phone was promoted as ‘India Ka Smartphone’ when it was unveiled in July this year, even though it is a feature phone. The upcoming Xiaomi handset, however, is unlikely to be a feature phone.

The cheapest handsets in Xiaomi’s portfolio so far have been priced at Rs. 5,999, so it will be interesting to see if the company will go below the Rs. 5,000 mark. There are rumours that it will be the Redmi 5Athat will launch in the country. The handset was recently unveiled in China as an upgrade to the Redmi 4A, with metal-like matte texture and eight-day battery life. There is no official word about when the handset will be launched in India or its price in the country - it is priced CNY 599 in China (roughly Rs. 5,900).

Xiaomi became the country’s biggest smartphone vendor in October, holding the position jointly with Samsung, and claims to have sold 9.2 million units in the past quarter. It opened a new manufacturing facility in Noida, Uttar Pradesh earlier this week, which will be used to locally manufacture its power banks. The last smartphones launched by the company were the youth-focused Redmi Y1 and Redmi Y1 Lite, which sold like hot cakes in the first sale. The company claims to have sold 150,000 units of the two phones within three minutes.

If the upcoming Xiaomi handset is indeed an entry-level model, it will be positioned below the Redmi Y1, which is priced at Rs. 6,999. Redmi 4A is still available in India too, at Rs. 5,999.  

China's former internet czar faces graft probe

 China's former internet czar, who oversaw a tightening of online censorship during his tenure, has become the latest top Communist Party figure to be ensnared in the country's anti-corruption drive.

The party's anti-graft agency said in a brief statement on its website late Tuesday that Lu Wei, 57, was being investigated for suspected "severe disciplinary violations".
Lu, who had stepped down from his post last year, was once named among the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine and had rubbed shoulders with the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

He had fiercely defended the country's censorship apparatus after he was appointed in 2013 to supervise controls on online expression as head of the Cyberspace Administration of China.

He is the most prominent figure to fall from grace since President Xi Jinping was given a second five-year term in office at a Communist Party congress last month.

Xi launched a major campaign against corruption when he took office in 2012 that has brought down 1.5 million officials since then.

At the congress that consolidated his power in October, Xi vowed no let up to the campaign against corruption, which he called the "greatest threat" to the party.
Lu was a powerful figure both at home and abroad, where he commanded the attention of global technology firms eager for a piece of the Chinese market.

He was personally received by Zuckerberg in 2014 at Facebook's Silicon Valley headquarters, and appeared in the front row of a group photo alongside top executives from American tech giants such as Amazon and Xi when the president visited the US in 2015.

Facebook is among a slew of Western websites, along with Twitter, Instagram and several news outlets, that are blocked by China's "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

Authorities closely monitor what people say, see or share online, and block any content they deem illegal or politically sensitive.

Chinese nationals can face fines or even jail time for unfavourable social media posts.

Under Lu's watch, cyberspace regulations grew stricter with the passage of new online "security" regulations as part of a sweeping package of laws aimed at tightening state control over a wide range of domains.

While "the Chinese government has indeed expanded its power to control prominent problems online", Lu said in 2015, it has used its capabilities to control crime, pornography, and "rumours" -- a euphemism that can be applied to everything from misinformation to political speech.

Authorities have further tightened internet controls in recent months, shutting down celebrity gossip blogs and probing platforms for "obscenity".

Lu's investigation comes as China prepares to host its fourth World Internet Conference next month to promote its views about web policy, though the annual event has been criticised by rights groups.