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.

This is how Uber paid hackers to cover up massive data breach

Uber Technologies Inc paid hackers $100,000 to keep secret a massive breach last year that exposed the personal information of about 57 million accounts of the ride-service provider, the company said on Tuesday.

Discovery of the U.S. company's cover-up of the incident resulted in the firing of two employees responsible for its response to the hack, said Dara Khosrowshahi, who replaced co-founder Travis Kalanick as CEO in August.

"None of this should have happened, and I will not make excuses for it," Khosrowshahi said in a blog post. (http://ubr.to/2AmxlQt)

The breach occurred in October 2016 but Khosrowshahi said he had only recently learned of it.

The hack is another controversy for Uber on top of sexual harassment allegations, a lawsuit alleging trade secrets theft and multiple federal criminal probes that culminated in Kalanick's ouster in June.

The stolen information included names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers of Uber users around the world, and the names and license numbers of 600,000 U.S. drivers, Khosrowshahi said.

Uber passengers need not worry as there was no evidence of fraud, while drivers whose license numbers had been stolen would be offered free identity theft protection and credit monitoring, Uber said. 

Two hackers gained access to proprietary information stored on GitHub, a service that allows engineers to collaborate on software code. There, the two people stole Uber's credentials for a separate cloud-services provider where they were able to download driver and rider data, the company said. 

A GitHub spokeswoman said the hack was not the result of a failure of GitHub's security.

"While I can't erase the past, I can commit on behalf of every Uber employee that we will learn from our mistakes," Khosrowshahi said. 

"We are changing the way we do business, putting integrity at the core of every decision we make and working hard to earn the trust of our customers."

Bloomberg News first reported the data breach on Tuesday.

Khosrowshahi said Uber had begun notifying regulators. The New York attorney general has opened an investigation, a spokeswoman said.

Regulators in Australia and the Philippines said on Wednesday they would look into the matter. Uber is seeking to mend fences in Asia after having run-ins with authorities, and is negotiating with a consortium led by Japan's SoftBank Group for fresh investment. SoftBank declined to comment.

Uber said it had fired its chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, and a deputy, Craig Clark, this week because of their role in the handling of the incident. Sullivan, formerly the top security official at Facebook Inc and a federal prosecutor, served as both security chief and deputy general counsel for Uber.

Sullivan declined to comment when reached by Reuters. Clark could not immediately be reached for comment.

Kalanick learned of the breach in November 2016, a month after it took place, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. At the time, the company was negotiating with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over the handling of consumer data.

A board committee had investigated the breach and concluded that neither Kalanick nor Salle Yoo, Uber's general counsel at the time, were involved in the cover-up, another person familiar with the issue said. The person did not say when the investigation took place.

Uber said on Tuesday it was obliged to report the theft of the drivers' license information and had failed to do so. 

Kalanick, through a spokesman, declined to comment. The former CEO remains on the Uber board of directors, and Khosrowshahi has said he consults with him regularly.

CRIME PAYS

Although payments to hackers are rarely publicly discussed, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and private security companies have told Reuters that an increasing number of companies are paying criminal hackers to recover stolen data.

"The economics of being a bad guy on the internet today are incredibly favorable," said Oren Falkowitz, co-founder of California-based cyber security company Area 1 Security.

Uber has a history of failing to protect driver and passenger data. Hackers previously stole information about Uber drivers and the company acknowledged in 2014 that its employees had used a software tool called "God View" to track passengers.

Khosrowshahi said on Tuesday he had hired Matt Olsen, former general counsel of the U.S. National Security Agency, to restructure the company's security teams and processes. The company also hired Mandiant, a cybersecurity firm owned by FireEye Inc, to investigate the breach.

The new CEO has traveled the world since replacing Kalanick to deliver a message that Uber has matured from it earlier days as a rule-flouting startup.

"The new CEO faces an unknown number of problems fostered by the culture promoted by his predecessor," said Erik Gordon, an expert in entrepreneurship and technology at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

Vodafone deploys mobile vans for Aadhaar verification in Rajasthan

Leading telecom operator Vodafone has deployed two mobile vans to travel to the villages and smaller towns of Rajasthan, facilitating doorstep SIM upgrades and Aadhaar verification.

This program was initiated in back in January 2017, has covered over 450+ villages like Jhunjhunu, Mahapura, Hingoniya, Bhadra, Fatehpur, Bandikui, Makrana, Panchpadra, Phalodi etc, said the company in a statement.
Inviting the residents of rural Rajasthan to utilize the benefits provided by the Vodafone Mobile vans, Amit Bedi, business head- Rajasthan, Vodafone India, said, "Over the past years, Vodafone has added additional 4G sites to strengthen Vodafone SuperNetTM 4G and extended Vodafone's best network to more and more towns and villages in Rajasthan. The Vodafone Mobile Vans will ensure that our existing 2G/3G customers are able to enjoy the benefits of Vodafone SuperNetTM 4G with free SIM

 upgrade done at their doorstep. The service of linking SIM number with the customer's Aadhaar is an important step in line with Vodafone's commitment to a Digital India. I am happy to say that this service has now been made simple and accessible to our valued customers even in remote villages, through our Mobile vans. Over the past 10 months, we have helped thousands of customers with 4G SIM upgrades along with their Vodafone SIM linked with Aadhaar number."

Last week, the government had announced new methods to link the SIM with Aadhaar to make it easy for the mobile phone subscribers.

Starting December 1, this linking can be done online on telecom service provider's website and also using telco's voice-based IVR helpline. These two ways of verifying SIM to Aadhaar have got the approval of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

In a ruling in February this year, the Supreme Court had said that all mobile phones in the country must be linked to Aadhaar by February 2018. All SIM cards that are not linked by this date will face deactivation.

Apple may have just made it tougher to buy iPhone X in India

Apple has reduced retail margins on the iPhone X by nearly 30%, frustrating large format chain owners and small-scale retailers that are crying foul that the Cupertino-based company does not want its retail partners to benefit while the company itself profits from the massive margins it makes.

Some like Bengaluru-based Sangeetha Mobiles have stopped taking orders of the new flagship, even as the costliest iPhone ever faces huge supply-demand mismatch in India, leading analysts to say that Apple should slot India far higher in its priority list and bring in larger shipments of the iPhone X.

"Apple has cut margins on the iPhone X from 6.5% to 4.5% for large retailers like us, and if a customer pays by card, which is usually the case, the margin reduces to almost 1.5-2%," said Subhash Chandra, managing director at Sangeetha Mobiles, which has 400 stores across the country.

"Apple gives the least margins... How on earth do they expect the retailer to work for them for free -- our overheads are anywhere around 10%," Chandra explained.
Apple declined to comment on the margin cuts and supply issues in India.

Industry insiders reveal that typically, brands such as Samsung or Xiaomi offer more than double the margin that Apple offers, around 12-15%. To gain share from competition, players like Oppo and Vivo were also giving higher than usual margins to retailers, but Apple has refrained from this practice.

Further, offline retailers complain that while they are facing the issue of margin cuts, online players are giving cashbacks and other discounts on iPhones, including the iPhone X, distorting a level playing field.

A chief executive of another top retail chain in India added that it had stopped stocking iPhones across its 300 stores due to the cut in margins and owing to lack of control on retail pricing in the online and offline markets.
Those in the unorganised trade also complain of Apple having cut margins on the iPhone X at a time when the device is under severe supply constraint.
"People are ready to give a premium on the phone, so we don't have an option but to work with Apple's margin cut and yet, face the ire of customers if the iPhone X is not available," said a leading retailer in the unorganised sector.

Another top handset retailer said that it had got only 400 units of the iPhone X in the first three weeks since launch, far less than what Apple had promised, underlining the supply issues.

Analysts said Apple should bring India, the world's second-largest handset market after China by volumes, further up on its priority list urgently and ensure adequate supplies, else it may be left with too wide a gap to bridge with its rival Android players like Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and others already way ahead in terms of volumes.

"India should rank very high on Apple's priority index... it is yet to have a single owned and operated retail store in India," said Manjunath Bhat, research director at Gartner based out of Singapore.

Analysts at Counterpoint cautioned that the company may lose the plot in India if it waits too long for regulatory, policy or business certainty or the time when it can extract most value at minimum risk. They added that as the 350 million smartphone user base expands to 500 million over the next couple of years, many existing users would be looking to potentially upgrade to the best premium phone out there, iPhone.

They (Apple) will have to start now because if they lose a window of opportunity in next two years to be on mind of the growing smartphone user base, it would be somewhat difficult to grow faster in the world's second largest smartphone market," said Neil Shah, research director at Hong Kong based Counterpoint Research.

People familiar with Apple executives' thinking though countered, saying India was very high in priority for iPhone X stocks and supplies, and in fact, had got higher supplies than Thailand, which was a larger revenue generating market than India.

In the September-ended quarter's earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook had said that growing the market would require building stores, channels, markets, developer ecosystem and the right kind of product lineup.

New BlackBerry smartphone surfaces online on benchmarking website

 It seems that Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry is said to be working on a new smartphone. Recently, a new BlackBerry smartphone appeared on the benchmarking website Geekbench.

As per the website listing, the yet to launch BlackBerry smartphone carries a model name Qualcomm BBF100-1. The smartphone is said to be the successor of the BlackBerry KEYone which the company launched this year.

First spotted by GSMArena, the device is expected to be the successor of the KEYone because it has surfaced at the same as the earlier launched smartphone and it is likely to be named as the KEYtwo. The smartphone has scored 1532 in single core and 4185 in multi-core score tests. The device is expected to be powered by an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 processor paired with 6GB of RAM.

To recall, the company launched the BlackBerry KEYone in August this year in India at a price tag of Rs 39,999. In terms of specifications, the BlackBerry KEYone comes with a 4.5-inch scratch resistant display with 1080x1620 pixels resolution. Running Android 7.1 Nougat operating system, the device is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor. The smartphone offers 4GB of RAM and 64GB internal storage which can be expanded up to 2TB via microSD card.

The device sports a 12MP Sony IMX378 sensor with f/2.0 aperture and dual-tone LED flash. There is also an 8MP front-facing shooter with 84-degree wide-angle lens and f/2.2 aperture. Measuring 149.3x72.5x9.4mm, the smartphone is backed by a 3505mAh non-removable battery. The company claims that it is the largest battery till date in any Blackberry smartphone. The device also supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 for fast charging.

On the connectivity front, the smartphone offers Wi-Fi, 4G, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth v4.2 and 3.5mm headphone jack. The smartphone also sports a USB Type C and the Boost feature for better user experience.

Apple iMac Pro may sport a new theft protection system with no way of switching it off

Apple iMac Pro is set to arrive in December this year. Although the company has already introduced the PC and have given its technical specifications, there are still some features that are being revealed by developers and other websites. One such feature has been found by Pike's Universum website.
The website says that the yet-to-be-released Apple iMac Pro may feature a new 'Find my iMac Pro' theft feature. The feature reportedly sends an alert of the stolen iMac Pro. The alert may include the device's location based on its GPS tracking tech. The website adds that users won't be able to switch it off.

"Even the cheapest iMac Pro costs $4999 and is thus far more expensive than any other iMac model that is now available, let alone the top of the line one with a price tag north of $10K, and it is 'relatively easy' to walk away with a 27-inch computer, and that may be why Apple is going to introduce a new kind of "Find my iMac Pro" type of theft protection. One that phones home to report the exact GPS location. And there's no way of switching it off..."

The site goes on to state that Apple may find a way to bring a feature that would require a SIM card in the iMac Pro. Using the SIM card it can 'call' the connected iPhone device and alert users of the theft.

This is not the only new feature that is being said to arrive in the company's one of the most powerful desktops. Few developers recently dug out some details about the PC stating that it may run on Apple A10 co-processor and have 'Hey Siri' integration. The processor currently powers the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus. Siri may also support multiple user profiles.