Desi dating apps woo young Indians

NEW DELHI: Their parents may be scrounging matrimonial websites but young Indians with smartphones are spoilt for choice when it comes to desi dating apps. Homegrown free apps such as Thrill, Woo, DesiCrush, Truly Madly and more, and are available on both Android and iOS. 

Woo claims to have made 12,000 matches on the app since July. Thrill, that started beta testing about a year ago, claims to have nearly 50,000 users, while Desicrush, also active in the US and the UK, has about 60,000 from India alone. 

This is how they work: a user signs up with a picture, and basic details. The account is more often than not linked to the person's Facebook profile for authenticity. A person can define certain parameters and is then shown different profiles which s/he can then either like or reject. It is only when two people like each others' profile mutually are they notified and can begin chatting within the app. If they wish, they can meet offline. 

The apps take cue from international dating app Tinder which enjoys an explosive popularity in the US. Globally, they make 12 million new matches every day. The app entered the Indian market last year. "India is still a new market for us, but our user base in India is growing by over 1% per day," says Tinder's vice president of communication Rosette Pambakian. 

Woo founder Sumesh Menon says the acceptance of such apps shows confidence in the way young people want to conduct relationships today. "People in the 25-30 age group are financially independent and don't want to outsource their life decisions," says Menon. Josh Israel, co-founder of Thrill moved to India over a year ago, seeing the potential of the smartphone apps market here. "The smartphone market was growing and user mindset was shifting. No one was building a dating app particularly for India. We were told India is conservative and wasn't ready for something like this. But today everyone is making these apps," says Israel, adding that they are seeing significant growth in tier 2 cities. "There are fewer opportunities to go out and meet people in such cities," says Israel, adding that a market opportunity exists not just with apps, but relationships in general. 

The Indian apps are looking to monetize through "freemium" models, where people can pay for certain features, like appearing first in a search. "We offer a subscription upgrade that allows members to appear first in search results, highlighted profile and send unlimited messages versus the five allowed daily for free," says Jay Chahil founder of Desi Crush. 

The skewed gender ratio of the country is even more skewed on mobile dating apps. On Tinder, it is 45 women to 55 men globally. The women to men ratio is 3:7 on Thrill and Desi Crush and 4:6 on Woo. Menon says that while talking to the target group during the app development, women expressed inhibitions about being on a network that is dominantly populated by men, and about men uploading fake profiles. 

"We want ours to be a curated community. 20% of the users who sign up on Woo are rejected," says Menon about quality control on his app. Desi Crush co-founder Jay Chahil points to the same problem. "Everyone on the app has to sign in through Facebook. We look for things like a certain number of pictures, and that the person is not married," says Chahil. 

Challenges for such apps in India range from inhibition towards taking online meetings offline, and bandwidth. Israel says it is they are keeping the app simple to accommodate low network spreads and low-end phones. 

However, change seems to be afoot. Menon also points out the way people have now begun to project their online selves. "Earlier, in the days of Orkut, and when Facebook had just entered the market, people would put up pictures of flowers or puppies as their display pictures. Now they are more confident about putting their real selves out there," he says. 

Telecom services restoring in Kashmir valley

NEW DELHI: Telecom services in the flood-hit Kashmir Valley are being normalised slowly with BSNL restoring around 80% of the affected network.

Other private players including Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Aircel and Reliance Communications (RCom) have also restored their network in various parts of the state ravaged by the floods.

BSNL said it has restored 92 base transceiver stations (BTS) or mobile towers which were affected by the floods and overall 473 towers are working in the Valley whereas 934 is the number for whole state.

In Srinagar city alone, 55 towers are up and running. The only towers which have not been restored are those submerged under water.

"The floods have mostly affected South Kashmir so we have changed settings of towers in North Kashmir in such a way that connectivity can be provided in South Kashmir," a BSNL official told PTI.

About 80% of the affected network has been restored, he added.

BSNL distributed 1,200 free SIM cards today. The state-run firm plans to distribute 5,000 SIMs.

"All district headquarters in Leh, Ladakh and Jammu have now been made fully operational. In Kashmir, connectivity has been restored in all the 4 critical Tehsils of Anantnag district namely Anantnag, Dooru, Kokernag, Shangus," Airtel said in a statement.

Idea said its network is now completely restored in Jammu and parts of Anantnag in Kashmir region.

Airtel PCOs have been set up in Poonch at Gujjar Hostel, Airfield and Nagli Sahb facilitating free calls for everyone 24X7. More PCOs are planned across relief camps.

"All 5 VSAT terminals we flew in to Srinagar have now been set up at critical areas to create public Wi-Fi hot spots at Badami Bagh, Bagat Barzulla Gurdwara and Srinagar Airport enabling free access to data services to all mobile phones users," Airtel said.

A Tool released by Apple to remove free U2 album from iTunes

NEW YORK: Some iPhone users are not happy that U2's new album, "Songs of Innocence," was automatically added to their iTunes music library, free of charge. In response, Apple has released a special tool that lets people remove the album from their collections. 

U2 played at an Apple event last week that included the unveiling of the iPhone maker's new smartwatch and updated iPhone models. In a surprise move, the Irish rock band performed at the event and put out its 11-song release. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the new album would be given to the company's 500 million iTunes users. The release showed up in users' iTunes music libraries. The company said Monday that 33 million iTunes account holders have accessed the free album. 

But some iTunes users took to Twitter to complain and ask how to remove it. While it was already possible to delete the album, Apple's tool makes it possible in one step.

Google: Data requests from governments worldwide up 150%

Google said it was facing increasing pressure from governments around the world to reveal user information in criminal investigations amid ongoing revelations about national surveillance programs.

The number of requests increased 15% sequentially in the first half of this year and 150% in the last five years, the company said in its semi-annual transparency report.

In the US, demand for information jumped 19% in the first six months of 2014 and more than tripled since 2009, when it started publishing the report.

President Barack Obama asked Congress in January to rein in the bulk collection and storage of records of millions of US domestic telephone calls after revelations last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Many American technology companies also have been clamouring for changes after seeing their international business suffer as foreign governments worried they would collect data and hand it over to US spy agencies.

YouTube videos to soon be available offline in India

In the coming few weeks, much of YouTube is going to be available offline in India, said Caesar Sengupta, vice president, product management at Google in the capital on Monday. "It's a very common way to use YouTube. You find videos you like, you tend to watch them over and over again," he said at the launch of Android One in the capital.

A Google spokesperson says that the offline availability will be the content owner's prerogative. "It will be available by default. Content owners can decide if they want to opt into it," the spokesperson said, adding that views of the videos and ads will be kept track of offline as well. 

Kanan Gill, who runs a YouTube series called Pretentious Movie Reviews along with fellow film reviewer Biswa Kalyan Rath, says that while the idea itself is "awesome", it is something that will need testing for content uploaders like him once made available. "It probably makes sense to have longer videos and podcasts made available offline so that people can watch it or listen to it at leisure," says Gill, who has nearly 85,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel. 

Standup comedian Rohan Joshi, part of the group AIB that uploads humorous videos on YouTube regularly, says that if there is an accurate way to monitor views and ads, the new feature would work well. "There are a lot of internet connectivity issues in India. So that way, it is good, more people will watch these videos," says Joshi. AIB has over 6 lakh YouTube subscribers. 

So far, web services like "keepvid" and "clipconverter" could be used to download YouTube videos on to a laptop or a desktop. However, the legality of using such services is questionable. In this case, a user would have the content owner's consent to have the video available on their device, offline.

Microsoft to acquire Minecraft maker Mojang for $2.5 billion

Microsoft Corp said on Monday it has agreed to acquire Stockholm-based games developer Mojang and the company's wildly popular Minecraft video game franchise for $2.5 billion. 

Microsoft said in a statement it expects the acquisition to be break-even in fiscal year 2015 on a GAAP basis. The deal is expected to close in late 2014. 

"Gaming is a top activity spanning devices, from PCs and consoles to tablets and mobile, with billions of hours spent each year," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. 

"Minecraft is more than a great game franchise — it is an open world platform, driven by a vibrant community we care deeply about, and rich with new opportunities for that community and for Microsoft."

Microsoft said it plans to continue to make Minecraft available across all the platforms on which it is available today: PC, iOS, Android, Xbox and PlayStation.

iPhone 6 Pre-Orders Break Record

A new iPhone, a new record.Apple said Monday that it sold more than 4 million new iPhones 6s in the first 24 hours they were on sale, breaking the previous record for pre-order sales.The news is hardly surprising. Each time a new iPhone model has come out, it has broken sales records. Apple last week announced two new iPhones, both with bigger screens than their predecessors: a 4.7-inch model called the iPhone 6, and a bigger, 5.5-inch model dubbed the iPhone 6 Plus.Analysts expect the new iPhones will be Apple's best-selling iPhones ever, garnering marketshare from rival Samsung, which has made a smartphone with a larger screen for years.Apple did not -- and likely will not -- break out how many of each model it sold.The iPhone 6 Plus, the 5.5-inch "phablet" (nicknamed because it's so large that it's part phone, part tablet) was listed as out of stock on Apple's website just hours after it went on sale Sept. 12.Two million pre-orders for the iPhone 5 were placed when that phone was announced in 2012.The phone will be available in stores starting Friday.