T3 India

Apps

Prisma is now available on Android

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The current rage of the photo filtering world, Prisma is finally live on Android after extensive beta testing. The app creator, Alexey Moiseenkov, has stated that the app will offer 40 filters by the end of this month.

Currently there are abstract art styles, ornamental patterns and filters based on famous artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, Levitan etc. The strength of the filter can be easily modified by scrolling up or down on the final image which can be shared on social networks very quickly. For best results it is advised to have adequate light for Prisma to work best.

Prisma

The app utilizes neural network and AI to apply the artistic effect which necessitates the user to connect online. This is due to the server based rendering happening in Prisma labs located in Moscow so working offline is out of the picture. With more than 400 million images ‘prismed’ and over 10.6 million downloads on iOS alone, there are doubts about whether their servers will be able to sustain the soon-to-be massive influx from Android users.

[Source: Prisma]

HCPL now accepts Freecharge payment

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Lately Freecharge has been making great strides to propagate their digital wallet all across the country. Their latest move lets users pay for their fuel bills at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) using the Freecharge wallet. The process is very quick and the OnTheGo Pin gets generated even in the absence of internet connectivity so users need not worry about bad connectivity.

The facility will be launched in phases with the first phase supporting payment at over 60 petrol pumps spread across 10 states – Maharashtra, Delhi, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The company aims to enable Freecharge Wallet payment at over 4,500 petrol pumps over the next few months.

Making this move is a way for both companies to make their presence felt in today’s smartphone generation and look for ways to reduce cash transactions.

Freecharge to make 1 lakh taxis accept digital payment by the end of the year

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After tying up over 1,00,000 merchants to accept payment with Freecharge, the company will be enabling the same number of taxis across India to go cashless. The company reached out to over 15,000 taxis in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai to accept payment through their mobile wallet. Over 90% of Freecharge transactions originate from the mobile app.

The entire process has been really simplified. Consumers can pay by scanning the QR code unique to each driver and complete the transaction quickly. Freecharge claims that consumers can pay in less than 10 seconds using their smartphone with a few taps leading to a seamless process with no worry or hassle about tendering exact change. After payment is done, the money gets credited to the driver’s wallet and they can choose to use it for bill payment, recharge, money transfer or sending money.

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Freecharge is PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant for information security letting users make prepaid, post-paid, DTH and Electricity bill payments for various utility service providers in addition to supporting many online and offline merchants.

Opera’s mobile browser now has an ad blocker

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Opera browser has been updated with a built-in ad blocker for Android, iOS and Windows Phone platforms. This isn’t just limited to mobile apps but is also available in the desktop applications across all supported platforms.

Opera claims that Opera for Android loads webpages faster than Chrome because of the ad blocker and data-compression technology. Tests conducted by the company show that Google Chrome took 14% longer than Opera to load a webpage while Adblock Browser took 79% longer. Coming to data savings, 229kb on an average was downloaded per webpage after ad removal on Chrome for Android. In comparison Chrome consumed 84% more data while Adblock Browser downloaded 3.4 times more data.

A recent research by PageFair shows that 419 million people are blocking ads on the mobile web which represents a 90% growth during 2015. It has also been seen that the number of people blocking ads on mobile is double than desktop users.

https://youtu.be/O3wsEv2xsWw

[Via Opera Blog]

UCBrowser launches India exclusive UC News

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Chinese mobile internet company UCWeb launched UC News and an updated version of their popular UC Browser in India. The UC Browser data shows 73% of its users as News Feed consumers and on an average they read 6 pieces of news or feeds per day. Seeing the potential from the above data is why UC News was exclusively developed for India.

Powered by big data technology, UC News collects trending and curated news content covering major categories with over 20 featured channels including cricket, entertainment, health, humour, lifestyle, news, technology and movies. The app tracks as well as matches trending keywords on Facebook and Twitter before reaching a decision on showing them to the user. Currently the app only supports hindi and english but more regional languages are coming soon. UC News is also planning to partner with bloggers in the future for original content.

The upgraded UC Browser includes UC Cricket, an in-app AIO cricket content aggregator aiming to become the one stop solution for serving the nation’s craze for the sport.