ASUS Claims the Second Spot by Laptop Mag; Scored Highest in Innovation

Taiwan-based technology major, ASUS, has climbed to the second spot in the laptop brand category. The findings have been revealed in the Best & Worst Laptop Brands list for 2019 by the major technology publication, Laptop Mag. With a strong focus on innovation, the brand also fared the best in the innovation category, securing a perfect '10 on 10' score.

While ASUS climbed up two spots since last year, the brand has been praised by the Laptop Mag for several additional categories such as Design and Value & Selection. Furthermore, several of its distinguished features garnered praise from the magazine, especially ScreenPad, the world's first intelligent touchpad, and ErgoLift, a unique hinge design that raises the laptop keyboard to provide better ergonomics and more comfortable typing.

One of the brand’s key offerings, ZenBook S13 (UX392) earned laurels by Laptop Mag as the world’s slimmest-bezel Ultrabook with a 97% screen-to-body ratio and NVIDIA® GeForce® MX150 discrete graphics, and ROG Mothership. The laptop is a successful desktop replacement that redefines the gaming laptop form factor with a standing design for increased airflow and a folding detachable keyboard that provides greater gaming flexibility and saves space.

The ranking, along with the appreciation, only cements the spirit of ‘ASUS In Search of Incredible’. ASUS is further committed to pursuing world-class design, innovation, and engineering to deliver the best experiences to customers.

Tata Motors to Supply 25 Tigor EVs to Janani Tours in Bengaluru

Tata Motors has announced the next milestone on its journey of driving electrification, through its partnership with Janani Tours, to deploy 25 Tigor Electric Vehicles (EVs) in Bengaluru. Janani Tours, one of the leading tour operators in the city will begin its e-mobility journey to service its corporate clients and fleet customers while enhancing sustainability. The first batch of Tigor EVs was handed over today by Tata Motors’ Dealership - M/s Prerana Motors to Janani Tours officials, at their office in HSR Layout, Bengaluru.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Shailesh Chandra, President- Electric Mobility Business & Corporate Strategy, Tata Motors said, “We are delighted to partner with Janani Tours on their pragmatic initiative of inducting zero-emission vehicles in their fleet. We are confident that Tigor EV will address the growing demand of the city to travel in electric vehicles. We remain committed to the sustainable mobility mission and will continue to work towards bringing aspirational e-mobility solutions for customers, leading the drive towards faster adoption of electric vehicles in the country.”

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Ram Ramakrishnan, CEO, Janani Group of Companies, said “Keeping in line with our commitment of being pioneers in mobility service providers, we are excited to begin offering Tigor EVs to Bengaluru citizens. We are excited to partner with Tata Motors for offering eco-friendly mobility solutions to our customers and commitment to society. We believe inherent benefits of zero emission and lower operating costs of EVs will be the ultimate game-changer for commuting in the city. We see a positive response from our clients to reach 1000+ vehicles in the next 6-9 months under the brand JenNext.”

Tata Motors is playing a leading role in proactively driving electric mobility in the country. To build a sustainable future for India, the company has been working collaboratively on various electric and hybrid vehicle solutions.

Snapdeal Unveils Miniso Products on its Platform Across India

Snapdeal, India’s leading value-focused online marketplace, has launched products of Japanese low cost brand Miniso on its platform.

Snapdeal will have over 150 Miniso products across categories like beauty, baby care, home furnishing, stationery, mobile accessories, and decor. Popular products include towels, brushes, concealers, power banks, and storage boxes.

The products are smartly designed keeping in mind the taste and preferences of middle class Indians. The USP of Miniso is its low-products that come in the Rs 190 to 790 range on Snapdeal.

“Our merchandising strategy is focused on offering good quality merchandise for the value conscious Indian consumers. We are very excited to bring Miniso’s cost efficient products on our platform,” says Snapdeal spokesperson.

“Snapdeal’s core strength lies in serving customers in the tier 2 and 3 markets. This will help us reach more customers deep in India,'' says Siddharth Venkataraman, CEO of Acchakart, which handles online sales of Miniso in India.

Buyers for Miniso products on Snapdeal will get an additional 15% instant discount on using Bank of Baroda credit card users, 15% cashback to Citi Bank card users, and 5% instant discount to Snapdeal HDFC Bank Credit card users.

Snapdeal enables small businesses to sell online. Its product assortment includes long tail value merchandise which are generally available in the bazaars of India. With the new partnership with the Japanese retailer, Snapdeal has expanded the selection of value priced international brands available on its portal.

Visit Miniso estore on Snapdeal: https://www.snapdeal.com/seller/S98cc0

‘Just Bell Foundation’ Aims at Providing Dignified Quality of Life for Needy Bangalore Children

In an attempt to provide a dignified quality of life to underprivileged children, the ‘Just Bell Foundation’, a registered nonprofit organization was launched today in Bengaluru South. A group of like mined volunteers have come together to float a home for the under-served children, which will work towards helping to provide a dignified quality of life to those children who are deprived, denied, and dispossessed of the basic needs of existence, irrespective of caste, creed, community, race, religion, gender and etc.

The Founder Trustees of ‘Just Bell Foundation’ include Mr. Ravichandran, a retired army officer, Kishore Joseph, Social worker & Social Entrepreneur, Pramod S. Business Man and KL. Gurunath , Social Entrepreneur.

JBF was formerly inaugurated by all the founder Trustees by planting the saplings to mark the official launch of the organization(). JBF also distributed 100 saplings to children and other people present at the event.

JBF is located in Bengaluru South at Survey No.43/ 1A, B.M. Kaval, Agara, Thathaguni Post, Kengeri Hobli , Bengaluru South Bengaluru  - 570082. JBF is currently operating from a rented premise and presently has 20 underserved children under its care. They provide these children with free accommodation and nutritious food.

A generous donor, Ms. Vijyalakshmi, has come forward to donate her land measuring 5000 sq ft to build a permanent home for the under served children, where it aims to accommodate over 300 children and few senior citizens too.

JBF aims to to empower the poor, powerless, marginalized, and needy sections of society and equip them to take care of themselves, their dependents, and also contribute to the society at large. In the coming days, JBF aims to identify and work alongside the economically and socially deprived, the physically and mentally challenged, the abandoned children and the elders, so as to help them to live better and with dignity, be self-reliant and enjoy healthy and sustainable quality of life

Speaking on the occasion of the launch, Kishore Joseph said “ We are glad to have launched JBF today. JBF is focused on building a network of like-minded people who can support the cause of supporting poor and under-served children. We wish to collaborate with other agencies - governmental or non-governmental to help children shape as responsible citizens. In the future, We wish to suitably contribute in Government events, policy formulation or any other aspect where JBF could be of any help. We will do our best to motivate and encouraging the civil society to contribute their mite in whatever way they can and partner/assist/empower us to serve people in need and who are helpless”

JBF is looking for philanthropists, donors and well wishers who could support their cause, and help in building a permanent home for the under-served children.

MAHE Signs Three Agreements with University of Lille, France

Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal signed three agreements in France with Universite de Lille on June 7, 2019. MAHE Vice Chancellor, Dr H Vinod Bhat and Lille President, Prof. Jean-Christophe Camart, agreed to foster student exchange across all disciplines and bring about cooperation among the School of Medicine, ULille and the Kasturba Medical College (KMC), Manipal/Mangalore with the Inter University Cooperation Agreement.

Under the Agreement, the two Universities will work together to achieve research, teaching programmes in common, staff exchanges, student exchanges, mobility of doctoral and postdoctoral students, promotion of seminars and colloquia.

KMC Manipal/Mangalore and the School of Medicine at Lille agree towards exchange of medical students and staff, publishing joint publications, mobility of graduates and post graduates in the fields of healthcare, teaching and research.

The Student Exchange Agreement covers student exchanges in widespread disciplines of mutual interest for a semester or two at the partner university. ULille and MAHE have agreed to exchange maximum of 10 students each university year covering first, second and third cycles of degree.

The students will be selected for the exchange programme based on the respective guidelines as put forth in the Agreement and they will be exempted from paying admission, tuition and examination fees.

Dr. Raghu Radhakrishnan, Director of International Relations, MAHE, Pr. Francois- Olivier Seys, Vice President for International Relations, Pr. Kathleen O’Connor, Vice President for International Development, Mrs Pauline Ravinet, and Vice President for European Affairs, Prof. Didier Gosset, Dean of Medicine, ULille and Mr. Philippe Cordonnier, Managing Director for International Relations were present.

This association with one of the premier cultural, scientific and professional public institutions in France is to further MAHE’s ties with the European Academia and strengthen academic and research engagement of students and faculty between the two Universities.

Atos and Virtru Announce Partnership to Offer a Data Security Solution for Digital Workplace

Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, today announced a strategic partnership with Virtru, a leading data protection platform provider that stands at the intersection of security and privacy. The partnership will provide global organizations with a joint encryption solution for Digital Workplace, protecting customer data across cloud-based platforms.

This solution combines Atos hardware encryption with Virtru’s encryption software and is aimed at organizations which are looking for easy-to-use data encryption solutions to protect data in both cloud and hybrid environments.

Virtru’s solution, the Trusted Data Format (TDF) is an open-source data protection standard [1]. Designed to protect customers’ most sensitive data, the TDF protects the privacy of email, files and data – both at rest and when shared with third parties. The TDF provides persistent protection and granular control for emails, files and other data types related to the workplace environment.

The Atos Trustway Proteccio Hardware Security Module (HSM) [2] safeguards and manages digital keys - with the highest level of certification, for ultimate security. User experience is completely unaffected by the extra layer of security and the HSM simplifies auditing processes. Depending on the customer’s strategy, Atos delivers those hardware security modules either on customer’s premises or “as a service” from Atos secured datacenters.

Leveraging its integration capabilities, Atos has created a unique offering to address the high-level security required for the digital workplace, based on both Atos and Virtru products. This offering can be provided on-premise or as-a-service, depending on customer requirements and constraints.

The Atos HSM brings on extra security layer by further protecting the keys used to encrypt the customers’ data and generated by Virtru.

“As a European leader in cybersecurity, and more specifically in data protection, we guarantee the confidentiality of sensitive data. Our Hardware Security Module with state-of-the art encryption, completed with Virtru’s software encryption solution, offers ultimate security for digital workplaces – thus facilitating day-to-day work and ensuring complete end-to-end data encryption for our clients, in both cloud and hybrid environments” says Alexis Caurette, VP Head of Cybersecurity Products at Atos.

“As more organizations across the globe transition to the cloud, end-to-end security of data becomes paramount. This partnership between Atos and Virtru provides customers with a data-centric approach to security that works and is easy to use. Plus, it opens the door for future joint innovation that will help customers manage their data wherever it’s shared, while at the same time, reducing risk,” said John Ackerly, CEO of Virtru.

BullSequana S800 Becomes the Highest-Performing Server on the Market World-Wide for SAP HANA

Atos, global leader in digital transformation, sets a world-record with its BullSequana S800 which has become the highest-performing server on the market for use in SAP environments, as measured in the latest SAP BW edition for SAP HANA Standard Application Benchmark test (version 3), published 22 May.

The BullSequana 800 server from Atos, equipped with second-generation Intel Xeon Platinum processors, delivered an unmatched 24.7 billion initial records beating all other 8-socket standalone servers on the market. This SAP Benchmark demonstrates not only the ability of the BullSequana S800 to manage extremely large SAP installations but also its excellent scalability. Compared to the previous generation, the new BullSequana S800 can manage more than twice the volume of data with an impressive linear evolution of the throughput. It also highlights the technical expertise of Atos' engineers in SAP.

Atos has more than 13,000 SAP experts worldwide and brings its experience gained in supporting more than 3 million SAP end-users in over 90 countries. Atos' position as an expert in delivering end-to-end SAP HANA solutions has been recently reinforced by NelsonHall, naming Atos as a leader in SAP HANA and S/4HANA Services.

Atos is also one of the first companies to use non-volatile memory (the new Intel® Optane DC Persistent Memory) in SAP configuration, an innovative technology which offers its clients the advantages of reduced TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), contributes to performance improvement and brings break-through restart times.