International Red Dot Award in Design & Innovation to V-Class Google

Speedo’s V-Class goggle range has received a global seal of approval with a notorious Red Dot Award for Design & Innovation for 2017, under the Sports & Equipment category. V-Class is the latest edition to Speedo’s expanding goggle portfolio, and has been recognised for outstanding design and excellence by the expert committee at RedDot.

The V-Class range aims to capture the attention of swimmers who desire to have a goggle that is stylish, comfortable and provides an excellent field of vision, so swimmers can enjoy the best underwater experience, with no interruptions. Available in both unisex ‘Vue’ and female fit ‘Virtue’ goggles, the vibrant contrasting colour combinations; inject energy and vitality  into the range for the S117 season, completing the look for frequent lane swimmers.

The Red Dot Award scheme invites manufacturers and designers around the globe to enter their products as part of the 2017 self-nomination process. The jury of around 40 independent designers, design professors and specialist journalists tested, discussed and assessed each individual product, awarding the Honourable Mention for a well-conceived detail solution, the Red Dot for high design quality. In total, the competition received more than 5,500 entries from 54 countries this year.

“The Red Dot winners are pursuing the right design strategy. They have recognised that good design and economic success go hand in hand. The award by the critical Red Dot jury documents their high design quality and is indicative of their successful design policy.” Says Professor Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of the Red Dot Award

V-Class was developed in Aqualab - Speedo’s specialist R&D department, to help deliver superior vision, style and comfort in one goggle. The goggle boasts 2 x anti-fog technology, as well as accommodating a clear, expansive underwater view. 

The V-Class range encompasses attention to detail with beautifully crafted, fluid design - particularly around the lens. Particular attention was given to offer superior material quality and finish on this range, even down to the packaging that it’s presented in.

Tim Sharpe, Head of Design and Innovation at Speedo International, said: “We’ve drawn on our years of expertise of working with swimmers to improve and evolve our goggle range to be the most desirable and effective available on the market. Whether it’s for competitive racing or swimming to keep fit, goggles are a great way to help swimmers to get the best out of their time in their water. We approached the design of this new V-Class range as desirable and high performing eyewear, offering a combination of superior vision technology and design consideration down to the smallest detail, giving swimmers confidence in addressing their needs, as well as offering comfort and style.”

Trend Micro Exposes Pawn Storm's Target on French and German Politicians in their Recent Report

Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in cybersecurity solutions, today released its latest research report on the activity of Pawn Storm (aka APT28 and Fancy Bear), an active cyber espionage group that targets the global defense industry and politicians, among others. Trend Micro’s researchers have found and continue to find phishing domains created in March and April connected to political campaigns in France and Germany. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a political organization in Germany, and Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in France have both been targeted this year.

The Pawn Storm group has been operating for years and Trend Micro first took note of their activities way back in 2004. But Pawn Storm has become increasingly relevant over the past two years, particularly because the group has been found to be doing more than espionage alone. In 2016, Pawn Storm attempted to influence public opinion, influence elections, and attempted to sway the mainstream media with stolen data. Today the impact can be felt by various industries and enterprises operating throughout the world. Even the average citizen might be impacted as Pawn Storm tries to manipulate people’s opinions about domestic and international affairs.

The research paper by Trend Micro takes a look at Pawn Storm's operations within the last two years which also has compiled data on targets and campaigns conducted by the group, as well as details on the specific attacks used to compromise victims. The paper also provides some guidelines on how to defend against this increasingly relevant threat, as well as solutions that can protect organizations from Pawn Storm's tactics.

“Our researchers have observed activity going back seven years targeting government, military, media, and political organizations around the world.  In this report our researchers document the group’s shift to focus on cyber propaganda over the past two years and their 400 percent increase in targeting activity in 2016 alone,”said Ed Cabrera, Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Trend Micro.

Following the extensive headlines made in 2016 related to their impact on the U.S. election, Trend Micro’s 2017 predictions report states that cyber propaganda will become a norm. The report even references the elections in France and Germany where we now see Pawn Storm meddling.

To defend against an attacker like Pawn Storm, Trend Micro provides Trend Micro™ InterScan™ Web Security, which is a virtual appliance or a cloud-based service that protects against cyber threats at the internet gateway with Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) detection, real-time web reputation, and URL filtering. This tool blocks user access to malicious URLs that are part of elaborate phishing scams. Pawn Storm uses command-and-control (CnC) servers across multiple countries to communicate with compromised systems, relay information, and deploy their attacks. Trend Micro Deep Discovery Inspector prevents these scenarios from taking place by monitoring network traffic, C&C communications, encryption behaviors, and zero-day exploitation.

Pawn Storm compromises corporate email systems by changing their DNS settings to point to a proxy server and intercepting incoming emails. Trend Micro provides an efficient solution that organizations can rely on to safeguard enterprise email servers through Trend Micro Deep Security. Pawn Storm exploits zero-day vulnerabilities and Trend Micro identifies it through TippingPoint® Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS), which is a comprehensive and contextual awareness network traffic solution for advanced threats that exploit zero-day vulnerabilities.

Urjit Patel Asks Where Would Apple, IBM Be If Not for Talent from Across Globe?

Cautioning against protectionism, RBI Governor Urjit Patel has said where would giant American corporations like Apple, Cisco and IBM be if they had not sourced the best products and talent from across the world. "I don't think that we have heard the last word on US policy talk about this because there is a push back internationally that the world has benefited from an open trading system," the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor said after delivering a lecture here.

He made the remarks in response to a question on the rise of protectionist tendencies in major world economies after he delivered the Third Kotak Family Distinguished Lecture, sponsored by the Raj Center on Indian Economic Policies at the Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. He said the share prices of the most efficient corporations in the world, including in the US, are where they are because of the global supply chains.

"Where would Apple be, where would Cisco be, where would IBM be if they were not sourcing the best products and talent from across the world. And if policies come in the way of that, then the big wealth creators in a country that advocates protectionism are ultimately affected," he said yesterday. Patel said the calls for protectionism in the US were on account of equity and domestic distribution issues which "textbook economics tells us should be addressed through domestic fiscal policy" such as taxation and income transfers.

He noted that using trade instruments for protectionism may take a nation on a trajectory different from that of growth. "Using trade instruments like customs duties, border tax etc is not the most efficient way to do this. In fact you could end up at somewhere else. You do not know what are the implications of some of these policies on equity and distribution besides objectives that you want to address," he said.

"It should be a domestic policy issue, using domestic fiscal policy if those are the objectives that need to be addressed," Patel said. Talking about the Indian Rupee, the RBI governor said it was totally market determined and the intervention by the central bank was only to mitigate volatility. "I think that is a fair policy for us to follow going forward," he said.

Asked about the autonomy of the RBI, he said, "We have been imbued with a legislative responsibility of flexible inflation targeting framework only means that that is a plus for the autonomy and independence of the central bank." On financial inclusion, he said the most important step that was taken was when every Indian household was given a bank account. He said it was now up to a variety of players including the Non Banking Financial Companies to use that opportunity.

"I think the government should not use its fiscal resources for that. It has used its ownership of the public sector banks to open up these accounts and I think that's a large subsidy," he said. Asked if the federal compromise reached to implement the GST would structurally weaken the tax reform and not reach the potential growth opportunities projected, Patel said the manner in which the GST has been structured as cooperation between the central and the state government was a "great example of fiscal federalism" and that strengthens the GST as a policy.

Patel was also questioned about the troubles and difficulties faced by non-resident Indians in exchanging the old currency notes following demonetisation. He said it was decided by the government and the RBI that at some point "there has to be an end to the demonetisation exercise." "Every country that has done this has followed a certain course and so have we," he said.

Patel said under Foreign Exchange Management Act regulations people were only allowed to take Rs 25,000 abroad and people were given enough time post-demonetisation. "We needed to draw a line at some point. I think it has been a fairly generous time," he said. On loan waivers, he said such measures do impact the credit culture.

"The honest borrower and the taxpayer pays for this, we need to be very careful with this. There are other micro implications if this amount becomes large, they impact the fiscal situations of the state governments and ultimately could lead to some national balance sheet implications," Patel said. He also said that China's exchange rate policy has become more market determined.

Agencies

Wipro Issues Bonus Shares OF 1:1, to Consider Buyback

IT firm Wipro said it will offer bonus shares to its shareholders and will also consider buyback of equity shares around July this year. 

The Bengaluru-based company will offer one bonus share for every one share held by shareholders (including to ADS holders) and expects the bonus shares to be awarded within two months, i.E, June 24, 2017.

It said the step was taken to encourage participation of small investors, increase liquidity and expand retail shareholder base. Interestingly, the issuance of bonus shares was not part of the agenda papers for the Board meeting. 

The process, timelines and other requisite details with regard to the postal ballot will be communicated in due course. 

"The Board of Directors will consider a proposal for buyback of equity shares around July 2017," Wipro CFO Jatin Dalal said. 

In September last year, Wipro had concluded the buyback of 40 million equity shares that resulted in a total cash outflow of Rs 2,500 crore. 

Share buyback typically improves earnings per share and is a mechanism to return surplus cash to shareholders besides supporting share price during periods of sluggish market condition. 

Indian IT companies are under pressure to return excess cash on their books to shareholders through generous dividends and buybacks. 

Last week, shareholders of India's largest software company TCS approved a Rs 16,000-crore buyback plan, the biggest in the Indian capital market. 

Infosys, too, has outlined its capital allocation policy recently to return up to Rs 13,000 crore this financial year through dividend and/or buyback, and while its smaller peer HCL Technologies has approved a buyback of up to 3.50 crore shares worth Rs 3,500 crore. 

Earlier this year, bowing to pressure from activist investor Elliott Management Corp, IT company Cognizant announced a USD 3.4 billion share buyback. 

Wipro Board has also approved re-appointment of Azim Premji as Chairman and Managing Director for a period of two years from July 31, 2017. 

It also approved increase in authorised share capital of the company from Rs 610 crore to Rs 1,126.5 crore by creation of additional 258.25 crore equity shares.

Agencies

‘Over 50% Wipro’s US Employees to Be Local American Nationals’

From the first quarter of this financial year, more than 50% of Wipro employees in the US will be locals, and going forward, it plans to focus more on localisation.

Wipro Chief Executive Officer Abidali Z Neemuchwala said, “There is lot of local talent, and our focus on localisation will continue in all key markets.”

For the quarter ended March 31, 2017, while Europe grew 6.4% q-o-q on a reported currency basis, America grew 1.4% q-o-q on a reported currency basis.

“We have been significantly investing in the US, in terms of increased hiring, setting up delivery centres and focusing our sustainability initiatives specifically in the area of education,” Neemuchwala said.

The Americas accounted for 54.7% of Wipro’s $7.7045 billion revenues in FY2016-17. 

While APAC and other emerging markets contributed 10.8%, Europe contributed 24.4%, and India and the Middle East contirbuted to 10.1% of the revenues. Wipro has enhanced its capability in the US by adding two more major multi-client delivery centres.

Agencies

VMware Helps Organizations Adopt Digital Workspaces in India

VMware, Inc., a global leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility, sees growth in adoption of its digital workspace solutions by Indian organizations. With more than 1 million end-points managed in India, VMware saw some notable customer wins including – Max Life Insurance, MSC Software, Malayala Manorama, Karunya University, among others.

 VMware is one of the industry leaders in delivering a secure digital workspace which gives IT a more efficient, simplified way of managing users, devices and applications. The average return on investment for digital workspace expenditures is 150 percent. In 2016, VMware surveyed more than 1,200 IT decision makers, IT influencers, and business decision makers worldwide and found 78 percent have successfully executed or are actively executing mobile initiatives and are moving to a digital workspace. Digital workspaces deliver better security, reduce IT management costs and complexity, and prevent data loss.

 “The digital workspace is the defining model for end-user computing in the mobile cloud era. Business is changing in India and digital workspaces are adding real business value for organizations, and at the same time allowing users to focus on the work to be done, not the technology in their hands,” said Arun Parameswaran, Managing Director, VMware India. “We are at the heart of this change by delivering a comprehensive end-user computing platform built on a mobile-cloud architecture that enables organizations to drive digital transformation.”

“Enterprise mobility is witnessing a paradigm shift towards consolidation of enterprise systems that seamlessly enable not just multi-platform devices and apps, but also emerging connected devices such as wearables, IoT, machine learning and virtual reality systems. Proliferation of mobile endpoints has compelled businesses to address threat management with automated and adaptive defence mechanisms while simultaneously driving richer user experience. This year will see a change in how businesses approach mobility, from a device-focused approach to a more comprehensive strategy. To ensure the long-term success of enterprise mobile strategy, many organizations are implementing ‘Mobile Center of Excellence’ where multiple stakeholders having IT and business expertise are collaborating to reshape business models, maximize corporate performance and derive business value,” said Benoy CS, Director, Digital Transformation (ICT) Practice, Frost n Sullivan.

“India represents a complex and competitive life insurance market. Technology plays a critical role in partnering with business and gives us a competitive edge in the market. Business Mobility is one key area where we are focusing on to enable our workforce to work more efficiently in servicing our growing customer base better. We’re working closely with VMware to help us with the end user computing strategy to empower our employees, while keeping our confidential information secure,” said Ekhlaque Bari, Executive Vice President & Head IT, Max Life Insurance.

 “Delivering critical news as it happens is the advantage you have over competition in the publishing industry. Thanks to VMware AirWatch, our reporters can break news live from the field, much to our readers’ delight,” said VV Jacob, General Manager, Systems, Malayala Manorama.

Building on the digital workspace innovations to accelerate its adoption, VMware recently introduced new updates to its award winning Workspace ONE solution. These updates make it easy for IT to deliver unified access and single sign-on experience to Intranet applications, and will offer richer conditional access capabilities that combine real-time security hygiene with compliance automation. Updates to the market-leading AirWatch Unified Endpoint Management portfolio have enhanced support across OS platforms for mobile (iOS, Android), desktop (Windows 10, macOS), purpose-built (ruggedized) and IoT endpoints to simplify provisioning and end-user onboarding.

About 8.8% of Total H-1B Visas Processed from TCS, Infy: Nasscom

Nasscom, the apex body of the Indian IT industry, on Monday refuted allegations of the US administration and defended TCS and Infosys, saying that the two got only 7,504 H-1B visas, which is 8.8% of the total visas processed during FY2015.

The clarification comes after the US complained that Indian IT firms TCS, Infosys and Cognizant unfairly received a major share of H-1B visas by putting extra tickets into the lottery system, which the Trump administration wants to replace with a merit-based immigration policy.

In a statement issued on Monday, Nasscom stated that only six of the top 20 H-1B recipients were Indian companies during FY2015. Indian technology companies use H-1B visas to send their employees to work at customer sites in the US, which is the largest market for the over $110-billion Indian IT export industry.

Nasscom also stated, “Every reputable data source in the US has documented a growing shortfall between the supply and demand for computer science majors in the US workforce, especially in cutting-edge fields such as cloud, big data, and mobile computing.”

It also states that all Indian IT companies cumulatively account for less than 20% of the total approved H-1B visas although Indian nationals get 71% of the H-1B visas. “This is a testimony to the high skill levels of Indian-origin professionals, especially in the very coveted STEM skills category. The US Department of Labor estimates that there will be 2.4 million unfilled STEM jobs by 2018, with less than 50% of these vacancies in IT-related positions,” points Nasscom.

In the US, along with other global markets, there is a growing sentiment of protectionism, including coming up with various measures to safeguard jobs for locals and raise the bar for foreign workers.

Every year, the US grants 65,000 H-1B visas while another 20,000 are set aside for those with American advanced degrees. Also, the Trump administration wants to replace the current lottery system with a more merit-based immigration policy.

The annual number of Indian IT specialists working on temporary visas for Indian IT service companies is about 0.009% of the 158-million-member US workforce. “A survey also finds that the average wage for visa-holders is over $82,000 apart from a fixed cost of about $15,000 incurred for each visa issued which includes visa cost and related expenses. This is over 35% higher than the minimum prescribed exempt wage of $60,000,” states Nasscom. 

Agencies