Heavy Metal - Nile - to Rock Bangalore Open Air on June 1, 2017

The sixth edition of Bangalore Open Air (BOA), city’s very own Heavy Metal Music concert is back again. BOA caters to metal music aficionados in Bengaluru and has been instrumental in bringing popular heavy metal bands and artistes to the city.

The headlining act this year is American Death Metal band NILE. Previous editions of BOA have seen bands like Napalm Death, and the legendary Polish Death Metal band Vader. 

NILE was formed in 1993 by the band’s founding member, Karl Sanders in his hometown of Greenville, South Carolina, USA. Their genre is best described as technical death metal. The music and lyrics are inspired by Near Eastern Mysticism, history, religion and ancient art. 

The band also draws inspiration from the writings of H P Lovecraft, an American horror fiction author. 
The band consists of Karl Sanders, vocalist and lead guitarist, George Kollias on drums, Brian Kingsland on the bass guitar and vocals and Brad Parris on the guitar. Nile is best known for combining traditional and technical metal and the complexity and speed they play with. 

Sanders and Kollis said that they had planned to visit India much earlier but could not because they were denied visa eight times. When asked what they expect from the Indian fans at their first show, Sanders said: “I want them to enjoy themselves with some metal, enjoy the brotherhood and camaraderie with people who also love metal. There is nothing more powerful than this bond. You can feel that communal power in the air.” 

“It is a very primal bond that cannot be put into words,” said Kollias on the heavy metal scene and the fans. Coroner from Switzerland, Marduk from Sweden, Kryptos from India are some of the other bands performing today. 

The event will be held on Saturday at Royal Orchid Resort and Convention Centre, Yelahanka from 3 pm. 

FedEx Announces Indian Small Business Grant Finalists in India

FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp and the world’s largest express transportation company, has announced the finalists of its Small Business Grant Contest in India.  Competing for a grand prize of Rs 15,00,000, the finalists successfully emphasized their global ambitions while articulating their future growth plans, and now enter the final stage of the contest.

To select the finalists, FedEx assessed each entrant’s inspiration to grow their business internationally, how they would utilize the grant, and financial performance of the business. Extra credit was also given to entries exhibiting unique or innovative products or service offerings, or a business which positively impacts the community.

Shortlisted from more than 100 entries, the top 10 companies have been selected across a range of industries and include:

·         Bhayaji Mercantile Private Limited

·         Bipha Drug Laboratories Private Limited

·         BNA Automotive India Private Limited

·         Collateral Medical Private Limited

·         Delta Exports International

·         DRC Techno

·         Flinto Learning Solutions Private Limited

·         Ma Foi Analytics

·         Pagariya Foods Product Private Limited

·         Varun Agro Processing Foods Private Limited

“In this first year of the FedEx Small Business Grant contest in India, we are thrilled to receive such a large number of high-caliber entries.  It’s fantastic to see Indian small businesses recognizing the value of export opportunities to grow their business,” said Philip Cheng, vice president, Ground Operations India, FedEx Express. “There is a whole world of opportunity available, and at FedEx, we are passionate about providing small businesses with the support and guidance to access into new markets.  We believe that the Small Business Grant contest will support companies to pursue their global ambitions, and we look forward to announcing the winner shortly.”

In the next stage of the contest, selected finalists will further detail their international growth plans, and present these to an independent panel of judges.  The winner of the contest will be announced on July 13, 2017.

Originally launched in the U.S., the FedEx Small Business Grant Contest has expanded to India, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK.

FedEx plays an important role in connecting small businesses with a world of opportunities through the strength of its global network of 220 countries and territories.  Offering a range of tailored shipping solutions to small businesses, FedEx provides peace of mind enabling them to focus on their core business.

Tally Solutions Commits to Getting India GST-Ready with the Launch of Tally.ERP 9 Release 6

Today, India’s premier business software provider Tally Solutions, has announced the launch of Tally. ERP 9 Release 6,its GST ready accounting and compliance software. A beta version of the software is available to download for free at www.tallysolutions.com/gst for users to experience the product. The product promises technology that will make the lives of business owners worry-free in the wake of GST with its unique simplicity, blazing fast speed and pin-point accuracy. The product will be free for existing customers provided they have a valid subscription. For new users, the cost will be Rs 18,000+applicable taxes for a single user edition and Rs 54,000+applicable taxes for an unlimited multi-user edition (same as current rates).

Tally has been working extensively across the country in helping people get GST ready through awareness events pan-India. As a next step in this journey, Tally.ERP 9 Release 6 has been designed, developed and delivered as a simplistic means for businesses to comply with GST. The company will now work towards making adoption of its GST ready software simple and easy.They will organize “Upgrade your Tally” camps across the country, facilitate remote upgrade through their extensive 20,000+ partner network, and will also publish simple DIY documents to promote self-service on their site www.tallysolutions.com/gst . The company will also be working with Reliance Jio and HDFC bank to increase outreach and help businesses implement the new version of the product. Tally is already working on a fully connected GST solution in conjunction with GSTN, which will further simplify the lives of business people.

Speaking at the launch, Bharat Goenka, Managing Director, Tally Solutions, said “There are around 4-5 million GST registered companies whomaintain their books of accounts on Tally. We understand that all of them and other businesses in the country are anxious and concerned about the implications of this revolutionary tax regime. We are, therefore, shouldering the responsibility to make the impending transition smooth and easy for them. Tally.ERP 9 Release 6 is our first offering for businesses which will solve for their immediate requirements. As laws and procedures mature, and GSTN makes their APIs available, we will continue to deliver solutions which will make GST compliance simple and convenient for them. We are committed to walking the GST journey with businesses in the country and supporting them every step of the way.”

The company along with its 20000+ strong partner network has already conducted more than 5000 GST events across the country. It has tied up with associationslike CAIT, FAIDA, ASSOCHAM, CII and principal companies for the same andreached out to more than 2 lakh businesses already. Tally also launched an exclusive blog (blogs.tallysolutions.com) and mobile app (Tally for GST) to demystify and simplify GST.In order to help businesses who are currently maintaining books manually to automate in the GST era, the company recently launched Biz Guru in association with Acer India and CAIT. Biz Guru is a one stop plug and play accounting and GST compliance solution.They intend to continue these initiatives and drive several more activities to help the business community with GST.

Indian Startups Dominate the Latest Intake of the Mastercard Start Path Program

Today, Mastercard announced the list of new startups joining the Mastercard Start Path Program, the company’s global effort to support later-stage fintech and tech companies shaping the future of commerce. Of the six startups, three hail from the Asia Pacific region including ftcash (India), ToneTag (India) and CardUp (Singapore).

As India moves ahead in its journey to a less-cash society, both ftcash and ToneTag will offer platforms that enable consumers & merchants to adopt digital payment solutions. With the significant growth in smartphone penetration, the innovation from the two startups fits into the larger ecosystem.  ToneTag, will allow convenient and secure payment solutions using soundwaves (Tone) or NFC (Tag) technology to enable contactless payments through mobile devices. On the other hand, ftcash has focused on building the acceptance infrastructure with its solutions for micro-merchants and entrepreneurs that enable them to accept different modes of digital payments.

Porush Singh, Country Corporate Officer, India and Division President, South Asia, Mastercard said, “The Mastercard Start Path Program helps innovative later-stage startups develop the next generation of commerce solutions. We are happy to announce that two Indian startups ftcash and ToneTag are joining this year’s edition of the program. Mastercard will offer them the technology with reliable and secure financial networks to create an even more rewarding and seamless payments experience for the consumers.” 

Spanning five countries across the globe, the newest class is focused on bridging the gap between physical and digital retail through a variety of solutions. Several of the selected startups are harnessing insights from in-store traffic patterns and spending habits to create personalized experiences for customers. Others are helping merchants accept payments through SMS messaging systems and bill-paying platforms for large expenses that historically could not be paid using a card.

The latest wave of Start Path participants include:

·  CardUp manages monthly credit card payments for big ticket items such as rent or insurance, while also accessing credit and earning additional rewards.

·         ftcash enables micro-merchants and entrepreneurs to take collateral-free business loans and accept mobile app and messaging-based payments from their customers.

·         ToneTag enables contactless payments on any device using soundwaves or NFC.

·         The ModoPayments platform enables new ways to pay, including the use of loyalty points to buy everyday goods in-store.

·         Movvo provides insights on in-store browsing and shopping patterns.

·         RecommenderX develops cutting-edge data analytics to offer personalized recommendations.

The Start Path team will work with the selected startups against a tailored plan that will deliver tangible value and help these companies to scale. The startups will receive access to Mastercard experts, partners and customers representing leading banks and retailers in all regions of the globe to enable their business development.

Applications for the next six-month virtual program will be accepted through 11:59 p.m. ET on Tuesday, August 1, 2017. The program is open to startups who are rethinking banking, payments and commerce and have raised a significant seed or Series A round of investment. Interested startups can visit https://www.startpath.com/ for additional information and to submit an application.

No Petya Ranwomware Cases Reported in India, Reports Trend Micro

Sharda Tickoo, Technical Head, Trend Micro India said, “In India, so far we have no cases of Petya that have been reported to us. The countries most affected are Europe, typically Ukraine and Russia. We would recommend the companies to maintain an important hygiene of updating systems with the latest patches, or consider using virtual patching in their absence. 

Take regular back-up of necessary data and proactively monitor the systems for any suspicious activity. And most importantly, because it is a ransomware, we have to secure the email gateway first. There are also certain URL categorizations that should be employed in work environment which can block access to malicious websites. Ensure that all the workstations have least privilege unless any workstation actually requires administrator privilege, as the ransomware spreads and tries to escalate the privileges. As it uses certain administrative tools like power shell, ensure that these utilities are restricted to administrators.”

Pointing out the similarities and differences between other ransomware, she further added, “There are a lot of similarities that are being drawn between Petya and WannaCry. 

WannaCry was a very basic form of ransomware attack and it used worm like techniques. Petya seems to be a thorough ransomware which uses different modalities. It is using EternalBlue vulnerability. It leverages multiple infection vectors not just one. 

The Petya ransomware modifies the Master Boot Record (MBR) and encrypts the system files. Once the MBR is modified by this ransomware, the system displays the ransom note instead of a black or blue screen. While the normal ransomware does not touch the MBR, but encrypts files and asks for ransom. The Petya ransomware is a combination of a wiper and a ransomware, because it wipes the MBR.”

Genpact Unveils “Genpact Cora” AI Platform Across India

Genpact, a global professional services firm focused on delivering digital transformation, has unveiled Genpact Cora – an artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform that accelerates digital transformation for enterprises. Genpact Cora is a modular, interconnected mesh of flexible digital technologies that hones in on specific operational business challenges and tackles them from beginning to end, helping large global companies reframe and solve their most pressing real world business issues.

“In an environment being disrupted by new technologies and increasing competition, clients want to buy business outcomes, not just tools and products,” said Peter Bendor-Samuel, founder and chief executive officer, Everest Group, a leading analyst firm. “Genpact Cora is timely for an industry seeking digital transformation.”

As part of its ongoing strategy to drive digital-led innovation and digitally-enabled intelligent operations for clients around the world, Genpact has created Genpact Cora to provide the fastest path to driving meaningful transformation at scale. Genpact believes it is the first in the industry to fully integrate automation, analytics, and AI engines – in a single, unified platform, embedded with and drawing insights from Genpact’s deep domain expertise that comes from running thousands of intelligent operations and processes for hundreds of Fortune 500 companies across numerous industries. Genpact Cora drives digital transformation in a planned and managed fashion, without sacrificing the governance security and investment protection that mature and established businesses need.

“Achieving enterprise impact from digital transformation is challenging with so many disparate, disconnected technologies in the market,” said NV ‘Tiger’ Tyagarajan, president and chief executive officer, Genpact. “Genpact Cora brings leading digital solutions together in one unified platform, combined with the process and deep domain expertise that comes from decades of experience running intelligent operations. The combined benefit creates connected intelligence for our clients at a previously unattainable level of agility and speed to predictive insight, that then drives outcomes.”

Genpact Cora has a mature application program interface (API) design and open architecture that includes Genpact’s own intellectual property as well as leveraging best-in-class providers, integrating advanced technologies across three key areas:

·         Digital Core: cloud, software-as-a-service, blockchain, mobility and ambient computing, robotic process automation, and dynamic workflow;

·         Data Analytics: advanced visualization, data engineering, big data, and Internet of Things (IoT);

·         Artificial Intelligence: conversational AI, computational linguistics, computer vision, machine learning and data science AI.

The Genpact Cora platform is the foundation for Genpact products and consulting services already in the market, with more than 1 million users processing over 1.1 billion transactions annually, providing unparalleled practical predictive insights and learnings on how to make transformation real and sustainable. It brings together Genpact’s original process and industry domain depth with new digital capabilities through its recent acquisitions of Rage Frameworks, PNMsoft, and others.

The platform already delivers speed to value in the market today in many industries, including:

·         Deciphering data from equipment: A leading large equipment manufacturer leverages industrial IoT, machine learning, and advanced analytics from Genpact Cora to efficiently and intelligently process data, resulting in safer materials, less downtime, higher revenues, and lower maintenance costs.

·         Reframing drug safety: A top pharmaceutical company is testing Genpact’s Pharmacovigilance Artificial Intelligence (PVAI) product to redefine drug safety. PVAI uses Genpact Cora’s AI, analytics, predictive modeling, and other technologies to automatically collect and analyze data from numerous sources on drugs’ adverse effects, including quickly translating unstructured data into meaningful, actionable insights. PVAI transforms drug safety operations from simply tracking issues to predicting and solving potential problems, with less human error, higher drug quality, better patient outcomes, and 100 percent regulatory compliance.

·         Making customer service seamless: Genpact Cora’s AI and analytics powers Genpact’s LiveWealth product and allows a Fortune 500 financial services institution to speed customer response time, eliminate billing and asset reporting errors for institutional and high-net-worth individuals, and help shorten client cycle time from 45 days to on-demand. Customers now have a holistic view of their portfolio, and the company also cut costs 75 percent while facilitating effective regulatory compliance.

·         Driving faster, value-added financial reporting: Inefficient manual financial reporting processes took many employees at a global consumer packaged goods company weeks to interpret both structured and unstructured data from various internal and external systems. Genpact’s AI Reporting product using Genpact Cora’s robotic process automation now generates these reports in a few days, automating 70 percent of data collection. In addition, the AI learns over time, allowing the company to have much faster, more accurate, and more frequent projections that drive better informed business decisions.

·         Increasing new product speed to market: A global insurance provider uses Genpact Cora’s dynamic workflow to streamline new product rollouts by quickly capturing data on high-value customers, increasing processing speed and flexibility, and driving analytics real time for decision making – thereby increasing speed to market and driving revenue growth.

 “Genpact Cora allows our clients to deploy leading digital technologies using a modular and scalable platform built on an open architecture that drives flexibility, agility, and long-term investment protection,” said Sanjay Srivastava, senior vice president and chief digital officer, Genpact. “And Genpact Cora reduces risks around errant robots and misapplied AI spinning out of control, through an integrated command and control hub that delivers the much-needed governance that business processes require.”

Cisco Jasper Removes Obstacles to IoT Implementation with Multi-Tier IoT Platform

While the number of businesses investing in IoT across all markets continues to grow, recent research shows that 60 percent of IoT initiatives stall at the proof-of-concept (POC) stage. This highlights that companies today are still struggling with the key challenges of IoT, including the need for more flexibility, greater security, and the ability to address new use cases. Cisco Jasper has been partnering with service providers to help its customer base, which has grown from 3,500 to 11,000 enterprises in the past year alone, to overcome these challenges and accelerate their IoT success. To continue to meet the exponential demand for IoT solutions, and in keeping with Cisco’s dedication to helping customers get from paper to successful IoT deployment more quickly, today Cisco Jasper introduced a new expanded model to bring the benefits of its IoT connectivity platform – Control Center – to a broader audience.

Control Center 7.0 addresses business’ needs for greater flexibility with a new multi-tiered IoT platform that gives companies various options to meet their specific needs, regardless of their stage of IoT implementation. This new platform is also paired with a new set of Premium Services that address previously unmet needs in the industry related to IoT monetization and security.

“We first introduced our Control Center IoT connectivity management platform to the market over 10 years ago, and since then it has become the largest IoT platform with over 43M devices being managed today, and more than 1.5M new devices being added per month,” said Jahangir Mohammed, GM of IoT at Cisco. “What we’ve learned from enabling IoT success for our 11K customers is that companies have different needs at different stages of their IoT journey. So today we’re introducing the biggest evolution of our Control Center IoT platform ever, providing a flexible model and new Premium Services that help meet the needs of customers at any phase.”  

With Control Center 7.0, Cisco Jasper is introducing a unique approach to IoT solutions unmatched in the industry, giving customers and service provider partners the flexibility to select and customize the capabilities and services that are right for their deployment, while also providing an easy path for growth as their IoT businesses scale. Control Center 7.0 provides this flexibility by being the first IoT platform to offer:

Advanced Capabilities: A new tier of the platform – Control Center Advanced – caters to customers with more sophisticated deployments that need greater capabilities, including advanced security solutions, automation and analytics.

Premium Services: The introduction of our first two Premium Services, compatible with Control Center, enables customers to solve for previously unmet IoT business needs. The Threat Protection & Smart Security (TPSS) service provides an IoT-specific solution to protect against malware and other cybersecurity threats, and is built on Cisco Umbrella. The second service, Traffic Segmentation, provides a new solution to support different types of revenue generation models. Cisco Jasper service providers can customize Premium Services to meet their customers’ specific needs.  

LPWAN Support: Control Center 7.0 extends the platform’s capabilities – including the platform’s global reach and scale via support for cellular networks – to low power devices via support for multiple LPWAN technologies, including NB-IoT and LTE-M. 

AT&T, a Cisco Jasper service provider, is integrating these additional capabilities to meet IoT needs for a broad range of industries. The platform will be called AT&T Control Center – Advanced, and will be paired with additional premium services.

“We work with companies of every size, across every industry, around the world,” said Chris Penrose, President,  IoT Solutions,  AT&T. “AT&T Control Center - Advanced with additional premium services are the next step in continuing to provide differentiated platform capabilities and solutions for our IOT customers.  These enhancements around security, analytics and automation allow our customers to manage their IoT solutions even more effectively and to further increase their ROI.”

Control Center 7.0 is the first version of the IoT platform to integrate multiple Cisco technologies, delivering on the promise made at the time of Jasper’s acquisition to combine the power of Cisco’s portfolio with the world’s leading IoT connectivity management platform. As a result, Control Center 7.0 solves the biggest challenges companies currently face in IoT with:

Multi-layer Security: Expanding upon Control Center’s existing security capabilities, users now get multi-layered security controls including closed user groups, two-factor authentication, whitelisting capabilities and more to identify and solve known issues.

Collaboration: Integration with Cisco Spark gives users the ability to easily collaborate on issues with connected devices, enabling them to lower resolution time and manage costs.

Enhanced Analytics: New reports on historical trends of device behavior and usage enable users to take action on issues that impact performance, costs and security.

Support for Low Power Devices: Control Center 7.0 is the first commercially available IoT platform that supports the management of IoT devices across cellular, NB-IoT and LTE-M networks to accommodate a wide range of use cases.

“When we acquired Jasper, we made a promise to the industry that Cisco and Jasper would be more than the sum of our separate parts – that we would create something better together,” said Rowan Trollope, SVP and GM of IoT and Applications at Cisco. “This is the realization of that promise. And what we’ve built in the past year has surpassed even our lofty expectations.”

With Control Center 7.0, Cisco Jasper has created a single, integrated solution to address the needs of both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) professionals. Previously, Control Center – which automates and manages connectivity of devices on cellular networks globally – was a standalone offering. Today, Control Center 7.0 is yet another proof point of Cisco’s leading innovation in IoT solutions, and is now compatible with Cisco’s broader IoT Operations Platform, which integrates Connection Management, Data Delivery and Fog Computing for a complete end-to-end solution. And this complements the Cisco DNA offerings, which are delivering the next generation of networks to provide new levels of security, analytics and automation to enable exciting new IoT, cloud and mobile experiences. As a result, customers in any industry can now manage IoT from the edge to the cloud.

Availability

Cisco Jasper Control Center 7.0 is available now.