Do You Know How Much Information Your Smartphone Leaks About You?

Smartphones and handheld devices are an integral part of everyone's life now. Everything has gone mobile these days! Right from our work to social lives, to banking and even shopping. Mobiles have become an inevitable component of our lives. Unlike our earlier mobile devices, which focused on voice-based communications, today's phones involve varied types of capabilities including computing and sensing. Although these abilities are highly useful at times, these capabilities at times pose some serious privacy concerns. The common components of a mobile phones that businesses or attackers utilise to snoop on users, include sniffing on their mobile phone sensors using the microphone, camera, and GPS receiver in most phones.

Although there are varied systems that use video-cameras, sound waves, or even magnetic fields, to sniff data, the most widely used technique is interception of the Wi-Fi signals emitted by users' smartphones. Triangulating on that signal can estimate the phone's position to within a few meters. Some are also involved in collecting a unique identifier, namely a MAC address, for each phone, which allows building behavioural information of customers (Source: TechnologyReview -1).

Businesses today are aware that tracking mobile devices can lead to generation of valuable information about customers, which can then be utilised to serve them better or reach to a much effective group. And this may be precisely why 'Indoor positioning' is slowly picking among businesses. U.S. retailers like Family Dollar and American Apparel have also experimented with indoor positioning. Indoor positioning is a practice of locating objects or people wirelessly inside a building using a network of devices or signals emitted by devices.

Nordstrom is also one such business using indoor positioning. They acknowledged that in an attempt to serve their customers better, they are tracking their movements through their stores. They are using specific software to track how much time you spend in specific departments within the store. The sensors within the store collect information from customer smart phones as they attempt to connect to Wi-Fi service (Source: CBS local - 2). Yet another example includes Forest City Enterprises. They triangulate cellular signals to monitor foot traffic in nearly 20 shopping centers they own and/or manage. They claim that the data helped them decide on various crucial aspects that affected user experience.

As far it is for businesses, these interceptions sound highly useful. But how about the users who aren't aware of their movements being watched over! With the rapid proliferation of applications, the problem of privacy violations based on sensors of mobile devices is expected to grow. Most mobile phone platforms available lately are insufficient to protect their users from such leakage of information. For better privacy across mobile phone users, desirable uses of sensors and good privacy protection solutions are important.

By Oushee Ouseph

Difference Between Web and Software Development

As website and software are two different concepts, their history is also separate and not quite connected to each other. The British CERN physicist Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web (WWW) in the year 1990. Three years after the first website was built, CERN officially announced on 30 April, 1993, that the World Wide Web would be completely free to access for everyone. An interesting fact is that earlier, before the invention of HTML and HTTP, protocols such as the Gopher Protocol and File Transfer Protocol were used to retrieve specific files from a server.

Conversely, there is a long standing debate over the creation of the first fully made software program. It is said that the first piece of software was produced by Ada Lovelace during the 19th century for the proposed analytical engine. Unfortunately, the program never got implemented. Again, there are concrete records that the first software theory was proposed by Alan Turing in his famous essay, Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungs problem.

Many people assume that both websites and software are created on similar platforms. However, this is not true as their functions and utilities are completely different. A website is a place you visit in your web browser while a software system is an application that is installed and used on a computer. It is a non-tangible part of a computer.

A typical website is hosted on one or more computer servers. Its area is linked to the internet to run single or multiple webpages. A software package includes written programs and related documentation for operating distinct functions of a computer system. In most cases, these programs are stored in read or write memory. Interestingly, both these technical functions have turned into largest businesses of 21st century. Innumerable software development companies have sprung up in the recent past and their share in the gross world product (GWP) is also increasing meteorically.

Again, it is important to mention here that the job of software developers is to create software programs that also run on servers, internet, browsers, etc. In other cases, it runs on computer systems and electronic devices. Nonetheless, the software developers need to learn much more about the fundamental operating system platforms. A higher level of expertise in programs is expected from them in comparison the web developers. The goal of a software development company is to provide cost-effective and reliable solutions to various businesses matching their relevant needs.

By Prakash Singh Chauhan 

Understanding the Difference Between Performance Testing and Load Stress Testing

When developing a website, you need to put the site through rigorous tests to ensure that it can perform at its best at all times. Whether you already have a website and have noticed your traffic numbers dropping or you are in the process of launching a new site, then you will want to look at the performance testing and load stress testing solutions available.

There is a distinct difference between the two and both are just as important as the other when it comes to ensuring your site is running well, even in peak periods.

Performance testing is used to determine response times, duration and time lapses in the system. This type of software tests the entire system, addressing performance issues and ensuring the system is reliable. It identifies problems; such has how long pages take to load, enabling you to make the necessary changes.

It is important that you are aware that customers that visit your site will move to one of your competitors if they cannot find what they are looking for, the pages take too long to load or they cannot access the site at all. The problem is that a majority of these customers will never return to your site, which means you've lost potential income because your site wasn't performing adequately.

Performance testing is responsible in testing the behavior of the system and the speed the pages take to load. This testing should be carried out on a regular basis and used to monitor the site at all times, enabling you to address any issues quickly and effectively before it becomes a serious problem.

Load stress testing is the other important software that you will want to invest in, you can see a return on investment within a short period of time as it tests your system, identifying problems and giving you the ability to make the necessary changes as quickly as possible.

Load stress testing determines the load on the system in terms of volume and endurance. This software can identify the behavior of the system and how much it takes to reach breaking point. It identifies memory issues, buffer overflow, bandwidth issues, system failure, response times and so much more.

Load stress testing helps identify issues with the database, hardware and network. It is a useful tool to see how the application will behave after a crash, ensuring you have the relevant steps in place to ensure it gets back online in the shortest space of time.

When choosing your software solutions for testing, it is important that you choose wisely. There are a wide variety of load stress testing and performance testing solutions on the market, each one offering different reporting options and system checks.

You should be focused on ensuring that your website is running at its best at all times, which means it can load pages quickly, perform under load and will not reach breaking point when you have a couple of hundred visitors visiting your site throughout the day.

Your developers should work with the testing software to ensure that when you launch your site you have peace of mind that all problems have been managed. If you already have a website the load testing software can monitor the system, identify issues and inform you as and when they happen, reducing the risk of too much downtime and giving you the ability to repair the issues quickly and effectively.

Always choose your software from a reputable supplier that is dedicated in helping you achieve online success in terms of productivity, visibility and brand.

By Simon Pri

Speech Recognition a New Technological Innovation

To survive in a cutthroat competition, it is necessary for every company to stay one-step ahead of their competitors using every available technology. Companies have to find out every possible way that can improve service and better customer's experience. Furthermore, to acquire new customers, companies have to hire more employees to meet customers to convince and educate them about the benefits the company may give them. Moreover, companies need to cut operational expenses without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

Speech recognition is such a technology that came into existence after nearly 30 years of research and development. Speech recognition understands the words spoken by the customers and converts them into text that the computer understands.

Just as we recognize a person by his or her appearance and voice, in the same way, speech technology can help devices observe spoken hints from the surroundings. By hearing unobtrusively and consistently, a voice technology can store information into a program, assisting other sensory sources and help make a better image of a situation.

When this technology is incorporated on the phone, any transactions through the phone can be completed up to 40 percent faster than pressing keys and listening various options before reaching their desired option.

It is proved that behind every successful business there is an effective use of technological innovation that enhances employees' productivity and operational efficiency. So speech recognition can be the best investment for every company that aspires to become or stay ahead as high-performance organizations.

A new development in voice recognition technology has allowed the businesses to improve their customer service drastically. Voice recognition software can prove its relevancy in any sector be it medical services, call centers or agriculture. It can be used to increase productivity while reducing unnecessary work burden on the employees.

Especially in call centers instead of engaging employees in answering phone calls and routing them to the relevant customer care executive, the software can handle the task, allowing the employee to be positioned to handle calls that are more complex.
Simple calls can be handled through the system where customers can guide themselves to the answers they need. As speech technology is further integrated with global positioning systems, businesses can track the real location of their field agents.

In its initial days speech recognition technique had many drawbacks such as background noise or if a person having sore throat or in a different accent talked to the system can confuse the system. This would frustrate the customer. Now this technology has become more advanced and can easily recognize hard to understand accents in the way people speak in the different parts of the world.

The higher, long-term potential of speech recognition can be found in its capability to make business more brilliant and of higher value. Utilizing the wide mobile transmission, speech-based mobility solutions can be the best response to the continuous problems of client connections and their fulfillment. With the integration of Voice Biometric can successfully decrease frauds, and increase customers' satisfaction. A voice-based program is therefore the perfect alternative to present methods of using representatives and call centers, boosting their protection and performance to allow ongoing development. Thus, companies can implement this technological innovation without being apprehensive for security or compatibility for personal or professional use.

A speech recognition and Voice Biometrics work on any cell phone, enabling companies to connect with clients any time irrespective of geographic borders, and in any language. The main point here is that this application is really a boon to improve customer satisfaction as well as helping companies to obtaining greater revenue by simply acquiring new clients as well as having current clients.

By Rajendran Sharma

Recruitment Management Software Is The Ideal Foil For The HR Department

Recruiting new employees for your company is a thankless job and is most often handled by the HR department. The department needs to continuously keep a check on the present employees while also keeping a track of the older ones, the prospective ones and many more. No wonder that HR departments are always over burdened. Due to this burden it is but imperative that there might be some mistakes and that only could change the whole demographics of the company. Mistakes by the HR department can turn out to be a whole lot troublesome and therefore utmost care must be taken by the HR while working.

The same goes for recruitment functions too and a small mistake means that you might lose a very good prospective employee without any valid reason. The recruitment procedure is a grueling task and often requires more than one person to properly conduct it. The tasks include collecting all relevant data and storing it, then going through the employee history, etc.

Then again the recruitment procedure also involves interviews which have to be regulated correctly. The interviews are not a very grueling task but it becomes difficult when the HR has to deal with the related paperwork too. Collect information about the candidate, get a background check and many other things are to be done. It is this task that makes a relative simple interview process look humanely impossible.

Above all that there are general tasks for the HR which regulates the procedure of the company and streamline the working. Such a plethora of things to do can be very taxing on a single individual and here in enters the revolutionary Recruitment Management Software.

This unique software could be the shoulder on which the HR department can load all their burdens. The software is designed to carry out the taxing recruitment procedure in a simple and smooth way. It stores all the data, background checks and employee history and allows access to them whenever required. The basic idea behind the software is to streamline the recruitment procedure and to ensure the lack of human error. It also provides all information about a candidate at one place simply by clicking on the mouse. This specific ability gives the HR a definite edge and makes his job easier during the main interview process. The interview process becomes easier for the interviewer if he has all the information at his fingertips.

By Syreus Gupta

The Future of 'Mobile Development' Discussed at the DeveloperWeek 2014 Conference

Mobile devices are here to stay since they help us connect and engage with our family, friends, and business associates while on the move as well as help us educate and gather information on products and companies online.

In the DeveloperWeek 2014 Conference + Event Series, the hot topic of discussion was related to the importance of mobile development. The mobile app development market is not only driven by money although according to the various industry experts, by 2015, there will be around $400 billion additional spending on the mobile market.

Most of the mobile development companies invest a lump sum amount of money to develop something unique and innovative and create new relationships between things, tasks, and locations.

Although to any normal person it may seem the different technologies for mobile including the database, business logic, HTML 5 or JavaScript, app tools, ad networks, and so on would be the same for both web and mobile world. In reality, the mobile developer world is taking enormous advantages of such high-end features including multi-device compatibility, phone-specific actions and events, geo-focused advertising, new mobile development technologies, etc.

Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (mbaas) companies participated at this year's DeveloperWeek with speakers from such well-known companies like Built.io, Kii, Telerik, Sencha, and Parse which is acquired by Facebook.

You can assume mbaas to be the "Heroku for mobile apps". Many of the above mentioned mobile development companies who attended the event let mobile app developers instantly use mobile functionalities such as texting or push notifications or "code once for multiple devices". In other words, mbaas allow mobile developers to do less coding.

The mobile app analytics and app testing industry is found to be growing by leaps and bounds with lots of new companies adding to the list. Mention can be made of companies such as Appurify, Sauce Labs, and Optimizely which provides A/B testing for web as well as mobile app development.

There are also a large number of mobile-only advertisement networks and monetization tools represented at DeveloperWeek 2014 such as the Millennial Media, AppFlood, and Zample to name just a few.

Let's now have a look at the main points discussed in the 2014 DeveloperWeek Conference.

API User Experience is Advantageous

According to the ProgrammableWeb Executive Editor, Mr. David Berlind, mobile developers are expert problem-solvers; thus for them maybe the API user experience is not that important. The mobile application developers are smart enough to scrap data out of an AOI if they need to do so. However, you cannot altogether ignore the fact that if a person gives the developers instant access to a similar data source via an API, all developers will jump to get the same. Industry pioneer such as PayPal's Jason Harmon states we need to focus both on external and internal user experience developer engagement to access and share information in an effective fashion.

Lack of iOS Developers

At the DeveloperWeek Conference, the lack of iOS developers became evident. According to some attendees, not having enough iOS developers is keeping the Native app vs. HTML5 argument still alive.

Lack of Catering Service and Coffee

The 2014 DeveloperWeek did not have proper catering service, and to get coffee, an attendee has to walk at least two blocks from the main event venue. Developer crusader Tony Blank of Context.IO quickly set up a coffee stall at the venue arranging two large containers of prepared Starbucks coffee. He soon found a long queue of developers outside his stall waiting only to learn about his company's API over coffee!

Some other notable mobile app development points discussed at the DeveloperWeek are as follows:

• When releasing an API, you have just one chance to get it right.
• Internet of Things is equal to Internet of APIs.
• No separate sessions were held to debate about security issues covering mobile development and developers.
• Want to encourage developers to know more about your API? Tell them a story.

By Carrie Miller

Best Uses of SMS Marketing

Utilizing text messages to market to your customers directly via their smartphones-the one device that is almost always with them-can be a very effective approach for small businesses. Knowing how and when to do this, however, is critical in order to ensure the full success of such a campaign.

Knowing your audience goes back to marketing basics. The end goal is to know your target audience better than they know themselves. Provide what they needed to have before they had thought of in. It is important to put different SMS mobile marketing strategies into a larger and more meaningful context. Following are some of the best ways in which to utilize the power and benefits of text message marketing to your small business customers:

• At Events
  Depending upon the nature of your event, you have multiple options for how to incorporate SMS marketing. If you are giving a presentation and want to be able to share the file with attendees, simply have them text a code to you and they will receive a reply text with a link to obtain the slides.
  
  You could also send out texts with promotions that are valid only during the event to spur immediate action. If you wish to engage your audience to be more interactive, use text messaging to poll people about different topics-all relevant to the event, of course.


• In Store
  The best time to get people to buy your products is while they are already in your store. Take advantage of text messaging to alert customers about specials that they can enjoy while shopping at that very time. You could even suggest related or accompanying products to encourage the upsell process.


• Anytime Touchpoints
  While certainly the end goal of any overall marketing program is to sell, sometimes there are individual campaigns that are designed to create goodwill or customer loyalty. Text messaging can be leveraged to do this by sending special messages to customers on their birthdays or near select holidays. Including some marketing efforts that are not directly aimed at selling is a smart way to stay in touch with customers without making them feel pestered by you or pressured to buy at every moment.

Texting is easy and extremely inexpensive. This makes testing a campaign with SMS marketing well worth your time. We also believe it will be more than worth your investment and pay many times over for itself when implemented properly.

Edward Kundahl is president and owner of Allentown-based BusinessCreator, Inc., an Internet marketing agency and Web development company that offers clients total search marketing and interactive media solutions. His roots are in small-business search engine optimization and marketing and making sites user friendly and accessible to search engines. He can be reached at ed@businesscreatorplus.com.

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