Category: Articles

How to use Samsung Pay in India using Galaxy devices

Screenshot_20170310-144551
I had the opportunity to receive an update on my Samsung Galaxy Note 5 for the Samsung Pay app. Back then when Apple launched apple pay they marketed it as the next wave of payments and (as usual) just with yet another Apple ceritified payment terminal payment could be as easy as waving your iPhone across the counter when you were with a merchant.
However Samsung had to do something to counter this onslaught of Apple and they looked at this whole payment thing in a different light. What if they could replace card swipes across existing payment terminals with an app (and needless to say some hardware technology) ? They could then pull the carpet under Apple’s feet. And that is precisely what they finally did. Launched Samsung Pay. An innovation that did not need any change in existing hardware at any merchant. The only thing was that Samsung had to align with the banks for virtualizing their cards on the phone or equivalent devices such as the smartwatch and it was pretty much done.
This whole thing became so seamless that you could use it from day one. Its unfortunate that while the feature was already available since 2015 end in other countries it has made it to India only by 2017 which is really late and I hope Samsung learns from this. But then demonetization, alignments with banks, etc have impacted the launch a bit and they had to clearly plan it out. Alignment with banks in India is still a cumbersome process but something Samsung has finally completed. Not all banks participate with Samsung but many are about to sign up and you already have the major ones such as SBI, HDFC, Axis and ICICI on board. Standard Chartered and Citi are on the way too. Given these biggies control most of the banking market in India, pretty much many of these cards would then be covered under Samsung Pay.
Screenshot_20170310-144606
So what really does it take to use the application? You need a supported version of a Samsung smartphone such as Samsung Galaxy S7, Note, etc  or a smartwatch such as the S2 or S3 series. You need to install the application, add your credit or debit cards that are supported by the application. Adding a card involves authenticating the application to use your bank details by verifying an SMS sent to your registered mobile number. Its really that easy. And you are done. As for the smartwatch you can install Samsung pay application which is specifically tuned for the watch and add the same cards there as well.
Walk over to any merchant near your house, make a purchase and when you are about to pay, fire up the card by swiping up from home screen, choose your card, and you have options to pay using PIN or fingerprint. Once you input either of those an MST (magnetic secure transmisison) happens and your card data is provided to the card reader. Then on you still need to enter the 4 digit PIN for your card and your transaction is completed.
The same thing works from both the Samsung S3 frontier smartwatch as well as the smartphone and will be a big boon in how easily a payment can be made. Imagine taking out the right credit card from a bunch of cards in your wallet? Those days are over. And if you have a watch, even the days of using your smartphone to make that credit card payment will be over soon Smile
Take a look at the video and if you like it, and you appreciate Samsung’s innovations for its users, please do like, and share the post.

Hakrappa KJP-gey vote haakro, hakroppo ….

(source wikipedia)

On one fine evening in 2008, a certain reasonably old man with white hair and moustache was crying on the TV screen, when a little girl who phoned in told him that Karnataka has finally elected a leader who will work towards its development and who will rid the state of its corrupt practices. He assertively declared that he will wage a war against corruption and uphold the victory that the state had provided to his party.

Five years down the line, the same gentleman was still crying on the TV screen, accusing his bosses and detractors of robbing his role and respect for all the hard work he did while wearing a khaki trouser and learning to stand in the hot sun to build up the party he so fondly cared for. After he took over the party to power way back, his growing deeds of giving away large amount of money to temples of his choice, giving away prime lands in Bangalore city to his sons, and his supposed illegal involvement of being a beneficiary in the mining scan and iron ore scam earned him nothing but a boot out of the party.

After so many misdeeds and his political incompetence within the BJP on how to handle his peer pressure from Sadananda Gowda, Eshwarappa, Ananth Kumar and others, the man knew two things. One that his only way to escape this mess is to get out of the party before people decimated him. And two, that BJP had no chance in the upcoming ULB and assembly elections. The second turned out to be the trump card hiding close to his chest which he used to bail himself out to form the KJP.

The ULB election results are a direct pointer to what awaits the state in 2013 assembly elections and it has already given the BJP both a smack on the head and a slap on the face pretty deftly. The huge swing in votes towards the Congress means only one thing: People dont know who else to vote for – whether for KJP which is yet to test its waters with the same candidate who screwed the state, or for the JDS which is yet to be clear on how it intends to be a good state level player with credibility and track record.

Due to the obvious reasons, Congress wins by default, but the real acid test now is the expected bickering in the congress between Kharge, Siddu, DKS, and a few other stalwarts who will form a team similar to that in BJP and might either be advisories or ruin the show. While at a national level congress is stressing on youth participation and young blood and all that, we are yet to see a visionary congress leader after SM Krishna during whose time Bangalore’s transformation was unbelieveable.

Given we have a gazillion flyovers, and toll roads now, given we also have the metro, given we have billion people from all the states settled down here, given the increased crime rate, given the absolute lack of governance, given the beating Kannada as a language has got, given an already overgrown city without similar growth in infrastructure, given crazy land prices all over, and in general given the mammoth metamorphisis of Bangalore into a lazy-concrete-traffic-jammed-mall-cultured-rude-screwed garden city, what exactly would be the congress manifesto to bring back some sanity to Bangalore?

What is there to vote for? What hope as a city do we have left that things would be any better anymore? – The answer is NOTHING. The last time I could vote for congress, jds and bjp. This time i can also vote for another one – the KJP. I am surely wanting to hear yeddy cry again in joy on TV for some reason that never matters. Its the iconism that matters doesnt it ? 🙂

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

KHB announces auction notification for 1st phase of suryanagar

-auction date is on 08-JANUARY-2013 at 11:30 AM.
-The auction location is at KHB suryanagar phase-1 office in khb suryanagar itself.
-The minimum stipulated recommended starting price is pegged at a rather steep Rs.2000 per sq.ft.
-These properties are sold at as-is-where-is basis. The initial fee for participating in the auction is Rs.50000 per site.
– DD or cash must be taken in the name of Commissioner, KHB, bangalore
– those unsuccessful would be refunded the amount after auction
– those winning the auction shall pay 25% of the amount along with 2 passport photos
– tokens will be provided at 10am. those coming later than 11:30 shall be disquaified from the auction
– if the winner does not provide 25% of the amount within 24 hours he shall lose 50000 without any reasons assigned
– Within 60 days the remaining 75% shall be paid
– in case this is not paid, bidder/winner shall lose the 25% as well
– the KHB reserves the right to cancel auctions without assigning any reasons for any of the sites published
– the winners are expected to register their sites with their own funds
– any alterations found in the stipulated dimensions shall be finalized by KHB and the bidders are bound by the same.

For more information contact 080-27804400, 9740335386 & 9980869439.

 

Tags: bangalore, bengaluru, khb, suryanagar, auction, january, real estate, land, plots, apartments

Apple to likely introduce the 7-inch iPAD mini to compete againstcurrent bestsellers

In the crowded tablet marketplace, we already have thousands of android tablets like Samsung, Google Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle HD, Barnes and Noble Nook, Acer Iconia, Asus Padphone, Blackberry which was a failure as such, and a host of Indian ones like Beetel, Micromax, and few others.

(image courtesy: Engadget)

While Steve Jobs always believed that a greater than 9 tablet was the most perfect form suitable for daily use, the myriad 7 tablets already in the marketplace seems to defy that logic and in fact being more suitable to be carried around and used more effectively. Now with Steve gone, Tim Cook and co, seems to be thinking otherwise to increase their tablet market share by entering into the categories of 7-inchers with the iPad mini which is to be announced shortly.

It would be interesting to wait and watch how well Apple does in this segment of overcrowded 7-inchers. With microsoft entering the tablet with its surface offering, its only time that will tell whether the fragmentation is an exact 33% of the big three: Google, MS and Apple, or whether Apple would still dominate this category as well going forward.

Well whatever it is, this proves more and more that only the big and powerful market leaders can actually get some sales going in anything they make be it hardware or software, though some others keep trying in a bid to win over them either in form or in function.

Via: Engadget

Tags: bangalore, bengaluru, blog, apple, ipad, mini, india, launch, date, a6, processor, 7-inch, tablet, android, surface, microsoft, google

Indian Railways launches RailRadar web app for tracking trains realtime

As part of its technological advances, the Indian Railways have launched a web application at http://railradar.trainenquiry.com/.

This application uses google maps and tracks trains realtime with blue on time codes and red running late codes on the maps. It now gets very easy for finding whether a train is running late or note and where it is exactly !!

There is no mobile app for the same yet, but it could introduced soon for android, windows and apple iphones if railways can put their mind to it.

Tags: railways, bangalore, bengaluru, blog, railradar, app, web, rail radar, trains, timings, tickets, irctc, routes, desitnations, stations, late, early, timings, maps

The new Nokia Lumia 900 review from The Verge website. Great phone, but software has to catch up a lot !!

 

The Verge put up a crisp review of the new Nokia Lumia 900 which was released by AT&T recently in the USA. One can compare this to the Samsung Galaxy Note in terms of dimensions. However this has a clear black display and not an AMOLED and the focus point about this phone is its industrial design in terms of hardware. Since microsoft uses lots of playing around with fonts for its menus, and not much of icons or pictures, the phone is definitely fast to use. However not many people would be comfortable with this mode of user interface and menus after seeing Apple and Android which would deter them from buying this phone. After the Nokia Lumia 800 dropped to 23000 from 30000, a straight 7000 jump in amount in India, it is clear that this is to make way for the next hardware beauty the Lumia 900. One can expect this to be priced at 30000 and further drop to about 25000 in coming months after launch.

What is left then is to see how people receive the windows software and how many more useful updates are provided by Microsoft in future. Hope you enjoyed the video. Do leave your comments and let us know if you will buy this phone or not?

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Why you must not vote for BJP again?

Agreed we have seen resort politics before but those were not for dissidence. Those were to give better opportunities to MLAs in some other party other than the ruling party. Also, its always a known fact in politics that one could always be looking for an opportunity to knock the ruling party down by hook or crook.

But seriously what is missing in Indian politics is the urge to argue ethically, conduct business professionally, and work towards reaching consensus on correct matters and agree to disagree on wrong matters. In the past 65 years we have still not cultivated the art of agreeing to disagree.

Having said that, Yeddy’s brand of politics is all amusing, irritating, annoying and frustrating in one go. I still remember the time he cried on TV to a young girl who said she was waiting to see BJP rule in karnataka. He felt so overwhelmed that people had given him a majority mandate and that he would immediately put to use his expertise he has had in RSS into building a better governed state and city.

What has happened a couple of years after that episode is that Yeddy has continued crying for many things even a few of them which were denied to him. He continues to now slowly eat into the BJP base in Karnataka with his politicking with his higher ups and he is more of a naughty kid who needs to be in detention. The BJP must remove such people in a show of ethics and confidently approach another poll to teach the dissidents a lesson. Bringing caste and creed into the equation is only worsening things and the focus on development is completely lost.

Advani has done the right thing in letting Yeddy know that he will not be able to bail him out to be the chief minister of karnataka again. From land deals, to slow development of city and state in general, and for all the poor show that BJP did in the south, its only a matter of time before the congress rears its head again. Given the recent by election results where an independent candidate won, it only shows that the people are slowly fed up of the BJP for good. It is then only a matter of time before the BJP is decimated for all their wrong doings in the upcoming poll whenever that is.

The screw up of bio 2011, and other technical events has made the industry really unhappy about the current government. The industry has no more faith that they can repose in such a chief minister. The growth of karnataka is only going to take a backseat in the current year and more and more things are going to get mismanaged worse than ever.

Its time we boot our ex-cm out and show a strength of solidarity in putting together leaders who have vision, hope and work hard to realize the dream come true in the next decade. The next decade is one of very high importance and also competition where it matters the most for other states to pick up where karnataka left. If we do not have men of superior vision, and do not focus on what we do and work hard, we can see Karnataka lagging all the way in the next five years.

ICICI bank to provide social banking through Facebook in 2012

According to an email received, ICICI bank is set to usher in banking via Facebook in the year 2012. It is not exactly clear what or how they intend to do it. But for starters they are planning to include a page of their own for you to like on Facebook.

Here is an except of the plan:

As we step into 2012, we re-affirm our commitment to continue offering you superior banking services in line with our philosophy of ‘Khayaal Aapka’. We are pleased to inform you that ICICI Bank will soon be present on Facebook. The ICICI Bank page will include a one-of-its kind ‘Your Bank Account’ app through which you can access your bank account information while on Facebook. You can also choose to ‘Like’ our page and get updates on exclusive offers.

It is only known at this point that they will provide an app which will let you interact with the bank backend. But given the number of security loopholes in Facebook or any other social application/website so far, this in my opinion is only a recipe for minor disasters on average users who are already being lured by useless offers and mails.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,