Why GitHub will be the next big thing!

You might've heard in the news of Microsoft acquiring Github for a whopping $7.5 Billion, that’s too large a sum for a thing that you might not know about. So let's tell you what Github is all about and Why did Microsoft acquire it for a huge sum.

What is Github?

Literally speaking, Github is a hub of Gits or an online repository of all the gits. Git is a version control system of the files/code that developers create and share with each other. It is primarily used to track changes in source code and maintain a distributed version history of all the Gits. Technically, it is a web-based source code management system.

It was created by Linus Torvalds (yes, the same legend who created Linux), it was basically created by him to simplify Linux kernel development and management, all the other source code management weren't that easy to use and were riddled with copyright laws, so Linus set out to create a simpler source code management which had sharing and forking capabilities.

What made Github special are the last two capabilities -  namely the social media capabilities that have made it hugely popular among developers and geeks, every developer has a profile with all his past projects with all the changes,a developer can also have Project revisions and feedback from the community or the people who follow him, so a lot of experts take your project forward by making it better.   

If you're a newbie in coding then you can follow experienced talented coders, see their projects emulate them for better learning, give feedback on bugs/issues and make it better. Whereas if you're an experienced coder, it becomes a platform to showcase your talent and take on bold projects. Its often referred to as a social media for "geeks".

Github isn't just for Geeks

Yes, that’s the biggest conception people have, since Github essentially being a version control software for files, you can easily use it for projects with large teams for sharing documents and tracking changes between your teams.

Why Microsoft acquired Github

Microsoft being Microsoft always has a history of purchasing large successful businesses for huge amount whether be it Skype or be it LinkedIn, this latest acquisition of Github, Microsoft wanted to gain a foothold with the developer industry, if you control the developers you control the software and eventually you control the product. Microsoft is a platform king for Desktops, but a lagger in mobile, with a paradigm shift being there towards mobile and cloud, it makes sense for Microsoft to grab the market share in developer industry.

Depending on how it integrates Github with its cloud offerings it could surely get ahead in the race being dominated by Google and Amazon recently.

Amazon Fire TV Cube

Amazon has been a trendsetter in bringing out futuristic gadgets. It was the first one to bring a smart-assistant speaker Amazon Echo to the market, which had 'Alexa' in it to assist you with anything you ask. This speaker spiralled into a new category of devices which became so successful that Google, Microsoft and even Apple had to release their own versions of smart speakers.

Amazon has yet again taken a bold new step by introducing Alexa (their smart assistant) for TVs and naming this cubical block as Amazon Fire TV Cube (well they need a better naming strategy!)

What is it?

It is a cubical block with speakers and 8 far-field mics built-in to catch your voice even from a distance. Once you connect it to your TV(via HDMI), power it up through micro-USB cable and connect to the Internet(either through Wi-fi or ethernet port). It will first determine the make and model of your TV and will try to gain the power controls, so you can always ask Alexa to turn on/switch off the TV.

What makes it awesome?

Well turning on/off the TV is just the beginning, this little cube can control your whole TV viewing experience as it has tied up with Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation Vue, Xbox and other major service providers. So get ready for remote free tv viewing, all you have to do just the name the thing that you want to watch like "Alexa, play 13 reasons why on Netflix" and boom the TV switches on with the first episode of the series playing on Netflix.

What's more, it can easily switch between content swiftly, like while playing Netflix just tell it to switch to BBC News on Cable and another moment BBC Cable is there, no need to remember the atrocious channel numbers now, this is what TV viewing should be, unapologetically simple and easy to use.

You can also tell it forward, skip 30 seconds or play from a specific time. In fact, binge-watchers can tell Alexa to play a specific episode and it would start from right there, no hassles. The Fire TV Cube is truly genius concept with a marvel feat of engineering behind it.

What makes it a million dollar device is that it supports almost all major TVs that means no setup time, apart from that it has a direct support for Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, PlayStation, Xbox out of the box. And yes, you can also use it as a smart assistant for weather forecast, asking jokes, playing songs, etc. Where it actually shines is how it uses the TV's real estate to make your queries more visually appealing, like showing the forecast of the day on the big screen with animations is very soothing, or grabbing the major headlines of the day with video.

The Fire TV Cube retails for $119.99 and is available on www.amazon.com

Crowdfunding

Wanted to start your own business, but don’t have the financial resources, where would you take the money from? Your Parents, Banks, Relatives, Friends, ever thought of raising money from the public, no we are not talking about bringing an IPO and listing your start-up on the index, we are talking about the swag new way of raising funds, known as "Crowdfunding".

So what exactly is crowdfunding?

Put Simply, crowdfunding is a method of raising funds from the public by listing/expressing your idea on a platform. With the power of the internet, every process of Crowdfunding is done online, from listing your idea to asking for money, you can raise funds for your dream project sitting at your home with a click of a button.

Getting to the Point – Why is it Different?

10 years back, when you had to raise funds for your next venture, you had to go to the tedious way of creating a marketing plan, setting up meetings with bankers, venture capitalists (that too if they agree to meet you!), explaining the viability of your idea to your friends and family members and working on your plan side-by-side.

With crowdfunding, it provides you with a platform online where you can demonstrate/ share your idea to the public and it automatically gets displayed to the interested parties, drastically reducing the time and resources required to market your idea to the right public. Crowdfunding gives a platform to those voices and makes them readily accessible to those who want to invest here!

From people's point of view, you don’t need to have millions in hand nor you are required to be a venture capitalist to invest in the start-ups. This is the best part of Crowdfunding, where essentially the crowd comes in to fund the venture,  so as an individual you can invest as low as Rs. 500 on an idea or choose to fully fund the project, whatever suits you!

Types

Crowdfunding isn't just limited to financing or raising money for the next million dollar idea, it is for social causes too! People not financially able can raise money for operating on a critical financial ailment, or an NGO can raise money for filing RTIs, or even a sportsperson like PT Usha can raise money to open her dream school of training future girl athletes (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/pt-usha-takes-to-crowdfunding-to-run-school/articleshow/62111263.cms -latest news)

Jio's Prime Offer - EXPLAINED!

With the advent of Jio, there has been much of consolidation happening in the telecom space, with Vodafone-Idea in advance talks of their merger and Reliance Communications already in talks about merging with Aircel, MTS and Tata Teleservices. Seems like Jio has eaten a lot of these companies’ profits, with most of them showing a quarterly loss this time.

Earning a world record in the process of getting 100 million Jio Consumers in just 170 days! Today, Mukesh Ambani revealed, Jio’s plans after March 31st, when the “Happy New Year” Offer ends and what starts is called a “Prime membership offer” (too bad for Amazon! ). On going through their official website in order to get more sense of these plans, there was negligible information available as of press time. So after hearing whole of his speech and researching a bit, here’s what I found out:

What this Prime offer means to you 

Enrolling in this membership will give you free access to all the content, unlimited data and calling which you used during the “Happy New Year” offer. Basically, at first, it was making you addicted of what Jio has to offer on its platform, then charge for them, so this is how they plan to charge you in order to give you all those services for “free”.

How to enroll for Jio Prime Membership 

• Firstly, in order to avail this Jio Prime Membership, you need be an existing customer. If you aren’t a Jio subscriber, then make sure that you get your Jio 4G SIM before 31st of March in order to avail this membership.

• The Jio customers will have to pay a one-time fees of Rs. 99 to become a part of the Jio Prime Membership.

• Once you become a Jio Prime member, you can get all the benefits of the current “Happy New Year” offer by simply paying Rs.303 per month, which pretty much comes down to just Rs. 10 per day.

• The Jio Prime Subscription will be valid for another year i.e. till 31st March 2018.

• All the Jio users can enroll for the Jio Prime Membership starting 1st March till 31st March through MyJIo app/Jio.com/Jio Retail Store.

What this prime offer means to Jio 

With this Prime Membership offer, Jio essentially wants to make you their exclusive customer by making you their “prime member”! By being so you will be paying Rs. 303 a month (which is Rs. 3,636 an year) plus an annual charge of Rs. 99 which takes the tally to Rs. 3,735 which you will be spending to get host of everything that Jio offers for free, which is still pretty cheap compared to others plans of telecom companies. 

What Jio will be earning here is Rs. 303 per month of fixed income (which crosses the avg. threshold of Rs. 150 per consumer, read my previous blog for more details) and getting that exclusivity tag. Currently, most of Jio consumers use Jio as an alternate number with their primary number. Jio wants to change that, it wants you to make Jio your primary go-to number! Even Mukesh Ambani said the same in his speech “We want you to make Jio your permanent home” Doing this, you will be paying only to Jio and not to anyone else, that’s what is the aim of this prime membership is, to get you bound to this “exclusive” club of free services so that you forget the other carriers and only use Jio for the full year



Keeping an eye out for competitors 

Not only this, Mukesh Ambani also announced what he called “More value Offer” where he said Jio will be monitoring the plans unveiled by other telecom companies , they will match their plans and will also provide 20% more data in the same plan as of their competitor. Now this is how you crush your competitors!

Should you really enroll for the Prime membership? 

Well, it depends, if you are a data hogger and are addicted to the host of Jio services like JioMags, JioMovies, JioTV, JioMusic,etc. Then this plan is for you, as it will give you all those services for free.
But if you are just a free voice-call and occasional data user, then I suggest you not to enroll for this membership. Instead, check out their plans!

Do make a note that this is optional and you don’t necessarily have to pay this in order to continue using Jio 4G service. If you wish to stay away from the Jio Prime membership, then you will continue to make free voice call without any roaming data whatsoever. Alternatively you can also go for the other tariff plans which the company announced previously, which will be effective starting 1st April. However, the Jio Prime Membership is not a bad deal considering the fact that you will be technically getting 30GB per month for Rs. 303. This is still way much better in comparison to what other competitions are offering.

As always, please do share and comment if you like this article! :) 

Behind the Jio Effect

How the world's biggest startup will make more money than you will ever imagine!

 

Free calls for lifetime, free data [till 31st March (with capped usage)], free roaming, lowest data rates on earth and still Jio would be profitable. Wanna know why? Reliance Jio's business model is really simple - most of you are going to pay the same or probably more money to Jio compared to your current network provider. After reading this proposed analogy of mine, you will realize what a clever businessman Mukesh Ambani is.

BASICS

• Telecommunication companies divide consumers into two types on the basis of revenue, a customer paying around Rs. 150 is break even or Average Revenue Per user for them, if you pay around Rs. 250 then you're a high value customer to them.

• Jio's network is based on new technology, its an all IP network and not the circuit-switiching technology which current telcos use. Once the whole infrastructure is in place, the costs of using it would be negligible. So, when you make a call it connects through Internet and continues with Internet and ends with Internet also, very much like Skype. Charging for calls is an outdated technology.
  The only costs Jio incurs is some 14 paise which they have to pay as interconnect fee to the operator’s network you called. This should be considered a temporary operational cost. Moreover, TRAI is likely to either further reduce this interconnect fee or make it free in the near future.

POTENTIAL INCOME SOURCES

Am stressing on the word "potential" as these are the sources which I believe are income generators, which may not be true currently.

1.  Plans:
   Ever saw the plans of Jio? they are very strategically designed. To give you an overview, here's the plan in brief (for the full plan details pf prepaid and postapid with T&Cs visit here)

Jio - Postpaid plans (for the full plan visit here)

Jio - Prepaid Plans (for the full plan visit here)

• Okay so time for some observations, notice that in postpaid plans, the plan validity is 28 days, which is not a full month. Infact, if you divide, you'll get around 13 months (365/28=13.03571) so you'll end up paying for 1 month more for the same plan in the whole year. 
• Secondly, no one in the world would take a plan of Rs. 149 for data because you get only 0.3GB in that (like paying Rs.447 for 1GB?!!!), so your obvious choice would land you to the next cheapest plan, which is of Rs.499. Notice that there are no plans between Rs. 149 and Rs. 499. By getting you to their 499 plan, they already have crossed their ARPU (avg. revenue per user) and made you their high value customer who pays Rs. 499 for not even a whole month!
• Same is the case with prepaid plans, where you won't take the Rs.149 plan which gives you 0.3gb data, instead you will choose the Rs. 299 plan at least, thereby again surpassing the ARPU and this time you'll pay it for just 21 days, that makes it close to around 17 months (365/21=17.381) so you'll be shelling out 299 for 17 times in a year if you stick to this plan, genius indeed! 

2.  Lyf Smartphones:

Apart from being a telecom operator, Reliance has brought into the market its own range of 4G VoLTE range of smartphones under the brandname LYF. There are huge margins here believe me. Getting a phone like contract manufactured from any factory in China (there are a dearth of 4G phones there) and "dumping" the same in India. Great profits! Since, Jio is a 4G only network, hence it required handsets which are 4G compatible and VoLTE enabled (for voice calling) and cheap as well, to capture the mass market. no wonder, Reliance hits the bulls-eye here!

3. Jio Apps:

Jio has released every possible app with Jio Branding - JioCinema, JioTV, Jio Mags, Jio Newspaper, Jio Xpressnews, Jio4gVoice, Jio Music, Jio Cloud, Jio Security, Jio Money, etc. etc.) These apps are cash cows, they also come pre-loaded with LYF Smarphones and free till 31st march after that, subscription charges for these services! Another great source of income!

4. Selling Your Data:

This one is which you're not gonna believe, but it is done by every telco in India, selling your data history to companies which in-turn show you advertisements. Yes, they do it, and they earn fabulous amounts of money for it too!! User base is the most precious asset to any company today, Why is facebook so powerful? because facebook has data profiling of around 1.79 billion users (for source of info. click here) in the world including their interests, likes, dislikes, location, photos, every damn thing!

So whenever you browse or surf the internet through Jio, it creates a data profile(profiling your browser history)  of every SIM (coz every SIM has a unique ID through which it communicates with the network), and sells this data to the companies who profile you for advertising! Cunning, isn't it? I'll explain it more in my future blogs!

In short, Jio is earning heavily by selling your data too!

I know I know what you are thinking, how can they achieve profit in just one year by investing huge sums of money in setting up the infrastructure???
Well, according to basic laws of economics and business studies, no business can break-even in its first year of operations, neither will Jio, but they sure as hell would be profitable in the next 5-7 years (some analysts believe this would be achieved in 2-3 years as well!). But the rate at which they are growing and penetrating the market is truly laudable and can be a perfect example of successful businesses.

Please do share and comment if you like the article! :) 

Froktech recommended tech reads

For that bookworm in you, here are a list of tech reads which you should check out!

To brush up your tech know-how and make you realize the surveillance world we live in, here are the Froktech's bucket list of winter reads which you should add on your bookshelf!

1. Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

Choosing the best SD card for your phone

Why you need a better SD Card for your phone, like right now!!

Does your phone takes up a lot of time accessing your files from the SD card or eventually it hangs while doing so? the culprit may not be the phone the but memory card you're using with it.
So often it happens when we buy an SD card for our latest smartphone we unassumingly buy the cheapest one from a reliable brand (say an 8gb SanDisk microSD card), knowing it to be the best solution of our storage woes.

This purchase of yours, will make your phone slower! YES, it will, in the long run, it will cause more problems instead of solving them.
Why is that? Coz when you buy the cheapest one from the market, it comes with slowest read and write speed. Read and write speed is basically the copying speed of the SD card to and from your device.
So whenever your swanky new smartphone with the latest processor accesses your files from the SD card, it takes time....which makes you think that your phone is slow. Actually the SD card is delaying the result because of its slow read and write speeds. This delays the overall result and makes you think that your new phone is not upto the mark.

THE SOLUTION

Well basically, SD cards these days are termed in different "classes" on the basis of their speeds, these are as follows:

You might really be using a Class 2 or Class 4 SD card for your phone, which is good for basic tasks, but nowadays where we watch movies on the go, download every app, take selfies like crazy, Do Snapchat, Whatsapp and what not. The SD card required for this kind of media frenzy is definitely not a Class 2 or 4 but a Class 6 or 10.
(Mark 1 or Mark 3 SD cards are usually used by pros for 4K capturing and recording, and of course, they are insanely priced, so lets ignore them unless you are a pro!)

IDENTIFICATION MARK

Every SD card contains an identification mark on its front side that identifies its class, which in turn denotes its speed (you can see the speed of different classes of SD cards from the table above). Below are the examples for your reference:

 Class 2 SD Card
 (notice the number 2 encircled)










                                 Class 4 SD Card (number 4 encircled notifying its class below)

 










                             Class 10 SD Card (Number 10 encircled denoting its class below)

So for your daily routine, a Class 6 or preferably a Class 10 SD card would be a great buy, complementing your phone with speed and efficiency it deserves!
Below I have shortlisted some of the good brand of SD cards which you can buy online (because online shopping is the way to go now!!)

Class 10: SanDisk, Transcend, Kingston

Class 6: Samsung
 
Hope his article makes you aware of the some of the basic tech tips which you should follow, please share if you like it to spread this info!