Microsoft purges over 1500 misleading apps from the Windows Store

 
There’s much work to be done to improve the Windows app ecosystem, and not only in terms of adding more apps. Microsoft said today that it is stepping up efforts to make sure apps are named and described in a way that doesn’t mislead users, as people have been trying to “game the system with misleading titles or descriptions.”

The Windows Store app certification requirements have therefore been updated to include policies that state an app should be named to “clearly and accurately reflect the functionality,” apps should be categorized according to their function and purpose, and icons must be differentiated so they aren’t mistaken with others.

Microsoft has had to conduct a review of Windows Store to ensure the requirements are met. This has led to the removal of more than 1,500 apps — and the company will be refunding users the cost of apps they downloaded because of an erroneous title or description.

Going forward, the revised policies are being applied to all new app submissions and existing app updates for both Windows and Windows Phone Store, Microsoft says.

This move comes as a recent post by online tech magazine How to Geek highlighted the existence of multiple fake apps in the Windows Store that ripped off the original apps’ names and logos.

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Tech Millionaires And Billionaires Who Have Surprisingly Humble Habits

There are plenty of Silicon Valley executives who live fabulous and lavish lifestyles, but not all of tech's millionaires and billionaires care to flaunt their wealth.

Some tech leaders prefer to use their wealth as a cushion to life comfortably, but not excessively.

We rounded up some of the wealthiest names in technology to show you that not all of Silicon Valley's millionaires and billionaires blow their riches on yachts, mansions, and private jets.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg eats McDonald's and wears the same shirt and hoodie every day.

Net worth: $33.3 billion

The brains behind Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is just one of three people in the world who has more billions in his possession than years lived. But despite his wealth, the 28-year-old still leads a quiet life.

He owns a $7 million house in Palo Alto, but The Los Angeles Times says the home is "still well below his means." He used to drive a black Acura TSX, but now hes behind the wheel of a Volkswagen GTI — both cars, however, cost about $30,000. In addition, Zuckerberg wed his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan in his backyard, and the pair was seen eating at a McDonalds on their Italian honeymoon.

He also famously wears the same gray t-shirt and hoodie to work every day.

Microsoft's new CEO Satya Nadella takes online courses in the morning.

Net worth: $45 million

His colleagues have called him “thoughtful,” “articulate” and “a great listener.” But Nadella, who moved to the U.S. to earn his master’s degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, is not so easily seduced by his new role as Microsoft’s chief executive.

Nadella says he likes to read poetry from American and Indian poets, and he still signs up for online courses to expand his horizons, especially early in the morning.

“I’m a learner,” Nadella says. “I think the thing that I realized is, what excites me is that Im learning something. I can learn something about some area. I can learn something from people. I can learn something from doing things differently. And I admire that in other people, too. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things … you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.”

Google cofounder Sergey Brin often shops at Costco.

Net worth: $30.9 billion

Yes, Brin does owns a few private planes, but Brin has publicly confessed to his distaste for spending.

"From my parents, I certainly learned to be frugal and to be happy without very many things," he said in a 2007 interview. "It’s interesting — I still find myself not wanting to leave anything on the plate uneaten. I still look at prices. I try to force myself to do this less, not to be so frugal. But I was raised being happy with not so much."

Hes also reportedly a frequent shopper at Costco, but hes certainly one of Silicon Valleys most generous philanthropists — he and his now-separated wife Anne Wojcicki donated $219 million to charities in 2013.

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone drives around in a "dented old Volkswagen Golf."

Net worth: $200 million

He has hundreds of millions of dollars, but the Twitter cofounder says he is too embarrassed to buy a new car. Instead, he drives around in a “dented old Volkswagen Golf,” which only retails at around $20,000. He did, however, splurge to buy his mother a house.

“The most important thing for me about having money is that it takes away most of the anxiety I’ve lived with my whole life.”

Tumblr founder and CEO David Karp keeps a sparce apartment in Brooklyn.

Net worth: at least $200 million

Karp founded the $1.1 billion blogging platform Tumblr as a teen, but these days, he leads a relatively simple lifestyle. His one big splurge: A 1,700-square-foot loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He reportedly paid $1.6 million for the space, but half of that space is reportedly being unused.

"I don’t have any books. I don’t have many clothes," Karp told Forbes. "I’m always so surprised when people fill their homes up with stuff." He also loves to drive a Vespa.

WhatsApp founder Jan Koum grew up on food stamps.

Net worth: $6.8 billion

Koum is now a wealthy man thanks to WhatsApps billion-dollar sale to Facebook, but the 38-year-old came from humble beginnings. His family, which moved to the U.S. from Kiev, Ukraine when he was 16 years old, struggled with finances and lived on food stamps.

Koum learned how to save money from an early age, and he continues to hold onto his wealth even now. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in February, he wanted Facebook to close the deal before he missed his flight to Barcelona; he bought tickets for that flight using frequent flier miles.

Stanford professor David Cheriton "spoiled" himself on a Honda Odyssey.

Net worth: $1.3 billion

David Cheriton, the Canadian-born Stanford professor who lucked out by being an early investor in Google, said he loathes the idea of living lavishly.

"Im actually quite offended by that sort of thing," he told the Edmonton Journal in a 2006 interview. "These people who build houses with 13 bathrooms and so on, theres something wrong with them."

Cheriton said he was "spoiled" for taking a windsurfing vacation in Hawaii. And in a Forbes profile, he said one of his biggest expenditures was his 2012 Honda Odyssey, which costs about $33,000.

Carlos Slim Helú, chairman and CEO of Telmex and América Móvil, has lived in the same house for 30 years.

Net worth: $76 billion

Slim, who heads up two of the biggest telecommunications companies in Latin America, is also one of the wealthiest people in the world, but hes no big spender. The self-made billionaire, who started his career as a trader and eventually started his own brokerage firm, currently lives in the same six-bedroom house hes owned for the last 30 years.

The Week also says Slim still drives himself to work every day.

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen packs his own lunch every day.

Net worth: $16.3 billion

Another self-made billionaire, Ergen famously insisted on signing every check that came out of Dish Network up until about 10 years ago. Still, he packs his own lunch before work every day — he usually brings a sandwich and a Gatorade — and before he stepped down as Dishs CEO in 2011, Ergen would share his hotel rooms with colleagues while traveling.

"My mom grew up in the Depression," he told the Financial Times. "I don’t have a mahogany desk."

Wipro Limited chairman Azim Premji reportedly monitors the number of toilet paper rolls his company uses and makes sure the lights are turned off every night.

Net worth: $12.2 billion

Hes the owner of one of the worlds biggest IT consulting firms, but Azim Premji still reportedly monitors the number of toilet-paper rolls used in his companys facilities facilities and demands that Wipro employees switch off the lights before they leave the office for the day.

According to a 2003 Businessweek profile, Premji still drives his 1996 Ford sedan, and he also likes to take an automatic three-wheel rickshaw from the Bangalore airport when he returns from his business trips. One Bangalore tech executive said "Premji makes Uncle Scrooge look like Santa Claus."

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Hyperlapse: A Time-Lapse Video Recording App from Instagram

 
Instagram today announced the arrival of Hyperlapse, a brand new stand-alone iOS app that allows you to easily create motion-stabilized, time-lapse videos on your smartphone.

“From documenting your whole commute in seconds or the preparation of your dinner from start to finish to capturing an entire sunset as it unfolds, we’re thrilled about the creative possibilities Hyperlapse unlocks,” the company wrote today on its official blog.

The Hyperlapse app works similarly to the existing Instagram app, though you don't need an Instagram account to use it. You simply need to tap your screen once to start recording and tap your screen again when you’re done. You then choose your video’s playback speed (from 1x to 12x) and tap the green checkmark to finish. Once created, your Hyperlapse video is yours to share with family or friends via text, email and — yes, even through Instagram.

You can learn more about Hyperlapse by checking out the short video below. If you want to give the app a try, it’s currently a free download for the iPhone and iPad on the Apple App Store.

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Oversized 12.9" Apple iPad Coming Next Year

Apple may be on the verge of releasing a new, bigger iPhone, but that’s not the only big change the company has planned for its flagship products. According to Bloomberg, Apple suppliers are to begin production of a new 12.9-inch iPad.

Production of the new tablets is expected “by the first quarter of next year.”

The oversized tablet will be a first for Apple, which currently manufactures a regular 9.7-inch iPad Air and a 7.9-inch iPad mini Retina. Of course, a larger tab will face competition from other manufacturers, including the Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12, the 12-inch Surface Pro 3 from Microsoft and convertible devices like the Lenovo Yoga.

No price has yet been set on the new, larger iPad, though you should expect to pay a significant premium over the $499 iPad Air for the larger screen.

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Googles Nexus X Will Run ‘Android 5.0‘

 Google's next Nexus handset - allegedly called Nexus X, not Nexus 6 - will reportedly launch to the public running Google's next big mobile update, Android L, according to the phone's alleged benchmarks posted by TKTechNews (via BGR's Chris Smith). Thing is, the alleged benchmarks don't list Android L. The "Nexus X from Google" is running "Android 5.0.

Google has never confirmed the major changes coming in Android L as "Android 5.0," but if these images and benchmarks are indeed legitimate, Android will finally move from Android 4.x, which has existed since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first arrived in October 2011. You can learn more about Android L, especially its new Material Design, here.

A separate report said Google will eventually rename Android L, which means Android 5.0 could be named "Lemon Meringue Pie."

As for the phone's AnTuTu benchmarks, which are the most popular benchmarks used to test all aspects of Android devices, we might see the Nexus X release with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, 3 GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, a 2K display, and 32 GB of storage standard.

According to previous reports from Phone Arena and TKTechNews, the Nexus X may feature a 5.7-inch or 6.3-inch screen to house that 2K display, and the phone may start shipping around October starting at a whopping $499 with a two-year contract.

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Data visualization experts in demand

These specialists need to have a rare combination of great programming skills, strong statistical capability, intuitive visual designing and exceptional user experience skills  

With enterprises looking at leveraging big data analytics tools to build a competitive edge, there has been a surge in the need for analytics specialists in the past. Within this domain, there is a subset of tech specialisation – data visualisers – which is emerging as a sought after hot profile by businesses.

“With data coming in from distributed sources and multiple enterprise apps, analysis of data is becoming more complex and the relevance of data visualisers is becoming more and more significant. The reason being, having huge volumes of relevant data is not enough. It needs to be converted into an easily consumable format for the business heads to analyse and deep dive,” said J Ramachandran, CEO, Gramener, a data visualization and analytics company.

The key function of a data visualization specialist is to represent the analysed data in an interactive visual format on an intuitive user interface providing a great user experience for business decision makers. Though this sounds very simple, the job profile is much more complex than what it seems.

Data visualization specialists need to be four-in-one

Ramachandran shared that a data visualization expert needs to be a rare combination of four core skill-sets.

• Great programming skills: The candidate must have great problem solving skills and should be an effective coder who can effortlessly design software

• Strong statistical capability: He/she should be able to crunch large chunks of data and be familiar with statistical and mathematical tools that can deconstruct huge data volumes which are in various formats

• Intuitive visual designing with a great sense of user experience: A data visualization specialist should have a great sense of visually representing data in a way that the brain can easily process it

• Deep understanding of customer needs: A data visualization expert would need to have a strong understanding about the visualization designs which best suits different industries and customer-cases. This is essential because every business case is different and the visualization and deep diving capabilities required from the data visualization platform varies accordingly

Job description of data visualization experts

Though the specific skill-sets a data visualization expert needs to have within a specific industry vertical differs on the basis of the industry’s specific needs, there are certain key areas of specializations which are being asked for, across all verticals. These are:

• Experience with basic visualization tools like Tableau, Qlikview, TiBCO, SpotFire, SAP Lumira, SAP XCelsius, Google Refine and Fusion Tables

• Sound knowledge of data warehouse and BI concepts

• Ability to architect BI and dashboard solutions

• Knowledge of advanced analytics and  statistics model

• Excellent visualization skills and understanding of user experience needs to present insight in a simple and comprehensive manner

• Expertise in coding for creating interactive visualizations

• Someone who doesn’t get intimidated by huge data volume and can juggle with various analytics tools to process the huge amount of data

Demand to increase in the next few years 

It is being observed that the requirement for data visualizers is quite strong within customer-data intensive verticals such as telecom which have to manage huge volumes of customer call data records; in regulation intensive verticals like BFSI which need to store and analyse financial data for compliance and regulatory purposes and customer-impact centric industries like retail, which depend very strongly on analytics tools to take quick business decisions based on the dynamic customer preferences.

With businesses understanding the potential of how big data can transform their business the role of big data analytics professionals, especially the data visualization specialists, is set to go up. This is a great trend for techies to tap into, because there is an increasing demand for such professionals, coupled with the fact that this combination is quite rare to find.

Currently in India, there are very few certifications available which can make a techie specialized in this area. Ramachandran shared that talent crunch is stark, when it comes to scouting the market for data visualization experts. Taking a cue from this, the tech academia should be aiming to constantly upgrade their course by gauging the emerging tech roles in demand within various industries. This would in turn equip the young techies with a better understanding of what the evolving businesses are set to demand from them.

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Missouri Senator Calls for All Police to Wear Cameras

In light of the national debate over police brutality and militarization, is it time for cops in the United States to start wearing video cameras when on patrol? According to Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, the answer is yes.

“Everywhere I go, people now have cameras,” McCaskill, a Democrat, noted during an event in her home state this week. “And police officers are now at a disadvantage, because someone can tape the last part of an encounter and not tape the first part of the encounter. And it gives the impression that the police officer has overreacted when they haven't.”

“I would like to see us say, 'If you want federal funding in your community, you've got to have body cams on your officers,'” she added.

McCaskill’s comments came in response to questions about the police shooting of Michael Brown in the town of Ferguson, Missouri. No video was taken of that event. In the days since, however, cellphone videos have surfaced showing Ferguson police threatening to kill protestors and committing other various abuses.

As noted earlier by Techlicious this year, it can cost $2,000 or more to outfit police officers with wearable cameras when all costs are considered. They’re worth the investment, however. Since the city of Rialto, California outfitted its police with cameras in 2012, there has been a significant reduction in both uses of force by officers and citizen complaints.

“I think it’s truly the wave of the future,” says Rialto Police Chief Tony Farrar of officer-mounted cameras.

McCaskill has yet to introduce legislation calling for action on police cameras.

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