Trai slams Facebook for a 'wholly misplaced' campaign, the company hits back

Net Neutrality Facts

The ongoing net neutrality debate in India has reached another level as Facebook and Trai tussle over unfair practices and lobbying.

Facebook’s accusation

Facebook has alleged that Trai’s office blocked email from its website that people were using to share their comments on differential pricing. Ankhi Das, director Facebook public policy, India and South Asia, wrote to Trai earlier this month.

Needless to say, Facebook had launched a public campaign to defend Free Basics that violates net neutrality. Differential pricing, the topic discussed in the consultation paper floated by Trai, is a key element of net neutrality. Banning differential pricing, means no discrimination and equal Internet for all, something Facebook’s Free Basic doesn’t follow.

Facebook, reportedly in a letter, told the regulator that despite comments from millions of Indians, “someone with access to designated Trai email account appears to have blocked receipt of all emails from Facebook to that Trai account.”

On December 17 at 5.51.53 (GMT) comments from Facebook were blocked which prevented further comments. The last date to send comments to Trai was 30 December and later changed to 7 January.

Number game

Going by the disclosed numbers, reports pointed out that Trai had received 24 lakh responses to its consultation paper on differential pricing for data services. Out of which, 13.5 lakh were sent via supportfreebasics.com and 5.44 lakh comments via facebookmail.com. Around 4.84 lakh comments came via forums such as Save the Internet. Trai said that most of them were in support for a ‘specific product Free Basics’ though the paper ‘hadn’t raised any such specific product’.

Ankhi Das reportedly claims that about 1.6 crore Facebook users have sent emails to Trai supporting Free Basics. Out of which 40 lakhs answered the specific questions addressed in the consultation paper.

Trai’s response

In response to Facebook’s letter, K V Sebastian, Joint Advisor (F & EA) has issued a letter stating how the Facebook’s standard template doesn’t address the issues raised in the consultation paper. Sebastian has shot back at Facebook saying if the responses were blocked, why did it take them so long to rake up the issue. He also pointed out another similar issue, which was immediately rectified and questioned Facebook why it took so long.

“If this were indeed the case, Trai should have been informed immediately for appropriate steps to be taken. In fact, a similar instance of user complaint regarding the non-functioning of an email address during the response period for this Consultation Paper was brought to the notice of Trai by individual stakeholders and the situation was immediately rectified. It is surprising that it took over 25 days for you to inform Trai of this,” he wrote in the letter.

He further added, “Your urging has the flavour of reducing this meaningful consultative exercise designed to produce informed decisions in a transparent manner into a crudely majoritarian and orchestrated opinion poll.” He also added that the social giant’s campaign was ‘wholly misplaced’.

“Neither the spirit nor the letter of a consultative process warants such an interpretation which, if accepted, has dangerous ramifications for policy-making in India,” he adds further.

The letter also emphasis on how Facebook doesn’t have the authority to speak for all its users. “Equally of concern is your self-appointed spokesmanship on behalf of those who have sent responses to Trai using your platform. It is noticed that you have not been authorised by your users to speak on behalf of them collectively. No disclosure in the act of sending a message to Trai using your platform to this effect has been issued to users,” he added.

You can read the complete letter by Trai to Facebook below:

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

Trai clearly states that Facebook responses didn’t exactly address the questions raised in the paper and only the responses that specifically answer the questions will be considered. The letter also signifies that Trai isn’t going to take anything lying down and won’t just rely on polls or number of responses. It also seems to point out how social media companies have the ability to influence others. Earlier, we have seen reports about how Facebook has been misleading users with its campaign.

Facebook responds

The ongoing drama intensifies as Facebook has released an official statement in response to the letter issued by Trai. The social networking site states how it enabled 11.7 million citizens to file comments in support of Free Basics, in response to Trai’s consultation paper. Facebook claims that Trai wants them to reach out to these supporters asking them to answer specific questions, but other commentators who didn’t answer specific questions weren’t asked to do so.

“TRAI requested that we reach out to these Free Basics supporters to ask them to also answer the specific questions raised by the consultative paper. We are not aware of a similar request having been made to any of the other commenters who did not answer these specific questions. Nevertheless, we attempted to cooperate with their request. While we did not include all of the specific language drafted by TRAI, we did deliver a request for additional information and included in the draft email the exact language from the four specific questions posed in the consultation paper. More than 1.4 million people responded by submitting revised comments that addressed these questions, ” says the Facebook spokesperson.

Google Maps: 10 Handy Tricks You Should Know

• 

  1. Save Your Home and Work Addresses

  Head to "My Places" on the top-left of the Google Maps page to save down your home and work addresses for easier directions and nearby searches.

• 

  2. Sharing Maps

  You can share maps via a short URL, an HTML embed, email, text message and even send maps to certain GPS units and cars.

  To generate a customizable embed code or URL, click on the link icon to the top-left of your display.

  Check the "Short URL" box if that's what you require, or click the link for "Customize and preview embedded map."

  If you want to send the link out (rather than copy/paste the text that's been generated), click "Send" for further options.

• 

  3. Use Google MapsGL

  If you're on an up-to-date computer, using a compatible browser (such as Chrome or Firefox), you can use Google Maps' Web Graphics Library (also known as WebGL) for better visuals and animations.

  It's worth enabling (Maps should prompt you) — you'll enjoy better graphics, see awesome 3D buildings and be able to move more smoothly into Street View.

• 

  4. Find Out More With "What's Here?"

  If you're browsing Google Maps and wondering about an area or even just a building, you can turn the search on its head.

  Rather than use the "Search nearby" function (which works on a keyword basis), you can right-click on the map and select "What's Here."

  Maps will pull up a list of interesting places in the vicinity you have selected.

• 

  5. See Info Layers

  Google Maps offers a plethora of information that you can see overlaid across its maps, from weather data to local videos.

  Simply hit the dropdown box on the right-hand side of your map, and then click the down arrow at bottom for the full list.

  Now you can check to see — where available — traffic data, cycle routes, Panoramio photos, video, public transport routes and even webcams in the area.

• 

  6. View Wikipedia Entries

  The same menu also offers a Wikipedia overlay, which shows geographically relevant entires over any map.

  To see the entries (shown as clickable "W" icons), click on the dropdown menu on the top-right of the map and check "Wikipedia."

• 

  7. Save Locations With Stars

  When you star an item, such as a business, attraction or landmark, you're essentially bookmarking or favoriting it.

  It will then appear on your maps as a special marker, and is listed in your "My Places" section for easy access.

• 

  8. Get Pegman's Help With Directions

  This is a nifty feature to help you visualize directions.

  Google integrates a little Street View link into each stage of the turn-by-turn directions generated when you plot a route.

  If you hover over a stage and then click on the tiny orange Pegman, you will see the Street View imagery for that exact location.

  This is really handy if you roughly know a route but want to make sure your are visualizing the correct location.

• 

  9. Create a Custom Map

  You can create your own custom map, complete with descriptive text, including rich text and HTML, photos and videos.

  Once you've made a map, you can make it public, share it with a select group of others, ask others to collaborate on the map's design and even view your map in Google Earth.

  To get started, head to the "My places" menu on the top-right hand side of your screen and click on "Create Map."

  Follow the interactive tutorial to help make your first map.

• 

  10. Explore More With Maps Labs

  Did you know Google Maps has some experimental "Labs" functionality?

  If you want to play around with some fun tools from Google engineers, check out the Distance Measurement Tool, Drag 'n' Zoom and advanced LatLng positioning. You can even take Maps back to "Beta."

Show As Gallery

BY AMY-MAE ELLIOTTAUG 16, 2012

Google Maps is a fantastic free tool, but we're guessing you don't have much spare time to play around with the service.

That's why we've gathered 10 useful tips to help you get more out of Maps. We'll teach you how to better visualize directions, personalize your experience and mine maps for more useful information.

SEE ALSO: 12 Mysterious Google Maps Sightings

Speed up torrent downloads

Hi friends! Today, I am going you to tell 5 ways to speed up torrent download. The ways are as follow-


1. Cap your upload (most important)
Limit your upload speed to approximately 80 percent of your maximum upload rate. You can check your upload speed over here (never trust your isp). Once you know your maximum upload speed, change the max upload (to 80%) speed in your torrent client’s preferences.
Don’t get me wrong, everyone should share as much as possible, but if your upload rate reached it’s max, your download rate suffers significantly.
2. Hack the max TCP connections
If you’re on XP sp2, your TCP connections are limited to a maximum of 10. This seriously hurts your downloading speed because it wont let you connect to a high amount of ip numbers. It is supposed to slow down viruses because their spreading strategy is to connect to a high amount of ip numbers, but it also cripples your torrent downloads.
A nice way to fix this is to download this patch, it allows you to set the maximum allowed connections to any number you want. Any number between 50 and 100 is ok .
3. Check seeds and peers
A simple tip, but o so important. Always look for torrents with the best seed/peer ratio. The more seeds (compared to peers) the better (in general). So 50 seeds and 50 peers is better than 500 seeds and 1000 peers. So, be selective.
4. Change the default port.
By default, BitTorrent uses a port 6881-6999. BitTorrent accounts for a lot of the total internet traffic (1/3), so isp’s like to limit the connection offered on the these ports. So, you should change these to another range. Good clients allow you to do this, just choose anything you like. If you’re behind a router, make sure you have the ports forwarded or UPnP enabled.
5. Disable Windows Firewall
It sucks. Windows Firewall hates P2P and often leads a life of it’s own. So disable it and get yourself a decent firewall, Kerio or Zone Alarm for example.

                                                                      ENJOY!

Useful Websites

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Apparently This Matters: Russian space sex geckos By Jarrett Bellini, CNN

Editor's note: Each week in "Apparently This Matters," CNN's Jarrett Bellini applies his warped sensibilities to trending topics in social media and random items of interest on the Web.

(CNN) -- Since the beginning of time, man has looked up into the cosmos at those shiny, twinkling stars and thought, "I wonder if lizards would do each other up there?"

So, finally, after all these years, and for the sake of humanity, Russian scientists decided to find out once and for all.

Because Russia.

Really, it was that or another inconclusive nesting doll experiment. And, somehow, stacking little wooden Gorbachevs doesn't quite have the same pizazz as closely monitoring outer-space lizard whoopee.

Thus, the world recently got introduced to Russia's brave "Space Sex Geckos."

"Apparently This Matters" Is Jarrett Bellini's weekly (and somewhat random) look at social-media trends.

The idea was this: Roscosmos (Russia's federal space agency) would send five of these little critters into orbit on board a Foton-M4 satellite to study sexual reproduction in zero gravity. Four geckos would be female. One would be male. And, for the sake of the experiment, hopefully straight.

"I don't know about that guy, Vlad. He's always watching 'Antiques Roadshow.' "

Assuming that they properly picked out a willing male gecko with a healthy libido, good looks and/or an impressive bank account, their hope was that the quintet of lizards would get into space and then violate each other in the most orderly way possible.

"How much room is there on board for whipped cream? Because I have lots of whipped cream."

Fortunately, they were Russian. So, I'm pretty sure the lizards already knew how to queue.

And if that wasn't weird enough, there would also be cameras on board so that scientists back on land could observe the space coitus. Yes, grown professionals, many with fancy degrees, were literally going to have to sit around and watch live lizard porn.

So, they had that going for them.

After choosing the lucky participants, on July 19th Roscosmos launched their (possibly fur-lined) satellite into space for what they hoped would be two full months of this bizarre Gecko Rumspringa.

But soon, after just several orbits, things went bad. Mission control lost contact with the satellite.

"Come in, space sex geckos. Come in. Moan once with desire if you can hear me."

But, seriously, who knew the lizards wouldn't survive inside of this thing?

Days later they were able to reestablish contact. However, it was unclear if the life-support system continued to function during the blackout. If not, it was unlikely that the geckos would survive.

On the plus side, had the geckos somehow become aware of their impending doom, I'm guessing there would've been several rounds of camera-free, super kinky, we're-all-going-to-die lizard sex.

"Hey, ladies! Look who brought whipped cream and tiny handcuffs!"

As the Russian space agency began sharing updates with the public, it quickly became a running joke online. The space sex geckos were suddenly famous to the world.

But probably dead, for their clumsy end was perilously near. Which sort of takes the fun out of being international lizard celebrities.

Nevertheless, they were stars. Even comedian John Oliver, on his HBO show "Last Week Tonight," latched on to the story and started the Twitter hashtag #GoGetThoseGeckos.

However, on Monday, a couple weeks short of its intended stay in space, the satellite came crashing back down to Earth, where the world finally learned the fate of the space sex geckos.

In a statement, Roscosmos later confirmed their worst fear. Something went horribly wrong.

And the lizards ... they have died.

Frozen and mummified from having expired at least a week prior to impact, the tiny remains of the space sex geckos were recovered from a quiet field where the craft landed. Fallen heroes. Possibly aroused.

But it wasn't only death and failure. Because a colony of fruit flies was also put on board for the mission, and they were found healthy and alive in a different chamber of the satellite. And, apparently, they managed to do what the lizards likely couldn't. The nasty.

In fact, at the expense of God-knows-how-many rubles, new generations of offspring were conceived while in orbit. And now -- lucky us -- the world has more fruit flies.

Is it Time to Develop for Google Glass?

We know what you are thinking: Oh don’t say this, you can’t be serious! We just got our heads around mobile and put out a few decent enterprise apps that people actually use… no, no no no no no! Not listening to this … la la la la la… Great weather we’re having!!! What??? Yes I enjoyed Anchorman very much, you??? 
OK… maybe that’s not EXACTLY what you’re thinking, but likely it’s close. It’s OK to admit it. And here is the “good” news … the answer to the blog post question is…
Maybe.
Glass is going to be – and please pardon this clear non-word – “nicheier” than you may imagine. The purposes behind why people will want to wear and use Glass will be more specific than say that of the smartphone, and the apps created on top of this wearable platform will be significantly more niche than that for the current mobile device. 
Let’s start with the super obvious groups that need to be developing on Glass now. If your industry is entertainment, music streaming, social, media, fitness, sporting goods/apparel/equipment – and there are others – then yes; you should already be experimenting with creating new user experiences on Glass. Just as mobile changed the game the world over, Glass (and the larger umbrella of wearable technologies) is set to do it all over again.
Let’s talk about a potential example: If you are say, Pandora, isn’t it just patently obvious that you are going to want to lead in your category and bring new user experiences to a platform like ‘Glass’? Currently, many times when you are using Pandora, the phone is either in your pocket, strapped to your arm band during a run, in your hand but you are texting someone anyway, on your dash as the tunes stream through your audio system, or inside on the counter as you sit next to the bluetooth speaker out on your deck. But what should Pandora do, strategically, when all of the sudden the application has the opportunity to be the center of attention? And not just the audio content but the visual content as well. Should Pandora just recreate the current mobile experience, delivering solid band bios and such? Absolutely not. Likely, they will re-invent how user’s experience Pandora through ‘Glass’, add services, add smart visually-based content, re-think how audio can interact with visual in compelling ways, and by doing all of this… convert more users to a premium subscription OR push more effective advertising to the end-user. Either path makes Pandora more money. No path will be presented if they fail to innovate.
But what about the not so obvious? What types of industries are we talking about here? Let’s start from the macro and say; any industry where your organization has people “out in the field” will likely need to develop on Google Glass. Electricians, surgeons, police officers, masons, foremans, military, welders, agriculture, auto, service providers – any industry where your people will gain productivity or safety because both hands are always free, will be an industry that will be developing on glass. We understand, a surgeon isn’t tweeting during surgery – she waits until post-op like the rest of us! – but what if the surgeon never had to reach for her mobile to receive an emergency message or look down at a patient’s chart as a trauma case entered her OR? Then, there is the very real promise that a surgeon could perform even more accurately while actively wearing and engaging a glass app during surgery. What if ‘glass’ could make her even better? Think this is far fetched? Meet Dr. Rafael Grossmann and read this Forbes.com article, then tell me how far-fetched this is.
In the same exact way that the best mobile applications are true new experiences that eloquently use the sensors and services mobile can provide; the best Google Glass applications will do the same. Just as porting your website to the mobile device made for a really crummy, and worse, mainly non-useful mobile experience, porting your mobile app to ‘Glass’ will create most often, an all too familiar poor experience. In short, it’s time to innovate again. 

Related Read: Why Your Mobile User Experience  Must Be a “Useful” Experience

The content in this post will sound “old” faster than you likely envision. Is it time for you to develop for Google Glass? The answer is, at the very least; maybe.

Ignite Your Front End of Innovation

In a very recent post on the TopCoder Blog, we discussed what you should really be after in Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing. In your front end of digital innovation – spanning ideation, concept designs, UI/UX experimentation all the way through prototyping – you should be after one thing, vision. You want an incredible variety of new ways to create value for your end users. When you utilizeOpen Innovation and Crowdsourcing to develop mobile applications, you receive scores of submissions throughout your front end, affording you more looks, created by people outside your four walls, that can help you bring new user experiences to market. As Lady Gaga has shown us, when you change the user experience, you win the game. 

Sprinting to Prototype

Receiving dozens of quality submissions at every phase of  your front end of digital innovation is one huge benefit to utilizing Crowdsourcing to create mobile apps. But if it occurs at a snail’s pace, it is all for naught. However, when you marry the variety of looks and feels you will receive with a sincere acceleration of the innovation and production timeline, the decision to leverage Crowdsourcingand Open Innovation becomes that much smarter and more powerful. How fast? From idea contests through prototypes in a matter of 4 – 8 weeks depending on the complexity of the app.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Besides the obvious advantages of getting an app. to market faster, there is a more subtle layer and that deals with the incredible amount of ways in which you can choose to bring a mobile app to life. For instance, for a Global 50 client of TopCoder’s – sorry we cannot share the name of the client – we recently completed a complex iPad sales and marketing application that is loaded with 382 articles, PDFs, videos and instructional/sales content. The app was developed in Xcode and the CMS was custom designed utilizing Python/Django. The client’s ability to pivot on demand, to the languages that best fit the build allows for an innovative liquidity that only an open innovation, community-created model can provide. This offers you the hyperspecialized talent you need, working on the atomized portion of the build, exactly when you need them. That is digital innovation on-demand. 

Understand Atomization and Why it Matters to Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation(Page 3 of the Archived Webinars)

 

Testing, Testing 1, 2, 3,000

When it comes time to test your mobile or tablet application, Crowdsourcingand Open Innovation offer a superior alternative and this one is simply a volume play. In a development community like TopCoder, you have specialists who are really good at the art of “nit-picking”, so we craft contests specifically honed to their penchant for perfection. By attracting dozens and even hundreds of participants to mobile app testing and bug “hunting”, you receive a massively parallel effort that helps you more quickly, and more thoroughly test your app. 

Related Read: Hunting Bugs and the Power of Cognitive Surplus

Version 2.0 (It’s About Documentation)

Documentation? I thought we were talking about Open Innovation!?? We are and amazing documentation of how your first build was crafted is a key to successfully creating updates. A wonderful consequence of crowdsourced competitions (on the right platform) is incredible and didactic documentation showcasing every phase of the build and how it was brought to life. When this level of expert documentation is delivered as part of the digital assets you are receiving, it simply makes spinning up a V2 that much easier, faster and less expensive.

Show Me the Money

Crowdsourcing and Open Innovation can often save you money when developing mobile applications because the mechanism to create the digital assets is of course open competition. The competitions have pre-determined and transparent budgets, so you as the “host” of the competition understand before-hand what prize monies you are offering and therefore, what that part of the build is going to cost. A great and recent example of cost savings in mobile application development was the work done via the TopCoder Community for a start-up named Reward Summit. Their mobile application allows a consumer to quickly ascertain which credit card they should use for specific purchases to maximize credit card points and loyalty rewards. It’s an internally complex app – tons of paths, tied to disparate data sets – that required a seamless and intuitive user interface to succeed. They were able to develop this application via TopCoder at a cost of approximately 10% what a competitor of theirs recently reported spending on their build. 

For more details on this complex build, click here to explore the Reward Summit Case Study

 

The era of mobile applications is nowhere near a close. Sure, the device may change from a smartphone, to a tablet, to Google Goggles and onward to asheath of Graphene. But your need to create intuitive new interfaces and to bring these solutions to market faster and on less spend will not ebb. Crowdsourcingand Open Innovation has a major role to play in the applications of your future