Google CEO outlines vision to bring millions of Indians online

Google’s new chief executive Sundar Pichai used his first official visit to India Wednesday to outline plans to bring hundreds of millions of Indians online, including installing free wifi at railway stations.

The Indian-born Pichai said the first train station, Mumbai Central, would go online in January and the tech giant intended to cover 100 of India’s stations by the end of 2016.

India is a vast yet challenging market for Google with only a quarter of its 1.2 billion citizens online, most of whom access the web through cheap smartphones which often run on slow 2G networks.

Many Indian Internet users cannot afford expensive mobile data and instead wait for wifi connections to go online, making the 10 million people who pass through the target stations each day a captive audience.

“Every day there are thousands of Indian Internet users coming online for the first time, taking their journey in computing,” said Pichai, who grew up in Chennai and joined Google in 2004 as a product manager.

“We are just barely getting started,” said Pichai, who was named CEO in August.

“Given that India is embarking on the cutting edge of the mobile revolution, we think what we build in India will apply globally to many, many places.”

Google has also made its Maps and YouTube products partially available offline and created data-light versions of web pages that allow them to load more easily on slow Indian connections.

Another challenge is the linguistic diversity of India, which has more than 20 official languages and fewer than 200 million English-speaking Internet users.

A new virtual keyboard allows users to type in 11 Indic languages including Assamese and Punjabi, while voice searches recognise both Hindi and “Hinglish” — a mix of Hindi and English heard in many parts of the country.

Google also announced a programme Wednesday to train two million developers in its Android operating system over three years, in partnership with more than 30 Indian universities.

Apple has a secret laboratory in Taiwan where it's developing thinner and brighter iPhone displays, report says

By Yoni Heisler

Illustration photo. (REUTERS/Dado Ruvic)

In Apple’s never-ending quest to create even thinner devices, Bloomberg reports that Apple earlier this year opened up a new and secretive research lab in Taiwan. There, a team of about 50 engineers are working tirelessly to develop new display technologies that would ultimately allowApple to release products which are lighter, thinner, and more energy-efficient.

Located in the Longtan District of Taiwan, the report relays that Apple has already hired former engineers from AU Optronics and Qualcomm to help speed along development. Of course, the focus of Apple’s latest R&D lab is on iPhones and iPads; if there’s a way to make then even thinner, Apple wants to be on top of it.

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“Apple began operating the lab this year as it aims to make products thinner, lighter, brighter and more energy-efficient,”Bloomberg writes. “Engineers are developing more-advanced versions of the liquid-crystal displays currently used in iPhones, iPads and Mac personal computers, the people said. Apple also is keen to move to organic light-emitting diodes, which are even thinner and don’t require a backlight, they said.”

An interesting wrinkle to Apple’s new research initiative is that it may further lessen Apple’s reliance on Samsung. If Apple becomes more directly involved with the development of display technologies, outsourcing “to smaller manufacturers such as Taiwan’s AU Optronics or Innolux Corp.” may become a possibility. Additionally, Apple-designed iOS displays would help further differentiate the company’s mobile products from rivals.

Also worth highlighting is the claim that Apple has an interest in OLED displays, a rumor which we’ve seen sprout up with increasing frequency over the past few weeks. The most recent rumblings from the rumor mill suggest that Apple won’t make the transition to OLED displays until the iPhone 8, with the company already eying Samsung, Japan Display (a joint Hitachi, Sony and Toshiba venture), and LG as potential suppliers. In fact, LG last month confirmed that it was investing a minimum of $8.4 billion into a new OLED plant set to begin operations in early 2018, just enough time for it to be ready for mass iPhone 8 production if Apple goes down that route.

While there are some drawbacks to OLED displays (they’re more expensive, color saturation can dull over time), Apple is reportedly talking to suppliers about ways to address those issues. On the plus side, OLED displays are thin and light, incredibly energy-efficient, and provide rich and vibrant colors.

Regardless, it seems clear that for as great as the iPhone and iPad displays already are, Apple isn’t resting on its laurels and is working hard to make them even better.