Today’s Tech Sightings:
India Needs China’s 3-D Printing Construction Technology Now
Building a house in India takes about six months, on average. But recently, a Chinese company put together a 3-D-printed house in a matter of three hours. Writer Abhimanyu Ghoshal argues that India could use this technology to pare down the time it needs to build homes, cut back on noise and pollution, reduce reliance on migrant labor from rural areas, and address wage disparities.
Technology Can Make a Better World, If We Want It to
Writing in the New York Times, Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said the power of technology can be transformative, depending on how people decide to use it to affect their world and benefit others.
Netmarble Takes Stake in SGN, Extending Asia’s Reach Into US Mobile Games
Video games are very big and very lucrative in Asia; and Asian game makers are increasingly reaching into the U.S. market. The latest move in this trend was a $130 million investment in SGN (Social Gaming Network), one of the United States’ largest mobile game studios, from South Korean mobile game publisher, Netmarble. Industry observers say Asian game developers see this trend as an opportunity to port their content to the West.
Thousands of Apps Secretly Run Ads That Users Can’t See
A new report from Forensiq, a company that tracks fraud in online advertising, found as many as 5,000 Apple and Android apps secretly run advertisements without the knowledge of smartphone users – a practice that defrauds marketers and slows down mobile devices. The study found at least one app practiced this type of fraud on one percent of devices examined in the United States, while in Europe and Asia, 2-3 percent of the devices had fake ads.
Google Patches 43 Critical Security Flaws in Chrome
Up to 43 security problems in Google’s Chrome browser, many of them critical, have been fixed as part of the Chrome 44 update for Windows, Mac and Linux. Many of the bugs were submitted by external security researchers. Google has a bug bounty program that grants researchers financial rewards based on the severity of the issues they uncover.
Line Launches Lightweight Version of Its Messaging App for Android
Messaging service Line now has an Android version with the same features as the mainstream app, but without audio and video support. The Android app also drops the Timeline feature, but lets users save on storage space and data.
