NCR Launches Select Edition Small Footprint ATMs for Remote, Underserved Locations

NCR Corporation unveiled its SelfServ Select Edition (SE) Cash and SE Recycle ATMs, that will help financial institutions (FIs) to expand their reach and serve the more than 19% unbanked population in India. This new, small-footprint ATM technology from NCR is designed to enable banks to offer access to cash in remote, previously underserved locations.

India remains overwhelmingly a cash economy with more than 50% of all retail transactions completed using cash – an estimated 18.5 billion will be withdrawn from ATMs in 2018 alone. That number is estimated to reach 26 billion by 2022.

AMD's first Ryzen desktop processors with Radeon Vega graphics launched

AMD's first Ryzen desktop processors with Radeon Vega graphics launche

 US-based semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has launched two Ryzen Desktop processor -- AMD Ryzen 5 2400G and AMDRyzen 3 2200G -- with built-in Radeon Vega graphics models at $169 and $99 respectively.

According to the company, the Ryzen 5 2400G processor delivers the same graphics performance in a single processor as the Intel Core i5-8400($199) clubbed with NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 ($89) discrete gaming GPU. AMD has also claimed that this chipset delivers up to 156% more graphics as well as up to 21% more system performance than the Intel Core i5-8400 and up to 39% faster graphics performance when overclocked.

Like the other AMD Ryzen Desktop processors, Ryzen Desktop APUs are unlocked for performance tuning of CPU, DRAM, and GPU settings through the AMD Ryzen Master overclocking utility. Also, the Ryzen Desktop APUs support the same Socket AM4 infrastructure as Ryzen Desktop CPUs. Meaning that the processors are compatible with the existing AM4 ecosystem of over 120 motherboards, and will require a simple BIOS update.

Samsung Portable SSD T5

HIGHLIGHTS

Samsung Portable SSD T5 is available in four different capacities

It's the fastest portable SSD we've tested till date

Price starts at Rs. 9,999 (MOP) for the 250GB model

Samsung T5 design and box contents

At 51g and 74x57.3x10.5mm (3.0x2.3x0.4 inches), the Samsung T5 is practically identical to its predecessor - the T3 - in terms of size and weight. It’s a tiny bit smaller than most credit and business cards, but a little bit thicker than the average smartphone. You won’t have any trouble fitting it in your pocket.

Samsung T5 specifications, features, and performance

The Samsung T5 has support for USB 3.1 Gen. 2 connectivity, which offers theoretical speeds up to 10Gbps; double of what the T3 supported with USB 3.1 Gen. 1. Of course the actual speeds you can expect to get are much lower. The Samsung T5 is rated for transfer speeds of up to 540MBps, a 20 percent bump on paper compared to the T3.

We connected the Samsung T5 to a HP Spectre 13 laptop using the bundled Type-C to Type-C cable to run some benchmarks and find out if it lives up to its claims. In CrystalDiskMark v6.0.0, we recorded sequential reads of over 550MBps and sequential writes of 499.9MBps, with the former topping Samsung’s own claims. With a queue depth of 32, we got random read and write speeds of 150.7MBps and 147.2MBps respectively, which are great. Our real-world experience was equally good, and we were able to copy a 5.2GB file from the SSD on a 13-inch 2016 MacBook Pro laptop to the Samsung T5 in 10 seconds.

WhatsApp Business App for SMEs Now Available in India

Just days after its initial rollout, the WhatsApp Business app has now debuted in India. The standalone app offers a simple tool for small businesses to let them communicate with their clients and customers in an easy way. Facebook-owned WhatsApp announced the plans to kick off its WhatsApp for Business initiative back in September last year and launched a pilot by partnering with companiessuch as BookMyShow, Netflix, and MakeMyTrip. The new app, for small businesses, arrived first in a handful of markets, including Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the UK, and the US, on Friday. Interestingly, the app was initially tested in India and Brazil ahead of its public release.
The WhatsApp Business app is now available for free download via Google Play in India. It is compatible with devices running Android 4.0.3 and above. A version with similar features is also expected to be available for iOS devices in the coming future.

Happy republic day

Cashbacks, Rewards, and the Growth of Google Tez Payment App in India

Tez, Google's payments app for India that's built on top of the country's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), was launched in September last year. By early December - a little less than three months after the launch - the app had clocked 12 million users and 140 million transactions.

Those are impressive numbers, even if the government backed UPI app BHIM, which also launched last year, clocked 10 million users at a much faster rate - within 10 days. In terms of the number of transactions, however, Tez has completely blown past its competition.

When Gadgets 360 reached out to Google this week, the company reiterated that Tez has seen over 140 million transactions in the roughly three months since it launched on September 18. In contrast, according to figures from the National Payments Corporation of India - the entity that operates the payments interface UPI - the government-based BHIM app has seen just about 62 million transactions over 12 months, with only 9 million transactions in December.

Why the huge difference in the number of transactions, despite the two apps having similar user numbers? Is Google Tez such a game changer? At the time of the Tez launch, DD Mishra, Research Director, Gartner had said that Tez had the potential to do so. "It is too early to say whether it can be a game changer, but yes it has the capabilities to bring some disruption," he had said.

Google, on its part, credits the success of the Tez app to its "simplicity".

"People prefer simple, safe and trusted apps that are widely used. We’re happy that people are recommending Tez to their friends and family because they like the simplicity of the product," a company spokesperson told Gadgets 360.

Toshiba Introduced World’s First 14TB HDD

Toshiba Electronic Components Taiwan Corporation has announced the launch of the MG07ACA Series, the world’s first enterprise 14TB Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) HDD.

Using a 9-disk, helium-sealed design, the new MG07ACA Series provides the power-efficient capacity and storage density needed by cloud-scale and enterprise storage solution providers to achieve their TCO objectives.

“We have raised the bar with the new MG07ACA Series 9-disk helium-sealed design,” said Tadashi Sakaue, Division President, Storage Products Division, Toshiba Electronics Components Taiwan Corporation.“By utilizing an innovative design, we continue to improve the benefits that high-capacity disk storage can deliver to our broad global customer base.”

The MG07ACA Series features both 14TB 9-disk and 12TB 8-disk models. The helium-sealed 3.5-inch[3] mechanical design realizes better storage density and a lower HDD operating power profile than the previous MG06ACA Series for optimal TCO in cloud-scale infrastructures.