Aiming to undercut Apple's latest hit service, Google is teaming up with three major US wireless carriers to prod more people into using its mobile wallet.

The counterattack announced on Monday is just the latest example of how the competition between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. is extending beyond the technology industry's traditional boundaries. Besides payments, Silicon Valley's two richest companies are expanding into fields such as home appliances and cars to increase their power and profits.

Google's latest volley calls for its payment service to be built into Android smartphones sold by AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA later this year. Smartphone owners currently have to download the service, called Google Wallet, and install the app on their phone if they want to use it to buy something instead of pulling out cash or a credit card.

Apple's ricval service, Apple Pay, already comes embedded in the latest versions of the company's mobile software.

Besides trying to make it more convenient to use Wallet, Google also is hoping to improve the nearly 4-year-old service. Toward that end, Google Inc. is buying some mobile payment technology and patents from Softcard, a 5-year-old venture owned by the wireless carriers. Financial terms weren't disclosed.

Although Google and the wireless carriers got a head start with their digital wallets, the concept hadn't gained much traction until Apple Pay debuted last fall.

The service has become more popular than Apple expected, according to a recent presentation by CEO Tim Cook.

Just three months after Apple Pay's November debut, Cook said the service accounted for two out of every three dollars spent across the three major US card networks, when no card was used. About 2,000 banks and credit unions have agreed to offer Apple Pay to its customers. Apple hasn't said how many merchants are set up to handle its mobile payment services.

If Apple builds on that early momentum, the Cupertino, California, company could become the leader in what is expected to be a booming market. Nearly 16 million US consumers spent about $3.5 billion on tap-and-pay services last year, according to the research firm eMarketer. By 2018, eMarketer predicts those figures will rise to 57 million US consumers spending about $118 billion.

Companies that provide mobile wallets make money by collecting processing fees from merchants and banks.

Samsung Electronics, another major smartphone maker, may be ready to join the fray after buying a mobile payment startup called LoopPay. That deal, announced last week, fueled speculation that Samsung will include a digital wallet on its next phone.

Apple Pay's popularity probably helped forge the unlikely alliance between Google and the wireless carriers. Google traditionally has had a prickly relationship with the carriers, largely because it doesn't believe enough has been done to upgrade wireless networks and make them cheaper so more people can spend more time online. Media reports say Google is considering selling its own wireless plans to consumers.

The pre-installation of the Wallet app is similar to what Google already does with its search engine, Gmail and YouTube on millions of other phones running on Android -- an operating system that Google has been giving away for years to ensure people keep using its products on mobile devices. Google profits from the traffic by showing ads.

A shape-changing, snake-like robot is ready for probing the molten radioactive fuel containers in the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Japan. Three nuclear reactors in the stricken plant suffered catastrophic fuel meltdowns in March 2011 after getting hammered by an earthquake and tsunami.

The highly radioactive fuel melted and broke through the containment vessel in at least one of the reactors. Radioactivity is immensely high in the reactors and it is impossible for humans to enter even with protective gear.

The clean-up and decommissioning of the nuclear plant is likely to take 40 years and cost over $15 billion.

The 60-centimeter (2-foot) long robot has been developed by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning, an organization made up of electric power companies and nuclear power plant manufacturers, with a government subsidy. It was demonstrated this week at a facility northeast of Tokyo. It is expected to enter the Unit 1 reactor this spring.

The robot is tubular and it is designed to go through a 10 centimeter wide electrical wiring pipe in order to enter the containment chamber. Emerging from the pipe, it will dangle down and reach a platform near the reactor core's bottom layer.

Changing shape to become U-shaped, the robot will take pictures and measure radioactivity and temperature for transmitting to the control station outside.

"Depending on how much data we can collect from this area, I believe (the probe) will give us a clearer vision for future decommissioning," Hitachi-GE engineer Yoshitomo Takahashi said, according to Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun. Through computer simulations scientists think that the fuel rods in Unit 1 reactor "probably melted and fell to the bottom of the containment chamber" Asahi Shimbun said.

In 2012, technicians tried to insert a fiberscope to find out the situation but images were of no use. Several other attempts to send in robots have been made in the past four years but with very limited success. The first to be tried were were the US-made PackBot and Warrior robots. Then, in the summer of 2011, the Japanese made Quince bots surveyed the reactor buildings. One was sent inside Unit 2 but it got entangled in its own cable and is still sitting there.

In order to assess debris on the bottom and submerged underwater, an amphibious robot is being developed for deployment next year.

Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia Networks said that it will showcase the possibilities of mobile connectivity for the Internet of Things (IoT) with 5G at the upcoming Mobile World Congress 2015.

The live demonstrations will include 5G radio equipment on new millimeter and centimeter wave bands for utmost capacity as well as new frame structures to achieve single-digit millisecond latency.

"Within the next ten years, we will see 50 billion things connected, enabling industries to become more efficient and helping people to improve their daily lives. At Nokia Networks, we are already demonstrating key technologies like 5G that will make mobile networks the natural choice for bringing these possibilities to reality," Kathrin Buvac, vice president, Strategy, Nokia Networks, said in a statement.

Mars rovers: Shortlist of 100 applicants for the one-way trip to the Red Planet to be announced

Some have said it’s a pie-in-the-sky idea, but it’s not: it’s a pie-on-Mars idea. And, for the moment at least, it is beyond Nasa’s reach.

First there were 200,000 people who wanted to give up life on Earth and travel to Mars – and not return. They included doctors, lawyers, students and, of course, scientists. Yesterday, they were being whittled down to a shortlist of 100, to be announced on Monday. Just 24 of them will get to leave Earth.

The name of the organisation that could be the first to put humans on the Red Planet is Mars One – as in “one-way”. It will launch people into space, land them on Mars and attempt to keep them alive for the length of their natural lives – but it won’t be bringing them back.

The critics of Mars One number almost as many as those willing to die on the red planet. “There are so many unknowns with this mission, and so many possible ways the whole endeavour could fall apart,” wrote Amy Shira Teitel in Physics Focus when the mission was announced.

“It will be an interesting mission to follow, but I suspect it will be another in the growing list of old and abandoned Mars plans that have been forgotten by everyone save a handful of historians.”

The project was dreamt up by Bas Lansdorp, a Dutch entrepreneur, who says he has “never been one to let bold ventures intimidate him”. Arno Wielders, the project’s chief technical officer, has been involved in space telescopes and ozone-monitoring projects since gaining an MSc in physics at the Free University of Amsterdam in 1997. But the prospect of sending crews to Mars has defeated the brightest minds in the world. It has also defeated governments with the deepest pockets on Earth.

Explaining how the seemingly unachievable could be achieved, Mars One says: “Much of what was learned from Skylab, Mir and the International Space Station has resulted in vital data, experiences with systems and related know-how – all of which are applicable to living on Mars.”

True, perhaps, but there is still the matter of transporting crews of four to Mars – a journey of at least 33 million miles (the planet’s maximum separation from Earth is 249 million miles). Then they will have to be landed safely, and resources found to keep them alive.

First, though, the two dozen candidates, broken into six teams of four people, will spend nine years training and preparing, while competing against each other to determine which group will leave for Mars first. To help fund the estimated £4bn trip (so far only £500,000 has been raised), their experiences will be broadcast in a new reality television show.

Sixty-three of the remaining hopefuls have PhDs, and 12 are doctors. They include lawyers, pilots, veterans and businessmen. They come from all over the world. The youngest is 18, the oldest 71.

Among the 36 Britons is Ryan MacDonald, 20, a physics student at Oxford University. “By going to Mars I suspect I could accomplish much more for science than I could as one of seven billion people on Earth,” he told ITV last month.

Maggie Lieu, 24, from Coventry, told BBC’s Newsbeat yesterday that she was unconcerned about leaving her friends and family for good. “It’s true I’ll never be able to see [them] ever again in person, but I’ll be able to see their pictures, I’ll still have access to the internet.”

She added: “I’m very open to having a baby on Mars. I think it would be really exciting to be the mother of the first ever baby born there. My baby could be the first ever Martian: we’d be the Adam and Eve of Mars.”

Nasa has no public plans to attempt a human landing on Mars until the 2030s, and it will only be sending experienced astronauts. Mars One, by contrast, is happy to train non-astronauts.

By 2018 a communication satellite will have been launched into Mars’ orbit, Mars One says. Two years later a rover will be launched, and in 2022 cargo will the sent to Mars for the crew to live in. The first crew will land in 2025 and a second a year later. Who the members of that crew will be will become clearer next week.

FACEBOOK BUG THAT EARNED 12500 DOLLARS

© Provided by The Verge

This week, a researcher named Laxman Muthiyah discovered up a bug that let him delete any photo album on Facebook, and walked away with $12,500 for his trouble. The bug targeted Facebook's Graph API, which lets users delete their own photo albums with a single command, corresponding to the "delete album" button. Because of a mistake on Facebook's part, that request could potentially target any album on the network, as long as the user was logged in through the mobile version of the API. After some troubleshooting, Muthiyah settled on the following request as the silver bullet for deleting any album off the network:

Request :-
DELETE /518171421550249 HTTP/1.1
Host : graph.facebook.com 
Content-Length: 245
access_token= facebook_for_android_access_token

Muthiyah reported the vulnerability to Facebook and the company wrote back in just two hours, saying the bug was fixed and offering him $12,500 through Facebook's bug bounty program. Presumably, the fix was simple — altering the mobile app permissions was likely enough — but it's a reminder of how much damage even a small bug can do. Sophos has already speculated that the bug could have been used to delete every photo on Facebook, provided the attackers used a botnet to get around any rate-limiting provisions. Luckily, Muthiyah did the right thing and reported the bug, walking away with a sizable reward.

5 reasons why Android Wear has not been a success.

When Google announced Android Wear, it was highly expected that Google will be able to replicate Android's mobile success and take it forward with the wearables. But it seems like the plans have not gone according to their expectations. 

Recent report on wearable market via Canalys has deemed Motorola Moto 360 as the best-selling Android Wear (AW) in the market. Which hardly comes as surprise, considering Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony and Asus are the only brands to announce their respective wearable watch last year? 

Overall, wearable business has done well with 4.6 million units sold but the fact that only 720,000 of those were running on AW is a sight of concern for Google and its wearable team. So, when AW has the most competent product in the form of Moto 360, why hasn't the supporting wearable platform been accepted by consumers across the globe? The fact that 4.6 million wearables sold is an exciting reading to gauge but how many of those actually constitute under the smartwatch segment? And that is exactly the reason behind AW holding less than one-fifth of total wearables sold last year. 

Here are some cases to consider for Android Wear's poor showing: 

Too early into the space
Last year was seen as the birth of a new form factor and how technology was getting closer to us, day-by-day. Android Wear was supposed to enable wearables to become unified under one platform (like how mobile has become) but that hasn't proven to be the case. Taking Google's heed, Apple smartly decided to weather the initial storm and bring out Apple Watch for the public, after reading the market's traction. 



Wearables need to evolve
As you can see with the numbers, fitness band seems to have been the primary benefactors of this segment. The likes of FitBit, Jawbone etc. have rallied as they are more affordable than smartwatch (running AW). Watches right now are, not functionally worthy of its value, or too similar to fitness bands in lot of aspects. 

It's not the hardware but software
While Android isn't the reason behind many manufacturer's hardware fall but same cannot be said for its wearable cousin. Lot of issues crept up with the first version of AW and similar pattern has been observed with the newer version as well. Google has to find the right formula between software and hardware to get the platform up and running, otherwise Apple might have a bigger say in 2015 with its much delayed Apple Watch (running on iOS). Brands have gotten tired with AW and they've started (or already made) software for wearables on their own. 

Too much happening
Wearables were introduced purely to ease the use of your phone and offer you convenience of communicating without having to hold your device in your hand. But by adding apps, virtual keyboard, fitness and music among others, Google has somewhat lost the true essence of having a unified wearable platform. AW needs clarity, simplicity and effective functionality, all principles that the search giant preaches wholeheartedly. 

And yes, the battery
Talking about AW doesn't end without referring to its maligned battery life support. Yes, with Lollipop version, things have marginally improved but wearables are meant to last (at least) for couple of days if not more but with AW (as seen on Moto 360), its case of charging once (or twice) in a day. And for its worth, you won't really bother paying anywhere close to Rs 10,000 for such a product, let along Rs 18,000 (price of Moto 360 in India). 

In the end all we'd like to say is, 'dear Google we need the AW to become with wearable, just like how Android teams up with mobile seamlessly'. And before Apple manages to steal your thunder, we fully expect you to find the right balance with Android Wear (hopefully at Google I/O 2015).

12 Lesser-Known Google Projects That Are Absolutely Amazing

Explore some of the lesser-known creative projects from Google that are also excellent educational tools.

Google revolutionized the Internet by making the global brain easily searchable by anyone. In addition to search, Google has created all kinds of different tools like Google Maps, Gmail, Analytics, Android and Apps that many of us use everyday.

One of the reasons why Google has consistently released new innovative project is because of their 20% time policy, which gives many of their employees one day a week to experiment with new concepts and ideas. This has resulted in many lesser-known creative projects that have emerged from within Googleplex.

In this post, I want to show you some of most fascinating websites that Google employees have created and how you can use them as educational tools.

1. Google Trends Visualizer

Tap into the visual intelligence of the global brain by visualizing search trends as they are happening right now in every country in the world. I recommend downloading the free Google Trends Visualizer screensaver so you can observe real-time trends anytime.

2. World Wonders Project

Explore the ancient and modern wonders of the world like Angor Wat, the Pyramids of Giza, Stonehenge and the Great Barrier Reef in high-res photos and 3D Street View style imagery. It will surely inspire you to learn more about these mysterious and beautiful places.

3. Solve For X

Solve For A is a platform for discussing radical technology ideas for solving global problems. Inspired by Google X, this website will challenge you to think bigger and to speculate about technological “moonshots” that could change the world for the better.

4. Google Public Data Explorer

Search through databases from around the world, including the World Bank, OECD, Eurostat and the U.S. Census Bureau. After you find what you want, filter through categories to make graphs with the axes you want.

5. The Evolution of the Web

Explore the evolution of the technologies that power the World Wide Web. You can even look at how webpages and technologies like web browsers used to look like, if you want to be reminded of how far we have come in such a short time.

6. Ingress

Google’s intriguing augmented reality mobile game for iPhone and Android. Discover interesting places where you live in this urban exploration game.

7. Google Sky

I’m sure you’ve explored Google Earth, but did you know that you can fly through space with Google Sky? In addition to exploring our solar system and distant constellations, you can also check out the awe-inspiring topography of Google Moon and Google Mars.

8. Build LEGO With Chrome

Now you can build with LEGO bricks using Google Maps as your baseplate in Chrome. Google and LEGO have built an excellent creative academy that shows you how to build your own LEGO cities and LEGO-fied versions of popular landmarks.

9. Google Art Project

Browse super his-res photos of artwork from over 400 of the world’s greatest art museums. You can take virtual gallery tours with audio and video guidance, zoom in on individual artwork masterpieces and even create your own virtual collections.

10. Creative Sandbox Guide

Google’s Creative Sandbox is a guide to ideas that blend creativity with technology. It shows you how to use new technology to solve problems for businesses and organizations and ties together with their excellent educational resources Think With Google and Our Mobile Planet.

11. Google Earth Flight Simulator

I’m sure you’ve probably already heard of Google Earth but if you haven’t used it in the last year, you’ll be amazed at the 3D detail in the latest version. Zoom in on the 3D ridgelines of mountaintops and between skyscrapers in major cities. To activate the awesome flight simulator download Google Earth and and press CTRL + Option + A.

12. SmartyPins

Google has recently released a new Maps game called SmartyPins for geographic trivia. It’s a fun way to explore and learn about your community.

According to Twitter's latest transparency report, India government authorities requested for removal of only 15 posts from Twitter for the period of July to December last year. Google, on the other hand, received 2,794 data requests from the government agencies from January to June 2014, a number that has increased every reporting period since the first in 2009.

Over the same period, Facebook said it had complied with requests to restrict 4,960 pieces of content.

User and block requests from Google were primarily for its online video portal YouTube. Professional social networking site LinkedIn was solicited for details of just five user accounts.

Indian authorities' obsession with Facebook and YouTube has given some breather to Twitter users, who seem to enjoy much higher level of freedom of expression.

The authorities have arrested a larger number of people in the last one year for posting objectionable material on Facebook.

Many similar posts on Twitter, however, have either gone unnoticed by the government or little concern was shown.

"An important factor is that Twitter is highly non-cooperative when it comes to requests from Law Enforcement," said advocate Prashant Mali, Mumbai-based Cybercrime expert.This makes it difficult for the government to get anything blocked on the platform.

There are an estimated 17 million Twitter users in India, growing at close to 50% year-over-year, but representing only 8.8% of internet users in the country.

On the other hand, Facebook has over 112 million monthly active users in India, while LinkedIn has over 24 million.

"It is also possible that increased local language content and easy sharing of videos and photographs influence decisions about which platform is seen as more likely to facilitate incitement to violence," said Chinmayi Arun, research director at Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi.

Twitter posts have so far caused only one arrest in the country, when a Bengaluru youth was found operating a pro-ISIS Twitter account and was charged under sections 125 of IPC, 18 and 39 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and 66 of the IT Act.

Most of the arrests for objectionable content on Facebook and Google, on the other hand, have taken place under sections 66(A) and 67 of the Information Techonology Act, which relate to sending offensive messages through communication service and for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form.

While so far, Twitter users has enjoyed higher freedom of speech in India, it may not last too long as the government prepares for a central monitoring system that'll allow government agencies to intercept any online activities on social media and other platforms in real time.

Apple isn't expected to release its next iPhone until September, but we may have already learned about one significant improvement.

Ming Chi Kuo of KGI Securities believes the next iPhone will come with an improved fingerprint sensor to reduce reading errors, MacRumors reports.

This is expected to make Apple Pay safer and easier to use. In a note to investors, Kuo also wrote that he expects Apple to release its new iPhone in the third quarter of 2015. 

This would line up with Apple's previous iPhone launches, which usually come in September. 

Kuo is one of the most accurate Apple analysts out there. He's based in Taiwan, which means he probably has a lot of access to Apple's supply chain. He nailed almost every detail about the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 6, including the fact that the iPhone 6 wouldn't come with a sapphire display. 

Other than an improved fingerprint sensor, Apple's next iPhone is also expected to come with a better camera.

Uber Technologies Inc added on Wednesday a panic button and tracking features to its taxi hailing app in India after the US-based company was banned in New Delhi last year over rapeallegations against one of its drivers.

Uber's India app now has a "send status" feature to enable passengers to share ride details with their contacts in real time. The app also has an "SOS" button to call the local police directly.

A spokesman said the functions were the first market-specific safety features launched by Uber. The company also said it plans to launch safety features in other countries soon.

"Safety concerns tend to be unique for each local market. We recognised the demand for these features in India," the spokesman added.

Authorities in New Delhi banned Uber in December following the rape allegations and issued rules that require all taxis to be equipped with a physical panic button.

While the service remains officially banned in Delhi, Uber resumed operations there in January and has since said it has stepped up background checks on all its India drivers. The app is available in several cities.

Uber is also fighting bans in France, Spain and South Korea for alleged violations including using unlicensed drivers. It has also had to contend with rape allegations against drivers in Chicago and Boston.

SAN FRANCISCO: Apple has set a record on Wall Street: It's the first US company to be worth more than $700 billion based on the value of its stock at the close of trading Tuesday. 

That's almost twice the value of the next biggest company, oil giant Exxon Mobil. 

Apple shares rose almost 2% on Tuesday, closing at $122.02, which gave the company a market value of more than $710 billion. Apple, which has reported record sales and profit in recent quarters, has crossed the $700 billion line before in the course of daily trading. But Tuesday was the first time any US company finished the day above that line. 

Exxon Mobil Corp. saw its shares fall by 0.6% on Tuesday and closed with a value of about $385 billion. 

Facebook’s Internet.org offers a healthy mix of free services, but page-loading on feature phones is slow

#INTERNET.ORG

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By Nimish Sawant /  10 Feb 2015 , 18:20

Reliance Communications and Facebook have partnered to bring Internet.org to India. Internet.org is Mark Zuckerberg’s initiative to provide free internet to mobile phone users in developing countries, where Facebook partners with telecom service providers and content partners.

Internet.org aims to connect Reliance Communications (RCom) subscribers to free internet – although only across their list of 33 websites and services. The bouquet of services span across genres having a healthy mix of news websites such as BBC News, IBNLive, Times of India; educational services such as Wikipedia, Translator, wikiHow; sports websites; Health and welfare services such as BabyCentre, iLearn, Socialblood and so on.

According to RCom, these services will be available for free to RCom subscribers. You can either log on to www.internet.org or call 1800 300 25353 which is a toll free number, to get Internet.org activated. Reliance has said that Internet.org works as a mobile website on feature phones, whereas with Android phones, you can download an Internet.org app.

On logging into Internet.org, you are presented with two tabs – Free Services and Reliance. The Free services tab, as the name implies comprises the 33 content partners and services which Facebook and Reliance have partnered with to provide free internet access. At the moment there are 33 services, across languages such as English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi. More services and languages will be added in a phased manner.

It is interesting to note that Facebook has only given Facebook Messenger and a lite version of the Facebook app for Internet.org. There are no other social networks on board at the moment, not even Facebook owned messaging service WhatsApp. Even with Facebook, there is a catch. For an image heavy social network, RCom will only offer you the option to read and post status messages, like or comment on statuses and pictures. But the pictures themselves will appear blurred and to download these images, you will either need a data plan, or you can activate data connection for Rs 9 per day or Rs 15 for a 15-day pack.

The Reliance tab advertises RCom’s data plans which includes 2G Pack (1GB 2G data pack with free Twitter / Facebook / WhatsApp for Rs 9 for one day), Facebook Pack (Rs 15, unlimited Facebook access for 15 days), WhatsApp pack (Rs 15, Unlimited for 15 days) and so on.

RCom has assured that Internet.org will work with any internet-enabled phone, which includes smartphones as well as feature phones. It will appear as a mobile website for most phones. The Internet.org app is only available on the Android platform at the moment. There was no word out on when it will be available on other platforms, so people using other mobile OS, will have to go online via the Internet.org mobile website only.

Bing is the default search engine. Facebook has also partnered with the government of Andhra Pradesh to come up with the app APSpeaks. This app lets regular citizens put forth their greviances to the Andhra Pradesh government.

Page-loading on the smartphones wasn’t much of an issue, but with a feature phone, the page loading was painfully slow. Of course, there are a lot of factors which can affect page-loading speeds such as network connectivity as well as the make of the phone. But the demo showed to us had a two-year old feature phone which took over a minute to load a text-heavy page.

According to Facebook, it has worked with a lot of content partners to help optimise the content in a way that uses limited bandwidth. RCom representatives would not give an exact number of data transfer speeds one can expect with Internet.org.

The service has apparently gone live for all RCom users in Mumbai. The rollout for Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat will happen tonight with other states expected to get on board soon.

Canon made a 23.6 billion-Swedish-crown ($2.83 billion) offer for network video surveillance leader Axis AB on Tuesday -- the biggest purchase ever for the Japanese firm trying to expand beyond a shrinking camera market. 

Canon said it had launched a bid to buy all the Swedish company's shares at 340 crowns apiece, a premium of nearly 50% to their closing price of 226.90 on Monday. At 1126 GMT, shares of Axis were up 48% at 336.50 crowns. 

Axis said its board of directors unanimously supported the offer, and that three of its top shareholders representing around 40% of total shares will accept it. 

Canon already sells surveillance cameras and sees the sector as a growing market, although it has not disclosed how much it earns from such products. 

The deal will make Canon a top player in the video surveillance market, which was worth an estimated $15 billion at the end of last year, according to researcher IHS. 

Within that market, there is a $3.86 billion segment for network-connected security cameras which is led by Axis with a 17.5% share as of 2013. 

Greger Johansson, analyst at research firm Redeye who had a bull case scenario of 250 crowns per share, said he thought the main owners had been unwilling to sell below 300 crowns as Axis had high revenue growth and was the No. 1 player in its market. 

"We think some of the bigger players like Panasonic, Sony and Pelco could be interested... although the likelihood is relatively low considering the high bid." 

The deal comes after Canon late last month reported a slight increase in fourth-quarter profit, as a weaker yen and rising sales of office equipment offset weakness in a camera division competing with smartphones capable of high-quality imaging. 

The company, which earned over 80 percent of its revenue overseas in 2014, said it would pay in cash. 

Axis' is targeting average annual growth of at least 20 percent and a profit margin of at least 10 percent. The company reported a fourth-quarter operating profit of 199 million crowns, slightly below analyst forecasts but up from 166 million a year earlier. 

Around half of its sales come from the Americas, 40 percent from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the rest from Asia. 

Axis said it will remain as a separate legal entity within Canon, and that its current management team will stay.

Cybersecurity sleuths have alerted e-banking users in the country against the infectious and destructive activity of a "worm" virus which attacks and steals personal login secrets and passwords of an individual.

The virus, of the deadly Trojan variant, has been identified and named as 'Cridex' and is considered notorious as it can assume as many as six aliases to perpetrate its activities.

"It has been observed that the new variants of Cridex malware are spreading widely. Cridex is an information stealing e-banking Trojan that propagates via removable drives and targets users of online banking/social media for stealing user name, passwords among others," the Computer Emergency Response Team of India (Cert-In) said in its latest advisory to e-banking users in the country.

The Cert-In is the nodal agency to combat hacking, phishing and to fortify security-related defences of the Indian Internet domain.

The virus spreads by simultaneously opening a backdoor for downloading a number of malicious files once it enters a user's personal Internet working stream.

"Like the other major banking Trojans, the malware performs web injects into the HTML pages of financial institutions contained in the configuration file. The malware routes the users to fake banking sites for divulging user information and subsequently connects to the bank site from the victim IP address by bypassing IP reputation blocking," the agency said in its alert.

Some of the identified aliases of this banking virus are 'Geodo', 'Dapato', 'W32/Kryptik.BVB', 'Worm.Win32.Cridex', 'PWS:Win32/Zbot' and 'Trojan.Gen.2' and can be noticed by these names when they appear online.

The agency said, once activated, the virus targets and steals login credentials of various banks and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram among others.

The anti-sabotage cyberagency has also recommended some counter-measures for the users to deploy in their personal computers and Internet-enabled devices from where they perform their e-operations and online banking jobs.

"Enable firewall at desktop and gateway level, keep up-to-date patches and fixes on the operating system and application software as well as anti-virus and anti-spyware signatures at entry points," it said.

It also suggested users to update and install the latest updates and softwares to protect computer from viruses, Trojans, guard against social engineering attacks, usage of strong passwords, limiting user privileges, exercising caution while opening attachments to emails received from known or unknown sources and avoiding downloading of pirated software.