Today’s cache | Security issue in Aarogya Setu app, and more

India’s Aarogya Setu app has been flagged for security issue that will put data of 90 million Indians at risk, a cybersecurity expert says.

MediaTek has unveiled a new gaming-focused chipset for smartphones. Google announces a new tool for podcasters to get more insights about their listening audience.

Cognizant buys a consultancy firm that specialises in Workday enterprise cloud applications. And lastly, IPsoft and Unisys deepen their integration to deploy cognitive technology at workplace through AI.

Hacker finds security issue in Aarogya Setu App

A French cybersecurity expert and ethical hacker, who goes by the name ‘Elliot Alderson,’ flagged security issues within the Aarogya Setu app.

The hacker alleged that the security issue puts data of 90 million Indians at risk.

Elliot had tweeted saying, “A security issue has been found in your app. The privacy of 90 million Indians is at stake. Can you contact me in private?”

About an hour after posting that tweet, Elliot added that the National Informatics (NIC) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Miety) reached out to him, and that he had disclosed the issue to them.

In response to Elliot’s claim, the Aarogya Setu team said that the app is designed “to fetch a user’s location and store on the server in a secure, encrypted, anonymised manner.”

But the team refused to accept that the issue posed security threat in anyway.

The team has also denied that “users can get the COVID-19 stats displayed on Home Screen by changing the radius and latitude-longitude using a script.”

After seeing Aarogya Setu’s statement, Elliot tweeted that his “prediction was correct” and that he will write a detailed article on security issue within the app.

MediaTek launches new gaming chipset series

MediaTek on Tuesday unveiled its Helio G85 mobile gaming-focused chipset.

The latest addition to its Gaming G series comes with a 1GHz graphic processor and HyperEngine upgrade to provide powerful and smooth gaming experience on smartphones.

The Helio G85 will boost performance of AI camera tasks such as object recognition, smart photo album, scene detection and segmentation with background removal.

This will enable smartphone makers to create a wide range of multi-camera devices with a mix of wide angle, telescopic, macro and sensor sizes up to 48MP.

The chipset can also perform ultra-fast recording up to 240fps, and it has a built in voice wake up capability that can reduce the power of applications in the Android OS such as always-on Google Assistant.

The Helio G85 chip’s navigational technology helps provide accurate locations whether users are underground, driving through tunnels or in any situations where GNSS services are unavailable.

The company is expanding its “Helio G family to give device makers more options in designing smartphones that deliver an elite gaming experience,” Yenchi Lee, Assistant General Manager of MediaTek’s wireless business unit said.

The new chipset “delivers a combination of impressive performance, minimal power consumption and a range of other gaming enhancements so users can enjoy fast and smooth gameplay.”

Google’s new tool for podcasters

Google on Tuesday announced a new tool to help podcasters gain insights into the evolving habits of their listeners.

The Google Podcasts Manager will help podcasters better understand their audiences and reach them across Google products, the company said in a statement.

Currently, podcasts on the Google’s platform are not registered in Podcasts Manager. Adding a programme lets the show owner see listening data for their podcasts.

Within the tool, they can view metrics to understand how their shows evolved over time and see activity of recent episodes.

The metrics include details on where listeners tune in – – and when they stop. It also shares data on listening duration and minutes played.

This data can be exported and plugged to the show owners’ analysis tools.

Anonymized device data shows on what format audience tuned into their shows. It reveals percentage of users who listened on phones, tablets, pcs and smart speakers.

Cognizant to buy Collaborative Solutions

Cognizant on Tuesday said it will acquire a consultancy firm specializing in Workday enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of this year, the company said in a statement. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Collaborative Solutions is one of the largest Workday consulting firm, and its acquisition will bring new finance and HR advisory, and implementation services to Cognizant’s cloud offering. Workday is a cloud ERP system for finance, HR and planning functions.

“Running core applications in the cloud has never been more important,” Greg Hyttenrauch, President, Digital Systems and Technology, Cognizant said.

“Collaborative Solutions, with its rich expertise and leading position in the Workday ecosystem, expands our opportunity in cloud by establishing a new practice area in this large, fast-growing market.”

IPsoft, Unisys deepen partnership to embed AI capabilities

IPsoft, an enterprise AI firm, and Unisys Corporation, IT services company, have agreed to deepen their partnership to embed cognitive AI capabilities.

The integration will allow the two companies to deploy cognitive technology at workplaces to tackle issues from tech, HR, finance to legal.

Unisys’s InteliServe coupled with IPsoft’s Amelia will now expand their support to users across all channels.

Amelia, a virtual assistant, is trained on most common support requests, FAQs and more complex questions that InteliServe handles, the two companies said.

The assistant is capable of complex natural language understanding, context switching and intent recognition. This means the AI-powered assistant can understand, diagnose and choose an optimal path to resolve a user’s query.

Through the integration, Amelia will be deployed to provide internal support. This means the AI will interact with field service technicians to achieve lower resolution times and improve satisfaction by automating tasks.

“Our partnership delivers highly automated, streamlined and cost-effective IT support with conversational AI,” Scott Kohn, IPsoft’s Chief Channel Officer said.

“Unlike chatbots, the cognitive agent Amelia does more than just recognize keywords and user questions. She observes, learns, understands and grows her skills over time.”

If the AI has not yet been trained to address a user’s query, it will transfer the issue to an appropriate human colleague.

As more companies are implementing work-from-home policies amid the COVID-19 risk, Unisys says that it is seeing a considerable uptick in their clients’ service desk call volume.