Use your debit or credit card to pay GST online

You could soon use your debit or credit card to pay GST online

A new and simpler portal for the incoming Goods and Services Tax regime went live today that will enable easy filing of returns and tax payments through credit/debit cards and other modes.

As much as 60 per cent of the software needed to run GST is ready and GSTN - the company building the gigantic infrastructure and IT backbone for it, made the www.gst.gov.in portal live for migrating existing tax payers.

It will test the software for integrating a welter of state and central levies before the 'one market, one rate' tax model comes into being from April next year.

GSTN Chairman Navin Kumar said migrating more than 65 lakh VAT payers, about 20 lakh service tax payers and about 3-4 lakh central excise duty payers to a new portal has started.

A provisional identification number, called GSTIN for the assesses who have moved to the new portal is being generated, Kumar told PTI.

New registrations under GST will start from April 2017.

WhatsApp is testing a clone of Snapchat

WhatsApp is testing a clone of Snapchat Stories, called Status

Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp is experimenting with a new Status feature that lets users share mood-setting pictures and videos overlaid with other custom elements such as emoji, with the content disappearing 24 hours after it’s shared so basically a copy of Snapchat Stories.

The test feature was spotted on Friday by BGR India which says Status sharing is only currently available to registered public beta testers of WhatsApp who are using a rooted Android or iOS device.

We’ve reached out to WhatsApp with questions and will update this story with any response.

In the Android version of the beta the main WhatsApp message screen now has a tab called ‘Status’, sitting between ‘Chats’ on the left and ‘Calls’ on the right. And while it’s always been possible to set a status message in WhatsApp, which is visible when someone views your profile, the new Status tab does not replace that traditional status message; rather it’s a whole additional channel aimed at encouraging users to share ephemeral and primarily visual content with their friends.

As with Snapchat Stories, once a user has snapped a photo or recorded a video to share within this channel they are offered a range of editing tools to augment the content — such as by drawing on a colorful scribble or adding and positioning emoji. Status also lets users add a caption to further explain whatever they’re posting. A send button shares the Status with the user’s WhatsApp contacts.

Microsoft promises smaller Windows 10 upgrades

Microsoft today promised it will reduce the size of Windows 10 "feature updates," the upgrades the company issues once or twice a year.

"One of the biggest community and customer benefits of UUP is the reduction you'll see in download size on PCs," said Bill Karagounis, director of program management, in a post to a company blog Friday.

UUP stands for "Unified Update Platform," Microsoft's name for its new update delivery technologies.

So far, all Windows 10 feature updates have been issued as full replacements -- an OS re-install -- with resulting downloads of 3GB to 4GB. That will continue with the next refresh, which last month Microsoft dubbed Creators Update, that is expected in March 2017.

The one after Creators Update, however, should be more than a third smaller, said Karagounis, because UUP will deliver only "differential" updates. "A differential download package contains only the changes that have been made since the last time you updated your device, rather than a full build," Karagounis said.

Change-only updates are often called "delta" updates.

UUP will also shift some of the update evaluation process -- deciding what a device requires, if anything -- from the PC to Microsoft's Windows Update service. "This will lead to faster checks for update operations," Karagounis added.

Microsoft will begin using UUP to distribute new builds to Windows Insider participants' PCs later this year, in line with the company's practice of trying new technologies on the several million testers before offering them to the general Windows 10 population.

Although Microsoft has pledged to issue two Windows 10 feature updates in 2017, it has neither named nor scheduled the post-Creators update that will first use UUP.

Pokemon Go is making it much easier

Pokemon Go is making it much easier to catch all the Pokemon and players love it

Just a day after launching a big new update to Pokemon Go that finally brought some much-requested new features to the game, developer Niantic is back at it again with some minor tweaks that players already seem to love.

That's good, because even the hardest-core players are starting to get frustrated with the game.

The two biggest changes, per the official Pokemon Go Twitter account, are:

Pidgey and Rattata - two of the very most common Pokemon in the whole game - will no longer hatch from eggs. On the same note, the relatively common Eevee will only hatch from eggs that 5 kilometers of walking to hatch, where before it would appear in 10 kilometer eggs.

"You may encounter other Pokemon where Pidgey, Rattata, and Zubat were previously more commonly found," Niantic says. That means you'll find way fewer of those common Pokemon in the wild, and theoretically more rare and desirable monsters.

In aggregate, Niantic is addressing one of the biggest complaints with the game: It's way too easy to find or hatch certain Pokemon in the course of everyday playing, but way too difficult to find those last few that you may be missing.

Mixing it up and shaking around where Pokemon are located will ultimately make it easier and more fun to catch 'em all.

Over on the Pokemon Go "subreddit" community on Reddit, players are already applauding the change, calling it "proof that we are being heard." That's good news, as Niantic has so far been slow to address the steady decline of players from the game by adding new features and addressing old annoyances.

Professor Willow has discovered that you may encounter other Pokemon where Pidgey, Rattata, and Zubat were previously more commonly found.

Stay tuned for more Latest Web Technology News Updates.

Airtel will not follow Jio, says no to free voice calls

The big-bang entry of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio has shaken the mobile industry and prompted the existing players to opt for widespread tariff revisions. Airtel has also been rationalising plans after the entry of Jio, but Gopal Vittal, CEO of the country's biggest operator, says that the company will never follow Jio and give free voice across its offerings."More than 80% of the industry's revenue still comes from voice... Voice can never be made free for customers who do not use data," Vittal tells TOI in an interview:

How strong is Airtel in terms of spectrum holdings?

If you look at the last five years and if you look at today , we now have a 3G layer across every circle, and in several circles we have two carriers of 3G. We also have a 4G layer of 1,800 MHz across circles. Out of 22 circles, we also have capacity spectrum of 2,300 MHz in 19 circles. So spectrum-wise, we are very well positioned for the next five-to-seven years.

700 MHz saw no bidding where industry had complained of high pricing. Do you think there is a need for price rationalisation?

We had a difference of opinion regarding 700 MHz which we felt was unaffordable. I think the pricing would have to come down to generate interest in this band. Secondly , the infrastructure is still nascent. It has taken five years for 2300 MHz band to develop.

How do you see competitive landscape after Jio's entry?

Pricing will come under a lot of pressure. They (Jio) are currently doing free stuff, they have announced some of their tariff plans, and some of that will compress pricing.

Stay tuned for more Latest Web Technology News Updates.

Amazon claims ahead of Flipkart this Festivals

Amazon claims top spot in festive sales, says ahead of Flipkart

Amazon India has said the just concluded festive month of October was 2.7 times bigger for the company in terms of number of units sold than the same month last year, an indication both that the retail sentiments are improving and that Amazon's big investments in India are paying off.

Amazon did not provide a comparison for the festive seasons in the two years.Given that Diwali was in mid-November last year, an October-to-October comparison will likely exaggerate the growth for this year.

The company also said that during the five days of Dussehra sales in the first week of October, Amazon was consistently ahead of rival Flipkart in both desktop and mobile web visits. Amazon's desktop visits were 1122% (percentages are different for different days) higher than Flipkart's, while its mobile web visits were 40-58% higher than Flipkart's, as per data from web analytics firm SimilarWeb.

Amazon also saw 16-72% more app downloads than Flipkart, according to the app download tracking platform App Annie.

But Flipkart still has a much bigger base of downloaded apps, and given that most purchases (more than 70%) happen on mobile apps, FIipkart likely saw much bigger overall sales. Amazon, however, is catching up on the app download front. It crossed the 5 crore app down load mark on the Google Play store in October. Flipkart's overall installed app base is around 8 crore. Soon after the Dussehra sale, Flipkart had said it sold 15.5 million units during the sale period, while Amazon said it sold 15 million.

Microsoft stops sales of Windows 7 Professional to OEMs

Microsoft today quietly put an end to sales of Windows 7 licenses to computer makers, marking a major milestone for the seven-year-old OS.

According to Microsoft's rules, the Redmond, Wash. company stopped selling Windows 7 Professional or any version of Windows 8.1 to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as of Oct. 31.

The end of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 left only Windows 10 as a long-term choice for OEMs that pre-load Windows on their wares.

The original end-of-sales deadline for Windows 7 Professional was to be Oct. 31, 2014 -- two years after the launch of Windows 8 -- but early that year Microsoft broke with practice and only called for an end to consumer systems. It left open the cut-off for Windows 7 Professional, saying it would give a one-year warning before it demanded that OEMs stop selling PCs with that edition.

Microsoft issued that warning a year ago.

Organizations with enterprise licensing agreements and Software Assurance -- the annuity-like program that provides additional rights -- may continue to purchase new PCs, then downgrade the OS from the already-installed Windows 10 to Windows 7 if they want to keep using the older edition.

And new Windows 7 Professional PCs won't vanish immediately; OEMs will be allowed to use what licenses they have in stock.

For example, Dell's online store today still listed 17 different notebook configurations equipped with Windows 7 Professional. The same goes for smaller computer sellers, like Puget Systems, an Auburn, Wash. custom PC maker: Such shops can continue to build new Windows 7 Professional PCs until their supply of licenses dries up.

Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 7 even though it remains the most popular operating system on the planet. Windows 7 has lost about a fifth of its user share since the mid-2015 launch of Windows 10, but according to U.S. analytics vendor Net Applications, it powered 48% of all personal computers in October, more than twice Windows 10's share.

Windows 7 support is to continue until January 2020, giving users just over three years to migrate to another operating system.