How to Get Google Assistant on Any Android Marshmallow Smartphone in 9 Steps

Latest/Advanced Google Assistant – Messaging App Allo

The latest and advanced Google Assistant is said to be an essential element of the messaging app Allo, of the company together with the flagship Pixel and Pixel XL smartphone which runs on Android 7.1 Nougat. Being limited to Pixel launcher on the new smartphones of Google, one is unable to officially replace Google Now with Google Assistant on Android smartphone.

However due to a mighty Android developer known as Max Rumpf, one small hack can allow you to obtain Google Assistant running on any Android 6.0 Marshmallow based smartphone currently. It tends to utilise Xposed framework together with an app known as AndroidN-ify in order to work the hack. The process is said to function on rooted devices running on Android open-source project ROMS. To get Google Assistant on your Android Marshmallow smartphone the following steps can be taken:

The Nine Steps

1.  You can download the Xposed framework flashable file and APK. Drop these files in the root directory or in a new folder on microSD card or internal storage. Then turn off the smartphone, reboot for recovery and flash the zip installer.  
2. With the smartphone on, utilise file manager in locating the Xposed APK file and install the same. The user may need to check `Unknown Sources in Settings’ followed by Security in order to install the APK file. 
3.  The AndroidN-ifty APK file is to be downloaded and installed and then begins the real game. The user needs to be careful and follow the instructions. 
4.  On opening the Xposed app, tap on the modules and check the AndroidN-ify box. 
5.  Open Root Explorer and find out if the system has been mounted as R/W (read or write) and tap on System then press and hold `build prop’. Then utilise the three dots menu button towards the right area in order to open in text editor. 
6.  Thereafter search for a line known as ro.product.model and this model number would be the name of your device such as the Galaxy S7, OnePlus 3, and LG G5 etc. You may need to create a file if there is no such file like ro.product.model=Pixel XL. Here OS has been faked presuming that the device is Pixel XL. 
7.  When this is done, go to the last line, creating a new one which reads - `ro.opa.eligible_device_true’ and then save it. Here OS is allowed to know that the device is qualified for Google Assistant.
8.  On rebooting the device, confirm if the new model number has been accepted and to get to know this you could go to Settings > About Phone. 
9.  Ensure that you have the updated Google App beta installed. The go to Settings > Apps > Google App > Storage > clear All Data.

Google Assistant – New Pixel Phone

When all this is accomplished, open Google App and setup Google Assistant and when it is setup, you could invoke it on holding the `Home’ button for a couple of seconds or by saying `OK Google’. The new intelligent conversational virtual assistant – Google Assistant is only available officially for new Pixel phone. But with some tweaking one could get it together with all Assistant’s great search and chat features on any Android Marshmallow or higher.

Why Choose NIFT For a Career in Design?

National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) has been a pioneer in the field of fashion and design since its inception in 1986. It is one of India’s most prestigious and oldest design schools. With campuses spread across the country, NIFT provides education in design to students from varied regions! It also offers a diverse set of courses along with a competitive environment for students to study in.

Courses offered at NIFT 

Candidates who have predilections for fashion and design and who want to set their foot in this industry can choose NIFT as their college. NIFT offers courses under both UG as well as PG program. Courses offered under UG are Bachelor of Design (B.Des) and Bachelor of Fashion Technology. Bachelor of design has its own ramifications which include, fashion design, leather design, accessory design, textile design, knitwear design and fashion communication. Courses offered under PG program are Master of Design(M.Des), Master of Fashion Management(M.F.M) and Master of Fashion Technology(M.FTech). To give wings to the dream of making a mark in the field of fashion and design candidates have to take the NIFT entrance exam.

Placements

NIFT industry and Alumni Affairs units facilitates on campus placement for graduating students of NIFT to enable them to start their career in challenging positions. Leading national and international companies participate in placement to recruit NIFT professionals.

For the last year’s placement, the major recruitment was done by retail companies followed by brands. A total of 35% of the total graduates recruited were placed in retail companies. This was followed by fashion brands (20%), designer houses (18%), export houses and agencies (15%).The average annual salary offered to the students of Master’s program was Rs. 4.7 lakhs and bachelor’s program was 3.85 lakhs.

Some unconventional sectors like Bollywood production houses, media and entertainment and television production houses also visit campus for recruitment.

NIFT Alumni

NIFT has produced several talents in various fields like design, bollywood, quality control etc. since its inception in 1986. Following are the names of some of the NIFT alumni who have etched their names in different industries

• Sabyasachi Mukherjee 
• Ritu Beri 
• Shivaji Dutta 
• SujitMeher 
• Manish Arora 
• Nikita Anand 
• GulshanDevaiah 
• Shantanu Goenka 
• Prabal Gurung 
• Tanya Gyani

Unique features of courses offered

Courses offered under both UG and PG programs focus on holistic development of the students. Syllabuses for the courses are so designed that it helps to educate students in such a way so that students learn to face professional/job challenges in an effective manner. NIFT focuses on practical knowledge and helps bolster students in a way which train them to play leadership roles in their fields. Teachers and students share a friendly bond which makes learning more interesting. Contemporary syllabus and teaching techniques are used at NIFT to keep students in keeping with the trend.

Global connect

NIFT has strategic agreements and partnerships with about 34 leading international fashion institutes and organizations that share the same academic direction, integrating NIFT students with global mainstream of fashion. International collaborations allow students to experience ‘study abroad’ options through exchange programs.

Infrastructure

NIFT has a physical environment that reflects the institute’s academic ideals. The institute provides state-of-the-art infrastructure and equipment to impart both theoretical and practical training to its students. The facilities and services offered to the students allow them the freedom to explore, experiment and create. NIFT has a library with lots of books, well equipped laboratories, spacious classrooms, modern cafeteria, sports ground etc.

Scholarships

The financial strategy of the institute places student development as a key priority. A considerable sum from NIFT fund is effectively put to use in this core area every year. To maximize the potential of students the institute’s Means-cum-Merit financial assistance scheme allows students from humble backgrounds to avail subsidized tuition fee at every centre.

Dual degree opportunity

NIFT had entered into strategic alliance with Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York, USA. This partnership allows select meritorious students from NIFT, to obtain dual degree from both NIFT and FIT. Twenty two students have completed the dual degree program in the last 3 years. Due to this partnership students get to explore new opportunities and learn about new trends that is going on in the world.

Apart from the variety of courses offered by the institute, NIFT also provides opportunities for good placements, internships and great infrastructure! Therefore, pursuing a career in design from NIFT is deemed as a phenomenal option for aspiring candidates.

Microsoft Adds 3D Paint to Latest Windows 10 Creators Update Test Build

We are living in the era of the digital world and there are hardly any products, trades, industries and services, where some sorts of computer aid cannot be seen. The huge development in the science and technology has paved the way for the computer and the internet, which have then changed the entire scenario. With the intense and steady growth of the computer; the massive growth can be seen in the manufacturing and development of the hardware and software, which supports the immense demand, throughout the world.

In this segment, the Microsoft is considered as the front runner, due to their pioneering character and timely software developments, which is necessary to cope with the demands, created in the market by the potential users. The Microsoft 3D Paint is one such application that is considered as the most advanced mode of drawing application, which is a delight for the designers and developers. Some of the most interesting features and information of the Microsoft 3D Paint are as follows:

• Since the mid – 80s of the last century, the paint application has been there in th
  e Microsoft family of applications, but there were not many changes being made to get it more attractive to the users. But now, Microsoft has changed their approach and now in coming days, the Microsoft insiders can get this application, due to newly developed Build 14971, which allows the users to avail the most appealing 3D Paint facility on a very advanced structure.

• It is worth mentioning that the Paint 3D is the biggest refresher in the history of applications and this is the reason, the Microsoft has already considered it as the major keystone in their upcoming Windows 10 Creators Update. This decision has been taken to make the 3D content development as an indispensable component of the respective operating system.

• In the Build 14971; the Command Prompt is being replaced by the de facto command shell in the most important File menu of the File Explorer and also in the Win+ X menu. It can be noted that even after the introduction of the new look 3 D paint; Microsoft will allow potential users, who prefer or want to use Command Prompt to change their settings that can be helpful to keep this on their respective machines, as default.

• There are some of the most interesting features, very minor in nature, along with, some relevant and quite a number of fixes in Build 14971, such as; translation, edge, notification, inking etc. available in the new version. Generally, there are some known features and issues in this new Build, which are effectively affecting quite a number of applications including; Photos, Stores, People and most interestingly, the Studio games of Microsoft.

• The notable thing is; this unique change in the application will be helpful for easy discovery and launching of apps and also will be of great support in all the recently created or edited documents in one place. Although there are familiar help links, but the redesigning of the experience made it easier to find the intended document, without any hindrance.

Future of Mobility- BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100

BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 – New Motorcycle Concept

Recently BMW Group in Santa Monica, California had debuted a motorcycle concept artificially intelligent which eliminates the need of the rider to wear protective gear inclusive of a helmet. The latest manifestation of Vision Next series of BMW is `The BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 motorcycle which tends to celebrate 100 years of the German brand with progressive concept vehicles from Rolls-Royce, Mini together with BMW.

 This year the group had been hosting several events across the globe to introduce every new concept in several cities. The event at California which had taken place in an old airplane hangar had displayed the BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 motorcycle together with each of the other earlier shown concepts of the group. This is said to be the fourth and final concepts to be portrayed. One would question what the future of the motorcycle would hold.

As per BMW, BMW Motorrad Vision Next 100 seems to be a bike which tends to have self-balancing system in order to keep it upright while standing – which is a benefit for novice riders on par with training wheels for bicycles and while in motion it, is advantageous for experienced rider who prefer cultured handling at great speed.

Digital Companion – Riding Advice/Adjustment Ideas

One system which BMW has named `Digital Companion provides riding advice as well as adjustment ideas to optimize the experience and the so called `The Visor’ which is a pair of glasses,spans the total field of vision and controlled by eye movements, correlates to return lively feedback regarding road conditions to the rider while adjusting the ride of the bike constantly, based on driving style of the rider. It is meant to be equivalent to the driverless systems automakers believed in producing cars by 2040 and thereafter.

According to Holger Hampf, head of user experience of BMW, he states that the bike tends to have full range of connected data from its surroundings together with a set of intelligent systems that seems to work in the background and hence it is precisely alert of what lies ahead. It also senses to use a novel matte black `flexframe’ which tends to nimble adequately to permit the bike to turn without the joints that are found in current motorcycles.

No Buttons – Red Rocker Switch

The purpose is that when a rider seems to turn the handlebar, it adapts the complete frame to alter the direction of the bike. At low speeds only a light input is needed though at high speeds it seems to require strong input to change the course. This should upsurge the safety concept of riding a bike and a small twitch at 100 mph would not shoot the rider in a sudden new direction. However not everything regarding the concept bike is progressive. The black triangle shape of the frame together with the white trim line as well as the classic boxer engine form are intended to induce the 1923 R32, which was the first motorcycle ever made by BMW. The seat, the upper frame cover and wings comprise of carbon and the bike would run on a futuristic `non-gasoline power source. Another modern touch is the area towards the front thathas almost no buttons but a red rocker switch at the end of the right handlebar.

Google Announced Winners of Material Design Awards 2016

Google Announced Winners = Material Designs 2016

A design system tends to come to make waves when it is utilised in creating meaningful experiences.Google had introduced the Material Design showcasing applications which had embraced and embodied the design principles of Android much better than the others.

At Google I/O 2016, the app Robinhood had won the Google Play Award for the Best Use of Material Design. The winners of the Awards for Material Designs 2016 have been announced by Google last year, which had been dedicated at recognising the `best-in-class’ achievements for utilising material design for apps.Classifications of the award tend to focus specific aspects of Material Design which have been utilised in the creation of the apps that are inclined to satisfy users and express the brand suitably.

The five winners had been honoured on October 27 at the SPAN LA conference which represented the finest application of aspects of Material Design. The awards had been cut down into categories which focus on how developers could create apps that are not only great for use but also tends to express their brand on utilising the application design guidelines offered by Google. Asana had won the Brand Infusion award- Team Tasks & Projects.

Goal Completion Animations

According to Google, Asana makes the teamwork productive as well as collaborative by providing short together with often repeatedly interactions to `make efficiency feel rewarding’. Fabulous – Motivate Me, had won the Charming Engagement award wherein the app tends to feature charming illustration style in creating an impression on the users.

Google has noticed that the state transition with pleasing goal completion animations tends to keep up the motivation. C Channel received the Creative Navigation award and the app is said to organise content in a series of tabs which has the tendency of navigating through swiping. Google informs that the state that the app `neatly balances a blend of studio-created and user-submitted videos related to fashion, food and much more.

But it is only available in Japanese and Thai.The Expressive Layouts award was won by Kitchen Stories app and the app had been distinguished for its capability of creative effective together with scanning of layouts with ease for recipes on various kinds of screens and sizes.

Winning Apps – Taken Up Design Language to Great Heights

Moreover, it also tends to minimise the number of times user tend to have to touch the screen and is beneficial if the user seems to have untidy fingers while cooking. Airbnb was awarded for Focused Efficiency wherein Google informed that the app is `able to sidestep the appearance of complexity, thereby making the overall experience comfortable.

But it also observed that efficiency does not come at the cost of the visual appeal of the app. The award winning apps have taken up the design language to great heights and also deserves the honours and awards they have been provided. The Material Design Contest follows Google-hosted app contest – the Indie Games Festival which had wrapped up in September. This envisaged three game developers awarded tickets to I/O 2017 developer conference of Google, a Tango Development kit together with a Razer Forge TV bundle.

100 Guesses Is Enough To Crack Your Password

In the past few years the constant ever growing threat of cyber attacks and rampant attack has brought a new sensibility among the avid internet users towards strengthening their password. So how people make their password stronger is not an enigma. Most of the people include a number of two along with punctuation in order to make it difficult for the bad guys to figure it out. Sometimes people even add the name of a site or their pet or some other tricks to spice the things up. But a recent study has shown that if you do things like these then it is simply not enough.

A team of four researchers from the Peking University along with Jeff Yan from Lancaster University has published a study wherein they were able to crack a number of passwords from lesser than 100 guesses. They had aptly titled their study as ‘targeted Online Password Guessing: An Underestimated Threat.

TarGuess designed to break password effortlessly

Typing in the guessed password for hundred times or less than hundred times will be considered as a time consuming affair. Therefore researchers have created an algorithm named TarGuess which has been able to notch 73% of success in selected test scenarios. This means that the algorithm has been successful in decoding the password of users in 100 guesses at the most. TarGuess works so well on the cracking the password because at first it indulge in getting to know the targets.

TarGuess is designed to make use of the personally identifiable information (PII) in order to guess the passwords. Once the target is identified TarGuess makes use of the available information present on the site such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Then it also makes use of the dozens of the massive breaches which has happened in the past revealing the personal details or account info of the users.

Reuse Password practice should be avoided

Most of the people tend to reuse password for different website and accounts which is a very bad idea when it comes to security. TarGuess can easily spot your email address when you use passwords like biglove123yahoo for yahoo account and a similar password for PayPal account. TarGuess will quickly decide to start guessing with biglove123paypal for the PayPal as the safe bet.

Do not substitute numbers for letters

A number of TV show hackers has popularized the usage of numbers as a substitute for letters. But this practice isn’t a great weapon for creating stronger passwords. Researchers have embedded TarGuess with more than a dozen of transformation rules which can easily help in decoding the numbers for their respective letters. Apart from that it can even do difficult transformation like swapping the word as for @s.

There is a similar kind of tool named Telepathwords created by Microsoft which has the ability to predict the next character within a password as user happens to type it. Therefore substituting habit should be avoided at all cost as it makes your passwords much easier to crack than you can even think of.

How to Turn Off Microsoft's Newest Office 365 Pop Up Ads

Microsoft is known for using pop-up ads in order to increase the adoption of its Windows and Office suite among the users. However in the past few weeks Microsoft has been actively targeting the Windows users to opt for the Office 2016 which is the latest version of Office suite. Office 2016 brings complete package of Office applications with one-time payment for just one computer.

Office 2016 doesn’t have any upgrade option and users would have to wait to next major release in order to get new features. Currently one time purchase option is available both for PC and Macs through variety of versions. In order to give a push to Office 2016 Microsoft has started bringing pop-up ads on the Office 365 version users to make the shift.

How this pop-up ad works?

A number of users are being targeted by the Microsoft with its notorious pop-up ads which adds to the frustration when working with Office 365. During the work a message pop-up right on the screen and states that ‘Your upgrade to Office 2016 is ready. Free with your Office 365 subscription.’ Thereafter users only have three options in front of their screen which asks them either to ‘See what’s new’, Upgrade and Later’. This pop-up ad might seem easy and not so much nuisance but this appear right in the middle of a important work can simply test anyone patience after a couple of times. Not everyone is tech-savvy enough to deal with the pop-up ads. Many users find it difficult to dismiss the pop-up ads.

Pop-up ads are misleading to its core

These pop-up ads are only being brought to the screen of the Office 365 subscriber on the Windows 7 desktop PC. Users with Office 365 Business Essentials plan doesn’t get the capability to use the locally installable Office 2016 apps rather they have to rely on the web applications. In such a case the upgrade to the Office 2016 will certainly not be free as proclaimed earlier rather users will have to make the one-time payment for Office 2016.

Microsoft explanation towards using the pop-up ads

Microsoft has explained that the pop-up ads are not misleading at all as it offers existing Office 365 users to upgrade to the Office 2016. Currently the pop-up ads are being tested by the Microsoft engineers to recalibrate and enhance the frequency of the pop-up ads.

In the meantime if any users is feeling frustrated or having difficulty in dealing with the pop-up ads then it can be removed completely by following the below mentioned ways.

• Step 1: Download the Quick Fix from Microsoft site. 
• Step 2: Give a click on Open or Run and install the Quick Fix. 
• Step 3: Now simply follow the steps provided in the Fix wizard.

A number of users are left wondering how they will be able to make use of their existing version of Office Suite before they have to eventually upgrade to latest version. Then they should feel at ease because Microsoft is offering support for its existing older versions of Office till 2023 and it differs as per the specific version.