Personal Finance

Apple Music, the company's new music service, will charge a monthly fee for use following its launch on June 30   Apple Music, the much-anticipated new streaming service from the company is set to launch on June 30. The new app, first showcased at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier still month, combines streaming with digital raido station Beats 1 and carefully curated playlists. One can choose from more than 30 million tracks and personalised playlists within the Apple Music catalogue, listen to your own iTunes collection or tune in to the 24/7 Beats 1 channel, hosted by former Radio 1 DJ Zane Lowe. Like Spotify, Apple Music offers two usage tiers - paying for a monthly subscription or free. To entice people into trying it out, Apple is offering a three-month free trial, after which they will be charged $9.99 a month. UK pricing is still set to be announced, but it's highly likely it'll be £9.99. given that that's Spo...

People are taking more photographs and videos than ever before, thanks to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets with increasingly-powerful cameras. But the question of how best to deal with this constant stream of digital media remains unanswered. While internet storage services like Apple’s iCloud provide an online repository for photos, and social networks like Instagram allow people to share them with friends, both lack the tools to search through photos and organise them in a coherent way over time. Now, two technology companies are battling it out to become the king of photo management. This month, the internet search giant Google launched Photos, a free app that lets users organise photos by people, place or date and share them with friends. Weeks earlier, RealNetworks unveiled “freemium” app RealTimes, which makes multimedia montages from users’ photos and videos. Above: RealTimes, the photo management app from RealNetworks   RealNetworks, which s...

Apple Music is the Californian company's first step into digital streaming, and incorporates your own music, the Apple Music library and carefully curated digital radio stations including 24/7 broadcast Beats 1. Apple revealed the service at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, with help from rapper Drake and up-and-coming singer The Weeknd. According to chief executive Tim Cook, it will "change the way you experience music forever.” How will it do that? Apple is in the unique position of gaining millions of users across the globe in a single swoop thanks to the way it's preparing to distribute the new app. On Tuesday June 30, compatible iPhone, iPad, and iPod touches will be able to update to iOS 8.4, Apple's latest software, which will contain Apple Music. Mac and PC users can also access Apple Music, while Android and Apple TV owners will have to wait until the autumn. While Spotify is by far the biggest stream...

  In 2012, Kumar had said he would not seek votes in the Assembly polls if he failed to supply power to all villages in the state.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      ...

The income tax rules on provident fund withdrawal from Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) have changed from June 1, 2015. With more than Rs 6 lakh crore of assets from nearly 8 crore subscribers, the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is one of the world's largest retirement fund body. Here is a 10-Point Cheat-Sheet 1) Provident fund withdrawals before five years of completion of service will attract tax deducted at source (TDS) at 10 per cent. 2) If the accumulated provident fund balance is less than Rs 30,000, TDS would not be applicable. 3) TDS will be deducted at 34 per cent if subscriber fails to submit PAN. 4) Exemption from TDS has been given to subscribers with no taxable income, provided they submit the required forms. 5) Two avoid the levy of TDS, Form No. 15G (other than senior citizens) or 15H (for senior citizens) can be submitted, provided the provident fund amount payable is up to Rs 2,50,000 and Rs 3,00,000 respectively. 6) Form...

Apple is trying to steal a march on its smartphone rivals by submitting patent applications for location sharing and geofencing technology. It could mean, for example, that parents could keep track of their children, receiving notifications when they leave school. Knowing where families and friends are would have a host of other possible uses such as making it possible to add to a shopping list when a family member is known to be at a supermarket. Rendezvous would be easier with an array of custom notifications, such as saying how far somebody was from a meeting point. Updates could be sent by text, email or even a telephone call. The application has been submitted to the US patent office by the company from its headquarters at Cupertino, California. A second patent application, using geofencing, would make it easier to track people when they are indoors, such as in a shopping centre. It is likely to use developing technology, known as iBeacons which sen...

History bares testimony to the fact that great nations face grave crises. In 1933, the United States was struck by the great depression, which exposed the fallacies of the market economy. A few years later the military might of Japan was crushed by the United States during the Second World War. At the start of the last decade of the millennium, the fragilities of Socialism were exposed and it led to the eventual demise of the Soviet Union. India’s strength has always been its vibrant democracy. Ours is perhaps the only country where people from contrastingly different castes, creed, religion and race live together in peace and harmony. The other hallmarks of our country are a strong judicial system and a free press. The imposition of the emergency in 1975 struck at the very core of these ideals, which constitute our democracy. It was perhaps the darkest period in the history of independent India. The Reasons On 25th June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Ga...

Apple could be producing iPhones with flexible, curved screens - although it won't be in the iPhone 6s or 7, according to reports  Apple is "serious" about developing iPhones with flexible screens by as early as 2018 and already has its top display suppliers working on the displays, according to reports. The company is planning to replace the iPhone's current LED-backlit Multi-Touch display with a new organic light-omitting diode (OLED) screen - also used in the Apple Watch, a source told Business Korea . “It is very likely that the first flexible iPhone may be introduced in 2018, as Apple's top-tier display suppliers are working on it,” the source said. LG Display, which supplies many of the displays used in Apple products, is planning to switch one of its LCD supply lines to produce OLED panels en masse by 2017, they added. The news comes as speculation as to what the next iPhone - believed to be called either the iPhone 6s or the iPho...

Handy inbuilt feature on Apple's new iPhone software will automatically delete and reinstall apps to free up space for large system updates  The days of deleting hundreds of photos from your iPhone to free up space for large software updates are over - thanks to a new feature within forthcoming operating system iOS 9. Whereas in the past users were left frantically deleting the apps and elements which took up the most space, if you try to download iOS 9 on an iPhone or iPad with insufficient storage you are presented with a message offering to temporarily delete some apps so the software can be updated. The apps are then reinstalled following the download completion. Apple made a big point during its iOS 9 presentation at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month that the new update would require significantly less space than its predecessor. Once it's publicly available, iOS 9 will require 1.3GB of space, compared to iOS 8's whop...

The company made an announcement Wednesday for those other folks -- the Facebook holdouts who are probably tired of being pestered by their friends to give in and sign up already. Now they can talk to their friends on Facebook without having to open account, via Messenger. The option is limited, for now, to people in the United States, Canada, Peru and Venezuela. But non-Facebook users in those countries can use all of the Messenger features, including group and multimedia messaging, by simply signing up for a Messenger account. "With this update, more people can enjoy all the features that are available on Messenger – including photos, videos, group chats, voice and video calling, stickers and more," the company said in an official blog post . "All you need is a phone number." Although you have the option to add a name and a photo as well. Communication, generally, has become a bigger focus for Facebook as illustrated by its acquisition of ...

Corporate partnerships, like human ones, depend on what each side brings to the relationship and what each side needs. So, using that give-and-take formula, an alliance announced on Wednesday would seem to be a good match.   IBM, the technology giant, and Box, a Silicon Valley online file-storage company, are combining their products, technology and marketing to try to smarten and streamline the work done by teams in business. IBM brings its global reach, expertise in security, and data analysis and Watson artificial-intelligence software. Box brings a service used by millions of people in corporations and organizations who store all manner of data-rich content from business documents to X-rays in the company’s computing cloud. Together, the two companies say they will develop new applications that will enable teams of workers to collaborate more easily and efficiently. For IBM, the agreement with Box is the latest in series of partnerships with other co...

Instagram hopes two new features will make its service a little easier to use: trending tags and the option to search for photos by location. The updated app, which rolled out to users' phones Tuesday, will let people get a quick look at the hashtags that are shaping the conversation on the service that day. A glance at Tuesday's trending tags, for example, showed that users were posting about "National Pink Day," the video game "Arkham Knight" and "Olympic Day." "With the introduction of Trending Tags and Trending Places, the new Explore page connects you to events and conversations in real time, nearby or around the world," the company said in a blog post. "Instagram is also adding curated collections on the Explore page to highlight compelling accounts and locales." The second feature, Places Search, lets you search through public photos by location. So if you want to see how crazy the crowd is on the ...

Hillary Clinton is on course to win the Democratic primary and would go on to trounce her Republican opponents, according to a new poll. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that the former secretary of state was the first choice for nominee of 75% of her party, with Vermont socialist Bernie Sanders far behind on 15%. Despite rivals’ protestations, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush enjoy the support of their own party’s voters. But the other party’s dynasty candidate? Not a chance   Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor, was on 2%, while Lincoln Chafee, the former governor of Rhode Island, polled less than 1%. Former Virginia senator Jim Webb, who has not yet formally declared he is running, was on 4%. According to the poll, 92% of likely Democratic voters said they could see themselves supporting Clinton. The poll asked 1,000 likely voters about their opinions on potentia...