Recently, the TikTok app was banned from being installed on the devices of US, EU and Canadian government officials over security concerns and follows increasing global criticism of how the popular video site manages and shares data.

The platform, which is owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance, insists it operates no differently from other social media firms and says it would never comply with a data transfer order.

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In addition to data protection issues, the KVKK stated that TikTok must translate its terms of service into Turkish and update privacy and cookie policies to comply with the country’s laws.

According to the latest figures, Turkey ranks at ninth place for the most users of TikTok worldwide, with over 30 million accounts registered on the video-sharing platform.

The post TikTok Fined $93K By Turkey For Inadequate Data Protection appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Now, the Turkish Ministry of Interior is trying to use modern technology to help women threatened with domestic violence find help before it’s too late. The government ministry office released an app called KADES (Turkish acronym for Emergency Support Hotline for Women), which makes it easy for women to discretely report potential threats to the police.

“This application seeks to ensure women reach our police forces and receive help when under any threat, with just one touch,” explained Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu. “In any dangerous situation, women can connect to the system at the touch of a button, which will automatically send details of their location to the police”.

According to government statistics, the app has so far been downloaded over 20,000 times, and more than 30 women have used it to seek help. On average, the police arrived in just 5 minutes. The number is so low because the app automatically determines where the distressed woman is located and makes the information available to the police.

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The Turkish Ministry of Interior would like to see initiatives like KADES help wipe out violence against women completely. “Our President [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] says ‘abuse and violence on women is the biggest crime inflicted upon humanity’. We will continue our efforts until this shame is completely wiped out of our country,” said the minister.

However, government officials in Turkey are well aware that achieving such a lofty goal is extremely difficult and will require a multi-pronged approach, as well as a lot of time. In October 2021 alone, 18 women were killed across Turkey, and the number of less serious incidents is impossible to calculate because many of them go unreported.

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The startup designed a nanotechnology platform for highly targeted delivery of drugs directly to cancer cells. The platform is called Sagitta, and the name comes from the Latin word for “arrow.”

“Sagitta platform is a groundbreaking technology approach utilizing Polymer Drug Conjugates to target the tumor with a high payload of cytotoxins; resulting in high efficacy with reduced side-effect profile. In addition to moving our own candidates through clinical development, Sagitta platform is available for co-development projects,” explains RS Research on its website.

In other words, Sagitta allows drugs to do their job with minimal side effects, making it possible to avoid causing damage to healthy cells. If everything goes right, the technology could be used to support cancer treatment in Turkey and beyond as early as 2024.

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Together with other innovative cancer treatments, such as gene therapy, hormone replacement therapy, and immunotherapy, scientists and doctors are gradually expanding the range of treatment options available to cancer patients, and we can only hope that a real cure isn’t too far away.

Not too long ago, the FDA approved an Israeli medical technology after demonstrating its ability to eliminate tumors using new cancer-freezing technology.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated many areas of medical research, and it would be a welcome turn of events if some coronavirus-related findings helped finally defeat cancer.

The post Turkish Healthcare Startup RS Research Uses Nanotech To Selectively Destroy Tumors appeared first on Tech Magazine.

In January, as many as 10 million new users downloaded BiP during a single week, making it one the most downloaded apps on Google PlayStore and Apple AppStore.

To help maintain the remarkable pace of growth, BiP is now making it easier for its users to migrate their chat history from other apps. Users coming from competing instant messaging apps can now automatically and at once move their existing individual chats or group chats, including any shared videos and photographs.

BiP currently operates in 192 countries and has around 80 million users. Besides its home country, Turkey, it focuses heavily on the Indian market.

“India is a strategic market for us. 97% of mobile smartphone phone users use mobile apps for daily communications. The major youth population and their digital savviness offer profound potential. First quarter of 2021 has been very dynamic for us, we’ve reached more than 2 million downloads with very high rates of like scores in various platforms,” said Burak Akinci, BiP’s CEO. “We’ll gratefully continue to invest in innovative solutions and security to make Indian consumers’ everyday lives easier.”

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BiP stands out from many other instant messaging apps with its security- and privacy-oriented approach. For example, the Secret Chat feature lets users send messages that disappear from the chat screen within a set time period. The app also supports HD group video calls that can include up to 10 people. Users can choose to have their messages automatically translated into 106 different languages, including Gujarati, Kannada, Punjabi, and Telugu.

For these and other features, BiP received the ‘Most Innovative Mobile App’ award at 2020 Global Mobile Awards.

The post Turkish Messaging App BiP Introduces Group & Chat Import appeared first on Tech Magazine.

The goal of KimlikBasit is to provide a simpler solution for identity verification and remote customer acquisition to modern fintech apps, whose digital-only nature clashes with face-to-face verification of customer credentials.

“KimlikBasit is a fintech venture operating in the field of call center-supported remote customer acquisition, providing artificial intelligence-supported biometric data comparison and verification, with solutions designed for businesses, especially financial institutions, to prevent money laundering and identity fraud (AML/KYC),” explains Yakup Sezer, general manager of Insha Ventures.

Users who encounter KimlikBasit in the wild are required to go through only a few simple steps to complete the verification process. First, user information for remote customer acquisition is taken. The user is then redirected to the actual verification process, which consists of document scanning using a mobile device and a brief call with a call center employee. After successful verification, all user information is stored in a secure manner and can be accessed via an administration panel.

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“We are excited to be a critical part of this digital transformation while witnessing the transformation of the sectors in Turkey through regulations,” said Ali Haydar Ünsal, general manager of Identify Turkey. “In this period when the customer experience has undergone a significant change, we make it easier for companies in critical sectors such as e-commerce, banking, automotive and capital markets to acquire new customers within 10 minutes.”

Fintech apps that would like to implement KimlikBasit can look forward to 24/7 customer support provided by expert teams in multiple languages and a wealth of training material to help with the implementation of this innovative digital ID verification solution.

The post New Digital ID Verification Solution Available To Turkish Fintech Apps appeared first on Tech Magazine.

More specifically, the Istanbul Municipality has released a smartphone app whose purpose is to identify different mosquito species in the city and create a real-time map showing their location. The gathered information will allow city officials to take appropriate actions in order to stop, or at least slow down, the spread of mosquitoes in the city of hundred names.

The biggest challenge is the fact that not all Istanbul residents own high-end smartphones with high-resolution cameras capable of taking detailed pictures of tiny mosquitoes, especially under poor lighting conditions. That said, even less-than-ideal pictures can help officials map out the general presence of mosquitoes in Istanbul, which can go a long way in tackling the infestation.

Önder Yüksel Eryiğit, a senior municipal official, said that there are approximately 190,000 mosquito habitats in Istanbul, and 80 percent of them wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for humans creating ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes.

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Academics have warned the Istanbul Municipality about the possibility of mosquitoes infected with Zika and West Nile viruses already making the city their new home. To prevent a deadly outbreak of these and other infectious diseases, it’s important to act quickly and avoid letting the problem get out of hand.

This certainly isn’t the first application of mobile apps in the Middle East for the purposes of solving pressing healthcare issues, and it’s safe to say that it won’t be the last. For example, during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, a group of 16 technology enthusiasts from Turkey developed a contact-tracing app to instantly alert users who had contact with infected people.

The post Istanbul Fights Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes Using A Smartphone App appeared first on Tech Magazine.