Technology That Can Save Your Life

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Secure Banking Transactions

Are you aware that you can become a prey to Farming Attacks apart from phishing attacks transferring your private info to hackers. Yes it is very possible , so how to be safe from one? A farming site is a spurious banking site which you enter through a e-Mail purportedly from your banking site.

Make sure that first you enter wrong password in the banking related login screen. The right site will authenticate the password as wrong and ask you to renter the password a farming site will thank you for the wrong password.

Also Linux + Firefox or Safari is more safer than Windows + Internet Explorer. So make sure you install Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux using software like VMWare in your existing windows OS or go in for a double boot OS or another choice could be to use a Live Linux CD to carry out such secure transactions ever more safely.

Also while opening the site make sure that HTTPS secure transaction is being displayed in the URL box and a Lock is displayed over there which is generally not displayed by a farming site.

Next Growth Center of Telecom Industry

WELL the first growth center was Volumes. In 2007 Telecom industry added 7-8 million additions per month. In 2008 it was 8-10 million per month. Well now this volume growth is likely to slump to 5-6 Million additions per month by 2010 -12. So where does the revenue come from. Currently the revenues are dropping. ARPU is in the vicinity of 206 Rs per user. Too less.

So while for some time the growth is likely to come from Rural Areas, I think the next growth is surely going to be VAS Content Based Services. Like Live TV on Mobile, and interactive internet shows dominating the mobile with adoption of first 3G in mid 2009 and then 4G or even LTE in times to come. Also services like internet radio is likely to grow with broadband.

Apps like youtube customized for mobile would also increase the VAS revenues of the telecom companies. VAS is very likely to pick up with time to come. Also ARPU can be increased by starting Educational Projects and E-Commerce apps for Rural Areas.

Technology can save your Hard Earned Bucks

Norton Internet Security 2009

Its easy to install takes just about few minutes. And has got a stylish interface. Its from trusted Symantec. I tried out the trial version and the results were not that bad.
It has antivirus anti spy ware , Firewall, Intrusion Prevention, E-Mail scanning, Identity Safe and Anti Phishing features. All in all a complete package to save your computer from all types of threats existing on the net for your desktop or laptop connected to the Internet.

Its got a quick scan and a complete scan and it automatically monitors the system for threats.

Additionally it just occupies 10 MB in your Programs Flolder compared to 40/70 MB in 2008 versions of various antivirus programs and also the issue of error cropping up while closing down the PC has not still been taken care of in the Norton 2008 version . So go on , and get your PC in safe hands. Security Nirvana could you call it that? Eh?

Is Default Windows Firewall Hacking Your PC

Thousands of your hard earned money can go down the drain. If you are dependent on Windows Firewall for security you will be shocked to know that it is the worst in the league.

The best Firewalls in that order are
Comodo Firewall Pro 3.0.25
Zone Alarm 8.0.02
PC Tools Firewall Plus 4.0.0.40

The worst of Firewalls, install and use at your peril are
1. Windows Firewall
2. Ashampoo Firewall
3. Personal Firewall

So go in for your upgrade of firewall today to save you from hackers and virus or trozan attacks to your PC’s. You will be surprised to know that the softwares listed in first list cleared 10 levels of security tests while Windows Firewall and others in the list cleared only one level of tests.

You can just type “netstat –ano” at the command prompt to see which ports are open and listening and can kill the processes which are not required if you are connected to the net.

Also apply the OS service Packs regularly and also patch your programs regularly to make your programs much safer from the vulnerabilities of the Internet. Stop unnecessary services from your computer to also save on computer productivity and resourses.

Maintaining Your Registry

RegEdit

You may have sometimes tried multiple Virus programs to remove all the Viruses from your m/c as a typical program detects only 30% of all threats. Some times even on removing the Virus Program the ensuing installations may detect the previous Software . This may happen because the registry may have some residual keys related to the software which is not removed while uninstalling from Add/Remove Programs option.

Hence to remove these last traces click start/Run , type Regedit and press enter, registry editor will be opened. Search for the program for example in the find option menu type AVG 8 and search for keys . Locate the entry key by Right Clicking and selecting the locate key option and delete the entry. This will now allow you to install the other programs. Also delete other not required entries of uninstalled program to reduce the size and load of the registry.

Animation and India

Indian Animation Industry

Indian Animation industry was worth 460 million $ in 2008 and by 20011 its supposed to be a Billion dollar Industry in India. India was host to 85 animation movies being produced in India as per announcements made. 28 movies are in different stages of execution right now.

But the sector faces a lot of problems like shortage of skilled manpower and infrastructure problems. Also the quality of work is still not at par to the international standards, affecting export work. But the potential is there.

The animation industry in India is growing at 27% whereas the education sector is growing at a rate robust 40%. All healthy indicators if you want to choose animation as your career, but the fees may be steep at some premium Institutes like the Mumbai Andheri based ZIMA and Xaviers Mumbai.

Technological Obsolescence and You

Planning Obsolescence of Your Technological Products

New products every three months. On how you use your technological products is totally upto your flair and income. There is always a saturation in any product category. You buy a I-Pod of 80 GB capacity carrying 30,000 songs capacity. How long would you stick to this product. Even if you are a Music Maniac you probably would get saturated with the product in a couple of months.

Similar to the Music Players and PMP’s you have your phone. If there is a breakthrough technology like introduction of 3G in India or some other tech like LTE in US or 4G for higher internet and downloading speeds, one need not go for a costly upgrade unless you are a millionaire and are doing all the shopping for gifting and snob appeal alone.

So while buying a new product make sure that you keep the utility and value at the forefront and make a decision which you do not regret on a later date.

Perception is Reality VR

Perception Centers

Now the research in VR is taking on a new dimension, experiencing other bodies as part your own bodies. Experiments on this have been conducted in StockHolms Karolina Institute. Volunteers tested on the experiment and reported sensations accurately of owning other bodies and getting a feeling that it is our own.

The application of the technology could be in VR applications like Second Life in which user could use VR to enter into the body of their virtual avatar at SL or other community and interact with other friends and enemies at the community and get a better experience of the whole deal.

Best Buy Dell Multimedia Gaming PC Entry Level

Dell Studio XPS

Lo and Behold. The computer desktop based on the i7 920 2.66 GHZ processor is already in market. Costing 84,900 Rs. 500 GB Hard Disk, 3 GB DDR3 RAM, Blu Ray Combo Drive. 512 MB ATI Radeon HD4850 Graphics card. 2.1 channel stereo audio., 1920 x 1200 pixels resolution and a wireless mouse and keyboard.

The above specifications are ideal for a to date Multimedia applications friendly PC which is also not very hard on budget or burning a hole into your pocket.

All in all a power packed deal for PC enthusiasts. For placing your customized PC order log on to
www.dell.co.in

Micro Robotic’s

THERE are people who think in the slot, there are people who think out of the box. Robots were always supposed to be large clunky Human like objects with animated features to assist Human beings. But currently work is on in various universities for the use of Robotics in treating diseases including surgeries inside the body. Capsule sized robots are injected into the body which enters the body and assemble to provide surgery capabilities within stomach and intestine. So after all a incision free surgery procedure using technological Robots. Some thing cool and great.

But the concept is in research stage and current success rate is 75%.

TuneUp Utility 2008

Well you install and deinstall a number of programs. If you read magazines there are scores of Movie traiors which you need to install to preview. So far so good, but that harms your registry with fragmentation, broken links and other errors.
You need Tune Up utility 2008 to fix these errors. Apart from that there are 100's of applications sitting in your start Menu which needs to be removed if not to be started automatically. This makes the booting process damn long not knowing if its due to start menu exhaution or Worms and Viruses may mislead your efforts.
If you have a PC use it to its utmost utility. Try the above one which have many other interesting Facets too.

Ultimate Gaming Experience

You are right. For ultimate gaming experience you need to get hooked on to the Consoles and not depend on our own PC’s or notebooks which are not specialized and not designed for that special purpose. Moreover keyboard controls may take out all your joy of the ultimate gaming experience. Consoles are designed specially for gaming and have accelerated onboard graphics and specially designed chips to take care of your ultimate gaming experience.

PSP is designed to create am ultimate Portable gaming experience and cost starts about 9000 Rs. PSP 2.0 version may be available for as low as Rs. 5000, but would not include latest game titles and effects.

Playstation may cost you about Rs, 21,500 and is the expensive of the lot but 7 multiplayers can play the game at one go. So if you are looking for team games you could opt for Play station 3.0.

XBOX 360 comes in Core and Pro editions. Core costs just 15,000 rs and doesn’t support all titles and features of Pro like HDMi and Component and optical out. Pro could cost you Rs, 20,000. Core supports 465 titles and still counting.

WII can also be used as Blu Ray player apart from all three stables offering you a mix of options for playing your favorite movies and music or videos. Apart from that all the three Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have online gaming support and support gami8ng downloads.

Lesser Known Maintenance Acts

OK every body tunes up their PC which usually means cleaning the temporary files and de fragmenting the Hard Disk.

But there are other things to the chorus which can be done to run a system as smoothly as possible. I have compiled the following list.

Removing the system restore points, frees up memory.
Optimizing and de fragmenting the Registry.
Configuring the RAM in BIOS settings optimizes performance of PC.
Flashing the latest version of BIOS increases system stability and performance.
Updating the Motherboard Drivers to elicit maximum performance.
There are utilities like Ultra Defrag which is ultimate disk optimization.

Pico Satellites

University of Florida has designed Pico satellites which would be slightly larger than a cricket ball. This satellite could be mass created and mass launched and could work in Swarms to collect space data and transmit to the Earth. More countries could send and afford such satellites and they would also cost less and save metals on Earth. They could be in space for years together. Some difficulties which these satellites could face could be that it would be difficult to align the devices on the Pico Satellites for which special routines could be required.

Some of these satellites may not be able to work as independent satellites but could be used as helper satellites to the main satellite giving it complimentary and additional functionality.

Graphics Cards and IGP Motherboards

Value and High Performance Gaming
If you want a good Gaming experience you need to have a IGP ( Integrated Graphics Processor )Motherboard to keep a budget intact or you can go in for Discrete Graphics Cards. Motherboards for Graphics are available from Intel and AMD in the range of 2800 for value products to 10,000 Rs for high end motherboards.
Also graphics cards are available for ultimate gaming experience which requires high frame rate and HD video streaming capabilities. AMD 2x 4870 GPU is the best in the class according to performance benchmarks. It is a dual core GPU and costs around Rs. 30,000.
In the IGP category. Intel G45 is the best in Intel category costing Rs. 9,900. The best in AMD category is AMD 790 GX costing 10,900 Rs. You can add Discrete card to IGP motherboards to increase its performance level.

Future of PC

1. Thought interface will make image and text transfer to computer more instantaneous
2. laptops will run months on battery without recharge and then maybe self recharging batteries would come
3. Customisable CPUs would reconfigure for task at hand

What is your take

Two New Products of Note

>> Tomy 5 MP Camera to print instant card size photo from your mobile itself
>> Sharps 108" LCD TV costing 97 lakhs a real luxury I would say

Smart peripherals

What is the future of peripherals. Well smart gadgets with onboard chip which will have memory to store the drivers of the device so that when you plug in the device it automatically loads the driver. Also it would be self updating component in that if you have an internet connection then the component loads the latest version of the driver releiving you of the chorus of downloading and installing latest driver.
So smart assembly of peripherals which self maintains is really a future to look on to.

High Performance Graphics Cards

The best Graphics card from the stable of NVIDIA is POint of View GTX 280.

Costs 31,231, Directx 10 Compatible 1 GB ddr3 RAM, 512 Bus width , 240 stream processors, Core/Memory speed 602/1107 Mhz.

Best for gaming freaks who want to run games like Crisis with full quality setings.

Not the best of all processors, the best of all processors is the GE Cube Radeon GC - HD 3870 x 2 - F5.

Costing at 24,303 Rs it is a dual core GPU with best scores in all tests. DX 10.1 compatible 1 GB DDr3 ram 256 Bus 320 x 2 stream processors. Core/Memory speed 775/900. Take a IGP motherboard and with two discrete graphics cards of the above specifications in double Cross fire mode your life is really gonna rock.

Entry Level Notebooks for less than 25,000 Rs

Strange but true. Although not for high business use but for casual keeping in touch with the team on the move and for light Office work. MSI Wind at about 23,000 Rs is ideal with a atom N270 processor. Comes in four attractive colors with the following specifications.

MSI Part Number: 9S7-N01152-411
U100-411US
•
CPU: Intel® Atom™ N270 1.6GHz
•
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition.MSI also recommends upgrade to Windows Vista® Business or Windows Vista® Ultimate
•
Display: 10" WSVGA LCD
•
Color: White
•
Graphics: Intel® GMA950
•
System Memory: 1GB DDR2
•
Hard Drive: 120GB SATA I
•
Communications:

Built-in 10/100 Ethernet

Built-in 802.11b/g WLAN Card / No Bluetooth
•
Dimensions: 10.23"(L) X7.08"(D) X 0.748"~1.24"(H)
•
Weight: 2.3 lbs (3 cell)

Free Ware

What is free is not necessarily Bloatware. Examples Galore. AVG is a free antivirus quite popular. Linux is a opensource OS the preferred OS for servers. Google analytics is free but pictorial and better than AW stats in its analytical insights.
Google documents is free but can be used var easily for geographical collaboration across continents for free with out inesting even a cent.
So got it. What is paid for may be better than open source but not always.

IPod Dying Slowly

The signs are ominous. The costs are down. The sales are down this year. FM radio listnership has improved compared to I-Pod sales which is actually going down in US. Surprised. Well it could be due to interactive and updated content in FM compared to lonely existence with the I-Pod. Staying connected with other fellow Human Beings is what is important to Human Beings, which is being gratified by Radio FM , and not by I-Pod.
So do other companies really need to create I-Pod killers keeping the above fact in mind. Well I-Pod could integrate FM Radio and Satellite Radio to counter this threat. Also I-Tunes could start its own internet Radio channels of Talk shows and other popular formats in US. That could be the best Strategy, Say what dudes.
Life is good, eh?

Adaptive Security

Adaptive Security

There are the Viruses, there are the worms, there are Trozan Horses, Malware and Spyware not to forget mentioning Phishing attacks. Data theft and inadvertent changes, disgruntled and dishonest employees. The list of vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure is unending. And so are the latest attacks which are getting more and more sophisticated with each passing day. But there is no software which can deal with all these attack points with any degree of success or accuracy. It is found that any anti virus software at any given time only detects with 35% accuracy. So many threats are always looming large on your computer and corporate LAN.

Also hackers are advancing in there level of intrusion designing adaptive intelligent worms which can plant Trozan Horses to steal data from your corporate chest. Viruses can spread all around the net within 10 minutes. Think of the Business Catastrophe the whole world sits on today, dependent on internet for the Business Communication. Hence it is important not to depend completely on VOIP for your corporate communication and have a second line of communication to be a bit less vulnerable to internet crash.

SME’s are most affected by this scenario as they have a smaller budget but need to deal with the same level of threat as that of a big organization. Hence there is a need of a Integrated Security solution which manages all these aspects and is also easier to manage and doesn’t work as silos. Different applications from different vendors makes manageability and complete threat management a very difficult task.

Even big organizations could benefit from unified threat management solutions integrated to help the organizations in defending from all types of threats and offering cost and manageability benefits to the users.

The security industry could gain by pooling resources and hiring hackers into a R&D setup which would look at the solution from the point of view of the problem. As hackers brains could be harnessed for the benefit of the society at large.

Sometimes You Digress

Microsoft Vista, a product many don’t swear by. Although there are some rave reviews about its security and interface. But XP remains favorite with many users in India and Asia. So Microsoft has decided that it will continue to support this product till the 2014’s well long before Vista would end its support. XP had Service Pack 3 released earlier this year and Vista Pack 1.

Maybe Microsoft could do well by pumping in some million dollars to make XP more alluring and place it as a competing product to Vista all this while trying and removing the glitches of Vista OS and working on in this regard.

So Vista actually turned out to be a dampener for Microsoft which created an advantage for Linux Open Source OS. Linux Red Hat is now choice for hundreds of commercial organizations running mission critical servers.

So the gain of one is the loss of another.

The Browser Wars : Will IE survive

Internet Explorer 8, Opera 9.5, Firefox 3.1 and Chrome from Google are the browsers that are involved in the slugfest of the browser wars. I see internet explorer loosing steam in coming times.

I run a website named http://cat-mat-percentile.co.in and my personal blog which you are reading right now, and let me share my personal web browser habits data with you. I see that IE still has a major share but not a lions share. Opera and Firefox is fast encroaching the space which was hitherto occupied by the Microsoft’s internet explorer. IE has been a slow innovator copying most features from other more innovating smaller browsers and seems to be continuing to top the list because users refuse to change.

Opera is damn fast and looks really good interface. Firefox and Opera are competing neck to neck for a sizably chunked market share of second spot. Internet explorer is surely losing its 90% market share to settle initially to about 60% of market share. Slowly but surely other browsers are likely to make a killing and dislodge Internet Explorer from the Numero Uno spot.

Till then are you stuck with a habit.

Evolution of Technology

Technology evolves at its own pace, this is very true for the Global technological Arena. Take for example MP3 players and Mobile Music Players ( Included with mobile), they still dont have value added functionality like the DJ app to change the tempo and pitch of the song and listen to the same song with new vigor. Looks like a likely evolution for the music enthusiasts but as far as I know there is really a dearth of original thinking and creativity in the world.

Also look at the Digital cameras with the mobile they lack color profile applications in most common models.

Maybe the creators should look for the related applications out of the Miniature versions and work out some real cool smart applications with embedded technology in them to make the product alluring and compelling.

Luxury at the Bottom Of Pyramid

There was time when a phone was a luxury a telecom connection was even a more luxury with call rates as high as 16 / min and you had to pay for incoming. Now phones are avialbale in India and elsewhere at $10.

Time is not far away when multilingual camera phone with high tech features will be available with even the poorest of poor maybe gifted by govt. to stay in touch and enable e-commerce and identification.

Marketing will take a whole U-Turn then with BOP families even in the rural hinterlands being available to tap to sell producst like micro-insurance and micro credit. There will be no need to set up offices every where and the customers would be as ubiquitous as there telecom handset.

Till then best of luck to all the product and service marketers trying the traditional and current alternate media.

Parallel Processing Lacking

Can you believe it hardware is evolving faster compared to software. True, today dual core and quad core processors are very common, but software development is lacking. Millions have been earmarked to rewrite software so that these new breed of processors can be utilised optimally. But work is still in research stage in universities.
Intel is planning to come out with a ten core processor for users in near future. But true advantage could be taken only if true multithreading is achived by rewriting programs for parallel processing.
Till then your processor just saves some bill on electricity bill by being less heat producing.

i-Phone 3G Superfluous for India

i-Phone 3G. Do you want to own a brand or utility. Mainly 3G services are unavailable in India and is not expected to be rolled out soon. So do you want to own a phone which you cant use fully for a price of 35,000 INR. That is totally upto your discretion. You will not be able to use broadband internet services and chances are when available you will be charged an exorbitant amount of sum to use the same services.

Also the camera at 2 MP is certainly not a USP . Also it misses on other important corporate friendly features. So do you need to go for this phone or for some other user friendly phone from which you will be able to extract the bang for the buck.

Cool Gadgts Of Desire

Philips Media Player

If you are thinking of buying a Media Player which is not too hard on your pocket then you may be wanting to consider Philips GoGear SA3125. It costs just Rs. 5000 and QQVGA screen with 160 x 128 pixels. Memory 2 GB, data transfer through USB 2.0.

If I-Pod is looks heavy on your pocket then you may very well try to go for this model. Decent Audio / Video quality, Quick file transfer.

Has an integrated FM radio with ten presets, voice recorder.

Sony DVD-DCR-DVD610E

If you are a you tube Home video professional freak then watch out for this camcorder from sony. I was amazed to find out that it has a 40x Zoom at a price point of just 19,700 Rs. It has image stabilization feature for amateurish movie makers. You can record directly on to a DVD or a memory stick duo. Ie Hybrid recording. It can record upto 100 minutes of high quality video.

Now if you are thinking of making some cool professional looking videos go for this fantabulistic Camera with 40x optical zoom and 2000x digital zoom.

My MP3 Player

I realized after using mu Philips 1 GB MP3 player that it is one thing to acquire a device and another thing to use the Gizmo. You need self awareness to use the device. Do you know which songs you would like to hear. There are my favorite songs but I dont like to hear them in a particular sequence. I like to goo about starting with old classics and then contemporary songs.

Also I think with more research if there is a small ROM like writable memory chip in the device which remembers the sequence and songs which I heard once and refine my Shuffle function continuously to give me out of the world experience in listening ecstasy then I would really be a happier man altogether.

AI powered MP3 players may be available in some years, till then I need to struggle with manually optimizing my listening experience with the MP3 player.

What has been your experience?

Marketing Technology Products

Its important to understand that no two customers are the same and different customers require different approach to market your technology product. But the luck is on your side in that all customers fall into a few broad categories.

The first category is the Novice User. The novice user knows nothing about the product and wants to know every thing and probably experience the product before placing an order. So experiential format store or the demonstration of product would be best for this class of consumer. Many stores use plasma screens to show specification and functionality of common electronics items to avoid repeat explanations to all prospects.

The second functional category is the Techie Geek. This class of users have all the knowledge of the item to be bought and wants to re affirm her beliefs. So you need to just affirm his beliefs and let him experience the product.

The third category of users is the Affluent Demonstrative consumer. These people may probably not even use the item beyond carrying and maybe occasional use. So you need to pamper their ego and show them high end stylish models with a better price tag and impress upon the Style Quotient and exclusivity that the product is probably going to provide them.

Also in selling the Technical Product in which new models keep turning up every quarter you need to have a educated , trained and motivated workforce which will be able to take care of the above mentioned different approach to different consumers and improve upon the closing ratio than just working with a standard rote presentation to each consumer.

Now Buy Your Top Level Domain

ICANN has decided that for a Sum of $1,00,000 you will be able to buy a Vanity TLD name. Domains like .Ambani, .Love et al would be a possibility now. These domain names would be tested for ethicality and spoofing before allotting by ICANN’s strict scanning procedure. This measure will also increase the number of domains available on the internet which is already breaching the upper limit of the Internet Naming System.

Also top level Domain Names could now be in other languages like Arabic or Cyrillic. So now get ready for Unicode addressing in the World Wide Web. The process is set to begin by 2009.

With all these developments it occurred to me that a lot remains to be done on the level of language translation which may be expected in the Semantic web or Web 3.0. That is automatic translation of web site into the language desired by the user. Maybe in two years we see such a solution. It occurred to me because I have blog readers from 61 countries and I found that there were no readers from Russia, ( From Google Analytics ), and I concluded that my English language blog was an impediment to successful marketing in Russia and other countries in Africa apart from South Africa. Hence if you are blogging then you have to look at all these factors to increase your readership loyalty as well as adsense revenues.

Live CD's

Want to work with a higher version OS. Don’t know the cumbersome details of the process of installing or just want to learn Linux along with Windows OS. No problem. Go for a Live CD. CD’s are available for Linux and Windows latest version OS which can be used to boot your PC from the CD drive. Now that is a cool smart way of coming over the problem of working with two OS simultaneously for learning or commercial purposes, cutting down on your maintenance costs by a hefty amount. So what are you waiting for acquire one, and Go For IT.

Life was never good for PC enthusiasts with PC and Internet innovations propping up by the hour and keeping life interesting every minute.

Telecom Gold at the Bottom Of Pyramid

Vodafone entered Indian market not very long time back, but it is already making waves in UK and Europe. Vodafone was ranked 6^th in wealth creation in UK and 21^st in Europe ( BERR Survey in Britain ).

Hence it can be concluded that the Indian BOP foray has proved damn lucrative to the UK based company. It is to be noted that Vodafone acquired Hutch in India and launched a re branding campaign in India and has a red logo. Vodafone sells cheap handsets in India costing 30 dollars upwards aimed at the mass Bottom Of Pyramid customers. The strategy seems to have paid off as volumes have substituted for the margins and made Vodafone successful in garnering the crucial subscribers and market share in the Indian Market.

Nokia’s India Strategy

Nokia is all set to begin offering new services to its clients as the telecom sector is set to consolidate in order to de clutter in the coming years. Nokia with a lions market share of about 75% in Indian handset market is threatened by the marketing and product attack of competitors like Motorola, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson who are going strong on Branding and Product positioning.
So now Nokia has decided that it is time to retaliate and it has acquired Symibian and plans to launch a platform called Ovi which will be used hawk its stable of VAS like Games, Entertainment, and navigation. All the three categories are growing in India and are set to reach multibillion dollar status in a couple of years.
In 2007 VAS was valued at a healthy 1.5 Billion dollars and is set to reach $5.6 billion by 2011. Nokia will also concentrate on OS market. With competition gaining heat it is getting more and more difficult for Nokia to retain its market share and it has to try various things like proactive planning and scenario analysis to stay ahead of other nimble and capable companies with matching talent and deep pockets.

Online Reputation Management

ORM is emerging as a hot new concepts in India following the global trends. Companies find that internet can be used for malicious purposes by disgruntled customers and ex employees hence the need to ORM. ORM is already a multi crore
Business in India. Companies hire agencies to look after their online images and pay agencies for doing the same.
It could be considered as Internet Brand building by managing good articles and blog posts in Social Media to maintain good Internet Brand Equity. In future companies may even be lobbying for a law against digital ignominy.
But their already exists consumers and prosumer’s lobby’s which are for opinions by consumers. There are various opinion products on the internet you should go through before buying any durable worth a few thousand Rs.
Hence according to this author instead of spending crores of Rs. On corrective measures companies could take proactive measures such as to take the complaints themselves and seriously through company blogs so as to give a feeling of transparency to the consumers instead of going for quick fix and reactive measures.
What say?

Location Based Services

How location based services are slowly becoming a Industry in Itself is worth a sector watching. It is already a 1 Billion Indutry and is set to increase it self in size to 8 billion in next 1 year. Rapid growth is happening and is expected to continue in the future also.
Applications like addresses of Restaurants and Location based special offers by many businesses and finding friends in local places is cathing on really fast among mobile users. 16 Milion people already use this service which is set to cross 45 million by 2011.
Maps is a blockbuster application on LBS and soon with refinements to the LBS ecosystem the whole deal is all set to get ever alluring to the users.

Location based services can also get popular in countries with high level of tourist influx with those new in the country can get information in hans without scouring for it from th eunhelpful and sometimes dangerous locals. So that dimension is the one I like.

Yahoo’s Attrition Continues

Yahoo is seeing senior management personnel leaving the company. The move comes with the Google and Yahoo pact on co operation in advertising. Senior management is leaving the company on job clarity and security concerns. Yahoo India has also seen about 50 employees fired on low performance. Many Indian Technology companies like Infosys also practice the process of laying off poor performers.

Yahoo also lost heavily in Market capitalization owing to the concerns of shareholders over the merger with Microsoft failing. Hence looks like Yahoo has plenty of problems on its platter for the time being. How deftly Yahoo manages to steer clear will only be revealed by the times to come.

FireFox 3.0 Launched

Creeping market share acquisition for Mozilla’s Firefox is what I call a successful strategy to dethrone Internet Explorer from the coveted Market Leadership in Browser market. While IE has 72% of market share Firefox now has about 18% of the Browser market share. Not by any standards a mean achievement.

Many a factors were involved in this process, and the main in main was the high speed which Firefox offers compared to the IE. Microsoft’s internet explorer was also a follower on various counts of innovation like the tabbed browsing which was started by many lesser known players with not so deep pockets and a big R&D staff. Also there were anti trust allegations against Microsoft for bundling its Browser with OS and adversely affecting the competitors chances of winning the Browser Wars.

Firefox 3.0 was downloaded 8 million times in first 24 hours of launch creating a record of sorts, while opera has launched opera 9.5 which was downloaded 5 million times in about a weak time. So more competition seems to be taking on the heels of the market leader Microsoft.

Firefox 3.0 is faster and takes up lesser of computer memory for operation but a security glitch was reported within hours of its launch which affected the downloads. Browser market wars are all set to heat up in the coming times what with Billions of handsets in the circulation and chances of Browser and search advertising revenues making the mobile space a hot differentiating entity in any companies portfolio.

Opera is also gaining traction and every month about 20 million users use Opera to access web from computers and 12 million people use Opera Mini from their mobiles. Watch out this space to read more about the Browser Marketing Wars in coming posts.

Marketing Worth of Social Networks

I was just reading the TechCrunchs Post today on the value of Social Networks. They have used advertising spend as the criteria for measuring the effectiveness of Social Networks. Not going into the actual ranking but the post set me thinking at the problem. Yes what good is a social ntwork without a revenue model. So if marketers are being served their dues then things are good. But it also set me thinking, what makes people think that there cant be Niche Social Networks with subscription based revenues and premium hosted services which will distinguish it from all the other Social Networks.

Myspace and Facebook emerged as the biggest networks as expected. With Hi5 and Bebo also figuring in the list.

Geographically UK is the most lucrative market followed by Australia, Denmark and USA is at fourth spot.

Apples Global Strategy

How apple tends to increase the sales of its i-Phone 3G globally. First it is entering into marketing arrangement with distributors in 22 countries which is bound to have a great impact on the sales of i-Phones. Next they plan to increase the country served count to 70. Also they would make it difficult for people to use unlocked phone by not selling a phone without a service plan.

They plan to sell 10 million i-Phones in 2008. 3G is a technology which allows more bandwidth to internet applications and data services on Mobiles. iPhone is only second in the smart phone category, next to Blackberry phone from RIM.

Apples strategy is most likely to pay off with distribution making iPhones available to people who were hitherto relying on grey markets to buy these phones.

The 8GB model will be available for 200 dollars and 16 GB model available for a 300 dollars.

Internal Memory in LG Dynamite Required

Today I was reading the specifications of LG Dynamite in news paper and found that most MP3 players had a inbuilt memory of just 60 to 80 MB which could store just 20-30 songs. It was also not clear if the Memory was shared for Photo and Video recording or , if separate what was the memory for Photos and videos.

Will the companies take note of the fact that a model with MP3 player is useless with out at least 1 GB of Internal memory. Expandable memory is welcome but internal memory is desirable feature.

Maybe LG 195, 220 and 320 doesn't have these features but LG future models may support the same.

Clogging of Domains and Internet Addresses

There are almost 4.5 billion internet addresses and about 400 million left free. So IP V 6 is supposed to support trillions of trillions of trillions addresses to come over the problem of addresses on the internet. Apart from hosted spaces, billions of addresses would be needed for networking equipments with addresses in a more smarter internet of the future.

Also Yahoo is introducing ymail.com and rocketmail.com two new domains for it services. Yahoo has a humongous 266 E-Mail users and it is becoming difficult for them to assign users names with their actual identity. It is believed that 70% of internet users want to have a id which reflects their true identity. Hence Yahoo is coming up with this Endeavor.

Self Service Programs and Technology

Technology helps in establishing Self Servicing Routines like those of E-Commerce, E-Governance or E-Education. In this line India has also started various experimental programs. But India is in the first stage of introducing e-enablement. For example Foreign Universities have e-Courses and Exams. They also have software deployed in Universities for better teacher student interaction and service.

India is still experimenting with the concept with universities like Mumbai University, and Delhi University having Registration Forms being sold and accepted online.

With massive population explosion in India, there is a huge under served market in India, which can be tapped by Distance Mode online. Universities can start distance mode in Collaboration with Foreign universities to gain with the ready made course ware and systems and processes required to run the Online Universities. It would be a natural expansion for these Businesses and it is also their Moral and CSR obligation, which will also give the next booster to the Indian Economy.

Also existing students can be trained better by employing e-Learning centers in Colleges and Universities as the needs of different students is different, and customization can be done easily by using software tutors. This in turn will lead to better trained and employable graduates leading to better quality of life for the employees and also the society.

India Ranks 20 in Patents Ranking

In both WIPO and PTO ranking India ranks lowly on 20th rank. Asia corners almost 1/3 rd of Science and Technology patents with even small countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Japan doing much better than India cornering a quarter of all patents put together. Taiwan is ranked 4rth in PTO rankings, South Korea 5th and Japan is second. US leads both the lists.

So India may do well by improving its Patents research and enter the league of the likes of Germany, France , Italy et al. PTO ranked China at a lowly 15th spot still doing better than India.

Innovations Galore From LG and Samsung

While i-Phone 3G is going to hit 22 countries in July, other companies are not sitting idle. They are planning their own innovative new products.

LG and Samsung are usual are leading the onslaught with their products which include new features like haptic touch, Vibetones and Support for Widgets.

Samsung Omnia supports Vibetones where you can set different vibrations for different callers, a totally new experience to give you that special feeling for a special person when he/she calls.

LG and Samsung are both launching products ( LG’s KF 700) which are haptic, ie when you touch the screen they give a vibratory feedback of right or wrong interaction. Now that is something I call a cool innovation which will sure entice the users. Also the support for widgets which can pull news or blog feeds right from your home page is something users will like to have on their phones.

So i-Phone 3G watch out, cornering big chunks of Market Share only on the count of Distribution Clout is not going to be that easy. You need to take on on the Innovation front as well.

Digital Divide Widens

Digital Ecstasy Beckons

Recently I read in the news paper that Nokia E Series launched a Phone with Dual Camera with a front Camera for Video chat. Now that is some cool innovation where you will be able to have mini conferences with your business stakeholders and pass on that so necessary body language to the overall communication that you send out.

Also on personal front you could be with your friends and spouses and communicate in Multimedia mode with your expressions speaking out more than just words.

But on the flip side it could add to an added surveillance on you and may increase the already existing digital divide.

Piracy and Digital Music Business

Piracy Denting UK Music Industry

If you thought that India is the only one country with high rates of Music Piracy, it will be an eye opener for you. 50% of the Music in the I-Pods of 96% of British 18-24 years old is pirated. In the case of 14-17 years old it is 61%, Times reported.

With the cost of legal downloads becoming friendly these figures are more awe inspiring. This shows how P2P sites and Buddy sharing are eating away the profits of Music Labels.

That made me start thinking what makes people who can afford expensive I-Pods use bootlegged Music.The urge to save money, simple convenience of Bulk Copying or lack of values. Times have not dwelled on these causes. Well statistics speak of necessary measures required for the Music labels to encourage legal downloading or sales.

One way could be prepackaged Music at a small incremental fees included with I-Pod. Another way could be to distribute good Music with DVD’s priced at an attractive price point which makes piracy redundant.

Indian Cinema is trying hard to fight Piracy by adopting the above methods. Movies which fail to pick up in the theatres and old classics are sold in DVD’s priced at Rs 34-38 and a set of 2 CD’s for Rs. 24. This hardly covers the cost of CD’s not to speak of the replacement warranty if defect is found and posh locations like Planet M and Big Bazaar in Malls where these are available.

May be UK companies will take note and come out with some measures to curb the Menace of Piracy.

Sudden Technology Threat

Telecom companies were doing well adding about 7-8 million users to its kitty every month in India and globally too. The juggernaut has hit a roadblock before it could blow into a full fledged business boom. The reason Indian Government has found that Cells are not safe for Children and Pregnant Women. Prominent politicians are also demanding a ban on phone use in school and are setting guidelines for advertising related to these market segments.

Suddenly the most lucrative market segment of Kids and Pregnant women become a taboo for telecom companies which is sure going to hit the sales of these companies eventually as kids are a fashion conscious high net worth clients of mobile services what with upward mobility of families with respect to income.

Suddenly the telecom companies are subject to new SWOT studies to find new ways of coping with the situation. One strategy which the companies could adopt would be to come together and form a corpus of funds to R&D and find safe radiation free phone technology so that these segments again open up for them. But this will take time. Another strategy could be to promote the use of Hands Free and Blue tooth. Also selling more to existing customers could offset some of the loss to the top line and bottom line which would arise from this scenario.

Also governments could take a cue from this situation and not allow companies to launch products without proper safety testing and Health implications being taken into consideration.

Price Wars and Technology Companies

It was all started by Google who strated offering Office applications for free as cloud computing solutions. So that resulted inMicrosft trying to acquire Yahoo in order to challenge the dominance of Google in Internet. Apart from that it looks like soon Anti Trust cases may bethrust upon Google which is fast reaching a threatening Monopoly situation in Search Advertising.

But with Google going open source with its Office solutions has not yet created a much dent in the market share of Microsoft whose main enemy happens to be Piracy in Third World countries than the trying to be Nemesis Google.

Going open source may help the companies to make research easier but it sure is going to result in eroded top line and bottomline for both the Companies. Looks like all the top management guys in Fortune 500 companies are in dire need of management courses, to make them understand that it is better to compete maybe on open standards than go in for a total regressive price wars.

Technology Tid Bid

New Generation of Microprocessors are 80% energy efficent compered to the existing 65% energy efficient processors with out giving up on performance parameters.

Phoenix Microprocessors

University of Michigan is developing a Microprocessor which can run on very low energy. In sleep mode it requires energy in PicoWatts, Billionth of Watts. It is supposed to be used in applictaions like Medicine , Construction and Surveillance.
It has a very small battery of the form of Film which can be used power the microprocessor. A watch battery could run the Microprocessor for 240 years.
This opens way for a number of embedded applications and Nano computing in the times to come.

Indian Gaming Scenario

Sony rules the roost with about 70% market share in India. Indian market is still a callow with not even a 1% market share of the world market which is set to grow to 47 billion $ in 2010. Indian gaming market is at about 160 million $.

Nintendo Wii is soon to launch in India and give competition to Sony and Microsoft. But Sony holds a distribution clout over here with over 200 exclusive Sony World stores. Indian market is set to explode in years to come with PC affordability dropping and if not the console sector but PC gaming is set to emerge as an important sector. Also with mobile penetration increasing by the minute, Mobile gaming is also set to increase in coming days.

All in all gaming in India may reach 5% of Global gaming in next 5-10 years times, Rajeev predicts. Both Sony and Microsoft have taken the experiential route in the Indian market to entice the potential customers with hands on experience through in store marketing with tie ups through retail behemoths like Planet M, Cross Word, Croma, Hyper City et al to their advantage.

What U got to say guys?

From Dot Com To Brick n Mortar

I am talking about JeevanSaathi. Com an Indian based Matrimonial site which has recently launched its first Match Point which will act as a touch point for not so Internet savvy customers where they receive the traditional human servicing and advice. Also couples can drop in and meet their would be potential spouses here.

This is the first such presence for the portal. It soon plans to open two more in New Delhi where the first touch point is coming up. This is a clear example of how virtual business can create cash flows necessary for expanding the business in the real world. Naukri.Com, Shaadi.Com are other dot coms which have real world presence.

Google's Strategy and Future

Will Google Survive

Google is placed precariously riskily as it depends 99% on search advertising. Slowly and surely Google is going to loose its dominant position as China, Europe and India will have there own companies which understand the local geography well and are surely likely to succeed to at least some degree in reducing the clout of Google. Google has added tens of new applications through Google Labs but all of them turn out to be just incremental and no blockbuster product has been introduced which could turn the Industry Dynamics towards it.

Google is towards open sourcing, I think the opposite could help them. I mean by going revenues. Like they could enter the OS and Desk Top applications market, by having full fledged Desk Top version of MS Office and charge a 20% less than Microsoft. They already have Cloud Version of Office software and they could convert the Design to desktop in about a Month and do so.

This gambit could create an additional source of income for Google and could seriously challenge the position of Microsoft.

Also they could improve and refine the way search results by taking optional feedback from users about relevance and usefulness of search results thrown. This way they could even increase their market share Globally and in the US.

How do you rank my strategy, Friends? Hmm!

Green Technology

Nokia’s Green Foray

It seems that Nokia has launched 40 Models of Green Phones to assuage the “Green Peace” an Ngo which ranked it 9th in 2007 as against 1st in 2006 as Eco Friendly organization. West is particularly aware about green Issues and hence the market share in west specifically depends on such rankings by Independent Authorities.

According to sources such models will hardly affect Indian market where customers are least aware of any such moves. The first of these models which is 65% recyclable is already launched by Nokia.

Hope Nokia’s ranking in 2005 Green Peace award improves this year.

Security

Virus Programs and Computer Stability

If you by chance Install two virus scan programs there is a serious threat of system instability. I did it with ENOD 32 and McCafee and experienced problems. So always uninstall one Virus program before Installing the other, to keep your system safe and agile in response time.
The system instability also occurs because both the programs become Memory Resident and take up your valuable resources in RAM just not freeing up enough space for your regular programs

Skimming Prices of Desktops and Laptops

For all those who could not afford a Desktop or Laptop now is the time. Full configuration, sophisticated features are now available at throwaway prices. Desktops in India are now available in the range of 20,000 Rs. (Assembled) to 30,000 Rs for branded ones like the Dell Inspiron 530 Desktop. Laptops with Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB RAM are as low as 35,000 Rs. for Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops. About 1 year back the same configuration of laptop was available for as high as 85,000 to 1,00,000 Rs. . So friends going could not get much better. Although Quad Core Intel Chips are the latest but for an average user the C2D is a good processor.

And India and world over the variety and brand choice is abound and plentiful. So go an, make your pick, owning a computer was never going to harm any body’s interest.

Personal Technology and Entertainment

As this Author is based from India, I talk today about my Experiences in Entertainment Technology and India. India is a great country and I stay near Mumbai and hence we have about 8 FM stations, but most radios are only Audio Promotion types and hardly play your favorite Music. Hence comes up the need to put up with an MP3 player.
I have a Phillips variety which was gifted to me by my employer. 1 GB shuffle. My experience with the Gadget was really good. But you need some time to refine the favorite list in the flash memory as you play your MP3 player and feel really good with 1 by 1 your favorite numbers playing and giving you that estatic feeling of being in heaven, If some numbers do not fit yuor mood you can happily go to the next random song.

My 1 GB could store about 200 songs as Hindi songs are a bit lengthy. I preferred teh MP3 format than the WMA. Easyly drag dropped.

Maybe my next gift from my employer would be an I-Pod or I-Phone and I would happily be listening to my favorite Music.

The conclusion is that Personal technology makes life really beautiful and livable.

So more later.

Maintaining Your PC

To keep your PC running with constant sincerity, you need to take its care.

1.Use latest antivirus and Firewall et al if you are connected to net otherwise it can spell doom.
2.Some small tricks can increase you computer life like
3.Every 1-3 months you may need to de fragment your hard disk especially C drive depending on the volume of work you do
4.Using antivirus Computer Maintenance facility you can clean registry, system restore points, and other chorus is done by the computer automatically for you reclaiming unused disk space
5.Regularly un install programs which you don’t need
6.Delete files which you no longer need
7.Take a back up of all you media files on to a DVD/CD to free up your Hard Disk so that you may not ultimately be needing that extra External Hard Disk.
8.If you are short of C drive free space, don’t store bulky media files on the Desktop, instead create a shortcut to a Folder called desktop which could be pointing to another sparse partition of hard disk.
9.Use your PC at least once a Day.

Green Technology

Technology has often done more harm then benefit to humannity. Br it Nuclear Energy, Cell phones and Computers to talk only about a few of them.

Nokia has recently taken a step towards restoration of ecological and environmental balance by launching a humonguos amount, can you believe it 40 models of phones which would be bio degradable and hence not damage the environment. Now that is some noble gesture from a company which has been mired with quality glitches in its high end models for some time allowing other telecom companies to snatch away market share from it.

Hope other companies will soon follow suit and Earth will eb a better place to live in.

Technology Capsules

Technology Aided Marketing

Ever since Mass Media has become cluttered, Businessmen all over the world are trying to find new better way of delivering business messages to the customers. And what new way to market to the customers than through mobiles. Indian Mobile Advertising market is still at a nascent stage and is currently valued at a paltry sum of 40 Crores but is soon expected to reach 500 Crores.

Marketing means creating brand recall and stimulating purchase, in addition to educating customers about the possible use of the product or service. Advertising through the internet added the much needed interactivity and customization parameters of the advertisement but not reach. As India still has abysmal internet penetration it is very difficult to reach the target audience. So mobiles provide the reach, in addition the mobile always with users creates an ever present customer.

Affle a UK based company provides SMS 2.0 advertising solutions in India and is pioneering in the space of alternate advertising medium.

The future of Mobile Advertisements remains lucrative, as with more and more high end models and 3G or 4G enabled cell phones it will soon be possible to deliver video advertisements over the mobile and that may even get the customers hooked. But that looks like good 2-3 years down the line.

Pepsi Youngistan has successfully used mobile as a platform to create a Buzz around its product with users sharing its experiences with other communities.

The results of all these competitions and votes could be compiled and published in web communities and traditional print runs to create a buzz among other users of the product. Hence mobile is proving to be an ultimate tool in the hands of the marketers to create customer engagement to level hitherto unseen in the history of marketing.

Will The US Trend of Dying Print in Technology Journalism Replicate in India

Well India is a slow take off in technology adoption, but US is seeing many well run print versions going off print and taking online avatars.

IDG the world’s largest producer of Technology magazines and news papers made its InfoWorld totally online and is now generating more revenues through online advertising supported model than it was doing in print business. It has a revenue of 1.6 million dollars a month with operating profit margin of 37%.

But would the same model be successful in India. India has low penetration of Internet and profusely low adoption of technology products. We lag behind in adoption of technology, be it 3G or broadband connections, or for that matter E-Books. Hence I see that India will continue with its Paper Bound editions of newspapers and Technology Magazines for quite some time to come. Although most magazines have an online presence but most have a subscription model which is further likely to make and covert even lesser readers.

iPhone To be Available in India from Dussera

To be priced at 23,000 Rs, Apple has tied with two partners to sell its iPhone in India. It has tied with Airtel and Vodaphone where as Vodaphone is its global partner. But Airtel in India has vast reach of 1 lakh retail outlets and apple plans to tap this outreach of Bharti to reach out to the potential customers.

I-Phone has failed to become a blockbuster product for Apple and only contributed 5% to the total revenues of the giant. The main reason for which is the more featured phones being launched every month by other telecom players with out much fanfare and ado and with much more technological innovations built into the phones.

Take for example the LG Viewty phone which even won a technological award. Samsung and Motorola are also introducing phones at a faster pace although they are aimed at the lower end of the market mostly.

Apple needs to innovate faster and invest in product R&D to gain a foothold in the global telecom arena where most telecom companies are more alert, nimble and customer responsive.

The least apple could do would be to introduce variants of iPhone to woo different customer segments, with features like Cameras of different capabilities and different storage capabilities and a multitude of designs. The formula of selling what is available in the stable is gone and rationed products do not work even in India.

Most customers are educated and want better service if not always value for money product as the Indian market was traditionally touted by the westerners.

Finding a Job now made Easy with Social Networking

Social networks are fast evolving to keep their users fixed on a ongoing basis and make their business an ongoing concern. In that line Facebook did its best innovation by adding job applications to its Network.

Facebook has Jobster which has 26,000 members . Now last month it added the application of CareerBuilder.com to its users. Now social networking sites are also being used to network and find jobs than just lurking for fun. With more and more commercial applications making rounds the coffers of the site also jingles and obviously with more services on the block the life was never so good for the users of the networks.

HP's Memristors

A chip consists of resistors, capacitors and Inductors now HP is adding a fourth dimension to the Chip a Memristor. It can hold intermediate values apart from 0’s and 1’s and is the basis for dense memory and Artificial Memory applications. Although its speed is very much less compared to existing DRAM’s ( 1/ 10^th to be precise) but then it is very low on power requirements which acts as a big plus in its favor.

Also applicability is a great issue, that’s what I believe. If some body discovers, what is the sequence of operations and intermediate values required to complete an operation lot of time could be ultimately saved if the right intermediate values are stored and need not be recalculated. This makes the application very much suitable to AI and Expert system application. With training of the chip on the lines of biological brain functioning with training of problem solving synapses and cores on the chip it could lead to some break through achievements in Biological computing.

IBM and Intel are also working on Phase Change Memory which requires more power and works by changing the state of a glassy material from amorphous to crystalline and back. The switching speed of such memory is also low

Technology Imagination Running Wild

Technology developed atom bomb. Some thng useful for peaceful applications but something desructive for humanity. Similarly nanoechnology is finding massive constructive medical uses but could it also be used as a genocide and bio terrorism tool.

Will technolgy be the ultimate cause of Human destruction or would it be climate change or Robots Invasion.

Could a superior race discover Earth and Usurp its reaources finding Human beings as Fuel Bots and Earth atomosphere as a conducive to their own progress.

Are Earth Quakes and Hurricanes some sort of space terrorism or justice. Is it possible that races superior to Human beings exist in some other time zone in the same space as Earth. Could time be that missing link which can connect us to our existence.

Is there any force to combat any Space Invasion in near future.

Technology Capsules

New Vista’s of Telemedicine

Laptops have been developed which can be used to scan the patients at their homes itself. It means that no longer you need to transport a patient to the hospital to get the scans like Neuro scans, Pregnancy Scans et al can be conducted by the doctor or assistant at the site of patient. It especially brings good news to the well healed patients who can now afford the luxury of treatment at home which may also improve the survival rate of the patients.

The other middle class patients and rural patients of far flung rural hinterlands in India could benefit by telemedicine. I.e. a assistant takes the scan and sends it across to the director via laptop WiFi and the doctor immediately sends back an e-Mail of treatment. This way doctor’s can maximize revenue while serving the rural population and also achieve self satisfaction of helping the poor and the under privileged of the society.

There are chips which can carry out diagnosis of pathogens, I see in near future laptops which could carry out pathological tests on site and give report in few hours and save multitudes of lives.

Hence laptops are proving to be a useful tool for doctors and could also be used to save costs of expensive lab set up and spur the entrepreneurial activities in the rural areas by doctors who could start with just a laptop. A scenario which is going to be a realty in near future.



Apple Announces safari 3.1

Apple continues with its innovative spree with another product the Safari 3.1. Safari loads pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7.0 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2.0. It runs Javascript upto six times faster than other browsers. Not a mean achievement by any standards. You can organize tabs, and it has a built in RSS reader. It also supports latest Audio, Video and Animation standards.

It works with Windows XP and Vista and requires a 256 MB of memory and 500 MHz Pentium Processor.

The Robots March To Quest

Robots that help in space exploration by scaling cliffs. Robots that Mop floor. Robots that help in gardening and ultimately robotic fights contest held in Japan which is the house to maximum robots of the world. 112 Robots took part in the contest.
That makes me think what would the future be like. A socity with robots , Humans and Half Humans , Half Robots. Will this manifest into any dangers to the society. Like what if Robots revolt and take over the world and what can be done to avoid harm from robots which work in close proximity to humans in Industrial and Home environment. With the advent of robotic technology and AI it is sure that some day robots find their own Individuality and Voice and fight Human Supression and Imperialism.
I dont think any programming would be able to help in that matter.

Technology Adoption Cassandra

Is 4G WiFi access available in your neighborhood. Will HD televisions have any market in India?IS movie digitalization and digital distribution adopted or feasible for adoption in India?

Is India behind world technology adoption or is it a slow adopter and smart reaper. India adopts software when it is bug free and more refined. I mean what’s wrong in that. By being early adopters of technology you just become a free software tester and feedback provider for the company saving the company in hundreds of Millions of dollars of research and testing.

If movies are digitized then the SCM and logistics of Movies can be optimized to a very large extent. Movies can be premiered world wide simultaneously just by securely transferring the digital content over the pipes or satellite.

But would digitization have a flip side. World is full of loopholes. Piracy could be facilitated by the digitization process. But think of the positives, digital downloading business is just in its infancy in India and a full fledged trade in US and Europe, so you get ready access to multiple distribution channel, not forgetting the VAS market of Mobiles which is swelling as you breathe or blink.

Or take the HD TV. Is DV format not clear enough. Would not adopting HD lead to a higher difficulty in creating content with the amount of preparation which would be required to shoot a detail to include all hygiene factors of a scene. The close up shots would be more difficult to enact. The wrinkles of the older actors would show up. Even young people’s beauty spots would be visible. More efforts would have to be put into acting skills to get a flawless acting. So is it necessary to use a technology because it was invented or invent a technology which has use, after all human eye has not yet gone Nano.

Specious Gamesmanship

The time is long gone when gaming was understood to be creating violent behaviour and reticence in younsters. Even adults are hooked to these games with portable gaming devices available for Playstation and XBox. Also online communities dedicated to Massive Multiplayer games leads to more interest and angles to the whole episode.

To overcome the nerd behaviour which is developed by people who get addicted to gaming therer has been a corrective thinking, and what is that have gaming parties organised which gives the much needed impetus to social angle of gaming.

So on in all one thing emerges clear, nothing is impossible and all problems can be solved. So think big and don't be afraid of dreaming cause if you are able to dream and belive it As Henry Ford said then you are right.

Think Online Think Big

If you are short on budget but high on creativity there are quite a few ways of earning online. The most commonest way of earning is Publishing Business. Start a blog sign on Adsense and if you can generate pageviews you are in for some good money.
Or own a Handycam, shoot some cool videos ( Even Mobile will do ) and upload in sites like YouTube and Revver which do pay for content.
If you are high on entrepreneur drive and have the moolah and risk taking apetite then think big. Start with a Idea and nurture and grow it and sell when you have ample of customers. Reaping millions of real dollars.
There is money to be made on thw web, and you are free to harness the web.

Is Biometric Identification Totally Foolproof

If the Fingerprint is stored on a card which was the case till recently, there are all chances of the card being stolen and funds misappropriated. But then the solution is swiping the finger instead of the Card.

But that is not foolproof enough. There are all chances that someone in connivance with Bank Insiders could make a virtual transaction and dupe you in your face. Or use a finger from a dead body. To overcome the second facet there are detectors to catch the perspiration of a live finger and not one cut from a dead body and fabricated.

Also there are ways in which to make the process more secure a combination of Biometric indicators could be used for home security for example. You may use Voice and Fingerprint scanner or face recognition.

Also hand vein pattern is being found to be more unique and difficult to fabricate and technologies based on Vein Placement in hand is being patented .

Technology Product positioning

Products can be placed in two ways. One for the value conscious customers and second for the Style conscious customers. The laptops market is exemplery in how laptops are being sold from Rs. 15,000 to 96,000 Rs.

Mac Book from Microsoft is sold at 96,000 Rs. with slim design, Lenovo has come up with a model lighter than Microsofts. Sony is experimenting with style quotient.

Lot of new features are also available like hot swappabble hard disk just for Gaming enthusiasts and memory of 4 GB and hard disk of 250 GB.

So what are you waiting for make that much awaited upgrade to your laptop.

Virtualization and Consolidation

There are various advantages of using server consolidation

Testing of software becomes simple as you need not require costly server farms to load or stress test your applications.
Cost of testing and pre deployment procedures goes down drastically.
In existing infrastructure maintenance of the systems become easier
Disaster Recovery ( DR ) and Business Process Continuity ( BPC ) becomes easier as small number of processes are involved
The cost of real estate goes down as a result of server consolidation
Business resources become Fluid and any reallocation of work or load balancing and resource allocation becomes easier with the above arrangement.
Cost of maintenance goes down with Shared resources like HVAC arrangements which is slightly offset by higher dissipation of heat by powerful servers.
Redundancy can be achieved without hefty budgets.
Redundant capacity can be utilized more efficiently by Utility service Providers.

Computer Storage Continuity

With powerful Web Cams at home and HandyCams available with each and every kids. Some really memorable Videos are created every week which need to be stored for the progeny to know about their lineage. Photographs can be clicked via Web Cams every day when you look good. With Mobile Cameras adding to videos and Photographs which you shoot when you are out door at picnic, shopping at Mall or in Office in a Humourous mood or situation.

All this adds to Gigabytes of Storage space per week. The question which arises is where to store about 1 TB of data every month or year depending on your activities. And how to migrate this data, or carry this data, or share this data , or access this data any time any where.

The answer is simple . The web. Store your videos in YouTube or Revver. Nowadays each videos size can be 100 MB, plenty enough. Even Indian sites allow unlimited media storage space in E-Mail account like Rediff mail does. Flickr obviously for photos. The beauty of the matter is that you can store all this publicly , privately only for your family and friends hence having a total control over the accessibility of the data which you create and store.

Learning Technology By Doing

India continues to lag behind in various Technological endeavors. Be it Broadband, or Robotics. Take Robotics US is doing a lot in the field. In India people hardly talk about these things and the awareness of people about these products remain at abysmal low levels.

Have you heard about Lego’s mind storm products which can be used to built robots. These kits of components can be used to program and create various kind of Intelligent robots. iRobot’s Create and iBot kit from TRI are other products which can be used to build robots.

Carnegie Mellon University has a exclusive Robotics Academy which squarely focuses on the development and training of Robots and its applications.

Today robot finds variety of uses, of which I think with aging populations of Japan, US and EU the most blockbuster Robot would be the domestic help and accompaniment Robot which could take care of the elderly people at home. Also with Migrant issues and racism raising its ugly head across the globe these countries may not want Humans but robots to do the work to run their economy and ultimately try to raise their population to match those of emerging superpowers like China and India with 1.3 Billion and 1.1 Billion populations respectively.

The Consumer Technology Product Clutter

Friends today if you want to Buy a Computer or a Camera or any computer accessory or MP3 player, you need to have a lot of product knowledge. Because there are a lot of products available. With 10's of reputed brands of companies to choose from and 100's of product ranges and products.
It is imperative to make some research about product features and cost so as to not to get duped over time.

So here is a list of what could be done,

1. Visit the web site of the company, the store Clerk would hardly give you all the information and time yo require.

2. Make a comparative study of product features and after service . In India sites like CompareIndia.com help you in this task.

3. Visit an experiential store and get your hands and try out the product.

4. Read user opinions and reviews in various user communities and blogs. Search the Internet for the product to find relevant issues.

5. Ask your buddies who may have used a product for recommendation.

6. Read newspaper and technology magazines to find out more.

Be proactive rather than reactive and be a smart consumer.
If any complaints are there in India contact Core.nic.in.

IFund Launched

The SDK to work for developing applications on IPhone is delayed to June. Apple is going to launch a IFund to fund its activities of trying to develop a Ecosystem around the IPhone so as to make it a perenial Money Spinner and cash cow.

Facebook also has its own venture funds to sponser activities around facebook application development.

Ajax Windows and EyeOS are two virtual OS available which can be accessed through Browser and can be used to access on demand applications. There is no need for maintenence activitiesa like loading drivers and cleaning the registry in a Virtual OS.

Technology Obsolescence

Late Adopters Late Obsolescence

Indians are not only late adopters of products like BroadBand, Plasma Tv et al but also give up the use of old products later. Japan left using CRT tube TV’s way back in 2004. Sony has discontinued manufacture of CRT TVs but in India it still forms the bulk of TV sets sold due to the cost factor. Which is the reason why India continues to lag behind in HDI and other global indices.

Broadband and Computer penetration in India is still abysmally low compared to other developed countries which shows why India lags in related areas of Commerce and Education. India could accelerate its level of development by adopting technology earlier and grow at a higher rate with élan and panache.