Technology Effect

The sales of digital books in India is expected to pick up in coming months but that will not impact the aficionados love for hardcover books as has been the case in the West, say major publishers here. India may see good rise in sales of digital books as downloading them on mobiles becomes a possibility but their growth trajectory may not be same as in the West, they say. Managing Director of Rupa & Co, Kapish Mehra does not see iPads or Kindle book readers replacing the hard copy.

 Bhopal: Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter will also used to make people aware of the importance of Census 2011, an official said Friday. The Madhya Pradesh government and the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) held a day-long workshop on the role of media in Census 2011. It was announced that two pages on census related information had already been made on Facebook."While the centre's brand ambassadors are Sachin Tendulkar and actress Priyanka Chopra, lyricist Gulzar and television actress Divyanka Tripathi would be the brand ambassadors for census work in Madhya Pradesh," said Sachin Sinha, director of the directorate for census work. "It is a real challenge for us to include everyone - from beggars to the elite class - in census," he said. The second phase of Census 2011 will begin Feb 9 and continue till 28 across India.

  Bangalore: A recent study has revealed that most smartphone users in India (58 percent) are of the opinion that the applications on their phones benefit their lives and they make use of these apps everywhere from their homes, to work and while commuting. The study, conducted by Nokia along with Professor Trevor Pinch of Cornell University, also highlighted that most Indians prefer business oriented apps like email and expense managers. Another pointed that came into light through the study is that having and using apps are not synonymous. Indians scored a high point in claiming to use all of the apps on their phone (14 percent).The study patterned the men and women behaviors with respect to apps. More men (93 percent) are likely to download an app as compared to women (87 percent). However, women are more into using social networking apps (43 percent). Here men score low with only 38 percent doing so.

Washington: An ambitious global project to bridge the "achievement gap" among students has been launched by an Indian-American family here by connecting schools in India with those in the U.S. using Internet, new methodologies and cutting-edge technologies. The aim of the initiative is to help students learn not only about culture of other countries, but also find solutions to complex math equations and science problemsA brainchild of mother-daughter duo of Sonia Boveja and Naina, Co-Founders of Washington-based Coalition for International Initiatives (CII), the pilot project launched recently connects eight American schools in Pennsylvania with three Indian schools in Gwalior, Ahmedabad and Ludhiana. "We want to promote cultural awareness, global citizenship and academic excellence. So we want the students to share with each other academic things, their sports and their history.

 New Delhi: India's air show in Bangalore next week will be the largest ever with 29 countries bringing their aerospace products, including fighter jets and transport aircraft, for showcasing at the five-day event. The biennial AeroIndia-2011 will for the first time witness the civil aviation sector overtaking military aviation. The air show will see 54 percent of the aircraft, helicopters and aerospace systems from the civilian sector compared to 46 percent from the military sector. "This year's air show will surpass all previous figures in terms of participating countries, companies, space and business. All inputs show a healthy growth than the previous edition of AeroIndia. Civil aviation sector at 54 percent will overtake military aviation content at 46 percent in this year's show," Defence Production Secretary Raj Kumar Singh told reporters here Tuesday. To be held at the Yelahanka air force station, this year's show has been oversubscri...

Thiruvananthapuram: Three major satellite launches are planned during the first quarter of this year by ISRO, whose recent mission to launch the GSAT-5P communication satellite onboard homegrown GSLV-F06 rocket failed. 'Resourcesat-2', an advanced remote sensing satellite, 'Youthsat', a participatory scientific mission with payloads from Russia and India and X-sat, Singapore's first indigenous satellite, would be launched on board PSLV C-16 in February, March and April, ISRO Chairman K Radhakrishnan said here. "We have three major missions slated in coming February, March and April. Among them Resourcesat-2 is meant to replace Resourcesat-1, launched in 2003, to provide data connectivity," he told an international conference at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here. 'Youthsat' would carry a payload developed by students of Moscow University," he told the meet, organised by Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology...

The government of India has implemented several funding initiatives to strengthen the growth of biotech sector in the country. All these efforts are aimed at driving innovation in biotech R&D. An overview on major government funding initiatives Several government funding agencies offer different types of research grants, fellowships through soft loans or equity, to conduct research in various fields of biotechnology, and commercialize indigenous biotech products. There are three major departments under the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India; each with its own mandate and funding programs. These include the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). Besides that Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) play a major role in the promotion of biotechnology in the country. In 19...

 Bangalore: As the date of the IPv4 addresses depleting is fast approaching, the world is gearing up for its able replacement. In the same vein, Internet giants like Google, Facebook and Yahoo have come together to support the adoption of IPv6 that has been designed to follow IPv4. The Web biggies have decided to switch to the newer version of Internet Protocol for a day on June 8 this year to show their solidarity to the cause. Incidentally, the day has been christened as the World IPv6 Day.The IPv4 has been used as the Internet Protocol since 1981 and has provided for nearly four billion addresses. However, it is anticipated that the addresses will run out completely this year and hence the search for an alternative has begun. The Internet companies, along with the Internet Society, will join content delivery networks Akamai and Limelight, to try out the new IPv6. The Internet Society is supporting World IPv6 Day as part of its efforts to accelerate IPv6 deplo...

Hyderabad: The global shipments of portable Internet devices running on 'lite' operating systems (OS) is set to reach 150 million per year by 2015. As per research firm Ovum's latest forecast, shipment of devices based on lite OS will see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 60 percent. Lite OS is used in devices of Apple's iOS, Google's Android and RIM's BlackBerry Tablet OS and include tablet devices such as the iPad and the BlackBerry PlayBook as well as clamshell and convertible form factors. Tony Cripps, Principal Analyst, Ovum said, "This huge growth in shipments will be dominated by tablet-style technologies such as the iPad and will mainly be driven by consumers buying devices to complement their smartphones. This will either be as a 'third device' where there is a high-penetration PCs or the primary computing device where there is low-penetration." The prediction further says that in the next four years, the maximu...

Prince Charles wants to build an eco-friendly shanty town near Kolkata or Bangalore for 15,000 poor Indians, inspired by the one he saw in Oscar-winning film ’Slumdog Millionaire’, a media report said. The multi-million-pound venture plan includes schools, shops and 3,000 homes in a tiny area the size of 14 football pitches, the ‘Daily Mail’ reported. In fact, the heir to the British throne plans to turn a 25-acre swathe of Indian wasteland on the outskirts of either Kolkata or Bangalore into a “mini oasis in the desert”, to be modelled on Poundbury, the Dorset model village that has been Prince Charles’s 30-year pet project. “When you enter (shanty town) what looks from the outside like an immense mound of plastic and rubbish, you immediately come upon an intricate network of streets with miniature shops, houses and workshops, each one made out of any material that comes to hand. “We have a great deal to learn about how complex systems can self-organise to creat...

Ghaziabad: About 32 lakh consumers of the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited (UPPCL) in western Uttar Pradesh will now be able to pay their electricity bills on the internet, a statement said Sunday. The on-line bill payment facility was introduced by UPPCL Paschimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Limited (PVVNL) in districts such as Bagpat, Bijnor, Bulandshahr, Gautam Budh Nagar/Noida, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Moradabad, Muzzafarnagar, Rampur and Saharanpur.Consumers shall have to pay an additional 10 which will be passed on to the service provider for making on-line payments. Consumers will have to go to the website http://www.pvvnl.org/ of PVVNL for making the payment.

Bangalore: Are Indian youngsters less tech savvy? A recent study by market researcher Nielsen found that Indian youngsters lag behind in their usage of mobile internet compared to their global counterparts. The research on youth and cellphone usage has found that less than 10 percent of young Indians used their mobile devices to access the web in the last month while 73 percent of Chinese aged between 15 and 24 used mobile Internet in the last 30 days, The Independent reported."Usage patterns vary greatly among youth throughout the world, demonstrating how culture, economy and age can all play a large part in mobile behaviour. These factors affect device selection, payment and usage," said Nielsen in its research published on January 11. The study added: "Indian males aged 15-24 are twice as likely as their female counterparts to use text messaging and four times more likely to use picture messaging. "China and Saudi Arabia also skew male when...

New Delhi: In the first step towards ending the menace of pesky calls, the telecom watchdog Friday said it will start online registration of telemarketing companies from Jan 15. "The new telemarketers will have to pay a registration fee of 1,000 and customer education fee of 9,000 while the existing telemarketers will have to pay the customer education fee of 9,000," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said in a statement"The registration would be valid for a period of 3 years unless revoked earlier," it added. Last year, the telecom watchdog announced a set of new measures to curb unsolicited commercial calls and messages, which were to be implemented from Jan 1, including online registration of the telemarketing companies on Dec 15. The registration process which required all the telemarketers to fill in online application forms for getting themselves registered was postponed citing security reasons. The regulations, which is ...

The country's vibrant construction industry has adopted software for various purposes, from design to project management, and the use has increased in recent years. Software solutions are now available in different price segments, and some of the major construction firms have developed in-house products too. Drawing is an activity that makes a wide use of software tools. There are products that can be used not only for designing but also for some estimation purposes by reading the drawing. In-house deployment Warmbluke, a Coimbatore company, has developed Atlas, an estimator software. Warmbluke provides in-house deployment for large enterprises, and the product is available on the cloud too, to cater to those who want the pay-as-you-use system. It calculates the quantities directly from CAD drawings and provides cost estimation and material requirements for the entire project. In the case of drawings that have not used layers or objects, the user has to p...

Braving temperatures as low as minus 54 degrees Celsius and navigating jagged sharp ice hills, India's first scientific expedition team to the South Pole took a different but short route to reach the earth's southernmost point — in just eight days. The path has never been tried before by any other country, the scientists said. The team led by Rasik Ravindra, director of the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), had left Maitri, India's second permanent research station on the Antarctica, on Nov 13, 2010 and planted the Indian flag at South Pole on Nov 22. The eight-member team travelled 2,350 km distance (one side) between Maitri, and South Pole in arctic trucks braving the difficult weather conditions and traversing the tough terrain with snow-capped sharp razor-edged hills of 1-2 metre height. According to Ravindra, they were asked by the Norwegian and US scientists to take a usually travelled curved route but the team decided t...

Google TV has successfully been jailbroken using a hardware-software double-team hack. Spurred on by Android developer Howard Harte's $1000 bounty for the first successful jailbreak, a group calling themselves GTVhacker dev team rose to the challenge, and released a 6-minute video of the their work to prove it (included after the break). What's the big deal? Well, in Harte's own words: "What this means is that we now have a complete Android development environment for the Google TV." The jailbreak has exposed the underlying Android system, which essentially means Android on a TV, complete with the ability to run Android apps. Don't get your hopes up too soon for a user-land jailbreak however. The process requires opening up the Logitech Revue, a bit of soldering, and a pretty involved software hack -- not something your average Joe wanting Hulu on his Google TV is likely to manage. But it's a step in the right direction, and with a bit of lu...

Bangalore: Global spending on retail banking technology will increase by 24 percent over the next five years to hit $132 billion, according to the new figures by the analytics firm Ovum. The report states that the increase in investment will be driven by the need to grow revenues and improve customers' trust. This will lead to accelerated investment in online and mobile banking, technology in branches and channel integrationThe figures reveal that global investment in technology to allow customers to access banking services via the internet will experience growth of 33 percent from 2010 to 2015, to hit $9.7 billion. Senior Analyst Jaroslaw Knapik said, "There is a strong focus on online platforms and their extension onto mobile devices and tablets, given their ability to service clients at a lower cost. In addition, technologies that allows 'smarter' selling and servicing, such as customer analytics and channel integration are expected to remain hot s...

Kerala-based based MindHelix Technologies, today launched ‘Tuk Tuk meter’, claimed to be India’s first GPS based multi-platform Auto fare calculator that runs through smart phones. The application can be started on getting into the autorickshaw and the meter in the phone will run alongside the meter in the rickshaw. It can also double-check the distance travelled as shown in the auto’s meter and the GPS distance calculated by the application, Thomas Antony, Chief Technology Officer, said According to Christian Emmanuel George, Co-founder and CEO of MindHelix Technologies, the application enables the commuter to calculate the distance travelled using GPS and calculate the fare due. The application runs on smart phones with Android, Blackberry or Symbian operating systems without any need for calculating manual distance or fare entry, he told reporters. It also does not require internet connection or the service provider, due to which it can function even in remo...

EC Media, a leading digital-content combine in India and the makers of the indigenous e-reader Wink, has now released a compilation of 1,000 Hindi books across genre and titles. This is part of the vision of the company — the technology arm of Kerala-based publishing house DC Books — to encourage digitisation of publications in Indian langauges. Now, classics in Hindi literature ranging from books penned by writer Munshi Premchand to children's books will be available digitally. Children, in particularly, will be able to learn and discover the joys of reading, given that these e-books will come bundled with colourful graphics, pictures, animations, sounds and audio/read back features. This is part of the company's efforts to encourage digitalisation of books and publications in regional languages. The USP of the Wink Store too is focus on regional languages. The Managing Director of DC Books Ravi DeeCee said: “This is a momentous achievement in the Indian e-...

The voyage of India's first indigenously designed and developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) ‘Tejas' moved one step closer towards its induction into the Indian Air Force. Twenty-seven years after it was conceived, the LCA project progressed further, with Union Defence Minister A.K. Antony handing over the ‘Certificate of Release to Service' to the Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, here on Monday. Describing the Initial Operational Clearance (IOC) as a “historic occasion,” Mr. Antony said the state-of-the-art combat aircraft would go a long way in enhancing national security and the pride of the country towards building “our own combat aircraft capability.” Congratulating the dedicated team of scientists and engineers for the achievement, Mr. Antony said the Ministry and the IAF stood behind the project even though skeptics advised the abandoning of the Defence Research Development Organisation's (DRDO) indigenous LCA and the Main Batt...