Did Apple Copy Samsung?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

 

There is a famous saying in Hindi ‘Ulta Chor Kotwal Ko Daate’ or simply (the thief accuses the cop) but something similar seems to have happened between Apple Inc. and Samsung. And hey! The bone of contention is nothing other than the famous iPhone. Shhhhhhh! but there are rumours that Apple copied its famous iPhone design from Samsung. This might hurt the diehard Apple fans as the phone has a cult following across the world and thought to be a piece of style statement.

The funny part in this entire story is that it was Apple which had initially filed a lawsuit against Samsung over patent and trade dress infringements. It had accused Samsung of copying the iPhone while making its F700. But as it has turned out the Samsung F700 was displayed a good one year ahead of the iPhone’s launch in 2007. Although the phone wasn’t anything close to the iPhone in terms of looks, but a pioneer is a pioneer any day.

Why Samsung faltered with F700? The simple answer was it never considered Apple to be a competition and was busy taking on Motorola and Nokia and developing traditional eight button or 10 button navigation phones. F700 series and other smartphones were in the backburner till the launch of the iPhone. Once iPhone hit the market, Samsung pushed the productions of F700 but it only half ready and couldn’t take on the iPhone even though it had some features which we see on iPhone 3GS.

Some questions lay unanswered. If Apple did copy why did it risk its reputation and file a lawsuit against Samsung? If Samsung did develop it first why didn’t it raise a cry once iPhone made its debut into the market? The answer might lie with LG as it was the first manufacturer which had filed a complaint against Apple for copying designs of its Prada. Now we all know how much of dirty games goes on behind these amazing gadgets.

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Never Opt For An Apple's Launch Product!

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

If you are one of those people in India who has missed Apple’s latest gizmo you have something on the offering. Just about a year after Apple iPad created buzz in the technology industry, Steve Job and his team are ready with the second avatar of the product. Apple has made the iPad2 faster, thinner, lighter, more powerful, and more versatile than the original iPad. What’s more it is priced at the same $499 as the model launched last year.

So just about a year’s wait has made the buyers get a faster, thinner and lighter product at the same price. So what’s the point in buying a product first up when you get a better one just about a year later? Off course it doesn’t apply to the techno geeks who love ripping apart a new product (virtually though) and writing about or those cool dudes who boast about having stood in queues to get hold of their Apple product. For a smart buyer a year’s wait seems to bring in a lot of bonuses.

This is not the first time this has happened with an Apple product. Since the launch of its revolutionary portable music player the iPod in 2001 we have seen six generations of the product rolling out. It has been even faster with the iPhone which has seen four avatars in since its launch four years ago. With every newer version Apple has something new to offer at the same price or even at substantially lower price.

P.S. If you are buyer and don’t have any eagerness to flaunt an iPad as yet, waiting for the third generations shouldn’t be stupid. One thing for sure you won’t have to wait for too long!

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Will Unified Command be able to tackle Maoist?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The Central Government has finally waken up to the growing problem of Naxals and proposed the setting up of a Unified Command to tackle the problem. Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and West Bengal which have been the worst affected by Maoist violence, have been asked to set up a Unified Command. Its main aim will be to share intelligence and handle the Naxal problem as a single force. This Command will be headed by Chief Secretaries of the four states.

On paper this looks like a great decision to bring the state police, central forces and paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies under one command. A retired Major General will be a part of this Command structure to look into its functioning. The states will appoint an officer of the rank of Inspector General for the Command. But the bigger question is will such a structure work effectively?

The absence of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee from this high level meeting shows that not all political leaders and parties are on the same platform and frequency when it comes to tackling the Maoists. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wants to fight Naxalism with development while his Chattisgarh counterpart Raman Singh believes there is no alternative to armed response. Will a United Command work if we do not have a united polity?

The problem in dealing with the Naxals so far has been the fact that different states have had different approach when it comes to dealing with them. While some believed in using forces others wanted to invite them for talks. This gave Naxals a free haven where they would conduct operations in one state and than slip into another thus making a mockery of the security forces in the country. It is no irony that the security forces in the Naxal affected areas have hardly achieved any success.

Bulk of the security forces in the Unified Command will come from the State police forces which will be controlled by the state governments. The problem is to make all of them work like a single machine. The Centre’s role will be to oversee the operations as our federal structure provides very little playing ground to the Centre in such situations unless it takes control over the State with President’s Rule. Can it make the different states fight as a cohesive unit? This question will only be answered in the coming days.

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Hot Technologies of 2010

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Which is the most popular English word for 2009? Don't be surprised if it turns out to be twitter. Yes, that is the impact the micro-blogging site Twitter has had on our lives in the last year. The start of the decade belonged to email which gradually gave way to messenger in the middle of the decade. The last two years had belonged to the Social Networking phenomena andn 2009 definitely belonged to Twitter. From celebrities to sports person and from businessmen to politicians all took to Twitter. Overnight it became a status symbol as popularity was being judged by the number of followers in Twitter.

Twitter certainly created the greatest noise in the year and the testimony to it's success is the fact that it did in a year when Microsoft came out with its latest OS Windows 7. Microsoft usually becomes the talk of the town but this year it was Twitter all around. But now as the year draws to a close people have a question in mind. If 2009 belonged to Twitter what will be the buzz word in 2010? There have been quite a few announcements of products and technologies which will be launched in the first year if the new decade. Some of the technologies to look forward in 2010 are:

Google Chrome OS
Nobody has taken Microsoft in its own den but the search engine giant seems to be in a mood to take the big daddy of technology head on. The Google Chrome Operating System is scheduled to be launched in the second half of 2010. The operating system is being designed from the ground up to run on the Chrome web browser on netbooks. Google says the software architecture will basically be the current Chrome browser running inside a new windowing system on top of the good old Linux kernel. This literally means that the web will be be the Operating System.

The search engine giant also claims that application will be develop by the users on the web. For example an user would run a text processing application from the web instead of his system. Chrome OS will be lightweight and fast just like the browser itself. Google wants to cash in on the fact that most people do not have the practical use for a heavy operating system and cloud computing will be a buzz word in the coming year. Although Chrome OS cannot be year termed as a 'Windows Killer' but coming from the Google it cannot be brushed under the carpet as well.

Apple iPhone 4G
If you thought iPhone 3G is ahead of its competitors Apple is planning to improve upon its current sensation and launch iPhone 4G in the summer of 2010. The iPhone 4G will come inbuilt with GPS navigation, 32GB of on-board storage, and a removable battery a feature which many iPhone users have wanted to see since the launch of the phone in 2007. The camera of the phone has also been upgraded to a 5 MP over the 2 or 3.2 MP camera found in previous iPhone models.

One of the features that the iPhone 4G is expected to come with is RFID or Radio-frequency identification which will be improved into what is being called as Near Field Communication. NFC is a communication method which can be used to bank payment over the mobile. Credit card companies are now looking for payment solutions for adding contactless payment cards to any mobile phone. After inserting the a storage card a user's phone can be linked to bank accounts and used in mobile payment.


Internet TV
Although the concept is old it hasn't quite picked up in the way it should have. 2010 might just prove to be a path breaking year for internet TV. By the year end majority of people watching television in the developed world will have signals via the Internet. Hulu, Boxee, Apple TV and Netflix are some of the pioneers in this field. In developing countries like India and China this trend is picking up. As the internet connections get faster in these countries there will be huge demands for television over the internet platform.

A paradigm shift with Internet TV will be the option to archive our favourite programmes which will work similar to any other medium of online storage. Accessing television on the internet has never been so simple, due to this usability of streaming services . Internet TV will also come with strict controlling measures similar to the ones on our normal television.


Cloud Computing
It has been a buzz word for quite some time and Cloud Computing may not just be one of the most popular terms for the coming year but for the coming decade. In cloud computing data and applications which currently reside on our desktops and laptops will instead be stored in the servers or the cloud. This will make our data accessible from anywhere in the globe and also enable collaboration and distribution.

The cloud movement will see a major leap forward in the first half of 2010 with the launch of Office Web Apps, free online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote released in tandem with Microsoft Office 2010. This is quite a revolutionary concept considering the fact that it comes from a company which runs more that 90% of the world's computers. Google's Chrome OS which will launch in the first half of the year will be giant step towards Cloud Computing.

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Why all the fuss about IMEI Numbers?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Come November 1 many of the Cell Phone users in India won't be able to used their Cell Phones as the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has issued directive to all the service providers not to allow the cell phones without valid IMEI numbers to work. This decision is most likely to affect people owning cheap and funky Chinese made handsets which do not carry any IMEI number or carry invalid IM numbers. The TRAI's directive comes in wake of increasing internal security threats that the country is facing.

Now the question is why is so much fuss being created about IMEI and what is in the first place. IMEI stands for International Mobile Equipment Identity through which every cell phone can be uniquely identified. Now another facility available with the IMEI No is that in case of a theft of the mobile it can be made unusable by blocking it. Point to noted here is that such a facility is not available in India although it is the 3rd largest telecom market in the world with close to 480 million subscribers.

Another question is why were such mobile phones allowed to sold in the first place? Now these Chinese made handsets are openly sold across the country without the law enforcement agencies taking any action against them. Why is it that the government has woken up now when one out of four handsets in India does not bear a unique IMEI No? How does the government expect the rural population to aware of such a technical thing while buying cell phones?

If security is the only reason TRAI has taken this decision that it is laughable not because of its intent but because of the fact that the system has too many loopholes. Can the TRAI or the operators claim none of their SIM Cards are distributed before proper background check of the applicant. Will this measure be of any good in making India a more secure place. Will this curb the menace of acquiring a SIM Card in hours without any documents?

The main motive behind the descision won't be served when this is imposed. So what is the purpose of it? What is the Government doing to ensure that such phones do not find their way especially into the rural markets? The main aim of the TRAI is to create regular publicity stunts and make its presence felt. Or else it should check with the operators the quality of service, the distribution of SIM Cards and satisfaction of the customers.

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India's 4G war is already on!

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Just when India was coming on the 3G map with major Telecom operators starting to provide the service mainly in the urban areas the 4G war seems to be on. Intel the world’s largest chipmaker seems to be eyeing this future market. It is in talks with leading Indian Telecom companies like Tata Communications, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications. The broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum for 3G goes into auction in Jan '10.

If you thought Intel was moving too fast as even 3G hasn't established its foot on the ground you might just be wrong. 4G network which will be able to transmit data at around 100 MBPS speed is already undergoing test and it may be a mater of only a few years before 4G network hits the Indian market. Intel's interest in India's 4G spectrum also establishes the fact that India is likely to be one of the most lucrative Telecom markets in the world in the coming decade.

Why is 4G consider so much superior than the 3G which only a handful number of Indians has used due to its late entry into the Indian market.

• A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions
• A Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks
• High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio, high speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV

In layman's term a 4G enabled phone will truly converge the three media (telecom, television and internet) into one. The Convergence Bill of 2001 or better known as ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment) had envisioned to achieve this long back but this never happened. With the launch of 3G all this became possible but the low bandwidth most of the users have been denied a hassle free experience.

There are however many who feel 3G and 4G may not become huge hit in India as most of the Indians use the phone mainly for calling purpose. In fact the rural population which is contributing to the growth of the mobile business in India doesn't even use the otherwise popular SMS (Short Messaging Service). It remains to be seen how much of a business success these technologies become in India after all we are country which has patronised 'Missed Calls'!

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Can Microsoft do it with Windows 7?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

It was just about two years ago that Microsoft built an immense hype for its latest operating system Windows Vista. Microsoft created a sense of "wow" factor surrounding its new baby. But within months the truth was out and the entire world discovered that Vista was unstable, offered less than promised security and didn't work all that well with third-party peripherals. This meant that Microsoft was pushed to the drawing board and now has now come out with Windows 7 in less than two years after the launch of Vista.

First things first this time around Microsoft is taking a more subdued approach and wants the product to speak for itself. Windows 7 could be the make or break OS for Microsoft as it faces threat from Linux, Apple and Google. The industry has changed a lot since the release of Vista. PC sales have slowed during the recession. This means that Windows 7 will have to survive in a more challenging environment than Vista. It may not see swarming sales it saw with Vista as many people will be sceptical this time.

Windows 7 is coming with a touch-screen support. It will integrate with any new touch-screen PC. This feature gives Microsoft a rare leg up on Apple, whose newly revealed Macintosh line-up doesn't include a touch-screen desktop or laptop (funny considering Apple is revolutionising the touch generation elsewhere). A new Snap feature predicts where users want to place their application windows. Windows 7 allows users to pin their favourite applications to the taskbar, similar to the Apple's Mac OSX

Windows 7 is also coming with security features in the enterprise-targeted version, such as BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, could be attractive for businesses that deal with sensitive data. Documents and storage devices can be password-protected and securely recovered. With Windows 7 Professional and up, people can use XP Mode to emulate the old operating system and run XP applications. This will be huge advantage over Vista as many applications compatible with XP didn't run on Vista.

Many feel Vista failed not because it was bad but because it was ahead of time. The hardware in most PCs around the world wasn't ready to deal with Vista which is not the case with Windows 7. The majority of businesses around the world are running an 8-year-old operating system, XP on pre-Vista computers now want to upgrade. With recession subsiding many corporates are looking forward to upgrading their PC and using the latest Operating System.

Experts who have used the Beta version of Windows 7 say it is faster, more reliable and more secure than Vista. Although the new operating system and fixed the loopholes it had with Vista it is not very different from its predecessor as both have been built on the same platform. It will be too early to predict the future of Windows 7 but one thing is sure this OS might very well decide the future of the Microsoft.

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Google understands no recession!

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

If you thought recession was effecting every major industry and performance think again there are certain industries which technically will thrive more in an uncertain market. Telecom and Internet are the biggest beneficiaries as panicky people make more calls and surf the internet more. Jokes apart Telecom and Internet have done relatively well in the past year when many business giants went on the verge of bankruptcy.

Leading the way has been Internet search Giant Google. The company has posted a 27 per cent jump in its third quarter (Q3) net profit. It's profit stood at 1.6 billion dollars and its revenue rose by 7 per cent in the third quarter as opposed to the mere 3 in the second quarter. CEO Eric Schmidt said that the company was planning on increasing its headcount apart from making heavy investments. To boost the confidence of the investors he also informed that the worst of the recession is over.

These figures are no mean achievement in a market scenario where many of the biggest business houses had to go their respective governments for bail outs. Google's profit also proved the fact that the Online Advertisement industry is still lucrative. The company's partner sites which share revenue through their AdSense programme earned an estimated revenue of more that 1.80 billion dollars which is a seven percent increasing from the last quarter.

This profit comes as no shock to millions of Google users across the world as the company through its constant evolution has been one of the most admired brands in the market for in the last decade. It's biggest testament perhaps lies in the fact that two of its biggest competitors Yahoo and Microsoft haven't had any such profits to boast and what's more both of them are on the part of merger to take on the California based giant.

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Adding to our senses...

By: Reetasri Bhattacharjee

Even in this day of high technological advancement, we human beings still rely on our five senses for perceiving any information. Technocrats have often wondered if a device could be developed that could take place of the abstract concept of the sixth sense. The Media Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under Pattie Maes, has come up with an unique device which is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use the natural hand gestures to interact with that information. This is the “Sixth Sense” deviced by Pranav Mistry, a research scholar in the Media Lab of MIT.

According to the developers of the Sixth Sense, in today’s increasing consumerism, the internet has become our constant companion to get added information about things and people. We also use our mobiles to connect to the internet and get any information about anything we want. But the point here is, “whenever we want the information, we search for it”. The information does not come automatically. Sixth Sense will help in getting any information (like the quality of the product, the current rating of the product on the internet, the significance of the product etc) about products and purchases automatically when we are choosing something. Basically the device will help us to make the correct purchasing decision about any product. Further, if seeing a scenery, we want to take a photograph, we will no longer need to take out our mobile cameras to do so. Just the standard hand gesture of framing a picture will take the scene and store it in the mobile computer. There are many other things that can be done with the Sixth Sense.

The prototype implements many applications that demonstrate flexibility, viability and usefulness of the system. Other interesting applications are the map application which lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures allowing us to zoom in, zoom out, resize and even pan the movement. In another application, we can draw on any surface. This will again be done by the device tracking our hand movement on the air. If we want a watch to see the time, just making a circle on the wrist will display the clock on the hand and when we have seen the time a simple erasing gesture will remove it. If a person comes infront of us, all information about him available on him over the internet will get displayed on the person’s body. If we want to log into our e-mail, the gesture of tracking the “@” sign will display our e-mail.

The Sixth Sense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus Sixth Sense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

Sixth Sense is still in the labs and has not been launched for the general public. But even in this stage, it has cost just $350. If any easy calculation is made, when it will go more mass production, the value will come down further. Its creator, Pranav Mistry has already got the “Best Innovation Award, 2009” for this product. It is surely an innovation to look forward to. This has the potential for bringing the internet and added information all the more closer to us. There are certain points in the device that can be abused more than used, for example, the application of clicking a photograph without any visible device. The application which gives added information about a person is also controversial. It will take the product to be launched for the mass to see what its impact will be on our lifestyle.

This blog has been contributed by Reetasri Bhattacharjee a dear friend of mine. She is a regular blogger on blogspot and maintains the blog My Passing Moments

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Chandrayaan died of heat stroke!

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Well that's what the the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is saying. We had heard of human beings and animals dying of heat stroke in India's tropical weather but this if for the first time we are hearing of a satellite suffering from the same medical problem. Jokes apart after more than a month of effort ISRO declared having lost communication with the ambitious Chandrayan-I. This meant India's first mission to the moon ended abruptly.

The mission has been more or less successful with ISRO claiming to have finished with 90-95% of the planned mission. India's space agency has anticipated moon's surface would be around 75 degrees Celsius. However the temperature turned out to be more than 75 degrees this started a series of problems. Some of the experiments had to be shut down as a part of the contingency plan but unfortunately ISRO lost communication with satellite about 10 months after its launch.

The bashers of our indigenously technology will make a mockery out of the entire project. There is a certain group which cannot trust the 'Made in India' tag even if moon is manufactured in India. From satellites to military armaments this group want us to remain ever dependent on the West for all our needs. Some of them do it for monetary profits from the MNCs and international arm manufacturers and while others do it due to lack of knowledge and over admiration of the West.

The fact is Chandrayan-I survived in the lunar orbit for 10 months where as many of NASA missions could not last half that time. If NASA is a set standard in space science than ISRO has done a commendable job. Scientists from the European Space Agency (ESA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences are currently monitoring the performance of their payloads which went aboard in Chandrayan-I.

Let us give ISRO its dues, being from a third world nation and with regular budget constrains it has always delivered more than expectation. ISRO's annual budget in 2007-08 stood at was Rs. 3,858 crore (793 million dollars) compared to 17. 3 billion dollars that NASA spent. Is it thus fair to draw comparison between the two? Hasn't NASA ever failed in its mission? Have we forgotten Space Shuttle Columbia's disaster?

Although we don't sing praises for ISRO its best complement perhaps came from US President Barack Obama when he said “With India’s launch of its first unmanned lunar spacecraft we are reminded just how urgently the United States must revitalise its space programme if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology,’’ It's high time we back our desi science and engineering.

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The Indian National UID Project

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The Central Government aims to distribute a unique identity card to every Indian citizen. The Indian National UID Project will be on the lines of the SSN (Social Security Number) in the United States. The seeds of the project were sown in 2002 by the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Named Multipurpose National Identity Card (MNIC) then its main aim was to track every Indian citizen to counter the growing threat of terrorism and create a countrywide database of every Indian citizen which is the need of developed nation.

After lying in docks for many years the Centre has finally given a go ahead to the project. Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has been appointed as a Cabinet Minister to head the project. Nilekani’s appointment met with cheers as he is well known for his Project Management skills having co-founded and headed one of India’s largest IT companies.

This will however be a neck breaking task for Nandan Nilekani and his team as they will have to work with different machineries of the Government. The problems are compounded by poverty, illiteracy and lack of basic infrastructure in many parts of the country. The federal system of government has meant that there is huge disparity between the functioning of various State Governments. There exists a wide gap between the economically flourishing and the backward States. Since the State Governments will have to play and pivotal role in the implementation of this project, to counter this disparity will be a major challenge.

OBJECTIVES

• The project aims to obviate need for multiple documentary proofs and will help in facilitating verification.
• The database will serve as a National Population Register which will be updated periodically filling the loopholes in the present Census System.
• It will be major tool in the Government’s hand to facilitate e-governance service which is the need of hour in a geographically vast country like India.
• It will be major boost to the law and order system in the country and be an active tool in the fight against terrorism.
• The database created will help in the implementation of the social schemes with focus on the economically weaker sections of the society.
• The project aims at monitoring the financial system in the country. It will reduce tax and other financial frauds.

THE CARD

The UID card given to the people will have a micro processor chip with 16 KB of memory to store all the confidential information. The card will be made secure using ‘asymmetric key cryptography’ and ‘symmetric key cryptography’ which will prevent duplication and misuse of the card.

A national database for every individual will be maintained across multiple locations to prevent sabotage and risks from natural disasters. Every single move made by an Indian citizen from his birth to death can be tracked by the government. The project will integrate the educational, financial, health, travel and tax information of an individual into a single platform.

CHALLENGES

• Arming people with a smart card in a country where more than one third of the population still lives below the poverty line.
• Create a user friendly technology considering close to two-third of the population still resides in the rural or semi-urban areas.
• Implement the project under a public service system infamous for corruption and inefficiency. The fact that the same system has failed to distribute EPIC cards to all the citizens in more than two decades will pose a major challenge.
• Distribution of UID cards to authentic Indian citizens considering the amount of influx taking place from neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
• To overcome the potential privacy issues related with the project.
• Overcome the religious, cultural and socio-economic biases which have been roadblocks in the proper distribution of the EPIC and ration cards.
• To work in conjunction with the various State Governments with very little uniformity in their functioning.

When completed National UID will have one of the largest databases in the world. It will arm the Government to track every Indian citizen from the time to birth to his death and facilitate better governance. The biggest challenge of all for Nandan Nilekani and his team will be to implement this project to the best of its potential. Or else UID card might end up being another plastic card in the wallet.

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Tatas heat up the telecom sector

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The heat is on in the Indian telecom market. It has been just about two months that Tata DoCoMo had taken the GSM mobile market by storm with its paise per second tariff plan. Tata Tele Services seems to be in no mood to lower its guard and has created a bang in the CDMA market too. Tata Indicom might have just delivered a death blow to its biggest competitor Reliance CDMA by announcing its new pay per call concept.

The offer is such that its sounds too good to believe. Under this offer Tata Indicom callers will be charged Re.1 for all local calls and Rs.3 for long distance calls, regardless of the duration of the call irrespective of the network they call into. The pay-per-call product has been launched on the prepaid platform, and subscribers opting for it will be charged a daily fee of Re.1. The company also plans to roll out similar offer on its postpaid service.

In two months, the firm has already signed up six million subscribers on the GSM network which has rolled out in eight operating areas including the four southern states, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. With plans to launch DoCoMo in all the 23 circles in the next one year and revamping its existing CDMA subscriber base India's most prestigious business house is turning the heat on in the Telecom market.

The Tata DoCoMo impact has been so much so that it caught most of its competitors off guard and has forced them to revise their price strategy. Never before were SIM Cards hoarded in the market as has been the case with Tata DoCoMo with retailers unable to meet the market demands. Aircel is trying to lure its customers with a cheap STD calls going into the third minute. Airtel and Vodafone are giving attractive packages to their customers within their network.

It will be interesting to see what happens to the cellular market in India once the Number Portability comes into effect. It is believed a lobby is trying its best to stop this from empowering the consumers to choose their operators at the same time retaining their numbers. Tata Tele Services is most likely to be the biggest beneficiary if this comes into quick effect. Well consumers surely have a lot to cheer about in this telecom war.

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Philips to launch Android phones

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

If you haven't seen a Philips cell phone ever in you life you are not alone. The technology giant could never make a grip over the cell phone market although they had made an early entry. All that is supposed to change and Philips is all set take the market by storm. The technology spies have given the world the first glimpse of Philips' Android based phone. The phone is rumoured to have been code named V808.



The images of the phone powered by Google's Android OS was leaked on a Chinese website which claimed to have got a prototype of the product and would soon review it. This initial information on the claims its dimensions to be 115×61x14mm. V808 will come with a 3.2-inch HVGA (Half-size VGA) display of 480x320 pixels. The phone will also come with a 3.2 mega pixel camera with video recording facilities and built in GPS / WiFi.

The phone will be initially sold in China where Philips is famous for its making extremely long standby phone. The phone is focusing on the GPS side of things to have a competitive edge over its rivals. Philips V808 will offer new GPS software along with a mounting kit for your car. Unlike HTC’s Sense User Interface, the Philips V808 will use the default Android user interface and touch sensitive buttons below the display screen.

This will also serve as a huge boost for Google's Android OS as the technology giant hasn't been able to capture the market share it would have liked to. With manufacturers like Nokia under its kitty Symbian OS is still holding lion's share in the smart phone market.. Philips will serve as another shot in the arm for Google after HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola plan to launch more Android based phone in the near future

Philips V808 won’t be called V808 when it hits the stands due to the leakage of the name. There are rumours that it might be branded as Xenium branding during its launch. It remains to be seen if the technology giant can create a storm in the mobile market with V808 or bite dust even this time around.

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Microsoft marries Yahoo to fight Google

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The Great Internet War has just intensified with Microsoft and Yahoo joining forces to wage a war against industry giant Google. Both Microsoft and Yahoo consummated their on and off courtship to sign up for an online venture to taken on Google. The proposed 10-year deal deal however faces tough scrutiny from antitrust regulators, who frequently have rejected deals that reduce three major market players to two. It will not take effect until antitrust approval is granted.

Under the agreement, web sites from both companies would use Microsoft's recently launched Bing search technology. In short Yahoo will now be powered by Microsoft. Yahoo would handle worldwide sales of premium search-related advertising for both companies. The deal allows Microsoft to gain access to Yahoo's substantial traffic. Microsoft will thus pay its partner 88 percent of the search revenues generated on Yahoo sites.

Advertising executives around the world have given a thumbs up to the deal. Experts predict that it will provide marketers with more bang against Google and give the advertisers a good option to choose against Google. They are terming it as balance into the search and display markets as Google almost had a monopoly till now. The online advertising industry which currently stands at $30 billion is expected to double in the next five years.

Yahoo and Microsoft together account for about 28 percent of Internet searches performed while market leader Google is way ahead with 65 percent market share. Bing which was launched by Microsoft is seeing some encouraging signs with its market share increasing over its predecessor Live Search. Now with Bing and Yahoo not competing against one another they might grab a bigger piece of pie and dent some bit on Google.

Interesting both Microsoft and Yahoo have come together after having individually failed to cause any injury to Google. Microsoft and Google have been engaged in a battle ever since Microsoft launched the Bing search engine. Google replied it announcing their Crome Operating System. Not to be left behind Microsoft answered back with announcement of free Office 2010 to take on Google Docs. Only time will tell if the marriage of convenience between Microsoft and Yahoo can cause any damage to Google.

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Will the moon controversy finally rest?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

If the biggest controversies of the last century are listed the NASA's Moon Landings will definitely be among the top. Apollo 11's landing on the moon stated America's superiority in the space race over the erstwhile Soviet Union. But many believed man never set his foot on the moon and the entire episode was fake and filmed on the earth. 40 years on the controversy refuses to die propelling news channels like Fox News to air the famous documentary 'Did we land on the moon?'

There was a saying in America “If you can't make it, fake it”. Many believed NASA made the most expensive movie ever by showing man's landing on moon which was filmed in America's heavily guarded Area 51 in Nevada desert . The footage and the pictures collected from the moon are full of inconsistencies and this has given the conspiracy theories over generations an opportunity to raise doubts over the authenticity of the moon mission. Some of the questions raised were

• Why has there been no manned mission to the moon since 1972 with all the advancement in technology?
• Why did USSR not send a man to the moon although they were ahead of USA in the space race?
• Who took Neil Armstrong's picture coming out of the craft if he was the first man to land on the moon?
• How does a US flag flutter in moon where there is no air? How does it appear bright when it was shot against the light?
• Why do the shadows intersect and point to multiple light source where sun was the only known source of light?
• Why is there no blast crater under the booster rocket which landed with a 17 tonne thrust where as the astronauts' foot marks have been pictured?
• A camera panned upwards and shot the Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?
• How did the astronauts always get perfect pictures with their chest mounted camera which had no viewfinders?

NASA has never been able to give scientific explanation to these questions although time and again they have dismissed these arguments as baseless. Now new photos of the moon have shown the leftovers from man’s exploration 40 years ago. This is for the first time any evidence of the landings has surfaced. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launched last month has relayed such pictures back to the earth. It has even pictured tracks made by astronauts on the lunar surface.

Will these images silence the conspiracy theorists? Well the answer may be a clear NO as its the same NASA which is releasing these pictures. If NASA had pulled off the biggest hoax 40 years ago what prevents them from doing one again now? But at a time when 40th year of the Moon Landings are being celebrated by NASA the conspiracy still refuses to die. Perhaps some other space agency can throw some light on the issue in the future.

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Is Android the next big thing in India?

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

India is one of the fastest growing cellular markets in the world and off late the Smart Phone market in the county has shown an upward trend. Google is now trying to cash in on India’s lucrative Smart Phone market. The company is going great guns with its operating system (OS) Android and the top Smart Phone manufacturers HTC, Samsung, LG and Motorola planning to roll out sets on the Android platform soon.

HTC which is the first company among the lot to roll out Android sets has received favourable response in India. The company says Android's internet driven mobility and the touch factor adds novelty to the HTC sets. Other companies are not far behind and LG and Motorola’s products are also likely to hit the market by December. Now the big question that arises is will this movie to Android hurt Symbian OS which is has the lion's share in the market?

Symbian OS is undoubtedly the leaders of the Smart Phone market in India. The successful launch of Apple's iPhone in Europe and North America meant that Symbian had lost substantial market share. But a relatively higher price tag attached with iPhone in India meant that Symbian still has grip over the market. The low end Smart Phone is huge in volume in India and Symbian OS holds the lion's share here.

With the entry of Android the race has become interesting. But will it be easy for Android to topple Symbian from the market? Well that doesn't seem possible in the immediate future. Symbian has a saving grace in the fact that India's largest cellular phones manufacturer Nokia is still using its operating system for its range of Smart Phone. Nokia had also rubbished rumours that it was dumping Symbian and taking up Android as its preferred platform for advanced mobile devices

Well the key to grabbing the Indian markets definitely lies in manufacturing affordable phone coupled with a user friendly operating system. With the HTCs, Samsungs, LGs and Motorolas moving towards Android Google will surely pose a serious threat to the Symbian OS. Only time will tell if Google Android but topples Symbian OS in India.

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Bing eating up Yahoo's share

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Microsoft Corp's latest baby Bing had set out to topple Goolge as the world's most preferred search engine. But almost a month since its launch it seems to have dented more of Yahoo's market share and caused very little injury to Google. According to the latest data research firm ComScore Microsoft captured 8.4 percent of US Internet searches in June up from 8 percent in May. This slight increase has come largely at the expense Yahoo Inc, whose market share fell to 19.6 percent in June from 20.1 percent in May. Big Daddy of search engine Google still holds 65 percent of the market.

Some analysts feel this is a good show by Microsoft as the technology giant was constantly loosing its market share with its erstwhile Live Search. Given all the publicity that happened around the launch of Bing it is expected to make a month-on-month increase. They however warn it will be premature to predict Bing's future now and may be three to four months down the line a clearer picture would emerge. The reviews of the Bing have been positive and most technology experts believe Bing is the best search engine to have come out of Microsoft's stable.

Microsoft however would not mind giving a few blows to Yahoo. It may be recalled that Microsoft had offered to buy Yahoo a year back but the company's board resisted the takeover. Microsoft believed having Yahoo under its belt could have given it a better platform to take on Google in the internet search and advertisement market. Microsoft was so desperate for Yahoo that there were rumours that Microsoft had almost planned for a hostile takeover of Yahoo's board. However there are many people who still believe there are still possibility of Microsoft striking a partnership with Yahoo.

In the last few months the grand technology battle between Microsoft and Google seems to have peaked. Microsoft took on Google with its search engine Bing. Google gave a fitting reply when it announced the launch of Google Chrome OS which may launch simultaneously with Windows 7. Microsoft did not take this lying down and announced a free online version of Office 2010 for home users to take on Google's much publicised Google Docs. Well in all this the biggest beneficiary would definitely be the end users.

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The Big 'Technology' Fight

By: Reetasri Bhattacharjee

Even since man took his fist step on the planet he has fought for supremacy. He started fighting the animals for food and then fought with other man over sharing of food. Slowly man evolved and fought for kingdoms and then for countries. But with the industrial revolution man fought over technology. The biggest, the longest and the fastest became the world wars. In the era of information technology Google and Microsoft have wedged a battle ever since Google came into the picture in the late 90s.

The battle began with full force when Google on its official blog announced that by the end of 2010, they would be introducing their own Operating System- Google Chrome OS. This was seen as an open challenge to Microsoft, the biggest players in the market when it comes to OS. Nearly 90% of the users around the world use Microsoft OS. Google claims to build an OS that will be “the thing” to use for people who use the computer mostly to connect to the World Wide Web. “Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS”, so says the official blog of Google. They want to make it as user-friendly as possible (keeping their trademark on user friendly applications).

Now Microsoft, in a counter-attack, has announced that it will make its Office application free for the web. This is in reply to Google Docs, launched about three years back. About two months back Microsoft had also launched Bing, a re-launch of sorts of Microsoft Live again to compete Google’s search engine.

When Google entered the internet market MSN had the lion's share of the market along with Yahoo Inc but the California based company revolutionized the way people searched on the net. Google no longer remained a search engine it became a verb as far as internet search is concerned. Both the computer giants are venturing into each others terrains and trying to topple the other. Google is now an established firm when it comes to the World Wide Web. Today almost everyone “Google’s out information”. Googling is on. It will be very difficult to remove Google from its area. Similarly, Microsoft has been the Big Daddy since its start about three decades ago. It captured the market and home-users, businesses preferred (and still does) using their OS and other softwares like Office, Media Player. But when it came to internet, it always had difficultly. Though it managed to take over Mosiacs market in the Internet Browser market, soon it had to bow to Netscape Navigator and Mozilla Firefox.

This is just the beginning of the war and it will surely continue and get fiercer in the coming days. With new promises and launches from both the stables, who wins this battle only time can tell. Till then, we the users can happily be taking the advantages of both the companies!!!

This blog has been contributed by Reetasri Bhattacharjee a dear friend of mine. She is a regular blogger on blogspot and maintains the blog My Passing Moments

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Can Google OS shut down Windows

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Two months back it was Microsoft which challenged Google with its new search engine 'Bing'. Now its time for Google to return the favours to the Big Daddy of computing world. In a official blog the search engine giant has announced it will launch Google Chrome Operating System in the second half of 2010. The operating system is being designed from the ground up to run on the Chrome web browser on netbooks.

Google says the software architecture will basically be the current Chrome browser running inside a new windowing system on top of the good old Linux kernel. This literally means that the web will be be the Operating System. The search engine giant also claims that application will be develop by the users on the web. For example an useer would run a text processing application from the web instead of his system. Chrome OS will be lightweight and fast just like the browser itself.

Sounds all good but the question arises will Google Chrome OS be able to shut down Microsoft Windows which runs on more than 90% of the world computers? Experts differ on their opinion on the topic. Some say Chrome will be a huge challenge for Microsoft but others believe it will take a long time for somebody to topple Microsoft from the Operating Systems market as this is the core business for the company and it will not let it go that easily.

Google wants to cash in on the fact that Windows XP is 8 years old, and Vista is generally considered as a dud from Microsoft's stable. But there is a wild card Windows 7 which is all set for an early release and experts claims it has fixed the flaws of Vista. Microsoft claims Windows 7 will also offer a good netbook experience which Chrome is claiming to be its USP. Google will release the open source code for Chrome OS later this year and it won't be surprising Windows 7 is also launched at the same time.

One more thing that needs to be kept in mind is that Chrome OS will run as an web based application and stand alone PCs and Laptops without internet access will not be able to use it. Considering the low levels of internet penetration in emerging markets like India and China it is quite a risk that Google is taking in making its Operating System. Giants like Dell Computers have regretted ignoring India while strategizing their business earlier in the decade.

Certain things need to be kept in mind before singing praises for the Google Chrome OS. Google had launched the Android with much funfare but it hasn't lived upto the expectation many Google fans had. When Chrome browser was launched last year it got hold of 2% market share in the first two weeks but Mozilla Firefox still remains to be the preferred browser of the internet users. So it will be too early to predict if Google Chrome will be Windows Killer.

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Microsoft wants to bang with 'Bing'

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Govt. washes its hands off Satyam

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

The last ray of hope that many Satyamites put on sabbatical had about Government coming to their rescue has dwindled away with Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khursheed stating that the Government won't meddle into the affairs of the company. Ironically a fortnight ago Mr. Kursheed has stated that the Government wont turn a 'blind eye' on the future of Satyam employees. He said with Tech Mahindra taking on the company it was upto them to manage the company.

To be fair on the Government's part there is very little that they could have done. Tech Mahindra surely had made its calculations right before stepping into the bid to buy the IT giant. The Government could not have interfered into the internal matters of a company and definitely not in the IT sector which has always tried to keep the Government at bay. Nobody expected fraud of this scale in Corporate India's sunshine sector.

The biggest and the most obvious victims in all this has been the employees and more so those in the lower bands who were mostly non-billable. They have been hired and virtually thrown out of a company for no fault of theirs. The global slowdown has added to their woes with very few opportunities in the job market for them to switch to some other companies.

The events since the global slowdown has been a moment of truth for the entire nation. Our generation which had grown up blaming the government for each and every woe and believed privatisation was the answer to all our problem suddenly have doubts. We have seen how bad the corporate world can be. The fat salary cheques can be overnight replaced with pink slips for no fault of the employee.

The Government has lost a lot of controlling power it had over the economy about a decade back and many of our industry leaders want the government to have no control over the economy. Whether this is good or bad for us only time will tell but one thing is for sure the victims will always be the people at the bottom of the pyramid. The leaders who lead organization to shambles will try take their share of responsibility with a token 'salary cut'.

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