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Musings about my first love - Technology !





ISRO's Bhuvan to take on Google Earth
Saturday, November 08, 2008

Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s satellites have been making news all over world for their remote sensing capabilities. Come March 2009, ISRO will launch its own IRS (Indian Remote Sensing) image portal called Bhuvan. This was announced by ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair while delivering a lecture on “Benefits of Space to the Society,” organised at an inaugural function in Gandhinagar on Tuesday.

The portal will offer detailed satellite views of our subcontinent to users - akin to those seen on Google Earth and Wikimapia, but with a difference; this one will give sharper and more detailed pictures than provided by Google. Google Earth, which can zoom up to 200m, will have good competition in Bhuvan, which has a sharper zoom level capability of up to 10m.

While Google Earth provides single-layer information, Bhuvan would provide multi-layer information. Additionally, you would be able to view the images date-wise. The entire service makes use of Indian satellites and its focus will be the Indian subcontinent. ISRO plans to use it to enhance urban and forest planning and traffic management. Like Google Earth, a "special" version would be in the offing for professional and corporate users who might need higher resolution data. Of course, this would come at a price, though the base version would remain free. Apart from Bhuvan, ISRO is also readying an information portal called "Bhu Sampada." Both services are expected to be operational by March 2009.

Nair said that upon being integrated with application-specific Spatial Decision Support (SDS) tools, these two unique portals would open up a new era of collaborative mapping in the country. “These are not mere image or information browsers, but are the mechanisms for providing satellite images and thematic maps to the user community for the purpose of development planning,” he said.

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posted by Jas @ 2:34 AM, ,






Indian entrepreneurship surging in recession
Thursday, September 11, 2008

The fans of social bookmarking sites (like Digg) would be knowing how such a site - Reddit got its vital money during startup phase. YCombinator, an early stage investment firm had provided the seed funding for it, Scribd and many others. It idea is simple, help to get the new Internet ventures off-the-ground on the cheap, with typical investments ranging from $15,000-$20,000, when they need it the most - in earliest phase.

Well India has got its own version of YCombination in form of Morpheus Venture Partners providing seed capital and mentoring to startups in India. For some time they have been conducting interviews with the interested startups and yesterday only came out with the list of startups that they will be betting on. For the moment investments come directly from MVP’s partners as opposed to the fund, which is currently in the process of raising $5M from investors.

Here is the list of startups which are gearing up for new age challenges even as the traditional industries are trying to either converge or cut costs to survive the bear run.

1) CallGraph: Call Graph is a service to record, track, monitor, share and transcribe your calls. It is designed for distributed teams who use services such as Skype for their meetings, conference calls etc 2


2) Crederity: Crederity is a new service that applies sophisticated technologies and programs to helping people and businesses easily establish trust on the Internet. As the web’s first guaranteed trust builder, Crederity enables people and businesses to certify their own integrity and that of others.

3) DeskAway: DeskAway “simplifies teamwork”. DeskAway is a subscription-based online team and project collaboration service that enables small businesses & teams to organize, manage & track their work online.

4) Dhanax: dhanaX stands for exchange of dhana or wealth, works with the vision to connect people from different economic backgrounds and thus create wealth for them. dhanaX is an online/offline people-to-people lending platform that lets Indians to lend and borrow money from fellow Indians.

5) Fachak: A platform where you can share any form of content from a document to a video, it just needs to mean one thing to you - Fun! Fachak is in its pre-release stage right now but is soon going to be in private beta. You can register yourself for the launch invitation on the website.

6) LifeMojo: LifeMojo’s focus is on creating a platform for delivery of preventive health care services and partner with renowned health experts for their consultation.

7) SutraHR: Sutra HR is a full services People Consulting firm which has a unique partnering model with Digital, Mobile and Internet startups and entrepreneurial companies in India, to find retain assess and train talent to take them to the next level and beyond.

For additional details, check out the MVP website here.

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posted by Jas @ 8:36 AM, ,






VISA payWave - next wave in payment mode?
Monday, July 14, 2008

Reacting to the success of RFID as payment mode, VISA has branded its RFID card as VISA payWave. Called so as one just needs to wave his/her card near the accepting POS terminal for transaction to be carried. To ease the faster payment, one doesn't even need to sign for most of the purchases made under $25.


According to the VISA website, over 32,000 retailers from 20 top brands accept Visa payWave payments, and the list is rapidly growing. Visa payWave is intended to make it simple to save time every day—at quick service restaurants, drugstores, movie theaters, convenience stores and more. The participating issuers are BB&T, Chase, INOVA FCU, SunTrust and Wells Fargo as of now. Some of the major names of merchants who are already accepting the card are Mc Donalds, CVS Pharmacy, 7-Eleven and Jack in the Box. The complete list of eligible merchants is provided at its sitepage -
http://usa.visa.com/paywave-merchants/

Well there are lot of benefits for users over here, like
But then it needs to be seen how much faith do cardmembers show in RFID payment methods. There has been recent reports of people being able to forge the RFID cards as what a legitimate merchant terminal can read from the card, a malicious scanning device can also read without a consumer’s consent or knowledge. Hence the design takes the prime importance over here. The most basic info of the card, the name of the cardholder is abused the maximum with these devices. There has been a good article on the vulnerabilities in First-Generation RFID enabled cards at blog of RFID Cusp, you can access it here -
http://www.rfid-cusp.org/blog/blog-23-10-2006.html

Visa has also announced that it is currently migrating to an enhanced global specification, Visa Contactless 2.0, to further support the growth of Visa payWave around the globe. The new global contactless specification is based on the international EMV chip standards, enabling Visa to take advantage of the industry's most advanced cryptographic techniques for Visa payWave transactions, regardless of where the card was issued or where the transaction takes place.

"Visa payWave is an excellent example of Visa's approach to innovation and our ability to extend the value of Visa to new stakeholders and new market segments," said Elizabeth Buse, Global Head of Product at Visa Inc. "As the payments ecosystem expands, so does Visa's opportunity to deliver innovative products and services to a diverse set of stakeholders."

Sources: VISA websites

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posted by Jas @ 10:58 AM, ,






GTalk now provides the invisible model option
Thursday, May 29, 2008

Probably one of the most important features I saw in chatting apart from chatting was the option of ‘invisible mode’. It lets you to have an important chat without everybody bombarding you with pings and hence your screen. It has been a strong feature that was missing in Gtalk and I know about many people who didn’t used to come online on Gtalk, me included, as everybody would be seeing you and hence it ends up a time consuming thing, especially when you have come online for some work on Gtalk.

But then voila, Google has now brought this option in its latest version of Gmail chat. For the people using AIM in Gmail (Google allowed AIM clients to be Google chat compatible few months back), invisible mode also makes them appear signed out on the AIM network. Invisible mode is one of the most requested chat features and so it’s a much awaited addition, starting in Gmail Chat, and in the future all Talk clients.

But at the same point Google’s official Gmail blog has mentioned that the chat may not be useful if lot of people go off line. So do give a feedback to them in case you have any opinion on this…

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posted by Jas @ 8:31 PM, ,






Yahoo all set to GLUE you to its new search
Monday, May 12, 2008

Yahoo has released a new type of search result for India called “Glue Page.” Instead of the usual text listing, some queries – like blog, Taj Mahal or asthma – will now trigger a comprehensive and very visual result page. This page contains different elements laid out in boxes; there’s “normal” search results, encyclopedic information from health sites or Wikipedia, news results, YouTube videos or Google blog search results (yes, they’re integrating results from competitors, though Google is also a partner of Yahoo in some areas) and more.

This is a very interesting prototypical service; part meta search engine and part original results from Yahoo, and a bit like Google’s universal search approach that brings in results from images, videos, maps, news, or other sources as appropriate. It is also similar in appearance to Ask since its redesign last summer.

What is interesting is that the option is available only in India, maybe because its result of Indian development center. Also its not available for all results but is only triggered in the “glue” approach when the topic is broad enough to yield lots of results from diverse services.

Yahoo Glue only works for certain categories of searches (sports, travel, entertainment, health, stocks, and tech), but it does produce a more satisfying experience than the traditional list of blue links. The only issue is that the results take a little bit longer to load. But humans are visual creatures and we respond better to the visual display of information. Yahoo Glue brings in results in three different panes, both from Yahoo and elsewhere. They can be images, videos, Wikipedia entries, HowStuffWorks entries, sports stats, and news, and results from other sources.

And the dynamism is the beauty of it. Search for the “Taj Mahal” and you get pictures and videos of the Taj Mahal, and a link to the Wikipedia entry. Search for Angelina Jolie and you get a bio, pics, YouTube videos, music charts, news, and results from Yahoo Answers. Search for “soccer” and you get league tables. The traditional link results are still available in the narrow left-hand column, but you almost ignore them.

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posted by Jas @ 11:48 AM, ,






Yahoo to Buzz
Thursday, February 21, 2008

A new Yahoo service called "Buzz" that's set to launch later this month. Widely understood as the competitor to Digg, the popular user rating site; it is a buzz tracker for news items picked not only by user voting (like Digg, Propeller, Reddit, et al), but also for items people are searching for both on Yahoo and on the company's publisher network.

A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. The data is collected from Yahoo! search log files. The Yahoo! Buzz Index counts the total number of people searching for specific subjects.Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.

By combining with the search results, Yahoo surely would have a great upper hand on other rating services. But then all other players are already established; so going should be tough. According to Valleywag, the release date is set for February 26th, which falls on a Tuesday.

Buzz, built under the direction of VP Tapan Bhat, will begin with a limited number of publishers -- about 100 -- and will rank stories based on popular search results and user voting. By summer, Buzz will open to the entire Yahoo Publisher Network. In other words, if you let Yahoo sell ads on your site, it will allow your stories to appear on Buzz. Word is Yahoo plans to launch the site on buzz.yahoo.com, which currently tracks popular search results.

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posted by Jas @ 11:21 AM, ,






Nokia releases Maps 2.0 beta
Friday, February 15, 2008

Previously available only to a select group, Nokia is turning the beta version of its Maps 2.0 navigation app onto the masses. In addition to the car mode existing users will be familiar with, 2.0 adds "Walk," a new mode tailored to pedestrian use. Another new feature is the ability to purchase "multimedia guides" for destinations that hook you up with photo, video, and audio streams that detail places to go and things to see on your magical journey.

Version 2.0 also adds real-time traffic information and hybrid satellite views, both features that help to bring Maps in line with Google Maps for Mobile. The beta is available immediately, while a final cut is expected to be available in the second quarter of the year.

Separately, Nokia has announced that it'll be bringing its Maps franchise to Series 40, swinging open the door to high-function navigation on the company's mass-market, non-smartphone handsets. It'll be ready in the first half of 2008, though no plans have yet been outed regarding availability on specific Series 40 devices.

Nokia Maps 2.0 Beta comes with compatible Nokia Map Loader, also available for download from its website. Nokia is offering the navigation service on the 6210 for free. While Nokia offers all its maps for free, the company charges users of other navigation-ready devices weekly, monthly or yearly subscriptions for the navigation service.

But a caution, Maps 2.0 is still in Beta and therefore not supported by Nokia care.

via ZDNet

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posted by Jas @ 1:29 AM, ,






Sharp gets sharper
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

It is the strongest desire of every product manager to make his/her brand achieve a status of an icon and only handful of the toiling ones are successful. RAZR by Motorola not only enjoyed that status all over world but also paved the way of Motorola's sales surge. After the long dominance of Nokia and complaints by people that Motorola has been too complacent and sluggish; the model made the company feel confident in telling world that they are technology company and will indulge in only tech superior products. The Razr has been one of the best-selling cell phones on the market since it was introduced in 2004.

The razor sharp features got the public crazy and soon the sales registers started ticking at incredible pace for the model. Motorola followed it with some lower end models which had similar features. While the Razr franchise has helped Motorola increase its market share over the past couple of years, the company's executives have been criticized for commoditizing the product by allowing mobile operators to slash prices on the phone to entice subscribers to sign up for service.
The CEO Ed Zander commented in May that "The Razr is more than a product, it's a brand," Zander told reporters and analysts at Tuesday's event. "When I reach for a tissue, I grab a Kleenex. When I order a soda, I say I want a Coke. And even when I talk about an MP3, I call it an iPod. The Razr is also a brand, and we will market that for years to come."
But the sharp has just got sharper now; Motorola is launching its new RAZR2 across the world. It was launched in May end in Korea, a fortnight ago in US and will be launching it tomorrow in India. The Razr2 features a large external screen for viewing incoming calls and text messages without opening the phone, as well as a stainless-steel internal frame for durability and a scratch-resistant glass surface. Motorola included its CrystalTalk patented technology on the Razr2, which automatically adjusts the phone's audio to make calls clearer in noisy environments. But the most impressive thing about the Razr2 is its multimedia capabilities, including a full HTML browser, Google mobile search, a music player, and a videoconferencing feature that lets the users stream live video calls. RAZR2 V8 comes complete with 512MB end user memory or 2GB memory, USB 2.0 high speed for fast music file transfers, Windows Media Player 11 synchronization for simple music management and a music touch screen on the external display for effortless control. Motorola plans to introduce a lot more phones -- both smartphones and feature phones -- with similar capabilities making the battle murkier for handset market.

But the billion dollar question is will the RAZR2 bring back Motorola stocks back from the doldrums? Nokia has been bothered by the recent mass recall of now infamous BL-5C batteries and iPhone is supposed to come quite late in India; so it's a striking time for Motorola and they know it well!

The catch up on the marketing campaign related to the launch will be done in my marketing blog.

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posted by Jas @ 10:31 AM, ,






Now comes the Air Mouse...
Sunday, July 22, 2007

Logitech has come up with an 'Air Mouse' which resembles Wii and hence is being talked of as Wii-remote for non-game console entertainment. To be made available from August onwards at a premium price of $150, the MX Air Mouse is supposed to go along with all the wafer thin wall big LCD screens that have been catching sales.

Pic-1 - Logitech's Air Mouse

If you have used the Wii remote (see pic 2), then you must be aware of the low sensitivity of it in cases where you need minor adjustments. So as pointed out by Utility Belt , the author of the blog had problem trying to positioning it on top of just the right box before clicking. That is when used for applications, for TV i think it should be pretty okay even while choosing a channel from a list of drop down (remember Dish's menus?)


Pic-2 - Wii Remote*

But the author talks on basis of a trial product that was given to him. Actual product will hit markets most probably by August and has been going through rigorous testing procedures and some enhancements.

I had a chance to have my hands on the Wii remote when i was in Lyon, France. Its the fifth home video game console released by Nintendo. It is actually a wireless controller, called the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and can detect motion and rotation in three dimensions. So effectively you can make a swish motion in a golf game, as you would do in a normal real world.
And by the way, Wii, which started a little low as compared to PlayStation and XBox 360 in sales in Japan, the heart of this market, has taken away the lead from it. While XBox 360 leads the pack worldwide; in Japan it won’t move much.

*pics courtesy Business2 blog and Nintendo's site

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posted by Jas @ 6:29 AM, ,