Tech Dosa

The IT sector world over is going through a turbulent phase. The sector, which receives around 80–90% of its revenue from the US and Europe, went through a very difficult phase after 2001 due to a recession in Western countries, especially the US and Europe.

While the growth in the number of new projects has taken a back seat, the depreciation in rupee has helped Indian IT companies to some extent.

The sectoral ranking indicates that most top IT companies have managed to retain their ranking of the previous year.

Check out the top 10 IT companies of India in 2009:

Industrial  scientists in the US are in the final stages of plans to market a new generation of ”intelligent” CCTVs, which can spot violent gestures or suspicious movements.

“Active awareness” systems can detect any kind of unusual activity, including someone raising their hand suddenly, running along a street or taking an unusual route around a car park.

According to David Brown, a scientist at Portsmouth University involved in the ‘smart’ project, future versions will be able to recognize sounds such as screaming or glass breaking and could integrate face-recognition software to pick known criminals out of crowds.

Tata Indicom has launched a ‘Pay Per Call’ plan. The ‘Pay Per Call’ concept will allow subscribers to pay a fixed charge on a per-call basis at Re 1 for local calls and Rs 3 for STD , regardless of duration of call.

The Pay Per Call product is initially being introduced on the pre-paid platform. Subscribers will be charged a daily rental fee of Re 1

Subscribers can send SMS at a special price of 50 paise for both national and local messages. The ‘Pay Per Call’ offer is valid on all calls made by Tata Indicom subscribers to any mobile phone or land line connection, on any network.

“We at Tata Teleservices Limited are proud to introduce this path-breaking value proposition for Indian telecom users. Pay Per Call is another extension of the promise made by Tata Indicom to all subscribers — that of providing a superior service experience, at the same time providing transparent and flexible payment options,” said Anil Sardana, the Managing Director, Tata Teleservices Limited. “Pay Per Call will not just change the pricing paradigm in the telecom space,it also marks a giant step in Tata TeleServices Limited’s evolution as a telecom operator with its primary focus on creating consumer delight.”

The service is available on all new Tata Indicom connections, and the existing subscribers can avail the offer with a one-time recharge of Rs 96.

Korean electronics giant LG will re-enter the laptop business in India by the end of 2009.LG Electronics, which had earlier stopped selling its laptops in India due to financial non-viability, now plans to re-enter the business.

LG Electronics India Managing Director Moon Bum Shin said, ” Notebooks hardly generate profit as big amount of purchase comes only from corporates. We had pulled out but we are thinking of starting again by launching netbooks (mini laptops) and other product line”.”For notebook as compared to Hewlett Packard our base is small. So rather than push the material (volume) we are going to come up with premium marketing, which we are working on,” he said.

The company is planning to position the product in the premium segment.

Wipro, India’s third largest IT outsourcing provider, has increased hiring Australian employees.

“Australia is a large market for us in the Asia Pacific region. We are quite bullish and investing heavily in that market. As a part of that strategy, we would like to enhance the capacity of our two development centres located the country and have about 250 Australian people by the end of this year, thus increasing the percentage of local people working there from the current 20 per cent to about 35 per cent of our workforce in Australia,” said Rajat Mathur, senior Vice President and Chief Sales & Operations officer for Asia Pacific, Wipro Technologies.

Currently, Wipro has about 450 employees  in Australia and there are around 350 employees at its various offshore locations in India, working for the company’s Australian clients.

Wipro has tied up with the local software industry body, Australian Computer Society, as part of its localisation strategy. This will help the company to hire graduates from the top eight local universities.

Wipro entered the Australian market seven to eight years earlier. More than 15 per cent of its global revenues come from the Asia Pacific region (mainly Japan and India).The IT market in Australia and New Zealand has a revenue of around $14 billion. This has prompted all Indian IT outsourcing providers to increase their focus on the Australia and New Zealand market.

Wipro is basically focusing on the following  specific sectors in Australia — banking and insurance, energy and utilities, telecom, retail and the government.

Apple on Wednesday unveiled a new range of iPods, as well as new iTunes and an iPhone /iPod Touch system software in San Francisco.

New upgraded versions at lower price

Apple introduced an updated version of iPod Nano that sports a built-in video camera and microphone located on the lower left-hand side. It has a 2.2-inch display. There is no Wi-Fi or built-in Web browser, so users will first have to sync the videos to their computers to access and edit the files. The upgraded device also has an FM tuner.

The new iPod Nano will come in two versions, 8GB ($149) and 16GB ($179). That represents a $20 price cut on the high end. The system software has some added features in iTunes 9, like Genius Mixes and VoiceOver control.

The buttonless iPod Shuffle offers a wide new range of colors, capacities and a lower entry price. The new 2GB version costs $59 and 4GB version costs $79. The 4GB “special edition” costs $99 which is made of polished stainless steel and currently available only at Apple’s online and retail stores.

The low end of the iPod Touch line got price cuts, and the device got capacity bumps on the higher end. The 8GB model is now $199, down from $229. Meanwhile, the 16GB model has been shelved in favor of a 32GB version, which costs $299. At the high end, users can now get a 64GB model, which runs $399. Both the 32GB and 64GB models are packing faster internals, similar if not the same to the recently released iPhone 3GS, and are now capable of OpenGL ES 2.0 which boosts 3D performance.

The iPod Classic is now available with 160GB capacity.

New software

iPhone/iPod OS 3.1

Apple has released OS 3.1, which will be a free update to both iPhone and iPod Touch owners. Users on both platforms can now get Genius recommendations for applications they’ve purchased. 3.1 also adds a new security feature for iPhone owners–the capability to lock down the device over the air using MobileMe.

iTunes 9

Apple has introduced a new version of iTunes, which offers iPhone and iPod Touch users a drag and drop apps to multiple home screens at once, instead of doing so on the device itself. Another new feature in iTunes 9 is called Home Sharing. This lets you automatically sync purchases across multiple computers within a household. There is no need to redownload, or transfer from portable devices, which can save time.

The Genius feature and DJ feature have been mixed together to create something called Genius Mixes. The software can create multiple stations of music without the user having to pick a song for it to start from.

The software also has a new purchase-centric feature called iTunes LP, that adds a handful of digital pack-ins to purchased albums such as liner notes, photos, videos, lyrics, and links to online resources.

Karbonn Mobiles is the new series of mobile phones that is been launched in India. Karbonn mobiles are feature rich phones and they offer cheap mobile phones. Karbonn mobiles offer Camera, Dual Sim, Bluetooth, Radio, Music Player phones.

Karbonn K450 GSM mobile has the following features:

• TFT (thin film transistor technology- LCD display) screen of 2.2 size and a resolution of 240 x320
• It has an internal phonebook which can save 1000 entries and an SMS storage capacity of 200 messages.
• 1.3 megapixel camera
• Supports dual sim facility
• 4 GB expandable memory
• Equipped with GPRS/MMS/WAP
• Capable of working in GSM 900,1800,1900 and GPRS radio bands
• Supports image formats like JPG, BMP, GIF and audio formats like mp3, mid, amr, wav and video formats like 3GP/ MP4 / MJPEG / AVI.
• Connectivity options include IrDA( infrared compatible mobile), Bluetooth, PC Sync, USB and Built-in data/fax Modem
• Personal Information Management features included are call conferencing, caller group, One Touch FM keys, One Touch Music Player, Calculator, Alarm clock, Stop Watch, World Times, speed dialing, to do list, voice recorder, currency converter and health management .
• Other striking features are Embedded games, Game downloading, Video capture, Video play and MP3/ FM player.

The popular Karbonn mobile models include K 550, K 445, K 300, K 444, KC 441, K 443, K 770, K 650, K 330, K 217, K 451, K 541, K 450.

Visit Karbonn Mobile Website for more information

I have been having problems with my mouse and its so hard to manuver over the screen. So for those who has problems with mouse here is the tip on how to make your keyboard work as a mouse also.

How to make your Keyboard act like a mouse?

• Go to the Start Menu > Control Panel > Accessibility Options
• Use Ctrl + Tab button to go to the Mouse Menu
• Press Alt + M to click on the check box of Use MouseKeys
• Press Alt + S to go the Settings.
• Then you can click on Tab to go through the options as you desire.
• You can control the  Pointer through keyboard  when NumLock is either on or off (which you can set using settings tab).
• To click on something, use the key 5.
• To activate right click, press “* key” and then 5.
• To activate back to left click, press “/ key” and then 5.
• To drag or select something, click “0 key” and then drag the cursor and finally click 5.

Orkut Testimonial is a blogspot website which has a amazing collection of orkut testimonials. You can simply browse the website to see lots of testimonial samples and you may really get words or you can simply flick a suitable testimonial and submit one for your friend in orkut.

 You can find testimonials for your best friend, your girl friend, your sister, brother or any other relation types. So drop your testimonial today.

Google Chrome shed the Beta tag after 100 days of its initial launch. Google says chrome has 10 million active users . Chrome holds a 1% share in the browser market.

Chrome still needs to support plugins. This is one reason why i feel people dont stick to chrome. Internet users need plugins like stumbleupon etc to enhance their browsing experience.

Chrome still has a long way to go!