NETFLIX INTEGRATING MOVIE RATINGS WITH FACEBOOK

Los AngelesThe Economic Times Netflix Inc is the latest media company to integrate with social networking website Facebook, whose huge community of young, tech-savvy users could help drive growth of the online DVD rental service's subscriber base. Starting on Tuesday, Netflix users can use Facebook Connect software that links individual Facebook pages to third-party Web sites to share their ratings of Netflix rentals with their Facebook friends, the companies said in a statement. "Intuitively, the folks streaming (Netflix movies)...

SKYPE GOING WHERE PEOPLE TALK MOST: THEIR MOBILES

Financial Chronicle Skype, the Internet calling service that has more than 400 million users around the world, is aggressively moving onto mobile phones. The Luxembourg-based company, a division of eBay, plans to announce on Tuesday that it will make its free software available immediately for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch and, beginning in May, for various BlackBerry phones, made by Research in Motion. Other companies have already made software for those phones that works with Skype, but it does not offer all of the service’s features....

TO RAISE PROFILE IN CHINA, GOOGLE BEGINS OFFERING FREE SONG DOWNLOADS

ShanghaiFinancial Chronicle Trying to gain ground in China, Google, the search engine company, said Monday that it had begun to offer links to free music downloads — a service it does not offer anywhere else in the world. Google executives said they were responding to the phenomenal popularity of free music downloads in China, one of the few markets where the company lags, by forming an alliance with the music industry, including Sony, Universal Music and Warner Music. The search engine company hopes the demand for music downloads will...

MYSPACE LAUNCHES KARAOKE SERVICE IN JAPAN

San FranciscoMint Online social-networking titan MySpace on Sunday launched a karaoke service in Japan, expanding its amateur crooner channel to a nation rich with lovers of the pastime. “If you had told me years ago we would launch an online karaoke site in Japan, I would have told you it is like selling ice to the Eskimos,” said MySpace Karaoke general manager Nimrod Lev. “Boy was I wrong. It seems like the land of karaoke has nothing even close to that. We met with all the leading companies there and they loved what they saw.” ...

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS

Priya C Nair The Economic Times Experts suggest that if start-ups are provided with proper support from well-established organisations that belong to the same sector, it could create more opportunities for India Inc., as a whole. Today, it is possible, for both, the start-up and the industry to jointly identify and execute businesses through industry-start-up collaborations. Partners in growth Mango Technologies, a startup founded in 2006, is a provider of software solutions for mobile application framework for ultra low-end to mid-end...

POWER PLAY

Dibeyendu GangulyThe Economic Times (Mumbai edition) Power has many definitions, depending on the context. In maths, it's the product obtained by multiplying a number by itself, like two to the power of three is eight. In physics, it's the rate at which work is done, expressed in units of watts or horsepower. In people-terms, my favourite definition of power is from an old organisational behaviour text, which simply says, "power is getting people to do what they otherwise would not do." This little definition has stayed with me while...

BENQ PLANS TO UNVEIL LCD TV, NETBOOK

Thanuja B M, BangaloreFinancial Chronicle BenQ Corporation, the Taiwan headquartered provider of networked digital lifestyle devices, is betting big on India. The company is foraying into the LCD TV, netbook and all-in-one screen device market in the second half of 2009. The new launches are expected to help the company’s arm BenQ India, contribute 5 percent to its global revenues. Adrian Chang, president of BenQ Asia Pacific Corporation said that the firm will launch three new product categories in 2009. “From June onwards, LCD TVs,...

THE GREENER SIDE OF INDIAN IT COMPANIES

K. Raghu, BangaloreMint Computer services firms such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Wipro Ltd are offering services in domains ranging from water treatment and waste management to online healthcare, moving from their traditional area of expertise. Wipro Ecoenergy, a unit of Bangalore-based Wipro, has begun offering water treatment solutions based on recycled waste water and harvesting rain water. The company is also exploring business opportunities in waste management, following its experiment of reducing liquefied petroleum...

GOOGLE SEARCH GETS SMARTER

San FranciscoThe Economic Times Google has rolled out two new improvements to its popular Internet search service which its engineers said will help guide users more effectively to the information they need. "Starting today, we're deploying a new technology that can better understand associations and concepts related to your search," Google's search quality team technical lead Ori Allon and snippets team engineer Ken Wilder wrote in a posting on the company's blog. The technology can offer users more conceptually related search terms...

MICROSOFT’S WORLDWIDE TELESCOPE TO FOCUS ON MARS, MOON

New YorkFinancial Chronicle US space agency Nasa has entered into a collaboration with software giant Microsoft to develop a new technology which will make planetary images and data accessible worldwide through internet. The joint venture will work to develop a new technology to make Nasa’s content, including high-resolution images and data from Mars and the Moon, available on WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft’s online virtual telescope. “Making Nasa’s scientific and astronomical data more accessible to the public is a high priority...

LOOKING TO EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA: SPANISH CONSUL GENERAL

KochiThe Hindu The Consul General of Spain in India Cesar Alba said that his country’s new Asia plan would help business houses in Spain to explore opportunities in India in a big way. For over 30 years, Spain had overlooked India, but was now looking to the country and others in Asia, he said inaugurating the new development and production centre and international marketing hub of SITMobile, a Spanish IT company at Infopark here on Monday. The reason for this overlooking of India, he said, was that Spain had few multinational companies....

LOOKING TO EXPLORE OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA: SPANISH CONSUL GENERAL

KochiThe Hindu The Consul General of Spain in India Cesar Alba said that his country’s new Asia plan would help business houses in Spain to explore opportunities in India in a big way. For over 30 years, Spain had overlooked India, but was now looking to the country and others in Asia, he said inaugurating the new development and production centre and international marketing hub of SITMobile, a Spanish IT company at Infopark here on Monday. The reason for this overlooking of India, he said, was that Spain had few multinational companies....

EYEING THE BUSINESS OF DESIGN EDUCATION IN INDIA

The Financial Express Raffles Education Corporation has launched a premium design institute called Raffles Millennium International (RMI) in association with Educomp Solutions. The Delhi-based institute will offer certificate courses in fashion design, product design, graphic design, interior design, multimedia design, fashion marketing and management. The campus is equipped with state-of-art class rooms, design labs, international faculty and a choice of international internships. Says Rohit Kumar, director, Educomp-Raffles Higher...

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE APNACIRCLE MERGES WITH VIADEO

The Financial Express Apnacircle, India’s only online social and career network site, has merged with Viadeo, a business and professional networking website of France. The merger, which is cashless, would enable Viadeo to enter the Indian market and ApnaCircle to get global recognition. Yogesh Bansal, the founder & CEO of ApnaCircle, says, “It gives us an opportunity to expand our horizons and provide better link-ups to our users. Our aim is to target and provide a platform to both national and international communities to build...

SYNOPSYS INTRODUCES LYNX DESIGN SYSTEM

BangaloreMint Deccan Herald Synopsys, a leader in software and IP for semiconductor design and manufacturing, has introduced Lynx Design Systems, a comprehensive and highly automated environment for implementing chips. Designed for scalable use in design organisations of all sizes, the Lynx Design Systems combines a production-proven ‘RTL TO GDSII’ design flow with productive-enhancing features to accelerate chip development while mitigating the risks of designing at new process nodes, Jai Durgam, senior director, Global Technical Services,...

SONY COMPUTER LAUNCHES 'HANUMAN-BOY WARRIOR' GAME ON PS2

Mumbai The Economic Times The Times of India London-based Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE), on Wednesday announced the launch of 'Hanuman-Boy Warrior', a game with mythological content on PlayStation2. "We have launched the first Indian game on PS2 with localised content completely developed by an Indian game development house," Sony Computer Entertainment, PlayStation -Country Manager, Atindriya Bose, told reporters here. "Hanuman is our very own classic hero and is ever popular across India and with Indians abroad. The...

NETFLIX INTEGRATING MOVIE RATINGS WITH FACEBOOK

Los AngelesThe Economic Times Netflix Inc is the latest media company to integrate with social networking website Facebook, whose huge community of young, tech-savvy users could help drive growth of the online DVD rental service's subscriber base. Starting on Tuesday, Netflix users can use Facebook Connect software that links individual Facebook pages to third-party Web sites to share their ratings of Netflix rentals with their Facebook friends, the companies said in a statement. "Intuitively, the folks streaming (Netflix movies)...

NINE TRENDS FOR IT IN 2009 - I

Chandra RanganathanThe Economic Times By most counts, 2008 was a bad year for IT companies, mostly due to the credit-induced economic crisis in the US, their biggest technology market. As we ring in the new year, ET spoke to IT company officials, analysts and industry experts to get a sense of the trends to watch out for next year in IT services, on the demand and the supply side. Geography: India offers a spring of hope While company officials and analysts say much of the business would continue to happen out of the US, they also...

NINE TRENDS FOR IT IN 2009 - II

Chandra RanganathanThe Economic Times Contracts - Vendor is King Typically, an Indian IT company enters into time and material linked contracts, where the billing is done based on the number of people working on a particular project. "In T & M projects, companies build in a lot of buffer, where if 20 people are billed, 15-16 would be working. But, now companies might negotiate with vendors to work on the same projects with lesser people. They will enter into service level agreements to ensure that quality is maintained even with lesser...

OMAR INVITES IT FIRMS TO INVEST IN STATE

SrinagarThe Tribune Calling upon Information Technology chieftains to invest in the state, which has been a laggard in the development of IT industry, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said today that his government would offer all possible help to them and the state had necessary wherewithal for the success of this industry. Omar made this appeal while interacting with a delegation of Nasscom, an apex body of IT companies. Led by its chairperson Dr Ganesh Natarajan, the delegation gave a power-point presentation to the CM accompanied by...

HP’S DESIGN STREAMLINES DATA CENTRES

Deccan Herald HP has unveiled an approach to critical facilities design that can increase data centre efficiency and reduce customers' capital costs by 15 to 25 percent. The multi-tiered hybrid design from HP aligns facility design with business priorities. This delivers improved operations and energy efficiency. Most companies build or re-design multi-tiered data centres keeping the higher availability of their critical applications in mind. This results in expensive and redundant infrastructure that consumes much of their investment....

BK MODI MAY MERGE HOTSPOT RETAIL WITH CELLUCOM

Kalyan Parbat & Writankar Mukherjee, KolkataThe Economic Times (Kolkata edition) The Rs 2,000-crore plus BK Modi Group is weighing the possibility of merging its twin mobile retail entities, HotSpot Retail Pvt Ltd and Cellucom India, and bringing them under the Spice brand. The move, that is still being debated upon internally, comes barely two months after the group concluded a 100 percent buyout of Cellucom India, from its Dubai-based founder Arun Nagar. Interestingly, Cellucom India was acquired earlier this year through HotSpot...

SAP/SYBAS PROVIDE CRITICAL APPS ON MOBILE

Deccan Herald AP AG and Sybase have announced partnership to integrate SAP Business Suite software with Sybas' mobile enterprise application platform which would deliver business-critical applications to iPhone, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and other devices. Through the partnership, users will have access to critical customer data in both connected and disconnected modes right from their mobile device of choice by utilising Sybase's business process mobilisation technology. Sybase will work together with SAP to simplify the delivery...

MATHWORKS ANNOUNCES NEW SIMULATION TOOL

Deccan Herald MathWorks has announced the availability of SimBiology 3, a tool for modelling, simulating and analysing biological systems in one integrated, graphical environment. SimBiology 3 provides a more intuitive and flexible environment for population pharmacokinetic (PK) modelling and analysis. SimBiology 3 includes a new PK model wizard that offers the ease-of-use of a built-in library without the limitation of pre-defined models. The model wizard automatically generates PK models by specifying only compartment number, route of...

ASUS LAUNCHES LAPTOP WITH WHOLE-DAY-BATTERY FOR RS 26,000

Sreejiraj Eluvangal, Mumbai DNA Even as netbook lovers wait for ARM-based laptops that are expected to deliver 10 hours and more of battery time, Taiwanese computer maker ASUS has come out with a netbook with 9.5 hours of battery life. To achieve the 'whole day' battery life, Asus has installed an 8700 mAh battery, with about four times the capacity of the usual 2200 mAh batteries sported by most netbooks in India. So far, the title for the netbook with the longest battery life in India had belonged to the Samsung N10, launched two months...

ASUS UNVEILS NEW EEE PC

BangaloreDeccan Herald ASUS, inventor and innovator of widely acclaimed Eee PC, on Tuesday, in Mumbai, announced the launch of Eee PC 1000HE equipped with new Intel Atom N 280 processor. Priced at Rs 24,990, it PC comes with Bluetooth 2.0 and a 160GB hard disk with an additional 10GB of Eee Online storage that provides excellent user experien...

ASCOM BUYS SOFTWARE FIRM FROM ERICSSON FOR $170 MN

ZurichThe Economic Times Google Inc released a new version of its Chrome Web browser on Tuesday, as the search giant continues its efforts to get a foothold in a market dominated by Microsoft Corp. The new Chrome represents the first major update of the software aimed at the general public since Google entered the browser business six months ago. It offers Web surfers faster performance and a handful of new features, such as auto-filling of personal information on online forms and a new way for users to drag around tabs of different Web...

SKYPE TARGETS CORPORATE MARKET

The Hindu Business Line eBay unit Skype on Monday plans to announce a version of its Internet calling software that connects to corporate phone systems, the Wall Street Journal said. The new software, called Skype for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), is expected to allow employees to make domestic and international calls with regular office telephones, instead of a headset plugged into a personal computer, the paper said. Initially, the company will charge about 2.1 cents per minute for calls to cellphones and fixed lines, but calls from...

NASSCOM TO RAISE GREEN WARRIORS

Goutam Das, BengaluruThe Asian Age Indian IT industry’s lobby body Nasscom says it can motivate the more than two million currently employed in the sector to become ‘green warriors’ — environment-friendly citizens who would spread the green word in our societies and create awareness. This is part of Nasscom’s ‘green IT initiative’ that also seeks to move all the green talk from being a corporate social responsibility thing into a business imperative. "We have been speaking to people within and outside the IT industry. Green IT was beginning...

SITMOBILE OPENS ITS OFFICE AT KOCHI

KochiFinancial Chronicle Spanish IT company SitMobile has today opened its new production and international marketing centre at Infopark here today. SITMobile CEO Enric Sole, who was present at the inauguration said by opening the new office in India, the company plans to have a stronger presence in Asian and Middle East telecom markets. "Kochi was chosen due to availability of highly skilled technical resources combined with facilities provided by Infopark that hosts the best Indian companies in IT industry," Sole said. He said...

H1B VISA PETITIONS TO BE ACCEPTED TILL APRIL 7

WashingtonThe Economic Times Mint The Financial Express The US Citizenship and Immigration Services would accept petitions for the H-1B work visas on the first five working days beginning April 1. However, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) facilitation centers would accept H-1B visa petitions if it does not receive adequate number of applications to meet its annual Congressional-mandated cap of 65,000. "We will continue to accept the petition, if we do not have the right number to meet the cap, after the first...

HP JOINS EARTH HOUR CAMPAIGN

BangaloreThe Hindu Business Line Hewlett-Packard on Monday announced its tie-up with World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF) as the 'green technology partner' for Earth Hour 2009, the global climate change campaign. All countries participating in the campaign will observe Earth Hour at 8.30 p.m. in their local time on March 28. Millions of individuals and hundreds of organisations will turn off the lights for one hour and show that by working together, they can make a difference in the fight against climate change. HP will switch the lights...

RODRIGUES INSPECTS IT PROJECTS

ChandigarhThe Tribune As a part of the monitoring process of world-class integrated infrastructure coming up in the Rajiv Gandhi Technology Park, UT administrator, SF Rodrigues, visited the project today and observed the progress of leading IT companies. He inspected the progress of the work at the Entrepreneur Development Centre (EDC) and discussed with the secretary and the director IT about the support structures. They also discussed about equipping the centre with the state-of-the-art facilities for software research and development...

COMPACT DISC FIRM TO INVEST RS 100 CRORE FOR GAMING STUDIO

MumbaiThe Hindu Business Line Entertainment firm Compact Disc India on Monday said its subsidiary firm Laser Infomedia would invest Rs 100 crore for setting up of a gaming publishing and development studio at Jaipur. Laser Infomedia would set up the studio within the next financial year, Compact Disc India said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. For this project, the Rajasthan State Industrial and Investment Corporation has recently allotted a land plot at Jaipur, it added. Shares of Compact Disc were trading at Rs 35.95, up...

WEB TOOL FOR TRANSLATING IN INDIAN LANGUAGES

K.V. Kurmanath, HyderabadThe Hindu Business Line The long wait of language lovers will soon be over with Sampark, a translation machine to be offered free on the Web, getting ready for launch in June 2009. The beta version would allow users to get their documents translated into Hindi from seven Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Punjabi and Marathi. “We are working on 18 systems (translations among these languages). It will be upgraded as we get the feedback,” Prof. Rajeev Sangal, Director of IIIT, told Business Line. The...

'THUMBS' UP FOR CET, IIT PRACTICE ON MOBILES

BangaloreDeccan Herald 'Thumb Culture’, it is a term used for the younger generation who constantly keep typing messages without a break, using thumbs. Now parents can ease their fears of ‘Thumb Culture’ eating into children’s study time. They might just be using it to prepare for their upcoming CET or IIT entrance papers. A new concept that looks into providing practice papers for students aspiring for engineering or medical courses on mobiles will be launched on Friday, by Bangalore-based companies. The concept is simple: Download a...

QUALCOMM WILL LAUNCH RS 10,000 LAPTOP THIS YEAR

Sreejiraj Eluvangal, MumbaiDNA Two years ago, it was seen as an example of a business model gone wrong. Operators and equipment manufacturers that had invested into Qualcomm's CDMA technology were publicly expressing their disappointment over the "high royalties" the firm charged. A long running patent dispute with Qualcomm saw Nokia virtually exit the CDMA handsets business. Consumers flocked to the rival GSM technology and the future looked bleak for Qualcomm, the company that owned most of the CDMA patents. But two years on, Qualcomm...

LAPTOPS TO MAKE LEARNING HI- TECH AT SRCC

Avneep Dhingra, New Delhi Mail Today Even in the days of economic downturn, Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is going to provide laptops to each student and faculty member. The college will be pumping in several crores to set up the infrastructure to make the campus WiFi enabled and have air- conditioned classrooms equipped with Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens. LCD projectors have already been installed in all the 25 classrooms....

HOW TO TURN YOUR IPOD INTO IPHONE

New York, March 22, 2009The Economic Times I try to keep a stiff upper lip about not having an iPhone. Just couldn't afford it, not with the $75 a month or so AT&T charges for service on top of the $199 upfront cost for the device. I could, however, afford the $229 iPod Touch, and got it as a gift, as it happened. It has most of the same goodies: a Web browser, email, YouTube. And it stores way more music than the iPhone. Plus, the other day I used it to call China. Yup, a call around the world, on a device that doesn't have a...

US TO ACCEPT H-1B VISA PETITIONS FROM APRIL 1

Washington, March 22, 2009The Hindu Business Line The Economic Times (Delhi edition) The Times of India The US has announced that it will start accepting petitions for H-1B work visas for the next fiscal from April 1. Lottery would decide successful applicants if the number of petitions for the fiscal beginning October 1 this year crosses the annual cap, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said. However, it reminded the petitioners and their American employers of the new provisions of the Employ American Workers Act...

BSNL LAUNCHES TRIAL RUN FOR BILLING SOFTWARE

Tamil Nadu, March 23, 2009The Hindu BSNL has launched dry runs for switching over to a nationally integrated call detail record billing software program that is tipped to replace its existing meter-based billing system for landlines by August....

DELL LAUNCHES MACBOOK AIR KILLER

March 23, 2009Mumbai Mirror The sleek, aluminum-encased notebook is 0.65-inches thick and comes with a 13.4-inch screen and a 128 GB solid-state drive. Starting at $1,999, the Adamo is positioned as Dell's new high-end brand. Another configuration will sell for $2,699. The device comes packed in a clear case along with an optional branded sleeve or tote bag from designer luggage and handbag label Tumi. The Adamo is meant, "to make a design statement, to surprise people that this is a Dell," said marketing executive John New. "This...

HCL OFFERS ROUND THE CLOCK SERVICES TO LAPTOP USERS

Bhopal, March 23, 2009The Pioneer HCL Infosystems, India’s premier information enabling, ICT System Integrator and Distribution Company announced a pioneering initiative in the Indian ICT sector to further strengthen its customer care services in Madhya Pradesh. In an unprecedented move, HCL announced the launch of ‘HCL TOUCH’ its 24X7 round-the-clock, service and support for its laptop customers in Madhya Pradesh. In Madhya Pradesh, HCL announced 42 company owned ‘HCL Touch’ centres across 31 cities like Balaghat, Bhopal, Biaora, Chhindwara,...

GOOGLE RELEASES NEW BETA VERSION OF CHROME WEB BROWSER

San FranciscoThe Economic Times Google Inc released a new version of its Chrome Web browser on Tuesday, as the search giant continues its efforts to get a foothold in a market dominated by Microsoft Corp. The new Chrome represents the first major update of the software aimed at the general public since Google entered the browser business six months ago. It offers Web surfers faster performance and a handful of new features, such as auto-filling of personal information on online forms and a new way for users to drag around tabs of different...

DISCOVERY SUES AMAZON'S KINDLE

San FranciscoThe Economic Times Media company Discovery Communications Inc has sued Amazon.com, accusing the online retailer's Kindle of infringing its patent on electronic book technology. The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday in US District Court in Delaware, marks another blow for a closely watched gadget that has drawn fire from publishers that say Amazon is trying to avoid paying royalties. The lawsuit claims that Amazon, in two versions of its Kindle, has infringed one or more of the claims on a patent that Discovery founder John Hendricks...