Emirates Announces Repatriation Flights to Five Indian Cities Between July 12-26, 2020

Emirates will be operating special repatriation flights to five Indian cities between 12 and 26 July to assist stranded Indians get home and for residents of UAE currently in India to return to the UAE.

The flights will be operated to Bengaluru, Delhi, Kochi, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram between 12 and 26 July 2020 offering the following flight frequencies

Bengaluru: twice daily flights

Delhi: twice daily flights

Kochi: twice daily flights

Mumbai: thrice daily flights

Thiruvananthapuram: once daily flights

The flights to Bengaluru and Mumbai are subject to state government approval.

Flights can be booked on emirates.com, through travel agents, Emirates’ sales offices and contact centre. Passengers must meet all the entry requirements of the destination to be allowed to board the flights.

Flights from Dubai to India

Only Indian citizens stranded in the UAE will be allowed to fly from Dubai to the five Indian destinations.

Flights from India to Dubai

These flights will be available for UAE nationals and residents with prior entry approval from the General Directorate of Residency and Foreign Affairs (GDFRA) for residents of Dubai and ICA approval for residents of other emirates of the UAE.

All passengers travelling from airports in India to Dubai are also required to carry a negative Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) certificate issued by a laboratory authorised by the government of India to be accepted on the flight. Certificates must be issued no more than 96 hours before departure.

More information for returning UAE residents can be found at https://www.emirates.com/ae/english/help/flying-to-and-from-dubai/

Health and Safety First

Emirates has implemented a comprehensive set of measures at every step of the customer journey to ensure the safety of its customers and employees on the ground and in the air. Emirates has modified its services onboard these flights in line with requirements from the authorities. Visit www.emirates.com/wherewefly for more information on the products and services onboard each flight.

Premium customers travelling from Dubai can now also enjoy Emirates’ Chauffeur Drive service and relax in its Lounge facility at Dubai International airport, with the restart of these signature services after a full health and safety review.

Emirates continues to offer customers a wide range of travel options. The airline’s network will encompass 58 cities by mid-August covering destinations across six continents.

Has Apple unleashed Snow Leopard earlier into the wild?

Apple released its Snow Leopard into the wild a little early, while Microsoft revealed its release plans for Windows 7 this week.

Apple began shipping its newest operating system to customers on Friday, a little earlier than expected. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is not as much about adding new features as it is about refining the code in the operating system. For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release.

The CNET Reviews team took the new OS for a spin and gave it a rating of excellent in its review:

Interface enhancements like Expose in the Dock and better file and folder viewing in Stacks make finding apps and files much easier. A completely overhauled QuickTime X now sports a cleaner interface and recording tools. The much-anticipated Exchange support across Mail, the Address Book, and iCal is huge for those who take their Macs to work.

However, the team notes that Snow Leopard will work only on Intel-powered Macs; PowerPC users are out of luck.

Snow Leopard could include some features that would make it secure, or at least push it closer to the level of security that Vista and Windows 7 have, experts said this week.

Contrary to popular belief, Macintosh is not more secure from a software standpoint than modern Windows; it's merely safer to use because malware writers prefer to target the platform with the biggest install base, according to Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, co-authors of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, which came out this spring.

"Apple hasn't implemented all the security features that Vista has," Miller said. "They made some improvements in Leopard, but they are still behind."

Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09, will cost $169.

CNET.com

Does cost cuts help tech giants ride out weak economy?

A solid crop of earnings reports from the leading lights of technology suggests the sector is proving adept at cost cuts and more resilient to the economic meltdown than previously thought.

While executives from Apple Inc, Google Inc, IBM and Intel Corp were almost uniformly cautious in talking about the rest of the year, they all reported quarterly profits that beat Wall Street expectations.

Microsoft Corp's earnings on Thursday were in line with forecasts, but investors sent its shares higher in part because of cost cuts that the world's largest software maker is undertaking to protect its bottom line.

With corporate and consumer spending under pressure, analysts say many tech companies moved swiftly to slash jobs and output- positioning themselves for growth when a bottom is reached, which some say may have happened already.

"It does look like tech might very well lead us out of the recessionary market," said Enderle Group analyst Rob Enderle. "They are structured to respond more quickly and they've demonstrated they can."

Although the results were not necessarily strong on a historical basis and the outlook for the economy remains extremely uncertain, analysts see positive signs for the sector.

Technology shares have been surging, with the Morgan Stanley Hi-Tech index of major tech stocks up more than 30 per cent since early March.

While a rally may prove difficult to sustain, analysts say the prospects are better for an IT recovery because tech products and services are integral to the day-to-day functioning of the global economy and people's lives.

"Everybody's taking big cuts in their budgets, but a lot of tech spend is not so variable," said M Eric Johnson, director of the Center for Digital Strategies at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. "A lot of their spending needs to and has to occur even in a downturn."

He said the recession in some ways has benefited information technology service providers like IBM, as corporations have moved to outsourcing.

IBM reported an 11 per cent drop in revenue, which was weaker than expected, but higher margins helped its profit beat analysts' forecasts.

There were other encouraging signals in major tech earnings reports. Apple's earnings topped Wall Street forecasts as consumers showed they were still willing to spend on premium devices such as iPhones and iPods even in a tough economy.

Google's and Intel's results also beat expectations, thanks to cost discipline. Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini declared the worst is over for the PC market, a message echoed by disk drive maker Seagate Technology, but Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said he saw no sign the bottom had been reached.

Positive signs also emerged from earnings reports from chipmaker Texas Instruments and flash memory maker SanDisk.

"Things at least seem to have stopped falling," said Barry Jaruzelski, a partner at consulting firm Booz & Co He said the key is in how enterprise IT spending plays out.

"It looks like we've found the reset level...The thing IT has going for it is it's often an enabler for cost reductions."

Agencies

Enterprise mobility solutions for Indian market

Sybase, a leading provider of enterprise infrastructure and mobile software, on Wednesday announced the release of its broad portfolio of industry-leading enterprise mobility offerings in the country.

The company also announced a new version of iAnywhere Mobile Office with expanded iPhone support and availability on the iPhone App Store.

"There is an increasing demand from customers and partners in India for a complete, tightly integrated platform that provides true enterprise value by mobilising business processes and applications. Our offerings are designed to help them unleash the power of information from the data center right to the mobile edge anywhere, at any time," Sybase India and sub-continent's Managing Director, Sunil Jose, told reporters here.

The new release will strengthen the companys existing enterprise mobility portfolio in field-force automation, email and application mobilization, the company said in a statement.

Enterprise mobility is expected to find dramatic levels of adoption in 2009, following companies focusing on it significantly in 2008 as a tool to optimise operational cost and efficiency in the context of the economic downturn, the statement said.

Agencies

Air Deccan Gopinath proposes low-cost campaign in polls

To reach his electorate as well as keep costs within the stipulated budget of Rs 25 lakh for election campaigning, Air Deccan founder G. R. Gopinath is resorting to viral marketing, SMS messages, and e-mail.

Gopinath, who is standing as an Independent candidate from Bangalore South constituency, India's IT capital, has also launched a dedicated website with provision for suggestions, advice and feedbacks.

"We are using viral marketing techniques to keep our costs within the sum allotted by the Election Commission," said Gopinath. Viral marketing is a low-cost marketing technique that uses pre-existing social networks to increase brand awareness. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet, or any form of video clips, images, or even text messages.

As per Gopinath, the email blasters were done with database received from volunteers instead of buying the database. The SMSs are being sent free by service providers who are his well-wishers. Even the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are free sites.

Gopinath said he opted to contest these elections with the backing of Infosys Technologies' Nandan Nilekani and Mohandas Pai, Pradeep Kar of Microland; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon and brand guru Harish Bijoor.

CXOtoday

Are mobile phones really hot?

Christmas being just round the corner, as always mobile phones are a popular gift choice. Reevoo.com gives you the low-down on mobiles; examining what's hot, what's not, what people are actually buying and which phones are the best value for money.

What's hot? The iPhone 3G of course! But it's not highly ratedDespite being one of the most talked about phones of the year, the iPhone 3G has failed to beat its 2007 predecessor.

The original iPhone is rated 8.3/10, just pipping this year's 3G offering to the post, (the iPhone 3G scores 8.2/10). According to owners, the major issues with the 3G model are its battery life and application crashes, meaning that other phones have been able to storm ahead of the iPhone. So, what really is the hottest mobile phone this season?

Revoo recommendations: Top five Christmas mobile phones

Top five most popular in last 30 days:
1. Nokia N96
2. Samsung F480 Tocco
3. Blackberry Storm
4. Sony Ericsson C902
5. Samsung Omnia

Top five highest rated phones of 2008:
1. BlackBerry Bold 9000
2. Sony Ericsson W980i
3. Apple iPhone 3G 8/16GB
4. Samsung F480 Tocco
5. Sony Ericsson K660i

Reevoo reviewers pick the BlackBerry Bold 9000 as the best phone released in 2008.

Reviews on Reevoo for the BlackBerry Bold 9000 include:

Positive+
+ Great keyboard for e-mailing and texting. Cracking screen which is nice and bright and videos look lovely on it. The sound from the internal speaker is really good. Just a great phone overall.
+ The Bold is undoubtedly the most impressive Blackberry yet. One of its greatest advantages is that in spite of many new features, it feels very familiar. Web browsing is almost broadband speed.

Negative
– Out of the box battery life is bad but gets better with regular charges
- The hyped-up phones usually get all the attention but it's interesting to see how the most popular phones differ from the most highly rated:

The Nokia N96, whilst being the most popular phone on the market, gets marked down by reviewers for poor battery life and software problems. At around £500 for Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) customers, it's no surprise that it also gets rated below average for value for money.

However, it does impress with its design and features. One reviewer writes "great picture and video quality, very easy to find your way around, fantastic features...looks good".

So who wins the race?

When it comes to value for money, the stylish Samsung F480 Tocco is a great buy. It scores highly for design and features and gets much higher scores for battery life than the Nokia N96, both iPhones and the BlackBerry Bold 9000. It's around £150 PAYG or free on some contracts.

Here are some of the reviews from owners of the Samsung F480 Tocco:
Positive:
+ Easy to use, good haptic technology feedback from the touch screen, excellent camera, fair battery life, smart, compact, stylish.
+ It's easy to use and has a very good memory and has good features that I would have expected.

Negative
- No Wi-Fi capability.
- Should come with a ball point touch screen pen, can be hard to press the right keys sometimes.