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Monday, September 28, 2009
Can mobile phones authenticate your identity?
"Our project will provide a unique identification (UID) number not a card. The authentication will be made by using mobile phones," Nilekani said.
"Once the numbers are issued, we will go for online authentication. Lets say, you are asking for a job under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). The authorities will send your number to the designated points through mobile. A message will be returned saying 'Yes' or 'No'," Nilekani said.
"This will verify whether you are the person you are claiming to be," the former Infosys managing director said, delivering the Foundation Day lecture of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).
"This will not require much details to be divulged. It will help provide portability to our farmers, labourers. When they move from state to state, this UID will help them get employment without hassles."
He said banks, mobile service providers, LPG gas connection counters and many more partner organisations can use this UID to verify their customer. "With the growing mobile phone network, this will become an easy process for authorities to verify people."
"It will cut down the fake or duplicate records. This will enhance the efficiency of flagship programmes like NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), NRHM (National Rural Health Mission) and other such projects," Nilekani stressed.
He said his team will roll out the first batch of UIDs in the next 12 to 18 months. "In five years from now, we will issue at least 600 million UIDs," Nilekani said, terming it a Herculean task and a major challenge.
Agencies
Friday, December 19, 2008
Consolidation, BC, Virtualization Top the CIO List
Today s CIOs are challenged to control costs and achieve returns on technology investments. According to the study, respondents named reducing operational costs (31 percent) as their top driver for 2009 DCT spending. Enhancing security (29 percent) followed as a close second.
However, in both cases decision makers said that technology needs, more than business needs, are prompting the investments. This may limit their ability to achieve both short-term and long-term business benefits such as reduced costs, mitigated risks and accelerated growth.
CIOs who approach DCT initiatives with a focus on business needs can significantly reduce time to value for today s technology investments while laying the foundation for future growth, said John Bennett, worldwide director, Data Center Transformation Solutions, HP.
Most organizations are transforming their data centers through independent projects instead of taking a broad, integrated approach. The new research indicates that 20 percent of technology decision makers are initiating a complete transformation, while the remaining 80 percent are implementing individual transformation projects without an overall DCT strategy.
When asked to indicate what projects they would implement independently to achieve specific technology goals, respondents named the following:
# Automation 64 percent
# Green IT 60 percent
# Operations management 59 percent
# Virtualization 59 percent
# Business continuity 58 percent
All of these projects have the potential to also achieve business goals. By taking a comprehensive approach and aligning these autonomous projects to an overall DCT strategy, an opportunity exists for CIOs to maximize the value of their transformation initiatives, the survey said.
Friday, December 5, 2008
AT&T likely to cut 12,000 jobs
The company plans to record $600 million in expenses for severance this quarter. The reductions would bring AT&T’s total job cuts to more than 25,000 this year. The carrier and its smaller competitors are grappling with slowing consumer spending and a jobless rate at its highest level in 14 years.
AT&T fell 18 cents to $28.90 in early trading after closing at $29.08 on Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. The carrier also plans to reduce spending next year to cope with the slowdown, with plans to give specific forecasts for 2009 spending plans in late January.
The carrier said its still adding jobs in its wireless and video units. In July, the company said it would eliminate 10,000 jobs to reduce overlap in some departments after its 2006 purchase of BellSouth Corp. Before that, the company announced 4,650 cuts, some in its home-phone business, which has lost customers to cable operators and wireless competitors.
Source: Agencies
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
India ranked fourth with 81 mn Net users
Brazil comes next to India with 53.1 million users, UK 40.2 million, Germany 39.1 million, Republic of Korea 35.5 million, Italy 32 million and France 31.5 million.
The Internet Governance Forum has released these statistics on the eve of its third four-day global conference that begins at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre on December 3.
From about 70 million people (1.7% of the world population) who had access to the Internet at the end of 2007, the figure crossed 134.8 crore by 2007. Asia has the highest number of Internet users with an estimated 568.7 million people followed by the Americas with 377.9 million.
Europe ranks third in this list with 335.9 million users and Africa and Oceania close the rank with 51.8 million and 14 million users respectively, according to the IGF. India, however, does not find place among the top ten nations in terms of broadband connections where too the US stands first with 73.2 million connections.
China has 66.4 million, Japan 28.28 million, Germany 19.6 million, UK 15.6 million, France 15.5 million, Republic of Korea 14. 7 million, Italy 10.8 million, Canada 9 million and Spain 8 million broadband connections. While there were a total of 13.5 million Internet subscribers in India, representing 1.15 per 100 people, broadband subscribers accounted for five million among them.
However, the number of users, who have online access but do not themselves subscribe, is a whopping 81 million or 6.93 users per people.
Source: PTI
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Online networks helps job-seekers
"Given the state of the economy, I recently decided to jump on board," Landon told Reuters. "Professional networking is a 'must do' during unstable economic times."
The economic crisis slamming firms across the globe has sparked a spike in usage of professional networks -- Xing and LinkedIn are key sites -- as people hedge against losing work and laid-off employees seek jobs.
U.S. unemployment hit a new 14-year high in October and according to online job advertising firm Monster, recruitment activity on the Web plunged to its lowest level in nearly three years. Jobless rates are also rising in Europe.
Traffic on the world's top professional Web networks has surged since the financial crisis started to make headlines, with top player, privately held LinkedIn, notching 25 percent more registrations in September than forecast.
"Nobody has ever seen anything like this before," said Kevin Eyres, head of LinkedIn's operations in Europe. "Now we are growing by almost one new user each second."
Membership on LinkedIn has jumped to more than 31 million from 18 million at the start of the year, growing fastest in the financial services, media, education and technology fields, Eyres said. The firm has not disclosed any financial details.
To read on...click on the link below:
http://in.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idINIndia-36700120081126?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
Friday, November 21, 2008
Philips poised for major growth in India
Emerging Markets
Philips has stepped up its focus on emerging markets by creating an emerging markets structure which has become operational since spring this year. Focusing on emerging markets allows the company to accelerate growth in developing countries such as India, China, Latin America and Russia.
“Executing on our strategic decision to scale up our presence in emerging markets has been an important element of Philips’ transformation into a focused, less-cyclical company in recent years,” said Gerard Kleisterlee, President and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Philips Electronics. “We are committed to continue this course of action by increasingly redirecting resources to help fuel growth in emerging markets, and build out our industrial footprint in this cost-effective and high-quality manufacturing environment - for Healthcare, but also for our Consumer Lifestyle and Lighting sectors.”
Thirty percent of Philips’ sales in FY 2007 were from emerging markets, also representing a 10% sales growth over FY 2006. This geographical spread contributes to the resilience of Philips’ portfolio.
Philips has said that it is redirecting Euro 250 million of innovation spend from mature to emerging market to drive growth and (original) product & market development, and that it is also redirecting Euro 250 million to emerging markets to align marketing spend with innovation to ‘embed’ its product & solution simplicity message with customers; increase the dialogue with stakeholders to allow them to experience the brand.
Healthcare
Philips is committed to delivering affordable healthcare solutions in emerging markets. And the acquisition of Meditronics is its second in recent months of a healthcare equipment maker in India specialized in manufacturing products for the economy segment - one of the fastest growing market segments in the global healthcare equipment market.
Said Murali Sivaraman, CEO, Philips Electronics India Limited, “Meditronics’ high-quality and clinically proven economy segment product portfolio complements Philips’ existing high-end General X-Ray range and further strengthens Philips’ leading position in India’s high-growth imaging and monitoring equipment market. This also allows us to gain access to local manufacturing platforms at emerging markets cost levels.”
Analysts estimate that the General X-Ray segment of the Indian market will show annual growth rates of 10% or higher. This acquisition gives Philips access to strong sales and distribution channel for the economy segment. Meditronics has dealer network of 25 dealers with large geographical coverage, focused on mid/low end X-Ray business.Lighting
Philips in India is now a key production, research and development (R&D) hub for the company’s global lighting operations.
Philips has recently set up a global research and development centre for lighting electronics at Noida, India. It is its third such unit in the world. The facility will develop advanced lighting solutions, will be scaled up and linked to the global development centre in Shanghai. The centre will cater not only to the specific needs of the Indian market but also the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and North America. The centre currently employs 35 engineers and the headcount will increase with the unit taking up more work.
Philips aims to lead the Indian industry in Green initiatives and create awareness about Energy Efficient Lighting solutions. Solid State Lighting is the next wave of energy efficient solutions and Philips became the first company to introduce LEDs for the home segment last year. The company now plans to introduce the Consumer Luminaire range in India in the next few months.
Consumer Lifestyle
In India, Philips drives innovation by actively combining its global expertise with local consumer insights to deliver offerings designed for Indian audiences. After the successful launches of the Intelligent Food Processor (hands-free mixer grinder) and the Intelligent Water Purifier last year, Philips introduced Rip-all AZ1856 Sound machine in India early this year. Philips now plans to introduce in India some of its innovative global offerings from the Consumer Lifestyle stable such as Aurea TV, Ambisound and high end beauty and personal care range.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Blogger.com named popular blog platform in UK
ComScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released a study of blog visitation in the U.K. examining the top blog platforms and individual blogs as ranked by total U.K. visitors.
The report mentioned that in August, 14.5 million people in the U.K. visited at least one blog, representing 41 per cent of the total U.K. Internet audience.
"Blogs have become part of the essential fabric of the Internet today," said Herve Le Jouan, managing director, comScore Europe.
Jouan commented, "They live and breathe in real-time, helping quench media consumers' thirst for the most up-to-date breaking news, information, and analysis."
The Blog platforms provide publishing software, enabling bloggers to create and manage their own blogs, which are hosted on the parent site.
Google owned Blogger.com was reported as the most popular blog platform in the U.K. that attracted more than 9 million visitors, followed by WordPress with 4.8 million visitors and Six Apart sites with 2.7 million visitors.
In the individual blog section the gadget blog, Engadget.com was ranked as the top individual blog in August with 243,000 visitors and the Gizmodo.com that was ranked third with 223,000 visitors.
The reality TV blog UnrealityTV.co.uk (225,000 visitors), gamer blog Kotaku.com (210,000 visitors), and community blog Metafilter.com (207,000 visitors) was rounded out as top five.
Using the comScore segment metrix H/M/L service, which provides analysis of online activity by heavy, medium and light users of the Internet and specific site categories, we can gain insight into other interests of blog visitors.
The report stated that 142 per cent are heavy blog users who more likely than the average Internet user and are more often associated with blogging.