Dell India Appoints Anand Sankaran As Global Head

Dell has hired Anand Sankaran, senior vice president of Wipro's Global Infrastructure Services business and appointed him as its new president and global head of Dell Services' Infrastructure and Cloud Computing line of business.

He succeeds Kevin Jones, who moved into the recently created chief customer and sales officer role within Dell Services.

Sankaran will be based in Bangalore and will be reporting to Suresh Vaswani, president of Dell Services.

According to a Dell relese, Sankaran will lead a global team of nearly 10,000 employees responsible for driving infrastructure consulting and delivery, managed services and services related to the company's Cloud offerings.

Sankaran was formerly senior vice president of Wipro's Global Infrastructure Services business as well as head of Wipro Infotech, their India and Middle East business. He previously held a variety of Wipro management positions after joining the company in 1989.

New Range of Voice Phablets From HP In India

Aimed at the fast growing Indian cell phone market, Hewlett-Packard has announced a new line of innovative “voice tablets” with 6-inch and 7-inch screens, which would be exclusively launched in India next month.

Built on Android operating system and featuring the powerful Quad Core processor, the HP Slate6 and HP Slate7 are engineered for the way people multitask, while offering access to entertainment.

Both devices come equipped with a 3G(3) Dual SIM Dual Standby feature, providing voice connectivity and performance that allows people to work and play on the go, the company said. It will also have front and rear cameras.

“Consumers are looking to consolidate their phones and tablets, which is propelling the voice tablet market,” said Ron Coughlin, senior vice-president, Consumer Personal Systems Group, HP.

“This is an exciting new category that represents a meaningful growth opportunity for HP. Our HP Slate VoiceTab provides consumers with a high-quality product at a great value,” he said on Wednesday.

According to The Washington Post, big-screen devices with calling capability have been particularly popular in Asia and Europe, where they appealed to early waves of consumers who were interested in tablets, but not in carting around two devices — particularly on the long train commutes that are more common in those regions than in the United States.

“But ‘phablets’, as these phone-tablet hybrids are so often called, are steadily gaining ground here, as well, as people use their phones more for watching video and surfing the Web than making calls,” the daily said.

Tata Elxsi Delivers Stellar Visual Effects For Dhoom 3

Visual Computing Labs (VCL), the VFX and animation arm of Tata Elxsi Ltd. India’s leading design company has announced its association with Dhoom 3, an action packed thriller, starring superstars Aamir Khan, Abhishek Bachan and Katrina Kaif. Directed by Vijay Krishna Acharya and produced by Aditya Chopra, the third installment of Yash Raj Films' popular Dhoom franchise has been rendered in association with Tata Elxsi - Visual Computing Labs (VCL).

To capture and replicate the director’s vision on the silver screen, VCL has worked with some of the best names in the industry in India and abroad to deliver over 1500 VFX shots with a team of 100 artists in a short span of 11 months. The fast paced action sequences in the film demanded a high number of VFX shots to be delivered. VCL achieved this feat by seamlessly integrating multidisciplinary skills to amplify the action and the drama in a completely realistic and believable way. Dhoom 3 is India's first film to simultaneously release in the IMAX format, thus all the VFX had to stand the test of being credible which successfully delivered on VCL’s commitment to offer the viewers with a larger-than-life experience.

Post the initial script narration, VCL held detailed discussions with the creative team to ensure that each shot was meticulously planned to recreate the scene in the film.  Along with VCL's Academy Award winning Senior VFX Supervisor, Joel Hynek, Creative Director, Pankaj Khandpur and VFX Supervisors, Sherry Bharda and Vishal Anand, comprehensive action sequences were designed and rough storyboards were produced which were elaborated further using pre-visualization. In the planning stage, the unique methodology of pre-visualization helped the experts at VCL to recreate the scenes in a virtual format therefore minimizing the effort and time invested in reproducing the shots on location.

VCL has demonstrated a vast array of visual effects solutions in Dhoom 3 ranging from creation of digital characters to re-creation of vehicles and two-wheelers using CGI which also included a 3D water jet ski. To make high-octane actions scenes look real, VCL conceptualized and generated some key elements to control and maintain the focus on the actor’s face in most of the fast-paced bike riding shots. This involved extremely accurate CGI lighting and reflections on the helmet visor as well as on the digital assets used. VCL’s contribution also included the creation of both interiors and exteriors of the sets using CGI to deliver specific sequences in the film.

S. Nagarajan, COO, Tata Elxsi - Visual Computing Labs, said “We are honored to be associated once again with Yash Raj Films , which is one of the most respected and highly acclaimed production houses. This project is our largest VFX project to date and has helped us showcase VCL’s cutting edge capabilities in the VFX domain and we are confident that this film will become a benchmark in mainstream cinema for providing viewers with a world-class experience.” 

Pankaj Khandpur, Creative Director, Tata Elxsi – Visual Computing Labs added, “This film encompasses some interesting ideas, conceptualized and executed by the extremely talented team of VFX artists at VCL. Our association with Yashraj Films has always been a highly enriching experience. It has been our constant endeavor to leverage our VFX expertise to transform the director’s vision onto the big screen and offer larger-than-life experiences to all our viewers.”

Ten Trends In Eduction To Watch For In Future

It is that time of the year when we tend to pause and reflect. What have we achieved this year? What are the highlights of culture, business, technology, and trends that we have observed around us?

For me, the most exciting and positive movement at present is in the domain of technology impacting education. And it is an impact that is coming from many different directions.

Let’s explore them in further detail.

Cost of higher education: 

The cost of higher education is high, and when coupled of youth unemployment and student debt, it has become a serious issue that is finally getting a great deal of attention this year. It is causing the higher ed institutions to experiment, consider alternative models, explore new ideas. Education has been a rather slow-to-change field. This year, however, I think the pace of change has picked up, and most likely, this trend is driven by fear. While the top institutions with big brands can justify their premium pricing, most others cannot. Tremendous amounts of quality educational content is available online for free, or at reasonable prices. Unless the degree comes with a serious branded network, is it worthwhile to pay so much? The question, I am sure, will be hotly debated over the rest of this decade, and changes will come.

Question mark around liberal arts education:

The jobs are mostly in the STEM fields. Then why would anyone pay $30k a year for four years to study the humanities? What is the justification for existence of the liberal arts colleges if they cannot translate that education into lucrative professional careers? This is the question plaguing the leaders in that field. Personally, I am a huge believer in liberal arts education. However, I also believe, that liberal arts should be the arts that liberate. Today, those are technology and entrepreneurship. Thus, I would like to see the liberal arts colleges make it compulsory for students to study programming and entrepreneurship as parts of their degree requirement. We’re not there yet, but by 2020, I hope, we get there.

Evolution of engineering education:

Most engineering schools are hotbeds of experimentation with MOOCs and other online education possibilities. EdX, the mother of all MOOCs, came out of a collaboration between Harvard and MIT, and is run by MIT’s Anant Agarwal. There is, however, concern around intellectual property, and many deans are not as keen to give out their jewels for free. My take on the subject is that Free is a dangerous path. Creating and delivering value isn’t free. Thus, consuming value should also not be free. Is education a public good? To an extent. But with governments neck-deep in debt, it is unclear how such models will sustain at scale. Nonetheless, experimenting with scalable modes of delivering world class education to students worldwide is worthwhile. Whatever comes out of this will likely, also, be worthwhile.

The other observation I have is that many of the deans of engineering schools are trying to figure out how to also train their entire body of engineering students with entrepreneurship education. They don’t have adequate budgets yet, but again, with smart use of virtual methods, it is doable. I would like to see, by 2020, every single engineering student in the world ALSO trained in entrepreneurship. The pace of progress for humanity will accelerate tremendously. It is engineers, not MBAs, who know best how to ‘build’ things. That includes new companies.

Demand for community colleges and vocational education:

At the face of huge global youth unemployment numbers, the country that has drawn attention as a successful model is Germany. They do vocational training well. Most other countries don’t. America has an excellent network of community colleges through which really great quality vocational training CAN be delivered. However, the quality of the community colleges and their connections into the employers is quite poor. There’s a lot of work to be done here, but through a combination of virtual learnings methods and internships, the gap can be bridged. The model, also, needs to be replicated globally.

Changes in K-12 education:

Salman Khan has made some dent in K-12, and Khan Academy’s attempts at turning the schools from ‘sage on stage’ to ‘guide on side’ is a seminal experiment under way. Instead of not-very-qualified teachers trying to create course content, if the lectures are standardized and delivered via online video, which teachers guide students through exercises in class, the quality of education may significantly improve. It’s early. But, it is an extremely promising direction. In general, rich media content available widely for educational purposes is awesome. The film ‘Lincoln’ is far more engaging to teach history with than a dry text book.

Broadband penetration:

Today, the limiting factor for online education is broadband penetration. By 2020, this will change dramatically. The ability for digital learning to impact society will also change alongside.

Changing dynamics of media consumption:

The availability of vast amount of rich media content not only on smart phones and tablets, but also on television is drastically changing how people consume media. Instead of TV being time-bound, today, it is becoming largely on-demand. To the extent this trend accelerates, education and entertainment are going to intersect in ways that we haven’t seen yet. I see huge potential.

Education businesses:

For-profit colleges get a lot of flack. They charge big tuition fees, and don’t deliver on the employability metric as well. But, if you look at education businesses as great providers of digital programs and materials, without having to worry about accreditation, faculty, etc. such that existing institutions can scale their ability to deliver quality education using those capabilities at reasonable prices, the potential is enormous. If community colleges started adopting more of the proven digital learning methods and casting their faculty as ‘guide on side’, the results could be encouraging. In this, also, lies the answer to the question of how a liberal arts college or an engineering school can teach entrepreneurship or programming to large numbers of students (not 50 students, 5000 students).

Entrepreneurship education and incubation:

Entrepreneurship has justifiably become cool, and its education on high demand. This trend will continue. At every level – high school, college, graduate school, community college – entrepreneurship needs to be taught, and by 2020, we will see much greater penetration of entrepreneurship education throughout society. Entrepreneurship as a vehicle of economic development and prosperity is becoming well understood. Its education will also become so within this decade.

Internships:

There is a lot of discussion around whether unpaid internships should be legal. I think, this is nonsense. Any opportunity to educate and develop skills in people should be welcome. If employers are willing to train free of charge, it is absolutely ridiculous to not let them. It takes a lot of bandwidth for an organization to train green, unskilled people. It is free education that makes youth employable. I hope that aided by online services, the process of matching interns with employers will become pervasive at every level, in every country. This is an incredibly important youth development strategy for the world.

Those are currently my observations. I have a long view, and fully acknowledge that it will take time. Many of the experiments are at their very beginning stages. Nonetheless, I do believe that we end this decade on high note, having achieved meaningful strides in the education domain.

Cloud Pre-Paid Load Testing To Take the Pressure Off Online Shopping

Online Shopping Festivals and Christmas-themed marketing campaigns have given a major boost to online shopping in India in recent times. With website traffic peaks expected during this season, businesses need to guarantee their mobile and web applications will perform well under pressure and handle the upcoming onslaught of  online shoppers. According to comScore, among the BRIC Nations, India has been the fastest growing market adding over 18 million internet users and growing at an annual rate of 41%. Riding on a 31% year-on-year increase, India’s online population grew to 73.9 million. With an extended online universe in excess of 145 million the market is at a tipping point for online businesses. The study says about 60% Internet users in India visit online retail websites - and to retain them, businesses need to ensure they have a smooth experience.

In response, Borland, a Micro Focus company, has launched Borland Credits – a new virtual currency that can be used to purchase Silk Performer CloudBurst testing services. The pre-paid model delivers application performance testing without the need for hardware assets, helping users to significantly reduce testing costs and complexity, quickly and efficiently.

A testing situation    

According to global research, conducted by Vanson Bourne and commissioned by Borland, 44% of CIOs are aware of the events that drive peak-traffic loads, but do not simulate website performance with heavy load testing to see if they can handle the increased pressure on their websites.  That’s despite knowing that even minor delays to website response times can have a sizable impact on customer satisfaction, page views, conversion rates and site abandonment. 

Commenting on the challenge, Nitin Dang, Country General Manager, India at Micro Focus, said: “There is no denying the significance and prominance of a business’ online presence, especially in today’s economic environment. Even the most usable website or mobile application can be rendered useless if the backend infrastructure can’t handle the volume of traffic during peak times. Borland Credits is a wonderful initiative to tap the potential of the cloud and offer businesses a flexible way to future proof their websites”

“With the on going online shopping festivals as well as Christmas holidays being just around the corner, businesses need absolute confidence that their high-quality applications will perform well under pressure and handle peak loads.  However, managing and emulating hundreds of thousands of realistic end-users, from multiple regions, in order to load test an application can be time-consuming, complex and costly.  It’s enough to deter many businesses from testing in the first instance added Nitin Dang.

“We’ve created Borland Credits to offer businesses a forward-thinking and flexible way in which to get more from the cloud,” continued Nitin Dang. “Users will have easy access to our Silk Performer CloudBurst testing services – from anywhere in the world – without the need for unnecessary, costly infrastructure, which often sits around collecting virtual dust until it is needed.  We’re giving our customers better control over their testing expenditure, with the ability to ensure their applications run at optimum levels, wherever they may be.”

Users can choose between several packages, depending on how many Borland Credits are purchased in one go, without being locked into to a specific subscription plan or paying any service fees:

*        Cloud infrastructure: Rent unlimited cloud infrastructure by the hour, to execute a load test. 

Unlimited virtual end-user licenses: Users can pay per virtual end-user within a 24-hour period, depending on the application type under test.

*       Spanning test periods: Purchase a 24-hour testing period model, which enables a load test to be tailored, run, analyzed and re-run multiple times without an additional charge.

Before any load test is conducted, Silk Performer CloudBurst will display an estimate of how many Borland Credits will be used and on completion of a test, will calculate the number of Borland Credits to debit from the account to help users budget accordingly.

Through the new billing model and Borland Credit system users will also be notified by email, 24-hours in advance of when a load test agent is about to automatically close and will receive Virtual User Price Protection, so that if an application doesn’t scale to meet the loads anticipated, they will only pay for what they have used.

Rs 100 Crore Nano Park To Come Up In Bangalore

The Karnataka government plans to establish a 'Nano Park' here, which will have nano incubation centre, said Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

"Our government proposes to establish a state-of-the-art Nano Park in Bangalore, which will have nano incubation centre along with necessary physical infrastructure and support system including common facilities," Siddaramaih said at the inauguration of '6th Bangalore India Nano' here.

"I'm sure this initiative will give a major fillip to the nanotechnology industry to blossom in the state in the coming years," he added.

It was inaugurated in the presence of eminent scientist, Bharat Ratna awardee C N R Rao and Nobel Laureate Sir Andre Geim. The event is organised by Department of IT, BT, S&T- Government of Karnataka and Vision group on Nanotechnology.

Siddaramaiah said the Indian Institute of Nano Sciences and Technology is being established in Bangalore with the funding support from Union Government under the nano mission at an estimated cost of Rs 100 crore.

The state government has already allocated 14 acres on Tumkur road for locating this institute, he pointed out.

Stating that Bangalore has always been a trend setter in encouraging new wave of industrial development, he said: "In knowledge-based industrial development, Bangalore has reached iconic stature. I am delighted to state that the city is acclaimed as one of the top 10 Technopolises in the world."

Calling on scientists to come up with tangible nano- technology-based solutions for food security, energy security, water purification, medicine and health care, he said: "The ultimate purpose of science and research should be to address the huge challenge in these areas."

Rao said India is number three in the world in the area of nano sciences and commended the contribution of institutes like Indian Institute of Science and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.

He said: "We have made reasonable progress; ....We have a long way to go."

"We should not forget the importance of science. Science should also focus on solving human problems and improve the quality of life," he said.

Source: Economic Times

Freescale And iWave Systems Bring Out Innovative Products

Freescale Semiconductor, dealing in embedded processing solutions, along with iWave Systems Technologies, a Bangalore based Product Engineering Services company, demonstrated a range of technology innovation. The innovations developed by iWave Systems and based on Freescale technology include a Wi-Fi enabled Skin and Tooth Analyser, Smart MIPI camera, WEC2013 on Freescale’s i.MX6 SDP and iWave’s i.MX6 development board, System on Module (SOMs), Development Boards, Single Board Computer and many others that will benefit Industrial, Medical and Automotive domains.

Vivek Tyagi, Country Sales Director, Freescale Semiconductor India Pvt. Ltd. says, “At Freescale, it has been our constant endeavour to consumerize technology innovation. It is a great opportunity for us to have iWave as a partner. The products developed by iWave are unique and have already been adopted by many overseas customers, especially from Europe and Japan. Especially, the new product the Wi-Fi enabled Skin and Tooth Analyser developed by iWave will be a boon to the medical and healthcare industry. We are committed to provide support to our customers to develop innovative solutions in today’s fast evolving marketplace.”

M.A. Mohamed Saliya, Managing Director, iWave Systems Technologies says, “In order to sustain our leadership position, we continue to develop new System on Modules (SOMs) using the latest SoC’s like Vybrid controller solutions, i.MX7 and i.MX8 from Freescale. Besides the SOMs, in order to ease the product development by our customers, we offer reference designs and the platform software for the customers to develop their applications faster as a proof of concept. Our platform software also called BSP (Board Support Package) ranges from Embedded Linux to Android, Windows Embedded Compact, QNX and so on. We have an edge over the competition, since our customers find it challenging to locate all these under one roof.”