New Windows Phone shopping App From Flipkart

After launching the highly successful native Android and iOS apps, Flipkart.com, the leading e-commerce marketplace in India, launched its Windows Phone shopping app today.

The Flipkart.com Windows Phone app aims to make the shopping experience on Flipkart.com faster, smoother and easier for all Nokia Lumia and other Windows Phone users – allowing them to shop from a massive selection of 100% original products including mobile phones, laptops, books, shoes, watches and apparel. The app's design and user interactions have been optimized for a Windows Phone user.

“With smartphones becoming more affordable and a steady rise in internet enabled devices, the number of people who are using their mobile phones to shop is increasing dramatically. Windows Phone smart devices have a large, engaged user base in India and the app lets us reach out to this substantial audience. Today’s launch will make shopping on Flipkart.com available to all Windows mobile users and let them experience the convenience of shopping on the go.” said Saran Chatterjee, VP – Products and Mobile Strategy at Flipkart.

Some of the  features of the Flipkart.com Windows Phone app are:

·         Easy navigation through different departments to find products

·         Search for products, categories or brands

·         Quickly narrow down search results using Sort and Filter functions

·         View product images up close with the zoom feature

·         Read reviews that other users have written about different products

·         Pay by Cash on Delivery, Credit/Debit Cards, EMI, NetBanking, Flipkart Wallet and Flipkart eGVs

·         Track status of your order

·         View recently browsed products and their details

·         Access your saved cart and user details by logging in through Flipkart, Facebook or Google login

Google Portal Helps Know Your LS Candidate Better

Google has set up a dedicated portal to help Indian voters know about their Lok Sabha election candidates, the global search engine said in a statement.

“Our new portal – www.google.co.in/elections – will help netizen voters to access information about their candidates and the Lok Sabha constituency from where they are contesting and the outgoing lawmaker,” Google India said.

Designed and developed with rich content from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), PRS Legislative Research and Liberty Institute India, the portal provides data on contestants such as their education, financial details and social media presence.

“Netizens can click on Google maps and zoom on their locality to access latest information on candidates, constituency profile and the voting day, as the portal will be updated regularly from authentic sources,” the statement said.

The portal has been developed to assist over 800 million voters to stay informed with features like news videos, search trends, G+ Hangout series and an interactive “Pledge to Vote” campaign.

“The portal will help the electorate to make an informed choice during voting. As citizens, it is our duty to choose candidates who are clean, honest and committed to progress, security and development of the country,” ADR founding member Trilochan Sastry said on the occasion.

Google pioneered the election tool seven years ago when its software code writers noticed a surge in search traffic during the 2008 US presidential poll when Democratic candidate Barack Obama contested against John McCain of the Republican Party.

“The Google election portal is a one-stop destination to access information on the 2014 parliamentary elections and contestants in the fray for public office. The tool will enable voters to make an informed decision on the choice of their candidate, his/her party and its symbol,” Google India managing director Rajan Anandan said.

About 20 countries the world over, including Malaysia and Thailand in southeast Asia, have election pages, which encourage people to engage with their contestants.

* Source: Agencies

Despite BJP’s Bar; Wal-Mart India To Add 50 Outlets

Wal-Mart Stores Inc on Tuesday announced plans to open 50 more wholesale outlets in India and start online operations to sell to small shopkeepers, several months after it decided against opening its own retail stores there.

The world's largest retailer said it would open the stores over four to five years.

The company already has 20 Indian wholesale outlets. They sell goods to small shopkeepers, who dominate the nation's $500 billion retail market, rather than directly to consumers. Wal-Mart has no retail stores in India.

Wal-Mart's growth in India has been stunted by an internal bribery probe, uncertainty over regulations on foreign investment in the country, and in October, the severing of a partnership with New Delhi-based Bharti Enterprises aimed at opening retail stores.

Full foreign ownership of wholesale, or "cash-and-carry", stores is allowed in India and has not generated any political opposition. Wal-Mart has been operating under the wholesale format in India since 2006.

Globally, Wal-Mart operates 359 wholesale stores, compared with 5,633 retail outlets, according to its most recent annual report.

In 2013, Wal-Mart did not open a single wholesale outlet in India despite plans to open eight during the year.

"We are evaluating and reinforcing procedures and programs relating to all compliance areas, including licensing and permits, food safety, and responsible sourcing, among others," Scott Price, Wal-Mart's Asia chief executive, said in a statement announcing the rollout.

A company executive in India said the first new outlets among the 50 would open soon in western and southern India, including the states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

The executive, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Wal-Mart would start the online business on a wholesale basis and sell goods to traders on a "very small" scale.

India does not allow foreign retailers to sell goods online directly to consumers.

Wal-Mart named a new India head in December and said then that its focus in the country would be on opening wholesale stores and building its supply chain.

The company's desire to enter India with supermarkets has been met with fierce opposition from small shopkeepers and political parties.

Sources at Wal-Mart have said they are waiting until after national elections in May before applying to operate retail stores in India in case a new government overturns a rule allowing direct investment in supermarkets.

On Monday, the political party expected to lead India's next government said it would bar foreign supermarkets.

* Source: Agencies

Tweet To Remember Encourages Indian Users To Vote

Timesofindia.com, India's global digital news destination, and Twitter, world's leading microblogging social network, have joined hands to delight users with a unique integration named "Tweet to remember". This joint social initiative will encourage users to exercise their core right as a citizen of world's largest democracy, India: to remember to vote.

The integration empowers the voters, by reminding them on the day it matters most. When a user tweets "@timesofindia [city name]" (like "@timesofindia Delhi", they will be guided through a process that easily enables them to add the date for their vote to their calendar on their phone or desktop.

In addition, timesofIndia.com has developed a Social News Hub, in partnership with Twitter & Frrole. It leverages trend analysis and sentiment analysis via algorithmically filtered tweets to display the latest trends and sentiments around candidates and parties, according to users, with real-time data and millions of data points. The data is beautifully presented with dynamic visualizations, sorted by day or week. You can check this out on the 2014 Lok Sabha election special page of TOI Online. The platform offers a new lens to understand the Lok Sabha elections, bringing community feedback as a source of news.

Speaking on these partnerships, Satyan Gajwani, CEO, Times Internet, said, "The social conversation is a new component in today's news cycle. As a news outlet, timesofindia.com is always looking for ways to bring new information and new value to its users. With Social Hub, we're bringing a new perspective that hasn't been readily visible before, and with Tweet To Remember, we hope to better enable the thriving democracy that powers India."

Rishi Jaitly, India Market Director, Twitter, commenting on the initiative said, "Twitter is the world's leading mobile, real-time information network where users follow, share and experience content that is live, public and conversational. During this election season, the Twitter platform has become a vital source of daily information, conversation and communication for citizens and political leaders alike. We applaud Times Internet for innovating on our platform with "Tweet to Remember" and ensuring its audience can use Twitter to add its polling date and additional details to their calendars."

* Source: Agencies

Fujitsu New Technique Enables 10X Data Transfers

Fujitsu has developed a new technology that can boost data transfer speeds by as much as 10 times, which could affect everything from the cloud to mobile applications.

The Japanese firm discovered a way of using data deduplication and compression to reduce the volume of data sent, allowing it to arrive much faster than before.

The reduced volume is accomplished by prioritising the saving of data that appears frequently on a network, which prevents unnecessary duplicate data on a mobile device's storage by as much as 80 per cent.

This is coupled with a new lightweight data compression technology, which searches for repeating patterns for faster compression of files.

Automated process

Because deduplication and compression are only useful for large volumes of data, the Fujitsu technology will analyse the data size, available network bandwidth, and CPU power to decide to go ahead with the technique.

This automates the process and prevents slower data transfers of small data volumes that are better off sent as is.

The company will showcase the technology at the Fujitsu Forum 2014 from May 15-16 in Tokyo. It plans to commercialise the technology during its fiscal 2014.

Facebook Now Eyes One Billion Users In India

Facebook, the world's largest social media company, has crossed 100 million active users in India — the second country, after the United States, in which it has done so. "We crossed the landmark on March 31," Javier Olivan, vice-president, growth & analytics, Facebook, told an leading business daily in India on a video call from its headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on April 7. 

The ascent of Facebook in India has been speedy and has been powered by the mobile phone. When the American company set up its first India office in 2010, in Hyderabad, it had 8 million users in the country. Further, according to Facebook, 84 million of its 100 million users in India access the social networking site from their mobile devices. 

Facebook, which was set up in 2004, had 1.23 billion users across the world, as of December 31, 2013. "If Facebook continues its current growth trajectory, we can see it as a core communications tool for the world," says Neha Dharia, analyst with UK-based research firm Ovum. "This besides being a media platform where users can share and engage in a range of media such as videos, pictures and games. We expect to see a stronger move around storage (cloud-based) and utility services from Facebook." 

For Facebook, the US remains its biggest market, with about 183 million users, though perhaps not for long, given the inflexion point India is at with regards to Internet usage, especially on the mobile. According to Olivan, who is one of the three people in the company who report directly to founder Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is now "looking forward" to 1 billion users in India, a numerical figure it intends to chase with specific initiatives aimed at increasing connectivity, affordability and relevance. "That (1 billion) is a different focus and challenge," he says. 

Olivan says much of the challenge of going from 1 million to 10 million in India was about optimising the product for users. For example, removing the condition that a user needed to have an email ID of an American college to access Facebook. From 10 million to 100 million, he adds, it was about improving experience on low-end devices and offering it in languages other than English. "For 1 billion, we need easy connectivity, the biggest challenge of our generation," he says. 

One of the initiatives it is focused on to widen connectivity is internet.org, a partnership it has with six mobile technology companies to provide affordable Internet access to the unconnected. It is also working with telecom companies to increase data adoption among users in emerging markets like India. On this trajectory, it's only a matter of time before the Facebook user base in India crosses that of the US.

InTech50: Perpetuuiti Among 50 Most Innovative Firms

Perpetuuiti Technosoft Services, a global software product company in business continuity, disaster recovery and process automation space, announced today that its ‘Continuity Patrol product has been shortlisted by InTech50, a joint initiative by iSPIRT and Terrene Global Leadership Network, providing platform to Indian software product companies to showcase their products to the global audiences, among the 50 most promising software product companies in India for the year 2014.

There were more than 200 nominations and each nomination was reviewed and judged from a panel of over eight Global CIOs and Venture Capitalists. The shortlisted companies will receive advice, on-going mentoring, product marketing support, and funding to scale their offering to the global markets. The event will be held on April 9 and 10, 2014, in Bangalore.

Speaking on the occasion, Rohil Sharma, Co-Founder and CEO, Perpetuuiti Technosoft, said, “We are glad to be shortlisted among the 50 most promising software product companies in India. The recognition is an embodiment of Perpetuuiti’s perpetual endevour to innovate and excel in the space of business continuity and disaster recovery.”

Sharad Sharma, Co-Host, InTech50, Governing Council Member & Co-Founder, iSPIRT Foundation, said, “InTech50 Innovators stand out for having embraced scale, security, social, smart, and seamless in their product offerings. They have the potential to be effective partners to CIOs for driving the innovation agenda within the enterprise.”

The shortlisted 50 companies will be given a chance to present a 10-minute pitch to the global CIOs, and a chance to discuss their ideas further with companies interested in their products. Apart from being a platform to showcase their innovative products, it will also be an opportunity for entrepreneurs to network with big names in business, which might prove to be a stepping stone for mergers and acquisitions for them in the future.