Technology

For 2 weeks now, I have been doing my bit about understanding the mobile handset market in India from a ‘qualitative’ perspective. It is expected that very soon 50% of the Indian population will have a mobile phone in their hand. I tried to understand 3 things – What works, what doesn’t – what does the consumer really look at when he goes out to buy a cell phone? continue

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

On Feb 10, Google launched a new social networking product – Google Buzz, right inside Gmail. After that there have been scores of blog-posts regarding the privacy flaws in Google buzz. Clearly the transition from something as personal as Mail to another thing as public as buzz wasn’t going to be simple. The latest update on this issue is that Google has admitted that testing of Buzz was insufficient. continue

All over the internet – be it tech blogs, twitter, facebook pages or anything that has remotely to do with technology – there has just been one topic of discussion over the past few weeks – What will Apple do on their show this Wednesday – Jan 27. The invite is as simple as ‘Come see our latest creation’ and is handed to the top bloggers/press in the USA. Its accompanied by this picture as well. continue

As IT companies declare surprisingly optimistic results over the last quarter of 2009, industry experts claim that the worst in IT outsourcing seems to be behind us and that it is time to look ahead at positive trends throughout 2010. continue

As 2009 comes to a close, we keep looking at the best of 2009, the past decade and million other things. So I thought, it might well be interesting to look at what are the things we can look forward to in 2010. Here is my take on it:

1. Touchscreen tablets – Those who have used the iPhone or the iPod touch know the ‘awesomeness’ (a pure fanboy lingo used there ) associated with the user experience associated with the device. It is widely expected -atleast in the crazy world of tech-blogs that Apple would debut its Touchscreen tablet (size range 9 to 12 inches) in the New Year, perhaps even as early as Jan 2010. Whats more, another device called the JooJoo, though mired in controversy, has already started taking pre-orders. Its a capacitive touchscreen tablet worth 500 USD. Now, why is this something to look forward to? I strongly believe that the keyboards we are using today are the biggest impediments with regard to non-English languages coming onto the internet. How I would love to blog on strat/other blogs in Marathi or Hindi, even Sanskrit maybe! 2010s may well be the decade when we see a lot more people adopting the internet as a medium of communication in India and touchscreen tablets can be the tipping point of that revolution thats coming through! continue

continue

An avid cricket fan, say Swami was watching the India-Pakistan cricket match in Mumbai at his office. Since it was a long weekend, he had to catch a flight to reach his home in Bangalore. So, he left the the small TV sets in office albeit reluctantly. But, Swami was keen to stay in touch with the scores all through. So, while he was waiting for a cab, he sent an SMS to an cricket-SMS channel about latest scores. In the car, he asked the driver to put on the live radio (and cursed his luck for not getting the FM mobile connector with him) Then, at the airport he enjoyed the match on a flat screen plasma TV. In the plane, he enjoyed live satellite TV (note: he had booked a KF flight knowing that there would be a match on) . Next, after alighting at Bangalore, he called up his friends, for expert commentary on phone - who in turn advised him to go to this new cool website on internet for live commentary. So, he checked the mobile internet on GPRS for the match. So, finally he reached home, where he quickly put on his LCD tv and logged onto the internet for a detailed scorecard as well! Clearly, Swami had not missed a moment of the match!! continue

International Business Machines is an organization that has seen the troughs and the crests of the computing industry right from its inception. The firm itself has undergone revival and has painfully learnt its lessons. One of those lessons has imbibed in it the spirit of always being ahead of the industry curve. In pursuit of such endeavors, it has come to define the next curve itself. continue

As India turns the corner towards slowly but surely becoming a developed nation, its middle class has also begun to catch on to a popular “vice” among the more developed countries- Video games.

Producer side dynamics:

A hit Bollywood thriller about a man with short-term amnesia has inspired India’s first 3D videogame, in a country where the animation and gaming industry has been slow to grow but could touch $1.3 billion this year. The PC game, based on the Hindi-language film “Ghajini,” was launched in India in January 2009 and is being marketed worldwide as well by Indian film distributor Eros International PLC.[1] continue

Origin

The origins of Taurus could be traced to the 1986 event known as the “Big Bang”, during which the London Stock Exchange (LSE) was turned into a self-regulating organization under the oversight of the Bank of England. Many regulations were lifted and ultimately the open-outcry market was replaced by electronic trading. The Big Bang led to huge trading volumes on the LSE. At that time, using the existing LSE batch trading system, settling a trade required three to six weeks even as trades were settled in the United States in three to five days and in Japan in only two days. One of the major problems for LSE was that its inefficient and inflexible system was primarily paper-based. continue