Tech PIVI

Even as the common masses wait for the mythical ultra low-cost Aakash tablet, IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal has started talking about another 'low-cost revolutionary device' - a GPS-enabled wristwatch that is supposed to ensure women's safety. While talking to the media at an event in Delhi, Sibal said he wants a wristwatch, which should have feature such as video recording, alarm and capable of calling up dedicated lines – and all that should come in a price less than Rs. 1,000. The minister recently revealed the government has already reached out to telecom equipment manufacturer ITI to manufacture the GPS-enabled wristwatch. The first prototype is expected to be ready by mid-2013. The concept for the GPS-enabled wristwatch comes in the wake of the recent Delhi gang-rape incident, which triggered nationwide protests demanding measures to ensure women's safety and stricter laws against sexual crimes in the country. While the intention beh...

For the first time the telecom subscriber base in the country has registered a decline. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI) data, users base has dipped to 944.81 million in July from 965.52 million. The TRAI reveals that the decline is driven by the wireless segment, which saw a slump of 26.1 million. Reliance Communications saw a loss of 20.48 million users. RCom was followed by Tata Teleservices, which lost about 2.4 million customers. Uninor lost more than 1 million users, while Videocon 0.41 million. Loop Mobile and state-run MTNL lost around 0.15 million subscribers in July. RCom says removal of inactive users has caused the drop. "With an objective to release the substantial blocked resources of number series and in context of DoT's stringent guidelines on issuance of fresh numbers, RCom has decided to deactivate the inactive prepaid subscribers who have not had any usage in the last 60 days," a RCom spokesperson is q...

India has milked its reputation of offering cheap IT labour for long but the reputation might be in danger tells us a study conducted by Cushman & Wakefield and Hurleypalmerflatt named ‘Data Centre Risk Index’ . The study evaluated “Data Centre Risk Index” i.e., the risks to global data centre facilities and international investment in business critical IT infrastructure. In the survey, India scored an unsurprising second position in the most risk ridden Data Centre location among top 30 countries, the last being Brazil. The centre of global outsourcing over the past few years may not look so attractive anymore! This may be due to India’s low score in “Ease of Business”, “Inflation”, “per capita GDP” and “Corporate Tax”. The recent power grid collapse only adds to such a low ranking of India in the study. Arvind Nandan, Executive Director, Consultancy, India, Cushman & Wakefield says, “India and key Asian economies remain preferred locations for DCs and have witnessed ...

Google: India ranks second in education-related searches With over half of the Indian internet population in the age bracket of 18-35, India has raced to the second position globally when it comes to absolute volume of search queries related to education. India was ranked eighth in 2008 and is now behind only to the US, according to a study by Google India on 'students on the web'.  The study was a combination of Google search query patterns and an offline research conducted by TNS Australia on behalf of Google India. The study revealed that over 60% Indian students, who have access to Internet, use it as their first source to research for information related to educational courses and institutes.  Education-related queries on Google in India are growing at over 46% year on year - highlighting the strong demand for information on institutes and courses that are available in the country. Out of all education related search queries on Googl...

India's GSM subscriber base grew by 1.08 percent in May, adding 7.27 million mobile phone users, with Bharti Airtel alone signing up over 2.01 million customers, according to data released by Cellular Operators Association of India. The total number of GSM subscribers in the country crossed 677.85 million as against 670.57 million in April. Airtel currently has 185 million subscribers. Idea Cellular followed Airtel by adding 1.8 million subscribers for a total of 116 million subscribers. Uninor, which stands to lose all its 22 licences cancelled following the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year, added 1.5 million subscribers to take its subscriber count to 45 million. Vodafone added 1.2 million users, taking its subscribers base to 152 million. Aircel added 0.8 million subscribers for a total of 64 million users. CDMA player Sistema Shyam TeleServices (SSTL), in a separate statement, said it added 2,54,995 customers in May to have a total customer base of ...