Intel Capital developing technologies to promote new, compelling in-vehicle applications

Intel Capital has announced a $ 1oo million investment fund to help accelerate innovation and the adoption of new technology and services in the automotive industry. Intel Capital is the first international technology investment organization HQ Silicon Valley to announce a dedicated focus on automotive technology innovation. Intel Capital Connected Car Fund will be invested globally over the next four to five years in hardware amd software, services Intel Capital developing technologies to promote new, compelling in-vehicle applications and enable the seamless connection between device and any connected vehicles, including smartmobile devices and sensors. "Technology has become an integral component of everyday life, with consumers demanding uninterrupted access to the Internet and the constant flow of information, news, entertainment, and social media and many more services," said Arvind Sodhani,president of company and Intel executive vice president. "Automobiles must be able to provide these same consistent and engaging computing experiences, but in a safe manner. The company Connected Car Fund will drive the development of smart technologies to enhance the in vehicle experience of the future."

The announcement is part of company ongoing work with automakers and in-vehicle infotainment suppliers to help integrate advanced smart technologies into cars. Ultimately, the connected car will have the intelligence and context awareness to offer the right information, at the right time and in the right way to keep drivers and passengers informed, entertained and productive while maintaining optimal safety. Once the car becomes connected, it can also communicate with the cloud computing technologies, the transportation infrastructure and even other vehicles to provide additional services such as advanced driver assistance and current traffic information to optimize the flow of real time traffic. "The car is the ultimate mobile device," said Staci Palmer, general manager of company Automotive Solutions Division. "By 2014, automobiles will be among the top three fastest-growing areas for connected devices and Internet content.¹ Intel’s experience in developing personal computing, software, security and cloud computing technologies will bring a new level of innovation to the car to enhance the driving experience for both passengers and drivers."

To help realize that vision, areas of investment for the company Connected Car Fund will include technologies that advance the next generation of in-vehicle infotainment, advanced driver assistance systems and seamless samrtmobile connectivity. This includes new in-vehicle app. and development tools, next-generation ADAS technologies and multimodal capabilities such as speech recognition, gesture recognition and eye tracking optimized for the connected vehicle. In addition to the company Connected Car Fund, Intel Corporation (company) President and CEO Paul Otellini also announced at an event in Karlsruhe, Germany the opening of a new International Innovation and Product Development Center, an academic outreach program focused on IVI and telematics, and expansion of Intel Labs Experience and Interaction Research in automotive

Google X Laboratory

Google is planning to come up with Siri’s competitor, "Google Assistant", by the end of this year. Currently, the company is working on this artificial intelligence technology and this new venture is likely to outshine the potentials of Apple's Siri voice assistant. It is supposed that "Google Assistant" won’t be standalone app, on the other hand there are plans to release an API for developers to integrate the same into all sorts of apps, reports The Verge, an American technology website. The website also adds that the operation is managed by the Android team and not by the secret Google X Laboratory

Infosys signs pact with Maharashtra to develop Nagpur facility

Information technology major Infosys has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Maharashtra Government for developing a 142-acre facility at Nagpur maharastra india with a total investment of about Rs 45o crore. The facility will be located in a Special Economic Zone, which is a part of the mammoth 4,354 hectare Multimodal International Hub Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN) project. The Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) a subsidiary of the State Government is developing the project. The facility will be developed in 3 phases and provide employment to 14,000 people on completion. In the 1st phase, Rs 100 crore will be invested. Big Information technology companies like TCS and Mahindra Satyam already have their campuses at MIHAN. A senior official in MADC told Business Line that the Pune facility of Infosys has been almost been saturated and there is no further scope for expansion, therefore they have chosen MIHAN site. Nagpur will also provide trained manpower to the company as the city has many colleges of higher learning.

Google Chrome -browse 40,000 Websites that the company monitors

In IT market : browser battle returned to a kind of normalcy last couple of days as Microsoft's IE (Internet Explorer), which had posted its huge-ever share increase in Jan, declined slightly in Feb. And Google-Chrome fell for the 2-nd month in Web metrics firm Net Application's statistics as the company acknowledged it has been over counting that browser share for months. Chrome's pre-rendering feature -- where the browser loading pages in the background that the user may view -- kicked off last Aug with version 13, and was enhanced in Chrome 17 that launched about a couple of days ago. As users type in search strings, whether at www.google.com or in the browser's combined address bar-search field, dubbed the "omnibox," G00gle loads one or more hidden pages that it thinks the user will select from the ensuing search links. Net Applications admitted that it had given Chr0me a larger share than the browser deserved. "[Pre-rendering] creates unviewed visits that should not be counted in Chrome's usage share," said Net Applications on its web-site yesterday. Starting with the data from Feb, Net Applications has adjusted Chrome's share -- which is derived from the page views attributed to the browser -- by tossing aside unused pre-loaded pages and counting only those the user actually sees.

"Pre-rendering in Feb. o accounted for 4.3 % of Chrome's daily unique visitors," said Net Applications. Chrome is the only major browser that offers pre-rendering. Under the new meth0d0l0gy, Chrome's share fell about one half of a percentage point to end February with 18.9 percent, off its peak of 19.1 % last December. The browser remained in the No. 3 slot, behind both IE and Firefox. Last month, Net Applications linked Chrome's decline to Google's Jan. decision to demote the Page-Rank - a rating Google assigns based on how many other sites link to a URL -- for Chrome's download site after it c0nfirmed a marketing campaign had violated the company's own rules against paid links. At the time, Google said it would punish its own browser with a 60-day Page-Rank demotion; the time out ends in a just few days, after which Google will presumably restore the download page's prominence in search results for "browser." Currently, Firefox is the top result of such searches, while Opera Software's Opera is 3rd, Apple's Safari is 5th, and IE is 7th. IE lost just over one-tenth of a percentage point to account for 52.8 % all browsers used on desktop and notebook personal computers, while Firefox stayed flat at 20.9 %. Safari's share grew the most of any browser last month, adding three-tenths of a percentage point to reach 5.2 percent, an all-time high in Net Applications' tracking. Safari's spike wasn't a surprise: The share of apple - Mac OS X, whose users also comprise the bulk of Safari's Browser users, climbed by a record amount last couple of days, too.

Among the multiple editions of IE, the 11 year old Microsoft IE6 lost the most share, falling down by more than a percentage point to 6.9 %, while the newer IE7 fell to 4.7 %. Meanwhile, IE8 and IE9 gained four-tenths of a point and almost a full point, respectively. IE9 saw its share climb to 12.6 %. IE9 on Windows 7, which Microsoft again said was its "core metric," now accounts for 30.1 % the world's browsers used on that operating system, and owns a 40.5 % of the Windows 7 browser market in the U.S. On Wednesday, Microsoft issued the fifth so-called "Platform Preview" of IE10, the next browser in its line, as part of the Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The preview -- essentially an alpha edition -- also runs on Windows 7, but will not work on either Windows XP or Vista. Net App. has not yet begun tracking IE10 share. Rival Irish measurement company Stat Counter painted a gloomier picture of IE's position, saying that ie browser had dropped 1.7 points to 35.8 %, while Chrome was in the No. 2 spot with 29.8 %-- an increase of 1.4 points -- and Firefox held steady at third with 24.9 percent. Net App. calculates browser usage share with data obtained from more than 16o million unique visitors who browse 40,000 Websites that the company monitors. More browser statistics can be f0und on the company's website.

PHP 5.4 languages -building websites and portal in the market

PHP is one of the most widely used languages for building websites and portal in the market, php 5.4 updated with a number of improvements to ease development and speed performance of language. "Essentially, most of the new features don't radically change the language, just refine it," said Zeev Suraski, one of the principal contributors to PHP as well as CTO of PHP software vendor Zend Technologies. "What you could do before, you can do in an easier, more elegant way now." For developers, the PHP syntax has been streamlined for easier usability. A new method, called Traits, will enable developers to reuse code. The array syntax has been simplified. Improvements have been added to allow PHP work better with the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) data exchange format. PHP 5.4 includes native support for Asian languages, eliminating the need for programmers to compile a special version of PHP to present content in those languages. Much work has also been done on this version PHP to improve performance. Thanks to s0me code refactoring, PHP can now support up to 4o % more users on the same server. "We've reduced memory consumption. When you have a popular Website, it's all about density--how many requests per second can your server take. Typically the real limiter is memory. By reducing memory consumption, you can increase density," he said. PHP is used by approximately 5 million developers in all over world, primarily for building Website pages with content that is routinely updated or changed, as well as for building Web base applications. It is the sixth most widely used programming language worldwide, according to the most recent monthly estimate by the Tiobe Group. In conjunction with this release version, Zend also has released the third beta version of Zend Framework 2, which includes support for PHP 5.4. Zend is also testing a PHP hosted service, called the Zend Developer Cloud.

Microsoft Announces Small Business Competency In MPN

Microsoft will announced Small Business Competency in the Microsoft Partner Network (MPN) in June 2o12. Microsoft partners with silver or gold competency will be able to offer Windows 7, Windows Server 2oo8, Windows Small Business Server 2o11 and Microsoft Office 365. The Microsoft said that the goal of the new competency is to enable partners to seize the big market opportunity represented by the world-wide addressable software industries for SMBs, of which cloud services represents a growing share. "As the cloud opportunity continues to expand and mature in the small-business segment, this new competency will enable each Small Business Competency partner to have a cloud conversation with each of their customers," Corporate Vice-President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft. "It offers partners world-class value, service and support from Microsoft to help increase their profitability when marketing, selling and servicing key SMB Microsoft products for customers and furthers our mission of building a high-quality partner ecosystem focused on driving breakthrough growth for end User."

AT&T data plans for smartphone - website, company urged customers to use Wi--Fi

AT&T clarified when and how it will slow down the connection-speed of smart-phone users who still have an unlimited data plan. Starting immediately, those with unlimited data will be warned via text message when their billing cycle consumption nears 3GB for a 3G device, or 5GB for a mobile device connecting through the faster LTE network. If the customer passes those consumption barriers, AT&T will drastically reduce the speed of the data connection until the end of the billing cycle, at which point the meter is reset plan. Previously, the carrier had slowed connections for customers it identified as among the heaviest data consumers -- those in the top 5% -- but had given them no warning prior to strangling their bandwidth. The company couched the change as a benefit to its users. "Our unlimited plan customers have told us they want more clarity around how the program works and what they can expect," company said in a statement yesterday. "And for context, less than 5 per cent of smartphone client use more than 3GB per month." Jack Gold, principal analyst with J. Gold Associates, said company was both being clearer to customers and tightening the screws on those with unlimited plans. "The down line is everyone wants to have unlimited data, but at the same time they complain that the service sucks," said Gold. "But it's not an unlimited resource. Get used to it."

company first began throttling unlimited users' data speeds last year, but had dropped those plans for new customers in June 2o1o. People who had already signed up for unlimited data, however, have been allowed to retain those plans, even when they purchased a new device. Most of the company customers with unlimited data bought an iPhone during the stretch between June 2007 and June 2o1o. "I'm with company on this one," said Gold. "Cellular data is a limited commodity." The problem company finds itself in is the fault of both the company and customers, Gold added. "Users have unrealistic expectations, but it's also the carrier's fault," he said. "They offered unlimited data because they wanted people to use it." And now, with the spectrum crowded -- more so in some markets than others -- AT&T finds itself, as Gold put it, "Damned if they do, damned if they don't." The alternative would be for company to bite the bullet and discard all unlimited plans currently held by customers. But Gold saw such as move as very unlikely. "That would be a really tough one," he said. "They would get clobbered, because they had an agreement with those customers. This way, they come across as not quite as much of a bad guy as they would [if they ditched all unlimited plans]."

Sprint is the only major U.S. carrier to still offer an unlimited data plan to new smartphone customers. Like company and Verizon, Sprint sells a variety of google Android powered phones as well as Apple i-Phone 4S. Verizon, which briefly offered unlimited data last year -- it touted that as a selling point when it launched the iPhone 4 on its network -- stopped selling the plan to new customers in July 2011. AT&T has been struggling for some time to get a handle on data consumption: Since mid-2o1o, it's sold tiered deals at various prices. Last month, the carrier raised data plan prices between 11 % and 33 % -- the latter for the least-expensive plan -- as it raised the data allowance between 25 % and 50 %. On its website, company urged customers to use Wi--Fi as much as possible. and reminded users they could check their billing cycle data consumption at any time by dialing "*data#" -- sans the quotation marks -- on their smartphone.

IBM India intros entry-level private cloud offering

IBM India launch of an entry level private cloud offering, Smart Cloud Entry. “Cloud computing is much more than simply saving on Information technology implementation costs because it offers an enormous opportunity to innovate. With the IBM Smart Cloud Entry, we will enable customers to transition smoothly to a cloud based infrastructure through an easy-to-use web-based interface. The s0lution is competitively positioned for Indian company easily tap in to the benefits of cloud,” said vice president, Growth Initiatives, Systems and Technology Group, IBM India South Asia. According to the company the Smart Cloud Entry enables 0rganizations to deploy self-service provisioning of visualized w0rkloads, allowing them to start the transition to a cloud-based infrastructure. It uses a 'simple' interface, and is designed to help both entry level firms and sophisticated clients adopt private clouds from scratch or transform current virtualized systems into cloud infrastructures. "This enables rapid scalability by all0wing additional servers or blades to be added to the cloud infrastructure. includes basic workload metering to supp0rt a "pay per use" business m0del," he added. The IBM Smart Cloud Entry is part of its SmartCloud Foundation portfolio.

HTC phones apps Mapping solutions provider company

Mapping solutions provider company Tom Tom today said it has partnered with handset Creator HTC to provide maps, points of interest and turn by turn directions for its range of smart phone in India. This contract marks the first consumer focused Execution of Tom Tom's map data in the rapidly growing Indian Mobile market, Tom Tom said in a statement. According to ABI Research, more than 5.2 million smart are expected to be shipped to India in 2o12 and is projected to more than triple by 2o15. "We are excited to exposit our global offerings by powering the map services for all HTC smart phone in India market," Vice President of Tom Tom(Sales and Marketing Licensing) Nuno Campos said. Headquartered in Amsterdam, Tom Tom has over three thousand five hundred employees and operates from fifty locations in thirty-five countries. Tom Tom provides consumers, enterprises, governments and auto-motive industry solutions like digital maps, traffic intelligence solution, navigation software, devices, fleet management solution and smart phone apps, among others. Tom Tom has entered India in September two thousand eleven, with its range of VIA series of Portable Navigation Devices. "India is not only a key market for HTC mobile and services, but also one of the big countries with the second largest population in the world," said Faisal Siddiqui, india htc manager, HTC India. Tom Tom is the ideal partner to provide the most current map data that will enable Indian consumers to use their HTC smart phones to navigate accurately and effortlessly.

liferay 5.2.3, liferay 6, Liferay releases version 4.1.0

Open source portal development

liferay new version customization training

liferay 5.2.3, liferay 6, Liferay releases version 4.1.0, Liferay Portal 6.1, Liferay 6.0 version

liferay theme tutorial

liferay theme development tutorial :

how to create liferay portal theme

Liferay Theme is use to change liferay website look.

Description:

1>Create Theme

Using eclips, Theme is very easy to create see below

file->new->Liferay project

When u select liferay project then display a window in which give name of project.

After that click “Next” button,see after click “next” button there is there some option

like

1>portlet

2>Ext

3>hook

4>theme

5> layout

We select theme option then click “Finish” button to create theme.

2> Anatomy of theme:

/deep-blue-theme/
/docroot/
/WEB-INF/
liferay-plugin-package.properties
/_diffs/ (subfolders not created by default)
/css/
/images/
/js/
/templates/
/css/
application.css
base.css
custom.css
dockbar.css
extras.css
forms.css
layout.css
main.css
navigation.css
portlet.css
/images/
(many directories)
/js/
main.js
/templates/
init_custom.vm
navigation.vm
portal_normal.vm
portal_pop_up.vm

3>Customize theme:

To devlope easy way to use this trick.

In our theme has buil.xml file,to edit file.In editing just replace “_style” word with “classic” word. Then deploy theme, then u see that many folders r ctreated in theme. They all are “classic”

theme folder. When deploye theme “built.xml” file copy classic theme from liferay tomcat and past in our theme.

Now, theme has for five folders

1>_diffs

2>css

3>templet

4>images

5>JS

4>CSS in theme:

We use to css file to make attractive web look.

Now,In CSS folder has many diffrent css file for diffrent web part, such that NAVIGATION part has navigation.css file and so on.

But we are not use every css file,only use custom.css file for modify theme. Custom.css file is load after all .css file are loaded.So that Custom.css file is override attributes which are define in another .css file.

It important to kwonlege of css and html tag,attributes and so on.

4.1>Some Useful css attribute

1>Backgroung image

->We r set two images in background at diffrent position,use below command.

background: url("../images/pimage/a.jpg") no-repeat right top

,url("../images/pimage/about_line.jpg") no-repeat left bottom;

->use WIDTH attributes which increase distance between “right top” and

“left bottom” images.

2>Border

->For border style,use BORDER attributes in css class.

->BORDER has three attributes type

1>border-width:In pixel.

2>border-style:give diffrent border like solid,doted and so more.

3>border-color:give color we assing.

->give three attribute in single line use below syntex

border:width type color;

3>Border-radius

->It is give curve to rectangle border.

->Synrex:-> border-radius:20px;

->Diffrent Browser has diffrent border-radius attribute,for example mozile firefox

use -mz-border-radious.

4>Border-shadow

->give shadow effect to border with diffrent color

->Syntex:

effect of

darkness

|

\/

border-shadow:10px 15px 5px red <-- color of shadow

/\ /\

| |

move to move to

right bottom

Now,to make horizontal navigtion menu using css,use below attributes

Making horizontal menu we use <ul>

<li> <a>Menu name </a></li>

<li><a>Menu name </a></li>

. . . . .

. . . . .

</ul>

Above code give vertical menu, for horizontal menu give below style.

5>List-style

->This attributes give <ul></ul> tag.

-><ul> tag display circle,square,upper-roman and lower-roman,but these r not use in menu. So use below syntex:

List-style-type : none

->LIST-STYLE has three attributes

1>list-style-type

2>list-style-position : inside,outide

3>list-style-image : url(“”)

->Above code is assing in single line

Syntex:

list-style : type image-url position

6>Display

->Display attribute use in <li> </li> tag, this attribute has diffrent values.

->We use “INLINE” value which display elemaent in horizontal which is required fer horizontal menu.

->Other use is DISPLAY attributes we hide element.It defined by NONE value.

->Syntex:

display : none ; <---value

display : inline;

There are many css attributes for creating theme, some css attributes r below.

7>Mergine

->It is use to make gap between two border

->It is out side of border

8>Padding

->It is use to make gap between border and element(context)

->Is is inside of border

9>Pointer

->To change mouse curser image

10>Visibility

->Hidden value is hide data but it make gap for data.

->Compare with Display : none

-> 'Display : none ' not make gap for data.

Web Browsers : blocks scripts from suspicious websites

6 Best Web Browsers

Selecting a web browser is a difficult task for many especially when there are many sophisticated ones around, each offering lightning speeds, high security and many add-ons. In order to find the best browser, ComputerWorld tested the latest versions of six widely used desktop and laptop browsers on speed, safety, extra features and extension benchmarks. The results were interesting with a surprise third place winner RocketMelt 0.9, which is almost new and comes integrated with Facebook. Here are the rankings of six browsers.

#6 Apple Safari 5.1.2

Safari came in the last position - Safari is a simple and adequate browser with solid security features. It didn’t score well on speed benchmarks but performed well with Windows machines. Organizing Safari without iCloud is troublesome. With the integration of browser sandboxing in Apple’s new Lion OS, the safari now has more security tools and features. It also came last in HTML5 testing.

Good: Solid security Network, Fastest mobile synchronizing while using iOS devices

Bad: Slow in loading pages built with HTML5 and JavaScript

#5 Opera 11.61

Opera came in fifth position - If you are looking for speed, this is the best browser for you. The beautiful feature in opera is “widgets”- light applications from games to RSS feeds, which runs on your desktop as separate programmes. The browser also has another tool called Opera Turbo, which compress the web pages to few bytes and enable easy browsing for users with slow internet connection. On the other hand, it is not much customizable and the interface takes a little time to getting used to.

Good: Quick loading, unique browsing experience with widgets.

Bad: Low in security options, not HTML5 friendly.

#4: Internet Explorer 9

IE9 won the fourth position - The browser from Microsoft was always lagging behind its rivals. But with the introduction of new features including the ability to block sites from collecting data on your browsing habits and the new Application Reputation app, which scans and warns about the downloads for malicious files, the browser finally overcome some of its rivals. It also has inbuilt cross-site scripting protection, which blocks scripts from suspicious websites. It came second in the HTML5 benchmark test, but finished last in processing JavaScript.

Good: Security features, faster HTML5 processing

Bad: Tab management, no themes and automated bookmark sync.

#3: Facebook RockMelt 0.9

RockM elt, the not so popular browser surprisingly finished third. - It looks similar to chrome as it is built on Google’s chromium framework. The browser is completely integrated with Facebook and has many features to make the social-fans happy. A strip located on the browser will display your Facebook friend’s icons and their availability to chat. Within the browser, you can also choose apps for different websites that notify you of a newly posted comment. By signing in through Facebook, your bookmarks and settings are automatically synchronized through the Facebook account among computers and iOS devices that use RockMelt app, as the browser collects your browsing habits. It processed HTML5 faster than Chrome but many extensions that work on Chrome didn’t function in RockMelt.

Good: Automatic sync among computers, Make “Facebooking” easy, JavaScript and pages load smoothly.

Bad: Facebook sign-in required to use the complete features of this browser, little number of add-ons and extensions.

#2: Mozilla Firefox 10

The most Versatile browser, finished second. - Firefox is a feature-filled browser and with the new version, it became more beautiful, with a simplified interface, which can be customized in many ways. The big advantage of Firefox is the thousands of add-ons, but with the addition of more add-ons, the browser tends to perform slowly. It finished first in HTML5 tests and third in loading JavaScripts. But it was little slower in loading web pages. It will work with any security software and has a good pop-up filter, malware protection and support private browsing. The best feature is it will allow you to collect tabs into manageable groups like work, home etc which will come handy in many situations.

Soon, mobile phones to project images and movies on wall

Mobile phones presently available in the market can help users view high quality images and video, but the phones’ small size sets insurmountable limits on screen size, and thus, the viewing experience. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, EpiCrystals Oy and the Aalto University are developing a better laser light source for projectors that will be integrated into mobile phones, which will enable accurate and efficient projection of, for example, photographs and movies on any surface. Mobile phones equipped with the laser light source can be within the ordinary consumer's reach already in a few years time. Small-size laser projectors 1-2 centimetres in length can be integrated into many kinds of electronic appliances, such as digital or video cameras, gaming devices and mobile phones. Integrated micro projectors could, in practice, project images the size of an A3 sheet of paper on a wall. The challenge is to develop a small, energy-efficient and luminous three-colour (RGB) light source, whose manufacturing costs can be kept low, for use in the projectors. Solutions for these challenges are sought in a project combining Finnish know-how, whose parties are VTT, EpiCrystals Inc. and the Aalto University. “The project has successfully combined multi-technological know-how from VTT and its partners in the project, from manufacturing materials and the accurate focusing of laser chips all the way to production line design,” said Principal Scientist Timo Aalto from VTT.

“The project was launched last autumn, and we are now entering the stage where we can move from brainstorming and design to building prototypes. “It is our goal to prove by next summer that large quantities of the new laser light sources can be manufactured quickly and economically.” EpiCrystals Inc. aims straight for the global market with its product, and it is the company's goal to be the technology and market leader in laser light sources for micro projectors by 2015. “We are developing an entirely new technology that is currently not in use anywhere else in the world. At the moment, there are stand-alone projectors on the market that can be connected to electronic appliances and early stage integrated projectors, but their quality and price are not competitive enough,” said Vice President of Business Development Tomi Jouhti of EpiCrystals Oy. “Large electronics manufacturers are extremely interested in integrated projectors, and market research shows that demand for these micro projectors will increase strongly in the coming years. “Soon, around two billion mobile phones per year will be sold in the world, and if even a couple of per cent of those contain a projector, we are talking about tens of millions of copies, and the hundred million mark is not far either,” Jouhti said.

Mobile phone running low on battery?

It is the nightmare of the wired world -- a smartphone low on battery. Now Swedish group myFC says its water-powered charger could be the fix anywhere while battery giant Duracell is championing a push for cars and even stadiums to be built with energy "mats" that would power up phones. A Californian firm, meanwhile, has launched a phone that it claims can remain charged for up to 15 years, making it the perfect spare in emergencies or disasters. "The difference between the energy on a phone and the energy we consume is increasing. We need to charge more often but you don't want to be hooked onto a wall," said myFC chief executive Bjorn Westerholm. His firm has therefore come up with a portable fuel cell charger which is slightly larger than a compact camera and which uses just one spoonful of water and a small metallic device called a fuel puck, to fully charge an iPhone. The PowerTrekk could appeal most to campers, aid workers or the military, said Westerholm, who is exhibiting the charger at the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona. "It could be sea water, fresh water. You need to carry water with you to survive anyway and the PowerTrekk needs just one spoonful," he told AFP.

"So you can Facebook, email even when you're in the outdoors for hours. "Our value proposition is that you don't need to go to the grid. You don't need to wait to charge your phone." Competition for solutions to power up phones is fierce. XPAL Power rolled out a phone with a battery that "lasts 15 years," said Christian Scheder, chairman of the Californian firm. The so-called Spareone, which will be commercialised in March, remains charged for up to 15 years if the phone is turned off, and for two months if it is on. "This is great for emergency, disaster situations," Scheder said. Battery giant Duracell meanwhile has its own vision to keep the world charged. It is championing the PowerMat system, a mat which looks like a small tablet that plugs into the power source and which has sufficient space to charge two phones which are equipped with special protective covers. But that is just the beginning, Stassi Anastassov, Duracell President, told AFP. Beyond just targeting consumers with the charging kit, Duracell is at the Mobile World Congress to talk phone manufacturers into designing a slot for a special chip or even build it into the telephone, thereby doing away with the protective covers that are currently required to dock with the mat. The company further wants to fit the mats in public places, for instance, build them into tables at fast-food chains, thereby allowing anyone with equipped phones to charge up anytime. It already has a deal with General Motors to fit all vehicles from 2013 with the charging mat. Likewise, it has an agreement to equip New York's Madison Square Garden, starting with bar tabletops. "Of course it will take many years, the whole ecosystem will not be up tomorrow," said Anastassov. "But our vision is that you will be able to never go out of power, simply by facilitating the whole charging process for you. "It's very similar to banking and money. If you want to have cash, you can either have a very big wallet full of money or you have an ATM card," he said.

IT industry needs more innovation

Products are just one dimension of innovation. While successful product companies are very profitable, many product companies don't make money. While there is a lot of innovation happening in the Indian IT industry, there is much scope for improvement, feels Mr Rishikesha T. Krishnan, Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy, Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore. In this interaction, he discusses the need for innovating beyond processes and the importance of greater collaboration between industry and academia. Edited excerpts:

What kind of innovation should the Indian IT industry be doing?

The focus of innovation in the IT industry has so far been on business models such as the global delivery model and processes (quality control, project management, recruitment and training). There is a need to widen the scope of innovation.

Could you give us some examples?

I am impressed by some of the work multinational companies have been doing at their development centres in India. For instance, Intuit has a platform called Fasal that uses sophisticated matching algorithms to link farmers with agents and buyers so that they get better price realisation. The communication happens through SMS. Already, more than 6 lakh farmers are a part of the Fasal network. India has some of the largest mobile companies in the world in terms of number of subscribers and IBM Research has been working with India's leading mobile service companies to develop dynamic methods of call data record analysis that will help enhance the efficiency of data centres.

Should the IT industry do product innovation?

Products are just one dimension of innovation. While successful product companies are very profitable, many product companies don't make money. Yes, it would be good to have some more product companies from India, but we needn't be obsessed with product innovation.

How do we strengthen partnerships between the IT industry and academia?

Currently, most relationships revolve around recruitment and placement. We need to have more knowledge-driven partnerships. This will happen when academia embraces a stronger research agenda and when industry seeks to put more innovation into their business. Organisational innovations like the IIT Madras Research Park offer new platforms for industry and academia to work together.

New, faster Apple iPad expected next week

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is hosting a media event next Wednesday, where it is expected to unveil a faster, better-equipped version of its popular iPad tablet to thwart increasing competition from deep-pocketed rivals such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O). The invitation-only event will be held at 1 p.m. EST (1800 GMT) on March 7 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where the company also introduced the last two generations of iPads. Apple, which sent the invitation to reporters by email on Tuesday, did not divulge details of the event beyond saying: "We have something you really have to see. And touch." The invitation featured a partial picture of the touchscreen of a device resembling an iPad. Apple launches are some of the hottest events on the tech calendar, scrutinized by fans, investors, the media and industry insiders alike. The iPad has dominated the nascent tablet computer market, but Amazon's Kindle Fire, which sells at half the cost, has chipped away at the lower end of the market.

The third iteration of a device that has helped put pressure on demand for traditional laptops and computers is expected to boast a faster, quad-core processor and a higher-definition screen. Some analysts and industry experts expect 4G wireless capability, ensuring that the iPad remains current as cutting-edge broadband technology from Verizon Wireless and other carriers gains momentum. Verizon Wireless is a venture of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L). "The picture is zoomed in on an icon and I don't see any pixels in that icon," Avi Greengart, analyst at Current Analysis, said, underscoring how industry experts pick apart even Apple's communiques for hints of what to expect. "You don't need exceptional foresight to guess that Apple is likely looking at a higher resolution display."

TAKING ON PCS

The company's market value has climbed steadily in past weeks, buoyed by anticipation over its latest gadget as well as by hopes that Apple will finally accede to shareholders' demands it return some of its $98 billion war chest of cash and securities. On Tuesday, Apple shares closed at a record high of $535.41 in heavy trading on the Nasdaq, up 1.8 percent on the day. Apple iPad tablet sales doubled in the December quarter to 15.43 million units. The company has sold about 55 million iPads since it introduced the device in 2010. It may be looking to "make further inroads into the general computing market" with the newest iPad, Greengart said. Chief Executive Tim Cook has often said that he expects tablets to outsell personal computers eventually. Cook, who took the company's helm after visionary Steve Jobs died in October, will likely lead the event, with ample help from marketing chief Phil Schiller and other executives. With the iPad 2 starting at $499, investors will also be watching to see if Apple plans to discount it, creeping farther down the price chain and closer to the Fire, to broaden the iPad's appeal.

Indians Outrun U.S. Smart Phone Users in Mobile Internet Browsing

Indians have overtaken their U.S. counterparts in using mobile phone internet. The smart phone is still finding ways for deeper penetration in Indian markets and be accessible to the mobile savvy, but whoever possess it are already using the mobile internet profusely says a recent mobile survey conducted by IPSOS and Google. 94 percent of Indians smart phone users have used their device to access internet according to the statistics provided in pluggd.in. The comparative survey conducted to determine how mobile internet savvy the users are revealed some of the below figures. 56 percent of Smart Phone users in India access the internet multiple times a day as compared to 53 percent of U.S. users who use it. 19 percent of Indian users use it 2 or 3 times in a day when compared to 20 percent of U.S users. When it comes to accessing emails and social networking sites on their smart phones Indians core higher. The survey says compared to 54 per cent in the US, 76 percent of smartphone users in India access social networking sites on their devices.
Lalitesh Katragadda, Country Head, India Product, Google India has stated to Business Line that “The survey reiterates our belief in ‘mobile first'. Culturally, even beyond the well-educated, mainstream Indians are technology curious and device savvy. We believe that the Internet-like telephony did, is making the leap from wired Internet to mobile, and hundreds of millions of Indians will go online on their mobile devices,” said. “At Google, we are building a powerful, simple, personable mobile ecosystem that helps every user be connected as they want and when they want to,” he has added. The significant increase in the smartphone by the age group of 18 to 29 is the highest in the country. While only 17 percent are in the 30 to 49 age group, surprisingly 36 per cent of all smartphone owners in India are in the age group of 18 to 29.

Linux For Mobile - Firefox browser--announced this week the new Open Web Devices

The mobile world has been good to Linux, whose Android derivative has enjoyed a success that few could have predicted just a few short years ago. And indeed, until very recently, Android was Linux's main contender in the mobile world. Yes, there have been others coming and going -- LiMo, Maemo, Moblin, and MeeGo, for example -- but none of them have even approached Android in terms of traction. That's why this year's Mobile World Congress has been so striking. Announcements coming out of the show have made it perfectly clear that mobile Linux's days of being more or less completely dominated by Android are coming to an end. Android is still going strong, of course -- maybe even stronger than ever. But we seem to be entering a new era in which Linux is everywhere in the mobile world, including numerous non-Android alternatives. Here are three key examples.

1. Boot to Gecko

Perhaps most notably, Mozilla--maker of the popular Firefox browser--announced this week the new Open Web Devices platform for smartphones based on its B2G (Boot to Gecko) project. With Boot to Gecko, Mozilla aims to build a complete, standalone operating system for the open Web, and it has put Linux at the heart of that. While B2G uses some of the same low-level building blocks that Android does -- including the Linux kernel -- it is not based on Android, and deliberately so. With support from Telefónica, Adobe, Deutsche Telekom, and Qualcomm, the Open Web Devices effort promises to bring a new kind of Linux to the mobile world.

2. Tizen

Also coming out of Mobile World Congress 2012 have been not just one but two advances for the competing Tizen platform. Tizen, you may recall, is the Intel-backed open source project launched by the Linux Foundation in September. Since then we've seen a preview of Tizen's source code, and we've seen some considerable interest from Samsung; this week, up-and-coming device maker Huawei has jumped on board, and a beta release of the Tizen platform source code and SDK have made their debut. The beta release features an updated UI framework and Web APIs for easier development of rich Web applications, the Tizen Association says, while the SDK features support for Windows as well as Ubuntu Linux. Huawei, meanwhile, says it plans to create and commercialize Tizen handsets for a range of markets. What that will ultimately mean, of course, is mobile Linux in yet another form.

3. Ubuntu for Android

Speaking of Ubuntu Linux, let's not forget its debut running alongside Android on upcoming smartphones. Offering a full desktop experience when the mobile device is docked, Ubuntu for Android will come preloaded along with Google's platform on participating smartphones. That's nothing short of a double dose of Linux on a single device.

Then, of course, there's also Linux-based webOS, which appears to be marching along nicely, with a brand-new browser being added earlier this month. I haven't heard any webOS news coming out of Mobile World Congress -- it won't be fully open sourced until September, after all -- but it's another one that's definitely worth watching. Either way, I think it's really interesting to see how Linux is spreading throughout the mobile world. Apple's iOS currently accounts for 54 percent of the mobile/tablet operating system market, according to Net Applications' January data, while Android claims 18 percent. I can't wait to see how things look in another year or two.

'India has world's youngest internet population'

India has the world's youngest internet population with 75 per cent of all users under the age of 35 years, said research firm comScore Friday. The findings were announced by comScore's co-founder and executive chairman Gian M. Fulgoni at the second edition of digital marketing event 'ad:tech' being organised here. In comparison to India, the world's average of under 35-year users stood at 52 per cent and 55 per cent in Asia Pacific region. "Further, a third of India's total online population is between 15 to 24 years," said Fulgoni. Indian users spent a total of 34.47 billion minutes online last year, which translated to over half a billion hours, he added. Segment-wise usage has also revealed that 95 per cent of the total online users use social networking sites compared to 82 per cent of the world's online users leveraging social networks. Among other facts that Fulgoni gave out was that of four minutes spent on social network, three are on Facebook. "LinkedIn reaches one in eight online users, whereas one in 12 online users are on Twitter in India," Fulgoni said. "In contrast, use of email and instant messaging is on a decline, especially in the younger age groups. Email usage declined by 22 per cent in the 15-24 age segment, and by eight per cent among 25-34 age segment," he said.