"Techno-Pundits"

How we can Solve Our Problems while we asleep answer is your Subconsicious mind

2015-09-26T06:49:00.000-07:00

As entrepreneurs, we make many decisions throughout the day. Some of them are easy, like “Should the font on the button be Arial or Helvetica?” Ahh, that was easy! Or “Should we spend $5 on buying that royalty-free image? Yes, of course we should!” That was an easy decision too!
But some decisions are not easy: “Should we shift to a bigger office now?” or “Should we hire that developer?” or “Should we create our own Chat application or use a third-party plug-in?”. Or, on the personal front “Should I marry that girl or this one?”.

You see, we are faced with multiple choice questions every day of our lives. And we are not always sure about the best answer. In most of the cases we take biased decisions based on our past experiences and on the information available to us at that time. But what if we could make better decisions by using an often unused faculty of our mind. What if we could use that faculty not just for making decisions, but also for creative problem solving?
What if we could get answers during the 6-8 hours we sleep? Sounds outlandish? No, it isn’t!
The human brain has got two hemispheres – the right and the left. The left hemisphere is the logical part, the one we use the most every day. It helps us take decisions, talk, reason etc. Want to read a book, solve a math problem, or conduct an interview? It’s the left hemisphere doing its job.
Have you ever written poetry, or composed a piece of music, or had a strong inspiration to do something? Or maybe you got a solution to a problem “out-of-the-blue”, when you were not thinking about the problem at all? That was through your right-hemisphere, the creative part of our brain. You might call it the sub-conscious mind, if you will.
With some practice, we can tap into the immense power of the right-hemisphere, and effectively use it to get “divine” solutions. These solutions are a win-win for everyone concerned, and are more effective because they transcend the biasness and myopia of the logical, left-hemisphere of the brain.
Dreams are doorways to your subconscious
Using your dreams is one of the best ways to access the right-hemisphere, the seat of creativity.
If you do some research, you will find countless artists, musicians, scientists, authors etc have received inspiration and break-through ideas through their dreams.
– Kekulé the popular figure in the history of chemistry dreamed of the tetravalent structure of carbon and circular structure of the Benzene molecule.
– Elias Howe, the inventor of the Sewing Machine solved a big problem in his dream – Where should the eye of the needle be? The solution was obvious – on top of the needle!
– Mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan got solutions to many of his problems in his dreams.
– Paul McCartney got the tune for “Yesterday” in one of his dreams
– Stephen King, the famous author got inspiration for his stories from his dreams.
So how can YOU use your dreams for solutions and problem-solving? Here are some simple steps:

Believe. It all starts with your belief. Even if you do not believe 100% that this is possible, have an open mind and be willing to give it a genuine try. If you believe, you will be more open to receiving the answers.
Maintain a proper sleeping schedule. If possible, sleep and get up at a fixed time, preferably sleep early, and wake up early.
Write down the question you want an answer for. Before you sleep, you should know very clearly the problem you want a solution for. Writing it down makes it less fuzzy and helps you pin-point the issue. Read it a few times.
Don’t worry about your worries. As soon as you hit the bed, and shut your eyes, put all your worries (except the one you have written down) in a huge imaginary metal box, shut the lid, and mentally fasten it using iron chains, and finally secure it with a lock! Tell yourself that you will not think about your problems any more today. Open the imaginary box only in the morning!
Ask. As soon as you have locked your worries, think about the challenge at hand. Accept that you need a solution to it. And believe that your sub-conscious is powerful enough to provide the right answer/guidance. Submit your question, trusting to get the answer soon. With this as the last thought in your mind, go to sleep with a smile on your face. Important: As soon as you submit your question, do not start thinking about other things. Simply blank-out, and go to sleep.
And ye shall receive. When you wake up the next morning, you will have recollection of a dream that will contain an answer to your question. It might seem to be a very obvious answer, or maybe an answer that you instinctively know is the right one. Or maybe in a day or two, you will be intuitively guided towards the right people at the right time. Or perhaps you suddenly get that “Aha! Moment!”, and the solution will be right in front of your eyes!
Implement. Now, once you get the solution, it is important to trust the guidance of your sub-conscious and implement it.

Yes, it is as simple as that. But as with anything else, you need to practice the art of creative problem solving through your dreams. The more you practice, the better you will become.
We are all geniuses. But many of us do not realize that. Using your dreams for creative problem-solving will wake up that genius within you. And yes, as an entrepreneur you too can come up with ground-breaking ideas and solutions that can truly change the world.
(Most people claim that they do not dream, or dream very little. That is simply not true. We all dream. But not all of us are good at recollecting our dreams the next morning. In the next part of this article, I will give some practical tips on effectively recalling your dreams.)
Happy Dreaming!

Why Online Industry is Going to be the Next Big Thing For Indian Markets!!

2015-09-26T03:57:00.002-07:00

Why Online Industry is Going to be the Next Big Thing For Indian Markets!!

With The MODI Mantra-"Digital India" and Along with Aggressive Internet penetration In India,In recent 2-3 Years becoz of the SmartPhone Buzz.
India Is Going to be the Biggest Brutal Online Battle Ground for all Online Giants and new E-retail Ventures.

Here the Below Facts Supporting the Statement Made Above,I would like To Explain the Same in Very Simple way and Backed By data and Facts-

1-Currently Internet Penetration In India is Just 16-17% which means only 17 people using internet out of 100,It is the scenario like , that Internet is still the like the new Born baby Phenomena in India or You may that It Born many years ago but not Able to Grow and just Started Crawling,However its a contrasting Statement made by me,But it is Like this only.Indian Market is the Most Unique in its own Terms.

2-So as per the Internet Penetration out of total Population of India which 124 Crs,
We have Currently a base of 24 Crores of NetiZens In India which is actually 3rd largest Internet Users Base Across the World.
India is Adding 60 lacs of Users Every Month.
Out of those 24 CRS of Online Users Percentage of Online Shoppers is Just 14-15%
so Only 3.6 Crores of Indians are Online Shoppers.

3-SO guys this is It Only 3.6 Crores of Online Shoppers Currently Contributing
90000 Crores rupees of Revenue,which clearly states that Ecomm Companies already Captured the Tip of the Pyramid Population which constitutes High Net Worth Individuals,Higher income Group ,Upper Class and Upper Middle class.
And hope everyone knows that India is Having Maximum Size of Middle Class Population In the World.

As per the statics By 2020 Online market in India will touch 70$ Billion mark.

4 -With One of the most Smartest Discovery of this Decade that is "Smart Phone"
and after arrival of good Budget Smart Phone ranged between 6k-10K Rs Internet penetration and Online Shopping Get Boosted Up.
in order to support My Statement MYNTRA.COM which has been recently bought by FLIPKART.COM will do their entire opertaions on Mobile APP reason is 70-75% of the mobile traffic is coming from mobile users only.
5-INDIA is having Largest pool of Population between 25-35 Age Group that is actually 70Crores and this Age Group is completely Dominated By the Smart Phones,so U can Expect the Size of wave of E-TSunami.

6-“India is the third country in the world to have over five internet companies valued at over US$ 1 billion.

7-Rural Internet users will increase from 60 million in June 2015 to 280 million in 2018,which is mostly from the Middle Class Segment.
8-The class of 2018 will be more rural, older, more gender-equal, more mobile and more vernacular than their counterparts of today.
9-n 2013, the Internet contributed USD 60 billion or 2.7 per cent of India’s GDP – larger than the contribution of healthcare (2.5 per cent) and military (2.5 per cent), but less than agriculture (14 per cent). By 2020, the Internet is estimated to grow over 4 per cent of India’s GDP. E-commerce will cross USD 17 billion in 2018 and eight million SMEs (out of 13 million SMEs); 200 million individuals will transact online.

10-Maximum Venture capital and FDI happening In India Only
some Deals Are Alibaba investing in Snapdeal,Paytm
Ebay in Snapdeal, and many more happening everyday.
Many new Startup Backed by Venture Capital Like Grocers,
Ola,Tiny Owl..
So guys Sit Tight and Experience the Most Happening and Intresting Change That currently India Economy is experiencing..

Wishing India E-LUCK ....

Narendramodi remains Third Most Followed World leader on twitter.

2015-04-28T19:38:00.001-07:00

Narendra Modi Remains Third Most Followed World Leader on Twitter: Study

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the third most followed world leader on the micro-blogging site Twitter while External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is the most followed foreign minister, according to a latest study.

Twiplomacy Study 2015, accessed by IANS, showed that Sushma Swaraj is the most followed foreign minister with 2,438,228 followers. She is far ahead of UAE' Abdullah Bin Zayed (1,608,831) and Turkey's Mevlut Cavusoglu (376,429).

The study, which counted data till March 24, is an annual global survey of world leaders on Twitter. It is aimed at identifying the extent to which world leaders use the site and how they connect on the social network.

The study revealed that three most followed world leaders were US President @BarackObama with 56,933,515 followers, Pope Francis (@Pontifex) with 19,580,910 followers on his nine different language accounts, and Modi with 10,902,510 followers.

Since his election in May 2014, Modi's account has moved into the top three most followed Twitter accounts of world leaders, said Twiplomacy's Matthias Luefkens. He told IANS that Modi was also among the most effective in terms of re-tweets per tweet.

Modi's huge victory in the 2014 general election was partly credited to a well-organised social media campaign.

Besides, the study found the most followed world leaders have one thing in common: they have discovered Twitter as a powerful one-way broadcasting tool. They are only following a handful of other world leaders, if any, and are hardly conversational which is almost impossible, given the sheer size of their audience.

Among the foreign ministries, the US State Department (@StateDept) is the most followed with 1,7 million followers ahead of the Turkish (@TC_Disisleri), the Russian (@MID_RF) and the French (@FranceDiplo) all with less than a million followers.

The study said it was impossible to say whether governments pay to promote the accounts of their leaders.

But "we have seen an interesting pattern on @IndianDiplomacy (official account of India's public diplomacy) and @MEAIndia (India's ministry of external affairs) accounts whose tweets are automatically re-tweeted by an army of 90 tweeps who all follow each other and whose sole purpose is to re-tweet the tweets from @IndianDiplomacy and @MEAIndia, the accounts listed on each of their public Twitter list, aptly entitled 'RT'," the study said.

"Thanks to their dedicated action the tweets of @IndianDiplomacy and @MEAIndia are consistently re-tweeted 100 times but rarely favourited," it said.

The study also showed Rwanda's President Paul Kagame as the most conversational world leader with 86 percent of his tweets being @replies to other Twitter users followed by Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Conducted by global communications firm Burson-Marsteller, the report studied 669 Twitter accounts of heads of state and government, foreign ministers and their institutions in 166 countries worldwide.

AMAZON unveils new business marketplace

2015-04-28T08:35:00.001-07:00

Amazon Unveils New Business Marketplace

Amazon announced Tuesday it was launching a new business marketplace, in a move aimed at bringing the online giant's expertise to wholesaling.

The new service called Amazon Business will offer enterprises the opportunity to shop online for productions ranging from computer and lab equipment to education and food service supplies.

It will offer special services for businesses including a dedicated customer support team, Amazon said.

"We've heard from business customers that they love the convenience of shopping online, and want an experience at work that is similar to how they shop at home," said Amazon vice president Prentis Wilson.

"Amazon Business delivers a new and expanded marketplace that brings the selection, convenience and value of Amazon to business customers, manufacturers and sellers with the additional selection, features and back-end integration businesses need to save time and money."

The move comes with businesses increasingly going online for managing their day-to-day supply needs.

Forrester Research estimates that business to business (B2B) e-commerce will top $1.1 trillion and account for 12.1 percent of all US sales in the segment by 2020.

"B2B buyers are now expecting B2C-like (retail) customer experiences online, and they're growing increasingly impatient with B2B sellers that don't provide it," says Forrester analyst Andy Hoar.

Amazon india Launches SUNDAY delivery services in 100 cities

2015-04-27T22:09:00.001-07:00

Amazon India Launches Sunday Delivery Service in 100 Cities

Amazon India on Monday announced it will now be able to deliver goods on Sundays in 100 cities across India.

The Amazon India Sunday Delivery service is available only for residential addresses, and for all products that are Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA). The US-based online retail giant also announced that the service will be expanded to more cities soon.

The firm says with the launch of Sunday Delivery, users can count Sunday as a "regular day for receiving deliveries from Amazon.in," regardless of the delivery type chosen by the user. To see Sunday Delivery promises during checkout, customers need to ensure their residential address is marked as 'Home' in the Address Type field.

Amazon explains that a customer ordering with One-Day Delivery on Saturday and selecting a residential address will now see Sunday promises instead of Monday. The service is available with all types of delivery, including Same-Day, and Two-Day. The company reiterates that users selecting the standard (2-4 days) delivery will see Sundays being considered as a working day while computing delivery promises.

The launch of the service comes more than six months after Amazon India introduced Release Day Delivery aka midnight delivery in the country.

"Providing our customers with a fast, reliable, anytime and anywhere delivery experience is one of our key pillars to ensure customer delight. Our innovations in delivery, be it One Day, Two Day, Same Day, Release Day, or Midnight Delivery, stand proof of our commitment to continuous work backwards from customer needs and innovate on their behalf. With our Sunday Delivery promise, customers across 100 cities now have the benefit of getting uninterrupted deliveries of their orders through the week," says Samuel Thomas, Director Transportation & Logistics, Amazon India. "We are very proud to be the first ones in India to offer Sunday Delivery at this scale. This capability now allows us to make faster and more accurate promises to customers," he adds.

AT HOME but not ALONE,HOW PLAYSTATION HOME PIONEERED social spaces in gaming

2015-04-26T05:58:00.001-07:00

At Home but Not Alone: How PlayStation Home Pioneered Social Spaces in Gaming

Today, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are embracing Twitter and Facebook to share and foster a sense of community outside their respective ecosystems. But this is not the first time a video game console went above and beyond its core focus of, well, playing video games.

Before this, there was PlayStation Home, a virtual 3D social gaming platform developed by Sony Computer Entertainment's London Studio for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) on the PlayStation Network (PSN). In development since early 2005, it launched in December 2008 as an open beta, a state it was still in when it closed on on March 31, 2015.

Home let you create an avatar and have a personal apartment that could be decorated with virtual items. You could travel through its world which was updated by Sony and its partners. It hosted a slew of single and multiplayer mini-games as well as functioning as a social platform.

In a lot of ways, PlayStation Home took the form of a hub world or towns in massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of WarCraft. It made this accessible to a broader audience, giving them something to do when games were hard to come by on the PS3. But there was a lot more to it.

At Pocket Gamer Connects Bangalore, we spoke to Oscar Clark, PlayStation Home's former digital architect. Clark, an Everplay Evangelist at Unity, is a renowned expert on all things free-to-play and social. We chatted about the thought process and inspiration behind Sony's first attempt at merging gaming and social spaces into one entity.

The origins of Sony's attempt at social spaces in gaming

"The idea was, how do you create a communal space where people who love games could collect, and therefore find the games they want to play," says Clark. His past experience at British Telecom's Wireplay, a service that let PC gamers play online via dial up came in handy. "We were really excited when we hit our first thousand concurrent users," he says. "In 1998 hadn't been done before. 1000 concurrent users being a big deal then. Now it's trivial."

As digital architect, Clark (pictured above) was tasked with coordinating (or being the "political football" as he called it) the requirements of all regions and ensure that the right features were built-in. "Everybody wanted things that no one else wanted," he says. "And I had to find a way to make that a strategy. Or at least feel like a strategy to everybody so at least they were willing to sign up to the same thing."

"Obviously the development team didn't want to do what the regions wanted to do," he adds.

With each region's marketing team having a different perception of how the service should be run vis-a-vis developers and gamers, Clark had to find a way to make the best of Home as he could.

Social then, social now

PlayStation Home seemed like an idea ahead of its time, providing a place for dedicated gamers to hang out once they were done with a session of intense gaming. Now the term "social" in core gaming just means tweets or Facebook posts or at best livestreams. It's something Clark is painfully aware of.

"There's nowhere to hang that off. There's no catalyst for that. The catalyst is the Internet," says Clark. "And you're being taken out of the [game] world to do that. You're being taken out of the gaming experience. That was the thing Home was trying to but never allowed to do."

"Like I said, I got a lot respect for Sony," he adds. "I don't want to be a downer but it was very frustrating when you tried to explain to people that Home needed, you needed to be able to exit from a game into Home."

For Clark, PlayStation Home should have been the extension of the console gaming experience. The ability to exit to PlayStation Home from a game would have made it a seamless, natural expansion. To him, it made perfect sense especially when contrasted to how mobile games engage with social mediums.

"If you think about it when we play these games, console is very different from mobile," he explains. "There's long term engagement. You're playing for N number of hours, you get to a stage where you get really hyper intense, particularly the shooter games, and sometimes you need that time to chat, chill out, exit from the game and into a social space and get to meet the virtual aliases of these other people."

Things have changed a lot over the years, but Clark believes that the core ideals stay the same. "Everything and nothing has changed," he says. "I could pull out slide decks of what I did at Wireplay, okay some of the terminology has changed. But the basic principles about social gameplay are essentially the same. The ways we can communicate are vastly more exciting than I ever thought possible. But the basic principles about social gameplay are essentially the same."

The opportunity to make friends

According to Clark, Home was an opportunity for players to know more about each other and perhaps foster deep bonds between themselves. However he is also perceptive of the possibility that it could have quickly cratered into something fierce.

"Of course, the trouble is with such a diverse group of people playing would you want to spend a lot of time with everybody? And that's not the point," he claims. "There's an opportunity to try something with social, virtual reality and unfortunately, the Japanese team in particular didn't ever really feel comfortable with it. This is my opinion, I'm not saying this was the rest of the team, but this was my feeling."

At the end of the day, Home had to close down for a number of reasons, but Clark believes it could work now. "I think the really fascinating thing was realising whatever I've done has been 10 years too early," says Clark. "You think about online gaming with dialup modems, how insane was that? It was 10 years too early. You needed to see that on broadband and then the consumer experience would make sense. But of course, everything else has shifted so how we connect with people is no longer based on anonymous ID, it's based on our FB profiles. So its learning to adapt."

While PlayStation Home never quite really lived up to Clark's vision for the service, there's no denying it was a bonafide success. The end result was something he was proud of.

"A year after I left there were about 38 million downloads, on a platform that had 80 million devices at the time which is pretty damn good actually," he confirms. "And then there's something like 3 million monthly actives [users] which again is pretty damn good. From that there was something like 3 percent spending GBP 11 a month."

Strains of PlayStation Home live on in both the PS4 and Xbox One's implementation of social experiences within their respective ecosystem. With virtual reality making a comeback, it won't be hard to imagine something like PlayStation Home returning in the distant future. As for Clark however, he knows what he has managed to achieve, along with the PlayStation Home team, is rare.

"I was there three years but PS Home itself was live for over seven years," he says. "Think about that. What online games have lasted that long? How many online game services like that have been live for seven years? On a console for goodness sake!"

32 times more devastating earthquake to hit Nepal and India:Experts

2015-04-26T02:45:00.001-07:00

32 times more devastating earthquake to hit Nepal and India: Experts

New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, experts believe that a much stronger and more devastating earthquake will rock Nepal and India in the future.

“We know there is a huge amount of accumulated strain in this area. It is due for a major earthquake, perhaps a series of earthquakes, bigger than 8 on the Richter scale,” Harsh K Gupta, former director of the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute, told Indian Express.

He further said that the amount of energy stored in the region was great and that the quake that rocked Nepal was only 5 per cent of the total energy stored.

An earthquake which is measured 9 on Richter scale is only 10 times stronger but has energy 32 times more than that of a 8 pointer.

According to senior scientist Sankar Kumar Nath of IIT Kharagpur, that quakes of magnitude 9 is a big possibility.

“If you look at it differently, we are actually lucky that only a 7.9-magnitude earthquake has come. I would be very happy to have a few 7.9-magnitude earthquakes than a 9-magnitude earthquake which would be absolute disaster. The trouble is that in terms of energy release, which is what causes the damage, it would take 40 to 50 earthquakes of magnitude 7.9 to avoid an earthquake of magnitude 9,” he told Indian Express.

More than 2 thousand people have been killed and over 5 thousand injured in an earthquake that rocked Nepal and northern India.

Click: Earthquake LIVE: Nepal's pain is our pain: PM Narendra Modi

PAYTM will not charge any commission from its market place vendors..

2015-04-25T01:57:00.001-07:00

Paytm’s move into mobile commerce: A zero commission marketplace

| April 25, 2015 at 11:49 am

Flipkart and Snapdeal are the top two names that come to mind when someone talks about homegrown e-commerce players in India. But this is not a two horse race, Paytm is a silent but powerful contender that has a first mover advantage on mobile. Starting out with mobile recharges, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the man behind One97’s Paytm has strategically made moves to become a strong contender in the Indian e-commerce space. This became clear onceJack Ma’s Alibaba group took up 25% of the company by pumping in $575 million in the mobile commerce firm. (Ratan Tata invested as well)

Paytm launched the mobile based markeplace in February 2014 and has now come up with the Seller App with a zero commission model. What this means is that sellers on the platform don’t need to give a commission to Paytm on sales. Merchants keep all of what they sell. Other marketplaces like Flipkart and Snapdeal work on a commission based model.

This move is in line with what Alibaba Group’s Taobao works on. Taobao is a Chinese marketplace that works on the zero commission marketplace. As the history goes, Taobao Marketplace was launched in May 2003 by Alibaba after eBay acquired Eachnet, China’s online auction leader at the time, to became a major player in the Chinese consumer e-commerce market (source). To counter eBay’s expansion, Taobao offered free listings to sellers and introduced website features designed to act in local consumers’ best interests, such as instant messaging for facilitating buyer-seller communication and an escrow-based payment tool, Alipay. As a result, Taobao became mainland China’s undisputed market leader within two years. Its market share surged from 8% to 59% between 2003 and 2005, while eBay China plunged from 79% to 36%. EBay shut down its China site in 2006. Taobao continued to grow and in 2011 was split into: Taobao Marketplace (a C2C platform), Tmall.com (a B2C platform; then called Taobao Mall), and eTao (a search engine for online shopping).

So, with the new move, Paytm can be rightly touted as the Taobao of India. According to this Firstpost report, Paytm claims to earn revenues of over $500 million now but Sharma says this will jump to $2 billion by December 2015. Half of Paytm’s run rate will then come from the m-commerce marketplace push. And the focus will be on getting more users. The sentiments are also reflected by Alibaba. Erik Jing of Alipay says, “We don’t care about profitability. We care about SMEs, users on the Paytm wallet.”

Paytm has been coming up with a string of updates. Most recently, it also joined in the hyper-local game by starting grocery delivery in Bangalore. Over the past two months, hyper-local ventures have raised more than $60 million from various venture capitalists. Gurgaon-based Grofers snapped up $45 million (in two rounds) while PepperTap secured $12 millionacross two rounds. For Paytm, the mantra is mobile. Backed by strong ‘payments foundation’, Paytm will be building tools for SMEs and helping them become more adept, selling online. Check out sellon.paytm.com.

Looking at the competition too, the race is on to empower small businesses. And the market is huge!

Amazon is piloting with AmazonBusiness, a members only B2B website for small businesses. Snapdeal is providing funding to small businesses to aid them along with other initiatives, Flipkart is scaling up its training initiatives and a lot more is brewing up for the times to come.

Jubin Mehta

Jubin is an old timer at YourStory. Deeply entrenched in the Indian startup ecosystem, he has written about more than 1000 startups. With an engineering background and a keen interest in data analysis, his passion for writing and entrepreneurship makes him a perfect match for Yourstory. He operates from the mountains in Dharamshala where he also runs a hackbase. He can be reached on Twitter @jub_in and on mail at jubin@yourstory.com

Sony CEO KAZUO HIRAI reportedly faces attack from old activist...

2015-04-24T03:53:00.001-07:00

Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai Reportedly Faces Attack From Activist 'Old Boys'

A group of former top Sony Corp executives has delivered an unusually blunt critique to the firm's chief executive Kazuo Hirai, accusing him of losing sight of innovation by focusing on cost-cutting.

At a meeting at Sony's Tokyo headquarters last Thursday, five former executives, includingPlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi, took Hirai to task for failing to encourage the kind of creativity that helped produce iconic gadgets such as the Walkman, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

This sharp, behind-the-scenes criticism by alumni, known in Japan as "old boys" who can retain influence long after retirement, represents a new test for Hirai just as he has fended off pressure from activist investor Daniel Loeb to sell off part of Sony's entertainment business.

The move threatens to undermine him at a time when he is trying to show investors and employees that he can lead Sony back to growth after the restructuring that cut around 15,000 jobs.

"Sony is like a ship that has set sail in the stormy weather of the electronics business, led by a captain who's using a flawed nautical map," Tamotsu Iba, a former Sony CFO and vice chairman, said in a letter sent to board members and management ahead of the meeting, which he attended.

"He doesn't have the sensibility or intellect to notice it's wrong. Do board members, who should be in a position to supervise the captain, not notice? Are they tolerating it, not willing to point it out?"

A copy of the letter was reviewed by Reuters.

Iba's letter, which was a follow-up to a similar letter he sent in January, did not directly call for Hirai's removal but questioned his abilities as CEO and demanded hiring more engineers and appointing fewer outsiders to the board of directors.

Iba, Kutaragi and Sony all declined to comment for this story.

The old boy's network
Former company executives can wield a lot of influence in Japan.

Ex-Sony executives played a role in the exit of Hirai's predecessor Howard Stringer, people involved at the time said. At automaker Honda Motor Co, Takanobu Ito stepped down as CEO in February this year after coming under criticism from two former CEOs over his handling of quality issues.

At Sony, Hirai has had to cut earnings forecasts six times since becoming CEO in 2012, and while the company has just raised its financial estimates for the year that ended in March, it still expects a net loss of 126 billion yen.

Still, he has begun to win more confidence from investors, with Sony's shares hitting a seven-year high last Thursday.

Hirai also has to strike a balance between maintaining employee morale while cutting thousands of jobs to revamp Sony's electronics business. After splitting off its ailing TV business last year, Sony has announced it will do the same with other units in its electronics business.

Some Sony staff say they are worried more units could go the same way as the Vaio PC division which was sold off last year.

Sources said Iba and his allies, while holding Sony shares, probably do not hold a large enough stake to vote out Hirai or call a shareholder meeting. They also did not appear to have any alternative CEO candidates in mind.

But if they decide to take their appeal to shareholders, they could try to piggy-back on a move by proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which recommends investors vote against returning management at Japanese companies which fail to achieve a five-year average return on equity of at least 5 percent.

Most fund managers, however, are expected to ignore a negative recommendation from ISS on Sony given the turnaround of the past year that has seen Sony's shares surge by 90 percent.

Ex-FLIPKART & Samsung engineers started "THR KARRIER" aims to be "UBER FOR TRUCKS"

2015-04-23T19:40:00.001-07:00

Technology has made life easier for consumers as well as service providers. Many disorganised sectors are now more organised and scalable. Earlier it was difficult for consumers to discover service providers and figure out what a competitive price was. For service providers finding clientele was difficult and this led to periods of inactivity and financial losses.

Technology has revolutionised the travel, e-commerce, real estate industry and now consumers and service providers have more clarity, assurance of service and fair prices. TheKarrier aims to make the last mile intracity logistics space for trucks more organised.

Identifying the gap and starting up

Aravind Sanka (ex Flipkart) and Pavan Guntupalli (ex-Samsung) were long time buddies since high school and always had the urge to start something on their own. They crossed paths with Rishikesh Ramanath during the summer of 2014 and the trio got instantly connected and co-founded TheKarrier. Aravind had previously worked at Flipkart in their last mile logistics division and realized that there was a market gap for intracity trucks. From market research they found that idle times in last mile logistics for trucks were as much as 70%.

Pavan noted:

Every year India loses around $45 billion due to inefficiencies in logistics, of which last mile logistics contributes a significant portion. The last mile logistics industry is pegged at around $5-10 billion by industry sources. One of the important reasons behind the high inefficiencies is the low utilization of technology in the segment.

Based out of Bangalore, TheKarrier aims to provide on demand logistics for intracity delivery for businesses and individuals. They currently operate about 300 Light Commercial vehicles (LCVs) through partners all around Bangalore.

They have served over 1000 customers so far. To make the process more seamless, they recently launched an app for the drivers and are now in the process of launching a consumer facing app as well. Right now consumers can book a truck by either calling or sending their requirements through Whatsapp to +91 8050327147.

Business model

TheKarrier has a marketplace model and earns a percentage on each transaction. They run background checks on drivers to ensure authenticity and reliability and also provide incentives to driver based on their performance. Pavan said:

We can proudly say that we have never cancelled an order due to unavailability of vehicles. With a fleet strength of close to 300 vehicles, we are currently having a lead time of 45 minutes.

Their current charges include a minimum fare of Rs 350 for the first 3km and Rs 30 per km after that. Customers also have to pay a waiting charge of Rs 30 for every 15min but get one hour of waiting time for free for loading and unloading the vehicle.

Challenges faced

They found that unlike the taxi segment, the stakeholders were relatively non-tech savvy, both on the demand and the supply side. So understanding their behaviour and designing the product accordingly was crucial for faster adoption of technology.

Getting on the ground and understanding the mindset of the stakeholders helped us a lot in improving the product.

Their initial marketing was done through social media and offline marketing methods. Now they claim that more than 40% of their customers are through referrals and they employ the drivers to be a part of their marketing strategy to reach out to more customers.

They also have branding on the vehicles that have partnered with them so that it is easier for customers to identify them and also for brand recall.

Others in the sector

There are many players, both local and international, in this segment trying to tackle this pain point. Of them, some notable players in this sector are Gogovanfrom HongKong, Blowhorn, Shippr andReturnTrucks.There is a lot of interest in this sector from the investor side as well. Blowhorn had raised a seed fund from Unitus Feed fund in November last year.

Future plans

TheKarrier intends to bring the order confirmation time to under 30 seconds and lead time to less than 30minutes.They are currently bootstrapped and will be looking to raise funds soon to expand the team as well as enter two more major cities within the next six months.

They currently offer semi-closed mini trucks of dimensions 7ft x 4ft x 6ft, which can accommodate up to 800kgs. Going forward, they aim to provide consumers access to more variety of vehicles based on their customised needs.

Website: TheKarrier

You can soon switch on ur XBOX ONE with ur SMART PHONE and much more...

2015-04-23T06:55:00.001-07:00

You Can Soon Switch On Your Xbox One With Your Smartphone

Another month, another Xbox One system software update. Contrasting Sony's latest update for the PlayStation 4, Microsoft's brings a slew of new functionalities to its big black box. It will be available in May for those taking part in Microsoft's preview program and should be out for the general public soon after.

One of the major additions is the ability to switch on and off your Xbox One via the Smartglass app via Windows Phone and Android devices. To do this you'll need the updated Xbox One SmartGlass Beta app from the Windows Phone Store or from Google Play.

"The beta versions of the Xbox One SmartGlass apps for Windows, Windows Phone and Android will be updated to let you turn your Xbox One on and off. (Your device does need to be on the same home network as your console.) This feature request has more than 4,000 votes on the Xbox Feedback site," said Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Director of Programming for Xbox Live in a post on the officialXbox Wire website.

Also in the preview program will be Miracast support for video and photo streaming to the Xbox One from Windows PCs like the Surface 2, Surface 3, or Surface 3 Pro, Lenovo X1 Carbon, Dell Venue 8, Windows Phone 8, and some Android devices that support non-protected Miracast connections. These include the popular Nexus 7 tablet and the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Furthermore, Windows 10 users get Game DVR support via the Windows 10 Xbox App. It will be in preview along with a whole host social additions such as user profiles, real name sharing and avatars.

For a full list of what May's Xbox One update brings, check out Xbox Wire.

Internet Users in India likely to reach up to 550 million in 2018

2015-04-23T06:54:00.001-07:00

Internet users in India likely to reach up to 550 mn in 2018: Report

New Delhi: Internet users in India are likely to reach up to 550 million in 2018, primarily led by affordable access and improved awareness, a report said today.

The country's internet user base was around 190 million in 2014.

"The full rate and extent of future internet penetration depends on several factors, but we expect the number of internet users to at least double, from 190 million in 2014 to 400 million in 2018. Our most aggressive forecast predicts as many as 550 million users in 2018," Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said in a report.

The report further said that internet-connected urban population will increase from 130 million to 300 million, but the real action will take place in more-rural areas, where the user base could easily expand by up to 40 per cent per year, from 60 million in 2014 to 280 million in 2018.

"Three factors expanding reach, more affordable access, and improved awareness?will be the primary drivers of online growth," it said.

BCG said network availability needs to catch up with the expected increase in the installed base of Internet-enabled devices.

"The current universal coverage of 2G networks in urban areas must be replicated in the countryside and a similar improvement must take place in the penetration of 3G and 4G services in major cities," it said.

The availability of low-cost internet-enabled devices will be key to increasing internet penetration among the lower-income population, according to the report.

"Nearly two-thirds of mobile phones sold in India today are internet ready, but the least expensive models still cost USD 60 or more. This is too expensive for many; prices need to come down," the report said, pointing out that awareness will play a key role in adoption of internet.

"This lack of understanding represents the most formidable barrier to online adoption, with the unavailability of devices a distant second at 36 per cent. At the same time, almost four-fifths of urban nonusers, despite being aware of the internet, are disinclined to go online," it said.

PTI

GT academy to TURN INDIAN gamers into professional racers again this year

2015-04-22T09:13:00.001-07:00

GT Academy to Turn Indian Gamers Into Professional Racers Again This Year

It looks like the Mortal Kombat X Cup is not the only video game tournament to take place in India this year. GT Academy, the collaboration between Sony and Nissan, will be back.

GT Academy is an effort to turn fans of Sony's seminal racing series Gran Turismo into professional race car drivers. Last year saw India's best compete in online qualifications as well as live events for a spot to compete on at a global level. The India event debuted last year, while internationally, it has seen six seasons.

There are several qualification rounds before a winner is selected. According to IndianVideoGamerthese include:

The regional champion will undergo Nissan's intensive Driver Development Programme and get an opportunity to participate in the Dubai 24 Hours race held in January 2016.

This year sees India's best drivers up against those from Thailand, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Last year saw India clubbed alongside countries like Mexico, Australia, and Middle East.

If you want to get a head start, online qualifiers begin on Tuesday. In Gran Turismo 6 on the PS3, select Special Events and choose GT Academy 2015. You can qualify online until June 2 across four rounds.

Though Sony is yet to confirm any offline, on ground events for the GT Academy, you can expect an official announcement soon.

FLIPKART to shut down website within a year ;Myntra to be app-only from may-1

2015-04-20T19:35:00.001-07:00

Flipkart to shut down website within a year; Myntra to be app-only from May 1

Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart will shut down its website within a year whereas its fashion retail website Myntra will become app-only entity from May 1. According a senior executive quoted in The Times of India, Flipkart will move to an app-only format within a year.

Michael Adnani, vice president (retail and head of brand alliances) at Flipkart said that although last year despite getting more app users, Flipkart continued to be on the web platform, next year it would be mobile only. “A year ago, 6% of our traffic was coming from mobile. In less than 18 months, that traffic is 10-fold. That shows the significance of what a mobile phone is doing for the consumers and consequently doing for us,” he told the newspaper.

Flipkart becoming an app-only platform has been speculated before as well. Earlier in a report in Mint, sources in Flipkart had hinted that the website would be shutting down. According to the Flipkart spokesperson, the app has gained relevance because it allows the users to stay logged in all the time and also the shopping is quicker with faster checkouts as compared to the website.

This move isn’t surprising considering the response the apps are getting from consumers. Just to give an example, Myntra, the online fashion retailer which was acquired by Flipkart, has around 90% traffic and 70% of orders coming from its mobile app.

According to Prasad Kompalli, head of Myntra’s ecommerce platform, while seamless shopping experience is one aspect of a mobile e-commerce app, the other advantage include saving on costs. Maintaining a website, advertising and reaching out to consumers on the web platform is a tedious process whereas on an app-platform, things are relatively more focussed. Collecting relevant user data and targetted marketing is easier on the app than on the website according to people familiar with the matter.

Flipkart has around 40 million registered users and around 30,000 merchants selling over 20 million products online. According to the TOI report, Boston Consulting Group expects more than 580 million people in India to be online by 2018 out of which 70-80% will be accessing the web through their phones only. That’s a huge market to tap for mobile apps, since a majority of this population will not be able to afford a desktop to log on to the Flipkart website to shop.

According to Adnani, Myntra’s growth on the app has been higher than Flipkart which has lead the company to decide to shut down the web operations by May 1 and all transactions going forward will happen only on the Myntra app.

Recently, Flipkart was caught in the middle of a storm after news reports emerged that it was going to be part of the Airtel Zero marketing platform – which lets app developers pay for consumers’ data usage charges, provided they are using the said developer’s app. Flipkart which was initially supposed to be a partner in the Airtel Zero program, later withdrew support following backlash from netizens, who went to the Play Store and downvoted the Flipkart app to 1 star rating. Many thousands of users even uninstalled the Flipkart app. While the net neutrality debate is still on, Airtel has refused to back down from its Airtel Zero platform.

Tags: eCommerce, Flipkart, Flipkart app only,Flipkart to be app only, Flipkart to shut site

NOKIA to re-enter Smartphone Market in 2016

2015-04-20T19:21:00.001-07:00

Nokia to Re-Enter Smartphone Market in 2016: Report

A new report claims Nokia is looking to re-enter the smartphone market in 2016, and is also working on several new technologies includingvirtual reality.

As per a report by Re/code, which cites two people briefed on Nokia's plans, the Finnish company which was once the world's largest mobile manufacturer is set to make a comeback in the smartphone market with a business model similar to what it used to launch the Nokia N1 tablet.

Nokia had launched the N1 tablet last year with a brand-licensing agreement with Foxconn that made the established Chinese OEM responsible for manufacturing, distribution, and sales of the tablet. Re/code reports the company is looking at a similar brand-licensing agreement for its smartphone business revival, and that it will not be entering the intensely competitive manufacturing sphere again.

Post the acquisition of its devices and services business by Microsoft, Nokia was split into three companies - Nokia Networks (the telecommunications wing that just announced a takeover of Alcatel-Lucent), Here (the company's navigation, mapping, and location services subsidiary), and Nokia Technologies (the company responsible for licensing of Nokia's portfolio of patents and developing new products such as the Nokia N1 tablet and the Z Launcher).

(Also see: Nokia Confirms It Is Considering Sale of Here Maps Unit)

To remind our readers, Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's Devices and Services business stipulatedNokia could no longer use its brand on smartphones till Q4 2016, and on feature phones for 10 years. Thus, the 2016 time-frame of the Re/code report does not actually come as a surprise, and we can expect the Finnish firm to wait till the end of the year to avoid legal tussles.

Re/code notes that the company has been "staffing up and [is] hard at work on products for next year and beyond." Dolby Labs' Ramzi Haidamus has joined Nokia Technologies as president, and Cisco's Guido Jouret is the new CTO.

(Also see: Nokia Looking to License Brand Name to Third-Party Manufacturers)

There are not too many details reported about what Nokia is looking to launch with its re-entry into the consumer smartphone market next year. Re/code cites former Nokia executive Richard Kerris as one of the two sources with knowledge of the Finnish firm's plans. Kerris, who consulted with Nokia until last year, says Nokia has "a lot of great stuff in development" that will blow people away, adding that it gave him "complete confidence that Nokia is a company that is not going away."

(Also see: Nokia 1100 With Android 5.0 Lollipop, Quad-Core Processor Spotted)

No further details were given about the virtual reality initiative beyond the company working on the technology. Nothing is too certain as per the Re/code report, which wraps up by saying, "it remains to be seen just how committed Nokia's top leadership is to these projects. The unit has a history of creating products that haven't seen light of day amid the considerable turmoil the company has had in recent years."

Net neutrality in india, practically impossible but must be attempted

2015-04-20T18:47:00.001-07:00

Net Neutrality in India 'Practically Impossible' but Must Be Attempted: Experts

Amid the raging debate globally over net neutrality, which has evoked a strong reaction from stakeholders in India, domain experts feel that an unshackled access to the Internet world isn't feasible in India yet but attempts must continue for egalitarianism.

"Building a net neutral network is technologically not possible to implement. It's a utopian idea - no basis in technology," said Ravi V.S. Prasad, a telecom consultant who has designed several data-com andtelecom networks in the past 30 years.

"No telecom engineer will say that network neutrality is feasible. The concept that each data is treated equally does not hold good. You can't design data. The Internet inherently prioritises data on a scale of 0-7 points basis," Prasad told IANS.

Explaining further, he said a network architecture gives highest priority to network management, followed by online gaming, speech, videos and then still images, music files, movie downloads and file transfers. These cannot be on the same footing.

(Also See:Airtel Defends 'Zero' Marketing Platform, Says It Supports Net Neutrality)

Network neutrality, or open inter-working, means in accessing the World Wide Web, one is in full control over how to go online, where to go and what to do, as long as these are lawful. So firms that provide Internet services should treat all lawful Internet content in a neutral manner.

It also required such companies not to charge users, content, platform, site, application or mode of communication differentially. These are also the founding principles of the Internet and what has made it the largest and most diverse platform for expression in recent history.

Giving a slightly different perspective was Subimal Bhattacharjee, member of Research Advisory Network under the Global Commission on Internet Governance - an initiative of the Davos-based World Economic Forum launched last year to articulate the future of Internet governance.

"It is practically impossible to build a net-neutral network, but it has to be attained - or at least attempted. This is what will support innovation. Otherwise, the Net will not remain open and free," Bhattacharjee told IANS.

"Also, every telecom service provider is an intermediary under the Information Technology Act, in any case. If an operator tries to give an advantage to some players by taking a fee and improving their services, it is not allowed under Section 79 of IT Act."

According to Antony Alex, chief executive officer of online learning platform myLaw.net, the IT Act already provides for exceptions where net neutrality could be violated by Internet service providers - pornography being one such example.

"But violation of net neutrality for commercial benefit of a few is a different issue altogether. The law as it stands now is silent on net neutrality. That's why Internet service providers take advantage and offer different plans, which go against net neutrality," he said.

(Also See:Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Says Internet.org Can Coexist With Net Neutrality)

Bhattacharjee said: "The question that lies ahead of us now is whether service providers will be able to provide any special service under the over-the-top (OTT) banner. The way the mood is, it seems unlikely." Such services include apps like Viber and WhatsApp.

Similarly, Abhilekh Verma, partner with the legal and corporate consultancy firm Khaitan and Co., said the argument favouring neutrality of the Internet is an important one. "But one also has to note that in India, the Internet penetration leaves a lot to be desired."

In India, there were some 95 million broadband connections as of end-February. There was also a growing appetite among netizens in India to log on to social networking sites - Facebook, for example, claims 118 million active users in the country.

Another votary of net neutrality is technology evangelist Sam Pitroda, who, at the instance of then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, was responsible for India's telecom revolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"Net neutrality in India is fundamental to the future of democracy, development, demography and disparity. It is not about business, economics, customer service or the opinion of a few educated elites," Pitroda said.

He gave the example of the US and said after a brief debate there, the administration felt its importance. "However it required interventions at the highest level to push net neutrality. Short term issues cannot be allowed to create a fog and confusion in the minds of people."

The Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Ecuador have also adopted net neutrality.

As the situation stands in India today, the telecom watchdog released a paper inviting comments from all stakeholders on what are called the over-the-top services. Responses have to be filed by April 24 and the counter-arguments by May 8. The suggestions will subsequently follow.

Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, a lawyer by profession, said the government intends to take a call on the matter after receiving the watchdog's recommendations, as it intended to involve wider consultations.

"A panel is also examining the issue. It will submit its report by the second week of May. These will help the government take a comprehensive decision on this issue."

Whatsapp's dominance continues :it now has 800 million monthly active users

2015-04-18T21:30:00.001-07:00

WhatsApp’s dominance continues: It now has 800 million monthly active users

WhatsApp has over 800 million monthly active users now. (Source: Reuters)

WhatsApp, the social messaging app now owned by Facebook, continues to gain users at a steady pace and has hit the 800 million monthly active user mark. The numbers were put up on a Facebook post by Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder and CEO.

Koum wrote on Facebook, “WhatsApp – now serving 800,000,000 monthly active users. Reminder for the press out there: active and registered users are not the same thing.”

This is a big milestone for WhatsApp, since the company had announced in January that it had the 700 million monthly active users. That means in a span of over 4 months, they’ve managed to add another 100 million monthly active users.

Read: WhatsApp’s Android app gets a Material Design makeover

The difference between registered users and monthly active users that Koum has pointed out in his post is also an important one. What this means is that WhatsApp has 800 million users who are active on the platform each month. It means that the number of registered users, the ones who might have downloaded WhatsApp on an older number is probably much higher.

The difference between registered users, the ones who sign up but might not necessarily use the service, and monthly active users is an important one because it gives a sense of user engagement on that service. In WhatsApp’s case that’s 800 million currently, which is second only to its parent company Facebook, that boasts of more than 1 billion monthly active users.

WhatsApp is thus ahead of rivals like the Chinese app WeChat which has over 500 million monthlyactive users as of March 2015. WeChat is the most popular messaging app in China, where WhatsApp is still not available.

For WhatsApp, the spectacular growth hasn’t really meant a lot of profits. According to official resultsput out by Facebook, WhatsApp lost over $138 million last year. Facebook has so far said that it has no plans of exploring a business-model like say ads with WhatsApp.

RELIANCE JIO PLANS 4G ROLL OUT VIA INTEGRATED SYTEM..

2015-04-17T08:04:00.001-07:00

Reliance Jio plans 4G roll out via integrated system

New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani-led telecom firm Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) plans to launch its fourth generation (4G) services through an integrated system, a company statement said here on Friday.

"RJIL plans to provide seamless 4G services using LTE (long term evolution) in 800MHz, 1800MHz and 2300MHz bands through an integrated ecosystem," it said.

The company holds pan-India Unified Licence. It is the only private player with Broadband Wireless Access spectrum in all the 22 telecom circles of India and plans to provide reliable fast internet connectivity and rich digital services on a pan-India basis, it said.

In addition, RJIL has in 2014 acquired spectrum in 1800 MHz in 14 circles across India.

In March 2015, RJIL has successfully acquired the right to use spectrum in 800 MHz and 1800 MHz in 13 key circles across India in the spectrum auction.

The company earlier said it plans to roll out 4G in a phased manner in 2015.

In addition to the pan-India 2300 MHz spectrum, RJIL has spectrum in either 800 MHz or 1800 MHz or both in 20 out of the total of 22 circles in the country.

RJIL's total equivalent spectrum footprint has increased from 597.6MHz to 751.1MHz (including uplink and downlink), strengthening its position as the largest holder of liberalized spectrum.

"RJIL is setting up a pan-India telecom network to provide to the highly under-serviced India market, reliable (4th generation) high speed internet connectivity, rich communication services and various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment," the statement said.

RJIL aims to provide anytime, anywhere access to innovative and empowering digital content, applications and services, thereby propelling India into global leadership in digital economy.

"RJIL has made significant progress in building its LTE business, including physical network infrastructure, systems and processes, sales and distribution network, applications and services, content etc," the statement said.

It is working with strategic partners who have committed significant resources, know-how and global talent to support deployment and testing activities currently underway, it added.

Indian Mobile e Commerce Market to Hit $19 billion by 2019:Study

2015-04-13T01:01:00.001-07:00

Indian Mobile Commerce Market to Hit $19 Billion by 2019: Study

As smartphone sales continue their journey north surging by 51 percent every three months, the mobile commerce (m-commerce) market may grow by 55 percent from its present size of $2 billion to $19 billion (roughly Rs. 12,476 crores to roughly Rs. 1,18,530 crores) by 2019, a study said on Friday.

According to a study released by market research firm, Zinnov, "right from user research to product anytime and anywhere, smartphones are an emerging point of purchase and to address the demand from upcountry markets and changing consumer shopping pattern, e-commerce companies are increasing their focus on mobile commerce".

The survey found over 91 percent of the consumers had researched a product or service on their phone while online transactions on the smartphone platform rose between 30-50 percent in the upcountry areas.

Further, it said 54 percent of the consumers have purchased either a product or a service from their smartphones.

It opined that major e-commerce players like Flipkartand Quikr are serious about their plans to augment the m-commerce platform.

In 2014, 81 million smartphone units were shipped to the country.

"Smartphones are already outpacing the growth of feature phones and are expected to show a massive 36 percent CAGR over the next five years making it to the 651 million mark by 2019... The unstoppable surge of smartphones in India continues with 29 percent of urban population with a base of 409 million users adding to its adoption," the research firm said in a statement.

SNAPDEAL AQUIRES FREECHARGE, here is the quick fact file of the acquisition!!

2015-04-12T22:49:00.001-07:00

Snapdeal acquires Freecharge, here is the quick fact file of the acquisition

Touted as one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of the Internet industry in India, Snapdeal today announced that it has acquired FreeCharge to build the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in India.

The financial details of the deal were not disclosed by either company. When Kunal Bahl, Co-founder of Snapdeal, was asked about the deal structure, he said that the testament of a deal can be gauged by the way investors react to it. FreeCharge had raised $80 million earlier this year in February 2015 which took its total funding to $120 million where Snapdeal has raised almost $1.1 billion, including the massive $627 million funding round of 2014 October.

FreeCharge and Snapdeal were founded in 2010 in Mumbai and New Delhi respectively. Kunal Bahl and Kunal Shah (Co-founder FreeCharge) knew each since then and have been in discussion for some time now.

The deal will not affect the consumer immediately as both the entities continue the way they are, but brings a significant turmoil in the mobile commerce ecosystem of India. In a joint statement issued by both the companies, the co-founders said,

The companies will collaborate to offer a seamless shopping experience to customers across both the platforms offering an even wider range of products and services.

YourStory brings everything you wanted to know about the current deal:

1. With this acquisition, Snapdeal claims to be the largest mobile commerce company in India.

2. FreeCharge will continue to function as an independent platform and all aspects of FreeCharge’s shopping experience will remain intact.

3. It’s a cash plus stock deal with the majority of it in stocks and only a small part in cash.

4. Integration will take almost six months.

5. The 200 employees of FreeCharge continue with the company which will now witness some aggressive hiring.

6. At the time of the deal, FreeCharge had more than $80 million in its bank accounts.

6. Snapdeal and FreeCharge combined together have a user base of over 40 million and a total of 30 million app downloads (FreeCharge 10 million) on play store.

7. Both the platforms combined together witness >1 million transactions daily.

8. Snapdeal now has seven major subsidiaries – Snapdeal, Exclusively.in, RupeePower, TV-Shop, Snapdeal Plus, Gojavas and FreeCharge.

9. While Snapdeal receives over 70% of its orders from tier-2 cities and beyond, FreeCharge receives less than 30% orders from these geographies.

10. This could be one of the biggest M&A in the Indian internet ecosystem.

Shah said,

This deal is not targeted at raising funds or making an immediate exit. We believe that the combined partnership along with our independent operations in this deal will give more firepower to the company.

Watch Kunal Shah explaining the laws of mobile growth below:

Sony plans to launch virtual reality headset in 2016

2015-04-07T20:31:00.001-07:00

Sony plans to launch virtual-reality headset in 2016

Sony intends on unleashing its virtual-reality headset on consumers next year. The gaming and electronics giant says its Project Morpheus VR system will debut in early 2016.

The announcement was made y at a news conference held during the Game Developers Conference.

Sony originally unveiled a prototype of the headset nicknamed Project Morpheus at last year’s conference. The headset works in tandem with Sony’s PlayStation 4 console and camera by covering users’ eyes and simulating virtual worlds on screen.

The company showed off an updated prototype of the headset. It features 5.7-inch (14.5-centimeter) OLED screens that display a 100-degree field of view and nine LED lights used to track movement. Sony says the headset can render games at 120 frames per second. No price was announced.

Earlier this week, HTC is stepped into the territory of virtual reality and partnered with a company called Valve (a video game platform company that distributes and manages thousands of games such as Counter Strike etc) to launch its own virtual reality headset. The HTC Vive headset as it’s called, will get a consumer edition by 2015 and the developer addition will launch this Spring.

With inputs from Associated Press

Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet With Octa-Core Snapdragon 810

2015-03-08T03:12:00.001-07:00

Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet With Octa-Core Snapdragon 810 SoC Launched at MWC 2015

Sony at MWC 2015 in Barcelona has launched the Xperia Z4 Tablet. Featuring a 10.1-inch display, it is the successor to the Xperia Z2 Tablet, and will be launched in June in Wi-Fi only and 4G LTE models, in Black and White colour variants. Unfortunately, no pricing has been revealed yet.

The 6.1mm-thick Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet has IP65 and IP68 certification for dust and water resistance, and can survive immersion up to 30 minutes in 1.5 metres of water. Shipping with Android 5.0 Lollipop, it features a 10.1-inch 2560x1600 pixel IPS Triluminos display, with a 300ppi pixel density. The screen features scratch-resistant glass.

The Xperia Z4 Tablet and Xperia Z4 Tablet LTEruns on the 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 810 SoC coupled with 3GB of RAM and the Adreno 430 GPU. It sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with an Exmor RS sensor, and a 5-megapixel front-facing with a wide-angle lens camera. The tablet features Hi-Res audio playback support, digital noise cancellation, Sony 3D Surround Sound technology (VPT), Clear Audio+, and xLoud tech.

(Also see: Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet vs. Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact)

The tablet features 32GB of built-in storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 128GB). Connectivity options include 4G LTE (Nano-SIM), Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with Direct and hotspot functionality, Bluetooth v4.1 with A2DP, GPS/ A-GPS with GLONASS, NFC, FM radio with RDS, and Micro-USB. The Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet is powered by a non-removable 6000mAh battery that is rated to deliver up to 17 hours of video playback. The tablet weighs 395 grams.

(Also see: Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet vs. Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet)

Sony's also touting accessing to the Xperia Lounge Gold service for exclusive apps, apart for video and music content. The Japanese firm is also selling three accessories alongside, due in June.

These include the specially-designed Sony BKB50 Bluetooth Keyboard, which docks with the tablet to create a laptop-tablet hybrid, and features a touch pad, aside from a variety of ports. The company also announced a Sony SRC32 tablet cover that acts like a flip case and stand, apart from the Sony BSP60 smart Bluetooth speaker.

MWC 2015 in Pictures

For full coverage of the Mobile World Congress from Barcelona, visit our MWC 2015 page.

Sony Xperia Z4 Tablet

Key Specs News

Display10.10-inchProcessor2GHzFront Camera5.1-megapixelResolution2560x1600 pixelsRAM3GBOSAndroid 5.0Storage32GBRear Camera8.1-megapixelBattery capacity6000mAh

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How to make a million rupees online without investing a single penny

2015-03-07T19:36:00.001-08:00

How to make a million rupees online as a student

If you have travelled in a Mumbai local train I would be surprised if you missed noticing this ad: “Make Rs 30,000 online per month sitting at home, no investment.” At least it is honest about one thing — you can definitely make good money online sitting at home. However, the investment required is your time, effort, patience and persistence.

Entrepreneurship is a rage today. Everyone wants to build the next big thing; the next billion dollar idea. I remember during my college years, all we cared about was how do we get more money for the next date, or the next weekend trip to Lonavla.

Without digressing too much, let me come straight to the point, yes you can make a million rupees online and that too during college years.

Blog: Come on, what were you expecting? That I will tell you about some hidden treasure? Almost everyone has heard that you can make money off blogging but what are the key things to remember. Start a blog today; write at least two-three posts about a niche topic every week. Become an expert in it, and remember you are not going to make any money with this for the next six months or maybe even a year. Make a Facebook page to support the blog and Twitter, connect with other experts, and ask them to guest post on your blog. Read how this guy made a million dollars through a wordpress blog. Writing practices your idea muscle. Like I make a point to write something every week. What you are reading is this week’s work. There are a few hacks too, a friend of mine bought top10fastest.com, and got to rank two when people were searching for top 10 fastest cars, what next? 400$ in two months of starting the blog and spending less than two hours on it. Head to blogger.com (for beginners I prefer this over WordPress and the Adsense account gets approved faster).Youtube: If you were to tell me that you skip the pre roll ad on Youtube 100% of times I would beg to differ. Come on sometimes we do watch the ad when Katrina Kaif wants to teach us Aamsutra or the next trailer of a Salman Khan movie. And every time you watch that for more than 30 seconds the video channel owner makes money. Usually for every 1000 views you will end up making around 5$ if most of your views are from India. Here also figure out a niche, have an idea? Execute. Upload. Take feedback, then repeat. So we will be expecting more of “The Viral Fevers” and “Khan Academies” in India now. Patience and Persistence. And remember no money for the first 12 months, but ship a video every 15 days.iWriter.com: If you are not the one for delayed gratification and want to see hard cash instantly, head to iwriter.com right now, but make sure you have a paypal account before you do that. Now iWriter is as easy as writing content for other people, or to be more precise other people’s blogs, because all they want is more and more content on some keywords depending on their business. For starters, you will get paid around 3$ for an article, as you progress and increase your ratings it increases to 15%. A friend of mine makes 30-40k per month through this. You know what’s another good idea? Make a blog and use iwriter.com to generate content for that.
Fiverr.com: Are you that inspirational person who is always the one to give advice to your friends in distress? Do you know you can actually make a lot of money doing that for a lot of people? She is definitely making http://www.fiverr.com/nogalicious/give-you-instant-relief-from-sadness-or-stress , Convert your idiosyncrasies to make money, be it your bathroom singing, or your penchant for being a grammar Nazi, do that for other people and get paid every time.

Self Publishing: Forget a million rupees, hit it right and you can make a million dollars through self publishing. If you are not the one for patience, then forget about this. This requires most patience and persistence. Your first book that you publish on Amazon will never get you more than 10,000 bucks unless you have already published a hard copy. You have to keep writing, and building your brand. How to start? Take a set of your blog posts, write more on them and convert them into a collection of stories, then figure out the whole process of how the Kindle program works, market yourself, think of more ideas and repeat.Airbnb: A few months back I got chatting with Nalin Jha. How did I meet him? I had rented out his apartment for a day through Airbnb. It was a normal 1BHK in Hauz Khas which would probably go for 30k per month. Guess how much he was making out of it? Over 1.2 lakh a month. How? Airbnb. Have an extra apartment or even a room in your house? List it on Airbnb. It’s like renting out your space to travelers. For them it’s cheaper than a hotel, for you it’s more money than the normal rent. Your roommate is going home next week for 10 days? Time to make some hard cash. Figure out the technicalities though, if you are a tenant you might have to talk to the owner first. By the way, Nalin’s place in Delhi is awesome.

I am pretty sure you knew or had heard about most of the things I have mentioned. So what’s stopping you? It really works. And people who ask what are the first steps to entrepreneurship, well here they are.

But as everything in life, and I repeat again, patience and persistence is what you need.

This article has been originally published onFlat.to’s blog.

You might also like this amazing infographic from Funders and Founders on “How to make money – the startup way”

SAN disk launched 200gb microsd card,usb drive

2015-03-07T18:49:00.001-08:00

SanDisk Unveils 200GB microSDXC card, USB Drive With Type-C Connector

Pushing the boundaries of portable storage, SanDisk has unveiled a new microSDXC memory card with an astonishing 200GB capacity. This is particularly impressive because SandDisk has continued to push more and more gigabytes onto a storage medium that is the size of the average human fingernail.

It's interesting to note that despite paying the cost of an average smartphone ($400) for the SanDisk 200GB Ultra microSDXC UHS-1 Premium Edition card, users may not actually be able to use it with anything just yet. Most devices that support microSD are rated to support up to 128GB cards for the time being, including the just unveiled HTC One M9. The new Samsung Galaxy S6 does not even support expandable storage, departing from Samsung's typical strategy of flagship phones supporting microSD cards. SanDisk rates the card speed at 90MB/s, which means that it will take in excess of 30 minutes to actually fill it up with data.

Also launched by SanDisk is a new 32GB dual-USB drive with a reversible Type-C USB 3.1 connector, and one USB 3.0 connector. Again, here isn't anything you can actually connect the Dual USB Drive to, with Type-C compatible phones and tablets expected to launch in the coming months. Whenever they do, this card will keep you ready though, and in the meantime, you can always use the regular USB plug to connect it to the vast majority of computers available in the market.

Neither of these products are actually launching just yet, with SanDisk just content to showcase the fact that it's ready with the next generation of products. Both will be available in the coming months, with the Type-C USB drive also expecting storage capacities higher than 32GB.

SanDisk has also revealed a new 128GB version of its popular iXpand Flash Drive range, designed to quickly transfer pictures and video from iOS devices to Mac computers or PCs. There are also updates to the iXpand Sync app, which now supports Apple's Touch ID fingerprint sensor on the new iPhones and iPads. The new 128GB capacity costs $150 (roughly Rs. 9,300) and is already retailing via Sandisk.com.

Apple overtakes Samsung as world's biggest smartphone maker

2015-03-07T07:17:00.001-08:00

Apple overtakes Samsung as the world's biggest smartphone maker

THE GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 2015 6:27 AM GMT

A visitor uses his Apple iPhone to take a picture of the new Samsung Galaxy 6 smartphone at GSM Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week.

Demand from China helps US tech firm shift 74.8m units in last quarter of 2014, 1.8m more than South Korean rival

Juliette Garside

Apple has officially overtaken Samsung as the world's biggest smartphone maker, selling more phones in the Christmas quarter than any other brand thanks to rising demand in China.

The US company sold 74.8m smartphones, just ahead of Samsung's 73m units, analysis firm Gartner said.

Apple's iPhone sales were up almost 25m on the same period last year, driven by an explosion in demand from China that helped push its profits to a record $18bn (£11.8bn) in the final quarter.

Apple has long outsold Samsung by value, but its new dominance by volume spells trouble for its South Korean rival, which has been struggling with falling sales and shrinking earnings.

Samsung sold nearly 10m fewer phones than it did in the runup to Christmas 2013, thanks to lacklustre demand for its flagship Galaxy S5 and fierce competition at the lower end of the market.

“Samsung's performance in the smartphone market deteriorated further in the fourth quarter of 2014, when it lost nearly 10 percentage points in market share,” said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at Gartner.

“Samsung continues to struggle to control its falling smartphone share, which was at its highest in the third quarter of 2013. This downward trend shows that Samsung's share of profitable premium smartphone users has come under significant pressure.”

Chinese firms such as Xiaomi, Huawei and Lenovo, which from a startup in 2010 is now valued at $45bn, have begun to nibble at Samsung's sales by offering high performance low-cost phones and brands that younger customers increasingly identify with.

Xiaomi has more than doubled its market share in a year to 5%, selling almost 19m units in the final three months of 2014, up from 6m the year before. The firm has already expanded into developing markets including India, Indonesia and Mexico, and is preparing to launch its Mi.com accessories store in Europe.

Lenovo is in third place with 24m units sold, and Huawei fourth with 21m units.

Samsung is now fighting to avoid the downwards spiral that damaged once profitable mobile phone businesses like Nokia and Blackberry. It responded on Sunday by launching two updates to its flagship phone, the S6 and S6 Edge, which sports an unusual curved screen.

Despite Samsung's problems, the overall market is still growing. Sales of smartphones to end users grew totaled 1.2bn units in 2014, up 28% from 2013, and these internet enabled devices now represent two-thirds of global mobile phone sales.