TO BE ENGINEERS

Sony rises into smartphone top three; Nokia & HTC lose out big time

2012-11-27T09:21:00.001-08:00

Sony Mobile seems to have turned the corner, or at least figured out which corner needs to be turned! The company is now comfortably in the third spot in the smartphone sales rankings. This has been established in the latest research from IDC, which states that in Q3’12, Sony holds a 4.8% market share in the global smartphone market. This puts it solidly in third place, behind Samsung and Apple.

It is interesting to note that this market share percentage is down from 5% at the corresponding stage in 2011, but Sony has risen most because of the fall of Nokia and HTC. Nokia’s quarter on quarter market share dropped from 13.6% to 3.4%, while HTC dropped from 10.3% to 4.7%. RIM’s market share also fell, from 9.6% to 4.2%. For the top two, Samsung saw an increase from 22.7% to 31.3%, while Apple improved from 13.8% to 14.6%.

Clearly, Sony’s rise is partly because of the interesting Android phones it made this year, and partly because of the decline of Nokia and HTC. From the figures mentioned earlier, Sony’s market share actually fell slightly, but Nokia’s and HTC’s fell more. But there is absolutely no way that we can take anything away from the fact that after the divorce with Ericsson, Sony Mobile has rebranded itself rather well.

The NXT range of Android phones were very impressive, particularly the Xperia S. The branding it got in the Bond movie, Skyfall, didn’t do any harm either. But the bigger tasks lie ahead, in 2013, when the much rumored “Odin” flagship phone is unveiled.

Samsung Galaxy S IV to have a 13MP camera, may be unveiled in early 2013

2012-11-27T09:14:00.003-08:00

Samsung’s next gen Galaxy smartphone, the Galaxy S IV may be unveiled at CES 2013, which happens in January, or at MWC 2013 (Mobile World Congress) that takes place in February.

If rumours on the Internet are to be believed, the Korean giant's next smartphone is expected to feature a 4.99-inch display with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. This means that the display will have a 445 ppi pixel density, which is really high. Currently, the iPhone 5' 4-inch display is 326ppi, and the Samsung Galaxy S III's 4.8-inch display is 306 ppi.

Other speculation suggests that the device may also house a 13MP camera. The Galaxy Note II was also rumoured to have a 13MP camera but at launch we saw that the device housed an 8MP camera, so will believe the 13MP camera on the smartphone when we see it.

Under the hood, a quad-core Exynos 5450 processor clocked at 2GHz may power the device and we suspect the it will have 2GB of RAM.

This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard about rumours of the Samsung Galaxy S IV.

In September 2012, the Korea Times reads: “Samsung Electronics plans to unveil the latest in its Galaxy line, the S4, at a European technology exhibition in February, according to company officials and local parts suppliers for the technology giant.

Facebook: 4 things to avoid

2012-11-17T08:57:00.003-08:00

SYDNEY: Very few of us read the lengthy terms and conditions when we sign up for anything, but social networking site Facebook has some very strict rules that might lead us being de-friended by the network itself if we aren't careful.

Some of the reasons are actually about legal realities, such as businesses unwittingly breaching copyright with the content on their Facebook pages, while others are just laws according to Facebook and can lead to a personal page being removed or disabled without warning, News.com.au reports.
"You or your business could be running the risk of suddenly disappearing from networks," says social media law expert and solicitor director of PodLegal Jamie White.
According to the report, the first rule we must follow on the social site is that though Facebook is all about having friends and connections, one mustn't have too many. The average is 120 and the limit is thought to be 5000; which is when Facebook gets suspicious that no-one can be that popular and may look into your account.
The second rule is keeping your profile as real as possible. If you use an alias and have a kitten as your profile photograph you're asking for trouble. The network has been known to take down a page allegedly belonging to a cow, and one from a legitimate UK MP because it didn't think it was real, the report said.
The third rule we all must take care is not being too active on the social site, even if Facebook is all about posting. But going overboard should be well avoided.
The fourth and the final rule is keeping in mind the term and conditions of 'Copyright'. With internet being the primary medium of free sharing of content, a cardinal rule to follow in Facebook is 'If you don't own it, don't post.

President launches Aakash-2 tablet

2012-11-11T04:57:00.000-08:00

NEW DELHI: The advanced version of low-cost tablet Aakash was launched here today by President Pranab Mukherjee.

Coming at a price tag of Rs 1,130 for students, the new version 'Aakash 2', which will be made available to students of engineering colleges and universities to begin with, is now powered by a processor running at 1 GHz, has a 512 MB, a 7 inch capacitative touch screen and a battery working for three hours of normal operations.

It has been developed under the aegis of IIT Bombay with the active support of C-DAC. Datawind is rolling out the device.

"The price is Rs 2,263 at which the government purchases the device from us. The government subsidises it by 50 per cent and it will be distributed to students at Rs 1,130," said Datawind CEO Suneet Tuli.

He said the government is also trying to encourage the state governments to chip in by subsidising it further so that the device can eventually be available to students free of cost.

The first one lakh devices will be provided to students of engineering colleges and universities and subsequently these will be distributed to others.

About 22 crore students will get the device across the country in the next five to six years. By coming Monday alone, 20,000 devices are expected to reach out to the students.

The device, which can also run on Linux operating system, do Aadhar authentication and control a robot from a distant place, said HRD Ministry officials.

Grand Theft Auto V Trailer

2012-11-11T04:38:00.001-08:00

Hurricane Sandy: Over 20 million tweets

2012-11-03T03:52:00.001-07:00

Twitter users flocked to the micro-messaging network this week as Hurricane Sandy swept through the eastern US seaboard, sending more than 20 million tweets about the storm between Saturday and Thursday, the company said.

This far exceeds the 13.7 million tweets sent during the Super Bowl in February, typically the largest media event of the year.

Founded in 2006, Twitter has sought to position itself as a "second screen" media product that users can pull up on their smartphones while watching events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics on television.

But the service has shone as a communication channel during major disasters, such as in the wake of the 2011 tsunami in Japan.

Twitter, which has been susceptible to occasional outages, stayed up glitch-free this week, serving at times as a vital source of information for afflicted residents.

The number of times that users in New York City loaded their home timeline from a mobile device peaked around 9 p.m. Monday night, around the time an explosion at a Consolidated Edison transformer knocked out power, more than doubling the total from the previous two days, the company said, without providing details.

The 20 million tweets included the terms "sandy," "hurricane," " #sandy," and " #hurricane," the company said.

Gangnam Style second most-viewed YouTube vide

2012-11-03T03:48:00.002-07:00

SEOUL: South Korean pop sensation Psy's Gangnam Style has become the second most-watched YouTube video of all time with more than 620 million hits as the quirky rapper continues to take the world by storm.
The 34-year-old singer, whose real name is Park Jae-Sang, rocketed to international fame after "Gangnam Style" -- a techno ode to a trendy Seoul neighbourhood -- become a worldwide hit following its debut in July.
The video went viral online with its goofy signature horse-riding dance and on Friday ousted singer Jennifer Lopez's dance hit "On the Floor" from second place. But it still trails behind Canadian teenage heartthrob Justin Bieber's "Baby", which has had over 795 million hits.
John Hirai, head of music at YouTube's Korea-Japan branch, told a conference in Seoul that Psy would pass Bieber on YouTube's most-watched list in about a month.
He thinks the secret of Psy's success lies in the speed at which the singer uploaded a sequel video on his official website, as well as footage of the making of his video and interviews, for users wanting to know more about him and "Gangnam Style".
"It comes like a total package at the end, so it just generated views," Hirai said, according to Yonhap news agency.
"I've been in this music business for 25 plus years and I've never seen anything like this and I've never imagined anything like this would come out of Asia. It's just unbelievable but it's overwhelming," he said.
Psy has also remained at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 music chart in the United States for a sixth straight week after topping charts in countries including Britain and Australia.
The popularity of the song and video, which spawned hundreds of parodies and tribute videos across the world, has helped the singer land a contract with Bieber's management agency.
Psy, currently on a promotional tour in the United States, last week performed on ABC's "The View" talk show, after his appearances at the MTV awards and other prime-time programmes last month boosted his profile.
The star is already a music veteran at home with six albums under his belt and next week he will begin a promotional tour in Europe that includes a speech at the Oxford Union and an appearance at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Germany.
In another sign of his international reach, Psy was featured on the front cover of the latest issue of US weekly music magazine Billboard, which analyses factors that have helped the singer succeed and hails him as "a ready-made star."
The story also examines how Scooter Braun, the music executive known for discovering YouTube sensations-turned pop stars like Bieber, ended up signing Psy for the US market.
The rapper recently unveiled plans for his next song in an interview on the US cable network CNN, saying the lyrics will be a mix of English and Korean.

GTA Vice City coming to Android and iOS this Fall

2012-10-29T09:11:00.003-07:00

Rockstar Games has announced that for the 10 year anniversary of GTA: Vice City, their most popular Grand Theft Auto game yet, for Android and iOS. Rockstar had done something similar for Grand Theft Auto III, releasing the game for the popular mobile platforms to celebrate the game’s 10 year anniversary.

Vice City takes place before the events of GTA: III, sometime in the 80’s. The city layout is based on Miami and is heavily influenced by the cult classic, Scarface. Vice City was the first game where the protagonist, Tommy Vercetti, could use bikes as vehicles along with the ability to change costumes in order to dodge the cops.

Rockstar has stated that the game will be visually rich, featuring “native high resolution graphics and several enhancements.” Unfortunately, those are the only details available so far, if they may be considered details at all. What enhancements will make their way into the final version of the game are unknown, as is the release date. All we have for now is a “coming this Fall” banner.

Lately there has been a spurt of converting popular classics to iOS and Android counterparts, the newest additions being Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog, Dreamcast’s Crazy Taxi (though it was an arcade game before Dreamcast took it over). Rockstar’s own GTA III was a big success when it made its way to iOS and Android devices and we’d expext the same from GTA: Vice City

Nokia out of top 5 globally in sales, tops in India

2012-10-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

Finnish mobile handset manufacturer Nokia, which is facing a major crisis in global sales, still tops the list of mobile handset market in India even as it has been displaced from the fifth spot in global sales by the beleaguered BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM).

According to a report by Cybermedia, Nokia had 22.2 per cent share of the Indian handset market in terms of total unit shipments in the first half of 2012, followed by Samsung with 13 per cent and Micromax in the third spot with 5.5 per cent share.

India's total mobile handset shipments topped 102.43 million units, of which 5.50 million were smartphones, as per the report. Samsung topped the list of smartphone shipments, followed by Nokia and RIM.

The report also revealed that Android (with 56.4% market share) was the leading operating system (OS) in India, followed by Symbian (17.4% share), BlackBerry (12.1% share), Bada (8.5% share), iOS (3.0% share) and Windows Mobile (2.6% share) on a base of 5.50 million units, during the same period.

India is one of the few markets where Nokia still has a hold. As per an IDC report, the Finnish company has now dropped off the Top 5 list of smartphone vendors, which is led by Samsung and Apple at number 1 and 2 positions. Nokia was replaced by RIM at fifth position whose shipment volumes appear to have flattened though the company posted the second-highest year-over-year decline among any the leading vendors.

According to Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Nokia's share losses and the company's transition away from Symbian to Windows Phone has left ample opportunity for rivals to steal share away from Nokia over the past 18 months.

Apple iPhone 5 to be launched in India on November 2

2012-10-26T06:40:00.004-07:00

Ingram Micro announced today that it will offer the Apple iPhone 5 at leading trade stores and retail outlets across India beginning on Friday, November 2. The iPhone 5 was launched in the US on September 21.

It was recently reported that in order to expand its user base in India, Apple will start selling the iPhone 5 through specialised distribution companies. Apple has tied up with Ingram Micro Inc, which is a large US-based distributor of technologies, as well as Redington India Ltd, a local distributor with 12,000 smaller partners across the country.

iPhone 5 coming soon

There is no word yet on the official prices of the iPhone 5 in India, but the prices are expected to be the same as the iPhone 4S when it first launched. However, the prices are speculated to be Rs 45,500 for the 16GB version, Rs 52,500 for the 32GB version, and Rs 59,500 for the 64GB model.

According to a recent report, “Apple has used both these distributors in the past for products like the iPad, but did not do so for the iPhone as it was concerned that paying third-party distributors would eat into its profit margins on a key product. Apple’s Chief Executive Tim Cook said earlier this year that the company saw higher potential in countries other than India, largely because of the high cost of distributing products here. “We have a business there, that business is growing, but the sort of the multilayer distribution there really adds to the cost of getting products to market,” Mr. Cook told analysts in July.”

Here is a quick look at the highlighted features of the iPhone 5:

4-inch, 326ppi Retina display at 1136 x 640 pixels,
GPRS, EDGE, EV-DO, HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSDPA, LTE and Wi-Fi
GPS
Bluetooth
8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD recording, 720p front-facing camera
16GB, 32GB, and 64GB versions

Made entirely out of aluminium and glass, the iPhone 5 weighs 112 grams, and is 20 percent lighter than the iPhone 4S, and is the thinnest iPhone yet at 7.6mm. Apple has chosen to debut iOS 6 with the iPhone 5. The new OS includes Apple's own Maps app, an updated version of Siri and lots more. Overall, the new iPhone has been upgraded in almost all respects.

Siri has also been updated and new features include support for more languages, easy access to sports scores, restaurant recommendations and movie listings; Siri and Facebook-enabled apps like Photos, Safari and Maps; and Shared Photo Streams via iCloud.

Safari has also received a major update – the ability to go full screen on the device by touching the arrows on the corners. Another major feature of the new Safari app is the ability to sync tabs between the desktop and iOS versions of Safari. This new feature is called iCloud Tabs. The new Mail app has also received some updates, including the ability to mark people as VIPs and the ability to flag certain mails for follow-ups.

TCS to hire 25,000 from campus

2012-10-26T06:37:00.004-07:00

NEW DELHi: TCS today announced its second-quarter earnings and shed light on its hiring plans. The company stated that it will be recruiting a total of 25,000 students via campus placements, out of which 12,500 have already been hired.

Speaking about its new hires in Q2 2012, Ajoy Mukherjee, the HR head of the company, commented, "We've hired 18654 this quarter in India. We're sticking to our hiring plans." Out of this figure, 10,205 were trainees, 5,764 were laterals and 2,685 were overseas employees.
The net addition of employees for the quarter stood at 10,531.

TCS also reported 11.4% employee attrition rate in IT and BPO divisions, its lowest over the past ten quarters.

Zuckerberg reveals Microsoft was his backup plan, if Facebook had failed

2012-10-24T05:59:00.002-07:00

Speaking at Stanford University, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg revealed that if his website had failed to pick up, he’d have gone over to Microsoft to work as an engineer. What’s not clear is whether he already had an offer or had hoped that the Redmond giant would hire him.

Zuckerberg did bring up the Harvard connection though, as a lot of Harvard graduates want to work for Microsoft. It could also be the fact that both Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard dropouts.

Zuckerberg took the opportunity to address many issues, including rumours that he was against ads in the nascent stages of Facebook. He said he in fact was all for them as the revenue would have helped purchase more servers, as he was obsessed with making sure the social networking site never experienced downtime. More servers also meant that the website could expand the social net it cast, allowing more user sign-ups which eventually led to the site crossing the billion users mark.

Zuckerberg also shared with the audience that the programmers at Facebook considered releasing a course catalog to using the social networking site, especially the sections pertinent to privacy.

Given how important online privacy has become, a guide to using these features of Facebook would have been extremely useful. Whether such a document will be released or not isn’t clear, but we can only hope that it sees the light of day.

Google may soon meet its 'end'

2012-10-23T06:24:00.003-07:00

After Google shares dropped nearly 10 percent over the course of two days, wiping out more than 24 billion dollars from the company's value, analysts have started predicting whether the world's leading internet search engine could be nearing an end soon.
"[Google] could disappear in five to eight years and disappear in the sense that Yahoo used to be the king of search. Now, for all intents and purposes, Yahoo has disappeared," the Daily Mail quoted Eric Jackson, the founder and managing member of Ironfire Capital, a technology-focussed hedge fund, as saying.
According to the paper, the profit losses were driven by a decline in advertising revenue, according to its earnings report. The amount that advertisers paid Google on a click-per-click basis fell 15 percent.
Advertising revenues are falling, which would continue to fall for internet companies because consumers are increasingly migrating to mobile applications and advertisers aren't willing to pay as much for a mobile ad, the paper said.
"I keep saying Facebook isn't the only one that has a mobile issue-Google does, too. If you are an investor in Facebook, mobile is priced into earnings. I don't think mobile in Google is priced in," Colin Gillis, an analyst for Boston Consulting Group said.
The main reason for Google's fall in profits is its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola, the struggling cellphone manufacturer, the division that lost more than 500 million dollars over the quarter, prompting aggressive cost-cutting measures, the paper said.
However, the web giant is also suffering in its core business, search-related advertising, as the income received for every ad clicked on fell by 15 per cent in just three months, it added.

Facebook's user base in India grows to 65 million

2012-10-20T07:31:00.001-07:00

Facebook has announced its user base in India has grown to 65 million users, from just 8 million in 2010 - a growth that has made it an essential market for the company today, competing with Brazil and Indonesia for the number two spot.

As of August 2012, the user base was around 50 million, suggesting a rapid growth of the social networking website in rural and urban parts of the country.

According to Head of Facebook India Kirthiga Reddy, companies have increased their expenditure on online advertisements, which is now growing at 25 percent year-on-year. “Our reach can be a strong platform for marketers,” she told the media after inauguration of the company's refurbished office in Hyderabad.

She further revealed that top brands across the sectors in the country were using Facebook to engage with their customers. Moreover, Facebook is now aiming at the small and medium companies, for which the network recently teamed up with industry body FICCI.

“We are interacting with SMEs through the industry body on how they can build a presence on Facebook and engage with their customers,” Kirthiga said.

With an increasing Internet population, including the smartphone users, in India, Facebook is expected to post growth at the same pace in the near future. However, sustaining the growth will not be that easy.

As WSJ in its report points out, the social networking website has cater to millions of Indians still using the feature and low-tech phones. Moreover, it has to make its platform more accessible to the local developers to boost its ecosystem. If Facebook's model succeeds in India, it could apply same in other emerging markets such as Indonesia and Brazil.

“As we think about how to deliver the best possible Facebook experience to an emerging-market customer, India is probably the best place to incubate and experiment on different ways we can deliver that experience," WSJ quotes Meenal Balar, Facebook's director for international growth as saying.

That being said, Facebook has definitely taken a lot of measures to make its services popular in the country. It recently rolled out support for Hindi and seven other Indian languages for its feature phone app. Moreover, it is currently running a scheme under which it is offering Rs. 50 talktime for new users signing up via mobile phone. Read more about the Facebook scheme here.

1bn people in the world don't have mobile phones

2012-10-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

About one billion people across the world still do not own a mobile phone, and a third of the world's population is unable to access the internet, a study has found.
The report by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) showed that six billion people -- six out of seven of the world's population -- had a subscription to a mobile phone by the end of 2011, the Daily Mail reported.
However, even with the rapid advancement of the communications industry, one billion others still do not have a phone.
About a third of the world's population - around 2.3 billion - does not have access to the internet, the report said.
The report said the number of people acquiring mobile phone subscriptions has risen sharply in recent years, with developing countries seeing a double-digit growth in 2011.
The daily said the use of mobile broadband grew by 78 percent in developing countries and 40 percent across the world.
However, huge disparities were revealed in the cost of services from country-to-country, the ITU report said, with poorer nations paying the most.
Macau, Norway and Singapore were at the top of the list of 161 countries in terms of internet affordability, while Madagascar came last, just behind Togo and Niger.

Google announces Doodle 4 Google India 2012 competition

2012-10-03T23:54:00.002-07:00

Google India has announced its Doodle 4 Google competition for 2012 and has invited school students between the ages of 5 to 16 years across the country to create innovative Google doodles. Winning doodle will be featured as the Google logo on the 14th November, which is also celebrated as Children's Day in the country. This year's theme is “Unity in Diversity”.

Google says the contest had received more than one lakh entries last year. And this year, the company hopes the participation will increase as the contest will reach 40 cities. Announcing this year’s competition, Nikhil Rungta, Country Marketing Head, Google India said, “Doodle 4 Google is a great opportunity for students to explore the intersection of art and technology, while sharing their talents and creativity on a national scale. Through this program we hope participants will have fun, think creatively and learn something new all at the same time.”

As per the tradition, the participants will be divided in three different categories. Group 1 will feature students from class 1 to 3, Group 2 has students from class 4 to 6 and Group 3 has students from class 7 to 10. The new thing introduced by Google is that the participants will divided into four regions – North, South, East and West. Google will shortlist three students from every region across each of the three groups.

The first round of entries will undergo preliminary judging, post which 12 entries will be announced based on a selection by a panel consisting of independent judges. All chosen entries will be exhibited for public voting, and based on the number of votes, one winner from each group will be selected. The Jury along with the original Google Doodler will then choose the final winning Doodle from all the finalists.

The last date to submit the entry is October 23rd, 2012. Check out other submission guidelines for the Doodle 4 Google competition here.

Take a look at the last year's winning doodle from Noida's Varsha Gupta:

Apple CEO Tim Cook's gift to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg

2012-10-03T23:28:00.003-07:00

LONDON: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he owns 20 identical grey T-shirts, and that was why it seems he wears the same thing every day.

In a TV interview, the 28-year-old millionaire also revealed he does not get much closet space at home, and the space is mainly used by wife Priscilla Chan, the Daily Mail reported.

It was long suspected that he owns multiple T-shirts of the same colour, so that he does not have to worry about what to wear.

Asked if he owns 12 of the same T-shirt, Zuckerberg said it was more like 20.

"I mean, I wear the same thing every day, right?" Zuckerberg was quoted as saying.

His identical T-shirt collection lives in one drawer that he gets to use. "Like men everywhere," he said.

He also spoke about the future of Facebook, his daily routine and his wedding to his college sweetheart.

The Facebook CEO also revealed that Apple's Tim Cook sent him an iPhone 5.

"It's a wonderful device. iPhone is a great platform," Zuckerberg said.

However, during a recent trip to Russia, when Zuckerberg met Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, he dropped his hooded top, jeans and trainers ensemble in favour of a dark suit and tie.

Zuckerberg gave Medvedev a symbolic gift: a plain white T-shirt with the prime minister's Facebook page -- Facebook.com/Dmitry.Medvedev -- emblazoned across the front.

Review: Rovio’s Bad Piggies(from makers of angry birds)

2012-09-30T03:57:00.000-07:00

Rovio, the game developer that created Angry Birds, is back with a new game.

Rovio, the game developer that created Angry Birds, is back with a new game. And this one stars the pigs — yes, the green smuggy foes of the angry birds — in the primary role. Rovio's last game, Amazing Alex, didn't really strike a chord with the gamers. It was not really a bad game but the gameplay relied too much on solving puzzle at the expense of fun. This is never a good thing.

With Bad Piggies, Rovio is returning back to its roots. Yes, there are puzzles in this game and it is significantly different than any Angry Birds game even if the familiar pigs are part of it. But still it is a game rooted in Angry Birds universe. The question is — Does it fly?

We find out...

Music, visuals and story
Story first. We all know that how the pigs salivate at the thought of eggs. They just can't keep themselves away from these eggs, even if it means going to war with the birds.

In Bad Piggies, the greedy green creatures are on an island. As usual they are after eggs. But to reach eggs, the pigs have to build various machines that allow them to pass obstacles or fly so that they can reach places high up on cliffs. This is where you, the player, come in. your job is to build the ultimate flying machine for the pigs from various parts that are available in the game.

Petri Jarvilehto, a senior executive with Rovio puts it like this: "Where Angry Birds was all about destruction, Bad Piggies is all about the joy of construction."

Bad Piggies is a pretty game. Given that it is set in a tropical island, there is lots of green foliage. If you have played any recent Angry Birds game, the visuals in Bad Piggies will make you feel at home. The visual style is same and the backgrounds are as detailed as Rovio makes them. However, the environment is not as destructible as it is in the Angry Birds games. The accompanying music is very good and compliments the gameplay very well.

Gameplay
Rovio set a very high benchmark with Angry Birds. It is a game easy to play and yet complex enough to challenge best players. It is casual and yet fun.

Bad Piggies aims to recreate the same magic, though with a different kind of gameplay. The puzzles in Bad Piggies are slightly more complex compared to those in Angry Birds. The task is to create good machines that pigs can use and to do that players have to carefully think about the role and placement of various items like a box, balloons, TNT and rockets etc. This is a little more difficult than flinging birds from a slingshot.

Another way in which the gameplay has changed is the way points are awarded. In Bad Piggies there is nothing to destruct. Instead the goal is to collect items. If you collect all the available items, you get three stars and if you complete the objective without collecting optional items, you get one star.

Bad Piggies is a lot of fun once you get the hang of tools and components available to you. But at the same time it is not Angry Birds. Primarily, there is one reason why many casual gamers who love Angry Birds may not like Bad Piggies. It is the nature of the game. Whether it is a good thing or bad, the truth is that as human beings we have more fun when we destroy things. Building things is a little tedious.

Angry Birds appeal to many of us because the objective is to flatten the fortification put up by the pigs! Smashing through the wooden planks, putting the black bird in between two stone pillars and killing the hidden pigs with a boom is immensely gratifying. Building flying machines has its own charm but it may not appeal to all.

Also, we did not like the new point system. Unlike the arcade-style point system in Angry Birds, where even destroying a flower yielded 50 or 100 points, in Bad Piggies all you get are stars. The arcade appeal is not there.

If you love playing casual games on your smartphone or tablet, you will likely spend hours with Bad Piggies. It's an enjoyable game, especially once you have crossed a few levels and are familiar with the way things work. Just don't expect it to be Angry Birds.

Available on...
iOS devices ( iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad), Android phones and tablets, Mac, and PC.

Cost
PC : $4.95
Mac : $4.99
iOS : $0.99 or $2.99 for HD version
Android : Free (ad-supported)

what tcs and infosys hcl not doing right?

2012-09-18T00:10:00.003-07:00

The top IT services companies have been around for a few decades but, for all practical purposes, they came into being around Y2K, when the world took notice of the Indian technological prowess. Since that historic turning point, the industry has zoomed from under $2 billion in 2000 to $70 billion in 2012. While that growth trajectory continues, albeit at slower rates, there is something amiss.

Bellwethers Infosys and Wipro face fresh challenges, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has marched ahead and HCL, which looked like an also-ran prior to 2008, has risen like a phoenix. The gap between TCS and No. 2 Infosys has widened from $1 billion three years ago to more than $3 billion today. Infosys slipped to the No. 3 slot in the pecking order, with Cognizant overtaking Wipro in 2011 and Infosys exactly a year later, in the June quarter.

If Y2K was the sector's baby steps that hurled IT companies into a hyper-growth orbit, now they are finding it difficult to cope with uncertain market conditions. There are divergent commentaries: Infosys 5% growth, TCS set to beat Nasscom guidance of 11-14% growth for the year, Cognizant and HCL clocking double-digit growth. HCL, Cognizant and TCS have won more new business in the last 10 quarters than rivals. And the mid-tier, the likes of Hexaware and KPIT Cummins, are growing much like the large-tier did a decade ago.

This is in contrast to the pre-2010 period when the large companies - excess of $4-billion revenue today - grew at an average of 22-24% a year. That period saw the industry zoom on the back of labour-intensive tasks, such as applications development and maintenance and remote infrastructure management. It was the low-hanging fruit that Indian IT went for and what looked like hi-tech then is commodity business today.

Today, global technology buyers - from Fortune 500 firms spanning GE, Bank of America and Nissan to mid-tier firms across the world - are looking at new applications faster than most people change mobile phones. Typical IT cycles have shrunk from 5-7 years to six months. For example, UK-based retailer Tesco had a single buying system globally, on mainframes - in the last couple of years, it has dismantled that and built country-specific systems, say, for buying from Poland and China. There's turbulence in the market.

Companies like HCL Technologies credit this disruption for their growth: contracts came up for renewal and they have grabbed the opportunity with both hands. Global outsourcing tracker Information Services Group says 686 outsourcing IT deals with a value of at least $25 million or more are due to expire in 2012 alone. Most of them are being renegotiated at lower rates, putting pressure on margins - unattractive for some (like Infosys) but attractive for others (like HCL).

According to research firm Gartner, global IT spend grew by 15.26% between 2005 and 2008 and at a lower 13% between 2008 and 2012. With global spends ebbing, companies have been eating into each other's market share for gains.

The performance of TCS, HCL and Cognizant looks better when compared to Infosys and Wipro. But this is more due to short-term gains, such as winning business on contract renewals. Overall, the $70-billion industry will have to overcome this period of inertia if it has to return to stellar growth. Even those that gained in the slowdown - like HCL and Cognizant - need to look at new growth engines.

Indian IT has traditionally had high exposure to verticals that are stressed today - banking, retail and telecom - rather than those that are less stressed - manufacturing, auto and healthcare. For instance, post-2008 has seen spends on banking systems stagnate or decline, particularly in areas of capital markets and investment banking.

The way customers are buying technology is changing: for instance, travel, hospitality, banks and retail chains are looking at a combination of mobile, cloud and big-data analytics services.

Banks need new software applications every six to nine months, retailers want to buy systems that can sync with both online and offline worlds, helping customers buy on mobile, tablets and physical stores with equal ease. Indian IT is confused on what to bet on.

This decision becomes tougher in a challenged market environment, where IT spending is tight and given the scale at which companies are - neither too small to change path quickly nor too big to take on IBMs and Accentures. IBM can throw in a few billion dollars just to give proof of concept in, say, smart, networked cities and showcase it to buyers from Mumbai to Manhattan. Infosys, Wipro and TCS can't afford that investment. Neither can those that have ostensibly gained in recent years - HCL and Cognizant.

The first $6 billion to $10 billion was an easy run rate to clock. Now they need the savviness much like the software they help global companies run on, to identify areas they want to chase and create new markets for themselves to grow.

You may get call from Facebook if profile identity is suspect

2012-09-09T06:23:00.001-07:00

Social networking giant Facebook is making a "huge effort" to weed out fake profiles to prevent misuse of such identities, a senior company official has said.

"Absolutely, there is a huge effort," Facebook India business manager Pavan Varma told PTI when asked about the company's action on this front.

If Facebook doubts the ownership of an account, it will ask the user to identify himself/herself, he said.

"The doubt about the authenticity of the account will arise if an account has a generic name instead of a proper name, uses images of celebrities/ cartoon characters as display pictures, or does not have "enough friends", Varma said.

"It could even be that Facebook comes back to you saying, 'could you help us identify yourself if you don't have enough friends because we don't want fake identities," he said.

"We are worried about the experience we deliver....It's not about protecting our brand identity so much," he said.

Recently there were reports of fake accounts being created by computer programs, which are used for inflating the number of "likes" on Facebook page for a brand.

Facebook had recently said it would be taking out fake "likes" generated by spammers, malware and black marketers.

Varma said advertisers must also shed the obsession with numbers. "How does an advertiser today treat a Facebook page? It is treated as a place where they just come with a number of people who are there. But that is a wrong way of doing it," he said, stressing that the conversations around the brand should assume importance rather than the numbers.

Mere "likes" on the page do not help a brand, he said. Companies generally pay Facebook for a dedicated page on its platform that helps them connect with the target audience.

IDBI Bank claims it has over five lakh fans on Facebook, Varma said, who was speaking to PTI on the sidelines of a banking summit.

He added that Facebook, as a medium, is completely secure and cited the case of ICICI Bank, which now offers basic services over the Facebook page by integrating its net banking platform with the social networking site.

Infosys top executive Shaji Farooq quits, to join Wipro

2012-09-03T09:46:00.002-07:00

In yet another senior-level exit at software major Infosys, Shaji Farooq, senior vice-president and head of financial services, Americas at Infosys has quit. ET NOW learns from people familiar with the development that Shaji Farooq is headed to Infy's cross-town rival Wipro.

Shaji Farooq has been in Infosys for the last ten years and has over 20 years of industry experience. According to his LinkedIn profile, at Infosys he's unit head for Financial Services Americas, responsible for all client facing activities, delivery/execution and operations. Like other top software companies, Infosys gets a majority of its revenues from Financial Services and North America.

While Infosys declined to comment on the exit, stating that it does not comment on individual movements, a Wipro spokesperson said the company would come back with a response.

Farooq's exit is the latest in a series of senior-level exits at Infosys in the last one year. Other top executives who quit in the last year include board member Mohandas Pai, sales head Subhash Dhar and Infosys BPO COO Ritesh Idnani.

Infosys in the last year, has gone through a re-structuring exercise and is trying to boost revenues through its products and platforms business through the Infosys 3.0 strategy. While the company believes this would pay off in the long run, its witnessed a lot of short-term pain. Its missed its guidance multiple times, was overtaken by Cognizant in revenue terms and sounds more pessimistic than its peers.

Apple CEO Tim Cook's email to employees after defeating Samsung

2012-08-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

A US court ruled that Samsung willfully infringed upon Apple's patents while designing its smartphones. The jury in the trial agreed that the South Korean company knowingly violated several of the Cupertino-based tech titan's patents and awarded the latter a huge sum of $1.05 billion as compensation.

Apple CEO Tim Cook sent an intra-organisation email, which has been leaked online. Cook, who just completed his first year in the office, said that with this verdict, "values have won."

Here is the email by Tim Cook:

Today was an important day for Apple and for innovators everywhere.

Many of you have been closely following the trial against Samsung in San Jose for the past few weeks. We chose legal action very reluctantly and only after repeatedly asking Samsung to stop copying our work. For us this lawsuit has always been about something much more important than patents or money. It's about values. We value originality and innovation and pour our lives into making the best products on earth. And we do this to delight our customers, not for competitors to flagrantly copy.

We owe a debt of gratitude to the jury who invested their time in listening to our story. We were thrilled to finally have the opportunity to tell it. The mountain of evidence presented during the trial showed that Samsung's copying went far deeper than we knew. The jury has now spoken. We applaud them for finding Samsung's behavior willful and for sending a loud and clear message that stealing isn't right.

I am very proud of the work that each of you do.

Today, values have won and I hope the whole world listens.

Tim

Curiosity rover tweets "I'm safely on Mars"

2012-08-06T08:44:00.003-07:00

A string of tweets on behalf of US space agency Nasa's rover Curiosity tracks the tense moments before the spacecraft landed on Mars.
"I'm safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!!," said an ecstatic tweet after the rover landed safely on Mars.
Moments earlier, another tweet said: "Backshell separation. It's just you & me now, descent stage. Engage all retrorockets!"
The critical tweets began with the one saying: "Guided entry is begun. Here I go!".
Less than a minute later, another said: "Parachute deployed! Velocity 900 mph. Altitude 7 miles. 4 minutes to Mars!".
And then it said: "Heatshield separation. Next up: Radar must lock on ground."
Soon after landing on Mars, the rover beamed its first photograph which showed a shadow of the rover on the red planet.
"It once was one small step... now it's six big wheels. Here's a look at one of them on the soil of Mars," added a tweet that referred to astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous words "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" after he set foot on moon.

Facebook Timeline compulsory from August 8

2012-08-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

lONDON: Social networking giant Facebook will now make it mandatory for people to use its new profile page Timeline.

Timeline allows members to tell the story of their life on a single page, in less than a week's time.

Until now, the change to the new-look Facebook has been voluntary, but the site's 800 million users around the world no longer have a choice as Timeline will be made compulsory from August 8.

According to the Telegraph, users who have yet to switch to the new look are being served a preview of their redesigned profile.

Timeline allows users a much more visually impactful profile and the ability to share the story of their whole lives.

Some users have, however, expressed disappointment over the forced change.

"I'm sorry but this is rubbish. I'm surprised Facebook hasn't included a compulsory DNA profile section (default to public obviously)," a user said.

How Wipro, Infosys, Cognizant create their leaders

2012-08-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

BANGALORE: Every year, Wipro chairman Azim Premji and the CEO of the company's IT business TK Kurien block one week of their time to review succession slates in the company. The search is not restricted to front-line leaders who would occupy corner room positions; it runs deeper in the organization covering a large number of leaders across different business units.

Wipro's Talent Review and Succession Planning exercise assesses its leadership bench strength annually and makes sure there is a ready pool of successors to fill critical roles. "The talent review process gives us a leadership-level talent inventory and capability map that reflects the extent to which critical talent needs are fulfilled vis-a-vis business drivers. This process covers 600 senior leaders in the organization," said Saurabh Govil, global HR head for Wipro's IT business. The annual exercise is timed around the completion of the annual performance appraisal in May.

Many of the major IT companies have put in place, or are in the process of putting in place, succession plans for not just their top management executives, but also their leaderships at different levels. For US listed companies, CEO succession planning is now almost a mandate. In 2009, the Securities and Exchange Commission provided shareholders the right to demand more transparency in CEO succession planning.

Infosys Technologies put in place succession planning early last decade, when it identified some 400 potential leaders. Its Leadership Institute in Mysore has played a big role in training leaders. Over 800 employees have undergone the programme at this institute. Incidentally, Infosys even has an IT solution for succession planning called TalentEdge that helps organizations determine successors for employees who play critical roles.

Mid-sized IT firm MindTree has initiated a leadership review process to identify 100 leaders in the company by 2015-16 . "In managing talent, it's either a make or buy decision. We are creating a leadership pipeline with 80% of talent requirement being groomed in-house , while we will acquire 20% externally ," said Ravi Shankar, chief people officer at MindTree. The company also focuses on succession mentoring where the CEO and chairman of the company spend 15-20 days in a year with the successors who have been identified.

HCL Technologies has a well-defined succession plan for its top 30 managers including its CEO Vineet Nayar. Currently, the top three second-level leaders manage 30% of HCL's business and one of them could succeed Nayar. These include Rahul Singh, president of financial and business services , Anant Gupta, president of infrastructure services and Steve Cardell, president of enterprise application services.

Cognizant Technology Solutions recently benchmarked the skills and competencies of 22 senior executives in India as part of its succession planning. "They will eventually play a larger role in the company, heading critical functions," said a source privy to the development. However,the company denied undertaking such an exercise.

Though companies are secretive about succession planning, they follow a rigorous process to get visibility into the company's leadership talent pool. "This assessment leads to an identification of short-term and long-term successors for each key role," said Govil. Wipro identifies three successors for each critical role.

MindTree follows a multi-tier assessment process to benchmark competencies of internal candidates under its Leadership Talent Review process. This includes peer reviews, mapping competencies by teams internally and by external consultants. "The successors are put through a nine-month structured leadership programme to prepare for critical openings. An action plan is drawn up with live projects to review the results and bridge the existing skills gaps. A personal coach is assigned to groom potential successors," Ravi Shankar said.