Govt to ask Google, Skype to give data-access

Govt will send notices to Google and Skype asking them to set up servers in the country and give access to its internet data, a top interior ministry official has said.

Concerned about militants using BlackBerry or Internet to plan attacks, India is pushing the smartphone maker Research in Motion, Google and Skype to open up its data for government monitoring.

India's BlackBerry users heaved a sigh of relief late Monday after the government gave the smartphone's Canadian manufacturer a two-month window to provide a permanent solution to avert a ban on its messaging services.

India is also targeting "virtual private networks", which give employees secure access to their company networks when they are working out of the office.

The maker of the BlackBerry, Canada's Research in Motion (RIM), has proposed setting up a server in India through which BlackBerry messages can be routed, giving security forces access, the home ministry said in a statement.

RIM's proposals for "lawful access" to its messages would be "operationalised immediately" and their feasibility assessed, the ministry said.

A RIM official said the company had not compromised its public commitment to make no special deals with governments. Analysts note other security-conscious nations such as China and Russia appear to be satisfied that their intelligence agencies have sufficient access to BlackBerry communications although the arrangements between RIM and these countries are not known.

BlackBerry has also been facing a threatened October 11 ban by the United Arab Emirates and has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia on security issues.

For the Indian government, a ban on BlackBerry services, used widely by India's elite, could have caused serious communication problems with the Commonwealth Games due to take place in New Delhi in just over a month.

Source:IndiaTimes.com

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Binghoo on the Way - MSN and Yahoo Join Hands!

The rumors carried way more hype about the Yahoo MSN merger than the actual deal. Since a long time it was always too close to the final step, but now when it is finally happening, all the baubles of gossip just vanished!!! Pooof! Yahoo now finally must take significant steps to improve on it’s content to stay in the league. Also it can use some help to look good on Google as probably it is where now Yahoo would be searched more!

We were always wishing that somehow, through some sort of miracle, Yahoo could pull it through. Yahoo has done great until recently. It has been pretty good with information and has always got something good for the people using it for search purposes. But since last year when they started making drastic changes in their algorithms, it has seriously gone down from the favorites list of many. But with the two- i.e. Yahoo and MSN combining, they seriously need to look into the MSN/Bing algorithm. They might be able to earn bucks from their display media, but they cannot count for long on searchers if they do not do anything about the algorithm problem. They would only lose significant searchers to the already more popular Google.

There is a strong possibility that with the merger there might finally be someone who could challenge the monopoly of Google. But there are also views on the contrary. With Google grabbing the market share, Yahoo was pushed away to the number two and MSN was lingering somewhere on a number three. The merger now limits the number of major search engines to two. This might be good for some and not so good for others. For a consumer it might not be such a great news as now they are restricted to only two search engines. Where earlier one had a possibility to find relevant search results at three places, now they would have only two. Nonetheless a great news for capitalists! On the brighter side, the number three slot is now vacant for a potential competitor. Seeing that one fill could be a stimulating experience.

How all this happens and what it repercussions are, is yet to be seen. For now we can only pray for an ailing Yahoo to get well soon!!!

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Where are you? - Location Based Social Networking (LBS)

How exciting would it be to plan your outing to the place where the coolest people of the town are hanging out. Before deciding onto which movie you want to watch on a Saturday night, you can know who all are watching which movie. You can share your location with the members of your community through GPS, mobile email or text. You can add comments about the places you visit often and let your friends know what you think about the latest restaurant or your latest shopping spree. You can look who is where and whom you want to meet for a cup of coffee or a mug of beer.

Recently a new era of Social networking emerged as “Where are you?” i.e. “Location Based Social Networking- (LBS)”. The mathematics behind this new success formula is social networking clubbed with geo location of user. With the success story of GPS-enabled mobile devices like iPhone, Droid, Blackberry location based networking is becoming very common. The potential of this upcoming trend can be gauged by the fact that it is estimated to be a 3.3 billion dollar industry by the year 2013.

USP of LBS:-

• Determine user location and allow user to share Location/Venue with friends.
• Tagging the Location/Venue with media content like pictures, comments/reviews by check ins.

Behind The Scenes:-

• Location Point-Of- Interest (POI) database providers e.g. Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Places, and Facebook Places.
• Popular nearby venue listing over interactive map.

With the power of social networking, geolocation and geotagging possibilities are endless. LBS is not limited to venue sharing or geotagging few innovative usages are listed below:-

• Location based Checkin Games e.g. Mayor War, The Town, Mafia etc
• Location based Yellow Page Directory providers like Foursquare and Gowalla allows users to promote venues.

At Soft Prodigy we have good exposure of LBS and we have worked with most of top POI data provider API like Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Places and recently added Facebook Places. We are good at judging architecture for LBS projects and even assist client to select suitable POI vendor based on requirements. Feel free to reach us for any queries or consultation.

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The Youthful Corporate

Changing trends in the B - World - young blood taking over the board of directors constituted of senior citizens. The 20 and 30 - somethings are finding their niche in the corporate world and are doing extremely well!!!

Gone are the days when age was a prerequisite for success. Now is the time for the young ones to shine and flourish. Recently the world has seen many top notch entrepreneurs aged less than 30, who are creating ripples in the B- World. Taking the corporate world in an altogether different stride, the young entrepreneurs of today have ideas that were never thought of before.

World’s most extensively used site Google.com was itself the result of the rubbing of brains of a 23 and 24 year old. Larry Page and Sergey Brin met at an alumni visit weekend at the University of Michigan. The two super brains got together and worked towards making Google what it is today. Adding on to it, world’s youngest millionaire is 23 year old Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and owner of the ultimate social networking site- Facebook.

These are two high end examples of young entrepreneurs making it real big. Even in the world where you and I normally move around, there are young men and women with extraordinary intelligence, precision and skill who are ready to take over the world. Another thing that makes these neophytes all the more interesting and endearing is that they incorporate social issues in their business from the very beginning. Along with filling their coffers they care for the world they are living in. they take out time and resources for building pet’s shelters, nursing homes, helping out at Haiti and East Africa. They support many philanthropic causes along with building their business empires. They are more conscious of issues like Global Warming than their predecessors.

Much has been seen with these young guns and a lot more has yet to be seen.

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Growing Popularity of Open Source Software

Over the years the use of Open Source Software has increased considerably. Many factors have come together to make the use of open source software more popular than basic programming software like HTML or PHP. Everybody is recognizing the benefits of Open Source Software like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal etc.

The Open Source Software allows for easy optimization of the content. Also the built in functionalities save a lot of time and effort. Where the basic programming software could be only used by proficient developers who had the in depth knowledge of the software, Open Source Software can be used by even the basic users who can easily use the Software to their benefit without having to know the nitty-gritty of it. The Open Source Software are far more user friendly than the Basic Programming Software. WordPress and Joomla have plugins and modules respectively already prepared so as to save the user time and effort.

Another major advantage of using Open Source Software is that it costs less and turns out to be of higher quality than the Basic Programming Software. Open Source Software also allow a higher degree of freedom and vendor lock-ins are easily handled. By using open source software, you can benefit from integrated management. Open source software uses technologies, such as, common information model (CIM) and web based enterprise management (WBEM). These high-end technologies enable you to integrate and combine server, application, and service and workstation management. This integration would result in efficient administration. Open Source Software incorporates simpler license management abundant support is available.

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How to Market it Right - Facebook???

Without proper marketing your business might just vanish in the maze of hundreds of businesses today. You need to market and market it right. Marketing and Facebook seems to be a match that would never fail!

Business without marketing is just like a kite without a string to fly it. In the cut throat competition of today you evidently need to steer clear of the competition and stand out on the top. This calls for the best Marketing techniques you can put to use. Social networking is no longer limited to photographs and chatting and idling away time. Social Networking sites are now seen as powerful marketing tools that hold incredible amount of potential to make your business soar high.

The world’s most popular social networking site, Facebook is the best example to demonstrate the power of marketing through such sites. With over 500 million active users, Facebook holds in itself tremendous capability to connect you to a large number of people. No matter what is the domain and range of your business, you can always find the right target audience at Facebook.

You can have your Facebook Public Profile. This profile helps you promote your business and form long lasting relations that might be beneficial to your business. Facebook pages help you spread the word how good is your business. With a page or a group on Facebook your name appears on multiple numbers of pages, this obviously increases your visibility on the internet. Starting a discussion on Facebook allows you to interact with your audience and prospective clients. Even they look towards you as a real entity than just an aggressive marketing tool and this increases your reliability.

Businesses can benefit greatly from marketing on Facebook. Facebook advertisements have a wide reach and can be used as a great marketing tool. People are also managing their business through Facebook. It can help in taking and placing orders and knowing when and where what is happening. For example a Delhi based restaurant in India makes the table reservations through Facebook. There are numerous many other examples that show that how Facebook can be used as a tool to promote and expand business.

The popularity of Facebook is now startling everybody. The next big thing to look out for is Facebook as a B2B model, involving corporate top heads. Facebook is advantageous both with numbers and quality. In the current times when the boundary between socializing and professionalism is blurring, Facebook is the ultimate way to market your business and market it to the right audience.

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Android To Power The Much Rumored Play Station Phone??

It has been rumored since long that Sony is coming up with a Play Station phone that would be powered by Android 3.0. A play station phone can be the only thing that can be exciting enough for the tech savvy gen Y. Sony Ericsson has been a pro at gaming phones since a long time now and nothing less could be expected from the giant.

Reports suggest that Sony is currently working on a cross between Samsung Captivate and PSP Go. The new hybrid is to include a landscape slider complete with PSP like controls, a touchpad in place of a joy stick, a 3.7’-4.1’ screen, a 5 megapixel camera and a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. The phone will carry both the Xperia and Play Station brands.

It has been quite a while that the rumors about this Play Station phone has been swimming in and out of news. The phone was thought to be the result of the collaboration between Sony’s PSP division and Sony Ericsson but it is now that the talks of the new gadget being powered by Google’s Android has been surfacing.

It is still to be seen how true the rumors turn out to be. Apple has been dominating the phone gaming since quite a while now. So it is only obvious that Sony is all set to launch a phone cum Play Station Portable. The device may be announced by the end of the current year. As of now this is one credible rumor to look out for!

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Enhanced TV Experience with Apple TV : iOS App- Cherry on the Cake

One can only expect something extraordinary and out of the league from Apple. The rumor is out that Apple is now coming up with a new set top box for TV viewing and that Apple TV will bring iOS app support and will also have a brand new name for the device. According to some sources it will be called iTV. It might be noted that this name was originally designated for the device back in October 2006.

Complementing the rumor of the iOS service is the iTunes service which might accompany the set top box. It is also reported that the video output on the new Apple device will be downgraded to 720p. Earlier reports suggested that the playback would be in 1080p but as of now it is claimed that the version of the A4 chip being used in iTV isn’t powerful enough to push full HD video. This might upset the videophiles, but that not being the target market is not a major issue for Apple.

It is rumored that the new device only has 16GB of flash media storage, this projects movies and TV shows will be designed to be streamed off of other computers or Apple’s servers. Nothing is too sure about this new device as will it really support the current iOS app build for the iPhone or the iPad or a new app specifically targeted towards the new set top box. Hopefully the new device will be out this fall.

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Successor of IE8- IE 9 to Come Soon

Microsoft has finally announced the date for the launch of the successor of IE 8. September 15 has been set the date for the launch of the first Beta successor of IE 8. The IE 9 is all set to create history by being the most standards-compatible version.

The IE 9 will be upgraded to support HTML5 video and audio elements, 2D graphics using the highly-anticipated Canvas element and there's support for embedded fonts using Web Open Font Format (WOFF). The IE 9 will be able to run Google's open sourced WebM video codec plus the closed and proprietary H.264 from Microsoft, Apple, and others.

Chakra, a new script engine using hardware to enhance the performance within 50 milliseconds of Safari, Opera, and Chrome on SunSpider benchmarks will also be featured.

The IE 9 is coming with a grand event called "Beauty of the Web" in San Francisco. The word “beauty” may be taken as an indicator of IE 9 being high on rich graphics and internet applications using web standards and fast, hardware-accelerated rendering. IE 9 aims to be high on usability and will cater to a broad range of users.

With the IE 9, Microsoft hopes to recapture the market share which it’s been losing in recent years. This year earlier where IE had 59.95 per cent, now it is struggling near a 60per cent. The big challenge for IE 9 is to compete with Firefox and at the same time slow down the popularity of Google Chrome.

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Android Finally out with TweetDeck

The perpetual war of new applications is steaming up with every passing day. To stay ahead of the competition everyone is coming up with new and interesting apps to grab the market share. The latest is the Tweetdeck to be available as an Android app.

This new app combines Facebook, Twitter, Buzz and Foursquare. The app seems to have amazing potential. The updates are color coded and presented in a single, blended column. Twitter gets a black color, Facebook a dark blue, light blue for Foursquare and Dark red for Google Buzz. The Me column, however, is pretty handy. It gives you an overview of anything that contains activity from you, whether that’s a Twitter reply, Facebook comments or Buzz activity; it’s all in a single column.

But as of now the app lacks the polish of expected from a completely finished application. Mainly what is missing is improved mapping, better handling of multiple Twitter accounts, better error message handling, video uploading, deeper Android integration and account removal. Beyond the missing parts, however, what you’ll find is a TweetDeck experience that you’re likely very familiar with, all on your phone. It might increase in value as it matures.

Android applications have been pretty good with functionality and this one too seems to be pretty good. Overall the look of TweetDeck for Android is clean and really minimalist. In fact, there aren’t even timestamps on Tweets. You’ll find a clock at the top of the screen that will tell you when a message hit, and it works across all columns.

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