What Budget 2010 has for IT Inc

26 Feb, 2010, 1534 hrs IST,TNN

Has Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s budget 2010 missed Indian IT industry? Yes if one thinks of Indian IT industry's long-standing demand for STPI scheme extension.

The much-anticipated extension of SEZ benefits for STPI units did not come through (once again) in FM's budget. In addition, the rise in MAT from 15% to 18% will impact the industry, especially small and medium size software firms.

Small and mid-size outsourcing companies function from STPI units and tax benefits under the STPI scheme are getting phased out in 2010-11.

Most large outsourcing firms have set up in SEZs and will not be impacted significantly. "I am very disappointed. There was no mention of mirroring of SEZ benefits for STPI units," said Ashank Desai, chairman of Mastek Ltd.

The mirroring of SEZ benefits for STPI units was one of the demands of the software industry. Exports from SEZs are eligible for exemption for a period of 15 years in all -- 100% of profits are tax exempt in the first five years, 50% in the next five and 50% in the last five years provided the profits are invested in specified areas. "The top 50 software companies contribute 60-65% of the revenues of the industry and 90% of the profits. When they grow their business, they will grow into SEZs.

Many of their older units have already come out of the tax benefits offered under STPI because they are over 10 years. It is the smaller firms that have set up STPI units in last few years that will be hit though the government will not gain much in terms of tax inflows," said a Nasscom official.

However, IT companies focussed on the domestic market will gain from the IT mission mode projects announced in the budget. The allocation of Rs 1900 crore for UID project and the announcement of the modernization of national employment exchanges are some moves that would help the IT industry as a whole.

Refunds for IT/BPO companies have also made easier. Over Rs 4,000 crore refunds are pending and just last month there were some changes made to make refunds easier. The budget gives it further filip.

Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/News-Software__Services/What_Budget_2010_has_for_IT_Inc/articleshow/5619942.cms

BSNL launches fastest broadband at speed 24 Mbps for Rs. 9, 999 per month

BSNL, a State Government owned Company, today refreshed the minds of the Internet users in India after making an announcement of launching the most-accelerated Broadband service. It has a faster ever speed of 24 Mbps which is the highest in India till date. It will surely overcome almost all the obstructions faced by the Internet Users.



It will come in two packages – 16 Mbps which costs Rs.4, 999 per month and 24 Mbps costing Rs. 9, 999 per month.
But it has some limits also; as this phenomenal service is only available for those who reside within 1km and 500 meters from the BSNL Exchange.

BSNL is providing this high speed broadband service by the high speed digital subscriber loop (VDSL) technology.

With this Digital Subscriber Loop (VDSL) Technology (VDSL or VHDSL, Very High Bit rate DSL, a DSL technology which provides much faster data transmission over a single flat untwisted or twisted pair of copper wires).

The VDSL technology, nevertheless, inferior compared to the fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) network technology or the DOCSIS3 technology, which are capable of providing broadband speeds up to 200 Mbps and this shall surely helps in BSNL's success story and shall bring within its scope lot many new customers and shall increase the confidence of existing customers.

This new high speed broadband technology at a speed of 24 Mbps has broken the 16 Mbps record of Bharti Airtel.

Mostly this service will be utilized in Commercial Purpose as it is very expensive for an individual to pay this huge amount but in case of big companies or factories, it can give lot of benefits.

Currently BSNL is lacking the facility as its not providing the fastest broadband service to the longer distance. It provides a broadband speeds from 256 kbps up to 8 Mbps, video and audio conferencing, content based services, Virtual Private Network (VPN) service, multicast video services, video-on-demand, etc. through the Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS).

And all the big or small companies will probably try to construct or shift their offices in the BSNL Exchange vicinity as everyone wants to be ahead of everyone.

Source: http://infocera.com/BSNL_launches_fastest_broadband_at_speed_24_Mbps_for_Rs._9,_999_per_month_8168.htm
Image URL: http://telematicsnews.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/bsnl-logo1.jpg

How to Configure Outlook with Gmail?

Consider this Post as the Answer to Hardik Sir's NT Assignment [RCC] Question:

Outlook 2003

Welcome to our information center for Outlook 2003. The tabs above have information on setting up Outlook 2003 to work with Gmail, as well as troubleshooting information for the common problems users face.

Getting Started

If you're setting up Outlook 2003 to work with Gmail for the first time, you'll need to:

1. Enable POP in Gmail.
2. Configure your Outlook 2003 client.
3. Download the latest updates from Microsoft.

Verify Settings

If you're unsure whether your POP client settings are correct, you can double-check them here.

Common Errors

If you're experiencing an error while using Outlook, you can browse our page of common errors to find a solution.

The most common problem is an error while sending a test message. To fix this issue, download the latest updates from Microsoft.

Troubleshooting

If you're still having problems, follow our step-by-step instructions to try to resolve your issue.

Other POP Issues

Some POP problems are not specific to Outlook, so if you're able to send and receive successfully most of the time and our Common Errors and Troubleshooting tabs haven't addressed your issue, check our Other Issues tab for topics like accessing Gmail from multiple POP clients or being unable to download messages you sent to yourself.

Source: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=13278
Image-1 URL: http://thoughtsbyada.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/outlook-logo.jpg
Image-2 URL: http://ahmadladhani.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/img_115752_gmail-logo.jpg

International Conference on Technology for Education

July 1 – 3, 2010

Pre-review process

The 2nd annual event on Technology for Education conference will be held at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India during July 1-3, 2010. This International Conference will provide a forum to bring together colleagues interested in promoting learning and teaching through the use of technology. Proposals are invited from students, teachers and researchers in academia and industry to present results of their research and development efforts and discuss further directions.

Intention to submit paper

Authors intending to submit papers to T4E 2010 may please fill out the ‘Register to Submit’ form on EDAS as soon as possible.

Sponsors

Technical co-sponsors
• IEEE and IEEE Computer Society
• IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technologies

Sponsor
• Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai

Patrons
• Ministry of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India
• Wipro Mission 10X

History of T4E

The first International Workshop on Technology for Education (T4E’09) was held in Bangalore, India during August 4-6, 2009. The workshop had 65 participants from India, Australia, Canada, Chile, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and USA. The workshop was technically co-sponsored by IEEE Computer Society, IEEE Bangalore section, IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Committee on Learning Technology, NPTEL, IIIT Bangalore, OCW Consortium and C-DAC. HP Labs India was the Patron. Further information about T4E’09 can be found at: http://www.iiitb.ac.in/t4e09 .

For more information, visit: http://tfore.org/

Source: http://tfore.org/

'2010 will be the year of growth for us in India'

Q&A: Jim Ryan, COO, Sony Computer Enterprises Europe

K Rajani Kanth / February 24, 2010, 0:50 IST

The London-headquartered Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is moving away from Greek mythology-based content and is betting big on the Indian market with culture-specific gaming software. The company, which is responsible for distribution, marketing and sales of leading gaming consoles like PlayStation3, PlayStation2 and PlayStation Portable (PSP) across Europe, West Asia, Africa and Oceania, believes there is no lack of local content in India. In an interview with K Rajani Kanth, Sony Computer Chief Operating Officer Jim Ryan shares the company’s strategies — including for price cuts and collaborations with local game developers — and its growth trajectory. Edited excerpts:

Where does India stand in terms of Sony’s console installations?
North America, Japan and Europe are the biggest markets for us, while India is growing steadily over the years. On the back of our culture-specific focus and local collaborations, we expect 2010 to be the year of growth for us in India. So far, we have made half-a-million PlayStation2, 180,000 PSP and 50,000 PlayStation3 installations. We expect to see about 90 per cent growth here this year.

The potential is immense in the domestic market, which — according to Nasscom estimates — is around Rs 500 crore for both software and hardware. Abundant skill sets are available here and the richness of stories that make good games is a global opportunity for us. Even as we expand our collaborations with more local developers for creating content, targeting consumers in South Asia and the Indian diaspora, we are also looking at using these resources to develop games across genres for the global audience in the mid-term. We currently have four active developers locally and are in advanced talks with five more, which we expect to sign up in a couple of months.

Which games have you lined up for the domestic market?
After the success of 'Hanuman: Boy Warrior', the first game ever to be completely developed by an Indian game development company, which sold 85,000 units, we are aggressively looking at acquiring more content from local developers, woven around Indian mythology and contemporary contexts. We have a schedule of three Indian games for the next one year: mythological game ‘Chandragupta’, developed by Hyderabad-based Immersive Games (formerly Aurona Technologies, which was acquired by Pyramid Saimira) will hit the market this summer, and a sports-based game ‘Street Cricket’ from Trine Technologies of Mumbai in mid- 2010. Another mythological game ‘Eklavya’, developed by Hyderabad’s Gameshastra for the PlayStation3 platform, will be launched in mid-2011.

How are you competing with newer models from players like XBox and Nintendo?
Our focus is two-fold — price cuts and aggressively pushing our distribution ecosystem. We have already brought down the price of PlayStation3 to under Rs 20,000. We are looking at tapping 20 major cities in the country through national retailers and making the software and hardware available in smaller towns as well as at affordable price points. We will look at our pricing when the moment is right.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/%5C2010-will-beyeargrowth-for-us-in-india%5C/386671/

Rich internet apps

With Web 2.0 becoming `the' word in Internet space, there's an increased emphasis on adding interactivity and improving user experience. This has resulted in the evolution of Rich Internet Applications or RIAs. The Web standards are also said to be incorporating RIAs.

Companies today look at adding more disparate functionalities to their applications, also user experience is rated as one of the top parameter on any software development project. With so much happening on the technology front, having an RIA experience can be the key resume differentiator for the coming year, says the PCQuest story.

Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/5339615.cms

Embedded technologies

With mobile and smart devices going mainstream, the demand for embedded software developers has gone up. Today, embedded technologies are used in almost all gadgets camera, TV, mobile phone, etc. The seeping in of embedded technologies into digital devices of daily use has created demand for both software and hardware professionals.

According to the news story, with devices mostly being based on ARM chips or x86, it is important for embedded software developers to have complete knowledge of the architecture and C/C+ languages for programming purposes. A developer needs to know the varied architectures of the chipset and how to deploy an application across.

Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/5339613.cms

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is one of the hottest buzzwords for 2010. With technology companies betting big on cloud computing, a career based around it is surely a good bet. Google AppEngine, Microsoft Azure, Amazon are some of the cloud platforms for which developers can build and deploy applications, says the news article.

Several popular enterprise applications like CRM, ERP too are being hosted on Cloud platform. Also, companies setting up their private clouds would need to shift their existing applications to the new platform. The transition process would need both developers and testers.

Source: http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiearticleshow/5339618.cms

YouTube to kill IE6 support on March 13

YouTube to kill IE6 support on March 13

By Emil Protalinski | Last updated February 23, 2010 10:39 AM

Over six months ago, Google announced it would start phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6 on Orkut and YouTube, and started pushing its users to modern browsers. The search giant has now given a specific kill date for old browser support on the video website via a page on Google.com titled Solve a Problem: Upgrading your browser:

Support stops on March 13th. Stopped support essentially means that some future features on YouTube will be rolled out that won't work in older browsers.

As you can see in the screenshot above, YouTube will have an interstitial appear when users on older browser try to watch a video on YouTube. Google says the interstitial will show up indefinitely every two weeks until the user upgrades to the most recent version of their browser. Google deems anything below IE7, Firefox 3.0, Chrome 4.0, and Safari 3.0 as an "older browser." Users on these browsers will still be able to watch YouTube videos, but additional features that Google plans to roll out may not be supported in these older browsers.

Late last month, Google announced it will end old browser support for Google Docs and Google Sites on March 1, 2010 and earlier this month, the company announced it would start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar by year end. Google is pushing both enterprise and consumer users towards newer browsers on all its Web properties.

Google's stance on IE6 varies from Microsoft's because the search giant does not need to support Windows XP, the operating system with which IE6 first shipped, as long as Redmond (which will support XP and IE6 until April 8, 2014). Microsoft, on the other hand, which has stated time and time again that it wants to see IE6 disappear as much as anyone else, refuses to force anyone to upgrade (though it's worth noting that the software giant's Office Web Apps won't support IE6 either, just like Google Docs) and says the decision is ultimately up to the user.

Microsoft is trying to push users to upgrade by touting IE8's many features over IE6, particularly in the area of security. So far, this has worked relatively well, as IE8 is the most popular browser, although IE6 is still used by about 20 percent of surfers worldwide, according to NetApplications.

Source: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/youtube-to-kill-ie6-support-on-march-13.ars

The first boring post!!!

Hello Folks,

This is the first typical boring post of this blog. It is always so annoying to make first post anyway, b'coz one gotta talk some blah blah things in the first post. Well, I'm not good at it, so let me directly come to firing lines.

I'll be posting some news related to technology, gadgets, software, academic links, computer science puzzles, programming codes & tricks etc. Well, my aim here right now is to provide some good serious updates with some lightweight environment in informal fashion. Hope you will enjoy both the interactions!

Happy Browsing!

- CYbErCodE