NextIsThis - We Dicsuss what's Next and Happening

Indian Cricket Fan - Grab T20 merchandise exclusively from ebay

2009-06-10T03:35:00.000-07:00

Seeing the huge popularity and success of IPL merchandise , Ebay India is also offering official licensed T20 merchandise. This presents an exclusive opportunity of Indian Cricket fans to grab various official products.

The merchandise includes all official licensed products like jerseys, crew neck t-shirts, kids jerseys, car flags, wrist bands and tattoos. The products are priced from Rs 25 to 895 and are available on ebay.in. The merchandise will be available from June 4 - 30. The merchandise is brought with an exclusive partnership with Genesis India.

Here is a sneak preview of the listing available via ebay

ICC T20 World Cup India Men’s Jersey - 100% Polyester, Moisture Absorption fabric with mesh on side panels @ Rs. 895/-
ICC T20 World Cup India Men’s Crew T-shirt - 100% Cotton fabric @ Rs. 595/-
ICC T20 World Cup India Cap -100% Cotton Twill fabric @ Rs. 395/-
ICC T20 World Cup India Fan Cape/Banner -100% Polyester @ Rs. 195/-
ICC T20 World Cup India Car Flag -00% Polyester, can be used on Car Windows as well as a hand flag @ Rs. 195
ICC T20 World Cup India Wrist Band @ Rs. 50/-
ICC T20 World Cup India Tatoo pair -Non Toxic, easy to apply and easy to remove @ Rs. 25/-

Now its time to Cheer for India with official merchandise.

IBM to offer remote mentoring to IIIT-Hyderabad students - Making Smarter India

2009-06-09T02:36:00.000-07:00

IBM will be launching a remote mentor-ship program in IIIT Hydrebad. Its a part of Smarter Planet initiative taken by IBM under which IBM’s vision is to bring a new level of intelligence in the world.It improves how every person, business, organization, government, natural system, and man-made system interacts. As per IBM there is a chance to do everything in a better,efficient and a more productive way and as the planet gets smarter ,chances of opening up new meaningful possibilities progress.

In this program IBM and IIIT-Hyderabad will try to involve students in various technology projects which will help them in broadening their horizon and perspectives. The projects will be mainly inclined towards application of Information Technology for the society. These projects will be helpful both for the students and the society.

According to Mr Jai Menon, Vice-President of Technical Strategy, IBM Corporation "The projects will be crucial for IBM as well as providing solutions to real world problems".

Smarter Planet initiative by IBM is a way to work towards future applications . Since Internet has grown and has shrunk the world to a small place IBM thinks that its time to work smarter. That means tackling problems "like wasting too much energy, like spending too much time in traffic, like producing food too expensively and wasting too much of what we produce." All of these issues can be solved with the help of smarter user of technology and brains.

IBM has been working for many years to create a smarter world and has already decongested Stockholm, improved water management in Brazil. It has also partnered with Google for smarter electronic storage of health record.

Now its time to see how IIIT-H and IBM make a smarter India.

Blippr - review service using twitter

2009-06-09T02:35:00.000-07:00

Cashing on the success of Twitter, a service named Blippr has been launched by Mashable using which users can do a quick review of various products/services like movies,games,books,applications etc. The service is very simple to use and users don't need to go through the lengthy registration process and can login using their existing Facebook,Google,Twitter,Openid or Yahoo accounts making this service rolling faster.

All of us purchase various products and services but nobody wants to fill a lengthy review form over some website, this service can come very handy as users can do a quick review and mark the product under "Love it ,Like it,Dislike it and Hate it" categories with a click of a button and can also do a quick comment of 160 chars ( limit set by twitter ). This service can also be used on the move using mobile phones and internet enabled devices, Iphone is also supported by Blippr.

For a person to decide about purchasing a product what counts more is the number of reviews and not the length of the review. As for a product having only 4-5 reviews may not sound realistic and these reviews may be driven by the product company itself. But if a product has thousand of reviews that will sound more realistic and users can count on them and base their decision on them.

All together Blippr is a great and fast review service which can help people review more and more products quickly and easily. It will also help people making fast and informed decisions about a product.

Google launches Chrome for Linux & Mac - Don't dare use it, google says

2009-06-08T03:39:00.000-07:00

Google has launched Chrome for Linux and Mac but it warns users not to use it as it is very unstable and incomplete as of now. Chrome for Linux,Mac has been launched primarily for developers so that they can test,enhance and fix Chrome ,helping Google in releasing the public version of Chrome fast to general users. Even simple features like printing,changing privacy settings,you tube videos ,flash plug-ins are not functional in this version.There are more than 450 bugs in queue to be solved and many of them are high priority bugs which developers are working on, which can otherwise lead to frequent crashes in the system.

Chrome for Linux,Mac is based on an opensource product called Chromium which is available to the users for a while.Chromium is also not a release version as it has many bugs which need to be fixed before making an alpha launch. They also dont support flash and many other features which a browser is expected to have by default.Google Chrome is just a re-branding of Chromium having all the bugs and missing features Chromium and much work need to be done before launching Chrome for Linux and Macs.

It seems a ray of hope to many folks waiting desperately for the Linux and Mac versions but the stable release is still far away as it is just the first step of Google product life cycle ( launching developer version -> beta version ->stable version ).

But as we all are aware that Beta versions of Google are far better than competing Alpha products and we can hope the day is near.

Mobile TV – Will it Click

2009-05-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Mobile TV is a service that allows user to watch television over mobile devices such as Mobile phones .This service is generally provided by telecom network providers . This is one of the features generally provided as part of 3G services but can also be provided otherwise.South Korea was the first country to introduce Mobile TV. In India Mobile TV is launched by several operators for eg BSNL introduced this service in eastern and north eastern regions in 2007 with a service name Isee. With the launch of 3G services by BSNL MobileTv has again got a boost. Other players like UTV, National geographic Channel , Reliance Communications , MTNL , BSNL are also joining the bandwagon.

Despite Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) approval of TV access on Mobile , service providers cant provide much because of spectrum and regulatory issues by Ministry of Information and broadcast. The regulations don't allow a direct transmission of TV Channels leaving the operators trying out other strategies like Unicasting the content to the users ie one handset get the content from the central repository and transmits it to other through wireless network, this consumes huge resources like bandwidth etc which doesn't allow operators to benefit much from the service.

UTV New Media , has launched a music video channel on Mobile TV named UTVatPlay. This will allow users to view music video in various languages. This application can be downloaded by the users of BSNL , MTNL , Idea and Vodafone using GPRS and is available at a price of Rs 30 Per month. According to T N Prabhu, CEO, UTV New Media, “We are extremely pleased to launch music video channel on UTV@play which is India’s first full music video channel giving the subscriber an absolute TV viewing experience on the mobile handset. We are sure that the youth will accept with utmost zeal and enthusiasm.” With the help of this service people can play songs with a touch of a button and have a huge database of 20k plus songs at their disposal.

Reliance Communications has been providing Mobile TV to its users via R-World offering news etc. According to Krishna Durbha, Head Business and Marketing, VAS Reliance Communications “While its difficult to quantify the number of users, Reliance has revenues in a few lakhs every month through its mobile TV offering. We are currently offering 11 news channel. A user can watch TV on the handset with a lag of a few minutes as they are not transmitted live,”.

Aircel has also launched Mobile TV for just Rs 49 per month having a wide array of 31plus channels giving users the ability to catch with news, entertainment while on move.

With a huge base (300 Million) of Mobile Phone users and an addition of around 10 million per months , Mobile TV seems to be a promising platform. According to SpringBoard Research , Mobile TV market can reach $360 million in India with a penetration of 5-6 % in the first year itself that means over 20million subscribers in the first year itself. According to SpringBoard research 34% people says that they will be interested in this service if it is available and affordable.

Mobile TV may seems to be a silver line for the Indian Telecom Industry where Average Revenue per User ( ARPU) even for top players like Reliance , Bharti Airtel, Idea is falling by 10-15%. Mobile TV can help them boost their revenues as telecom operators are relying heavily on value added services to boost revenue. According to Bayypunedi, director and founder of Apalya Technologies “Other than the spectrum issues, constrain in handset, standardization of technology platform are some of the barriers for the growth of this segment. Moreover, India is still predominantly a prepaid market. In such a scenario getting the volumes is difficult,”.

Mobile TV seems to be having a promising future but some issues need to be resolved before it becomes a reality.

Microsoft Buys Bigpark – Going Big in Gaming

2009-05-08T17:43:00.001-07:00

Microsoft announced that it has acquired Canadian game maker BigPark. BigPark was setup by founders of EA and Distinctive software who have delivered many hit games like “Need for Speed” , “ FIFA Soccer” and “NBA Street”. BigPark is a team of 50 employees founded in 2007 and they are majorly an online gaming firm.

According to some ,this move of Microsoft is somewhat unexpected as it recently laid off 28% of its massive in game advertising division staff.

BigPark will work on a mysterious Xbox 360 game that Microsoft and BigPark is known to be working for a year. According to Phil Spencer, general manager, Microsoft Game Studios “The team is composed of some of the most experienced and creative minds working in the industry today,” and “The combination of the BigPark and Microsoft Game Studios talent pools will be an accelerant for growth and innovation. We believe BigPark has tremendous potential to create new properties and innovative gaming experiences for our platforms, one of which we’re looking forward to showcasing at the E3 Expo in June,”.

This move of Microsoft shows the interest of Microsoft in gaming domain and it is preparing hard to compete with compete with many other players in this domain like Sony PSP and Nintendo to name a few.

Apple May Launch Gaming Console Soon

2009-05-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

Old saying “When there is smoke there is fire” seems holding true for Apple , There are lot ofrumors floating in the market regarding Apple diving deeper into the gaming market and will be launching gaming consoles soon. The rumors are very strong and videos on youtube related to Apple gaming console have gained high popularity and are most sought after video’s on youtube.

Now with the latest news of Microsoft loosing Richard Teversham, Director European XBoxbusiness unit has added more heat to the discussion and rumors, He has joined Apple’s European unit for some “education related role”. Apple also hired Raja Conduri, Former AMD graphics chip CTO.

Hiring of executives related to gaming domain suggests that Apple is looking forward for a share in the gaming market and “why not” Apple already has more than 9000 games for ipod and ipod touch which are highly popular among the users and there lot of space in the gaming market where apple can prove its presence.

Last Year ( May 2008 ) there were rumors that Apple has filed a patent for most advanced gaming controller which is a 3D gaming controller for apple TV and can sense movement in X,Y,Z directions. It seems like Apple is targeting to build an advanced gaming system which wont have much of controllers and input will be mostly human movements addressing the complaints of parents and users of no physical activity while gaming.

Based on these past rumors and news it seems like Apple will soon be launching an innovative , advanced gaming system to capture big share of the gaming market and people will be lining up days to grab their Apple Gaming console.

Whats your guess? When would apple launch gaming console?

Oracle Buys Sun Microsystem - Oracle the next and only Webgiant !!!!

2009-04-20T23:35:00.000-07:00

Announcement of Oracle buying Sun Microsystems( Monday Apr 20 , 2009 ) is one of most important news in IT market in 2009 as this announcement that may help in guessing who will be the next Web Giant. Oracle is on a spree to gain as much share of the Web as possible Last year Jan 2008 Oracle acquired Bea ( Weblogic ) , No 1 player for middleware for web applications and now its Sun which seeded the growth of Internet and had a major contribution in the growth of Internet and web applications.

Oracle acquiring Sun will have a large impact on the IT market and may trigger a hope of revival in the recession hit IT market but there are many areas and things which are still unclear in this acquisition and may impact many IT providers / products in a big way.

Some good things that may be coming ahead:
1. Now since Oracle , Bea, Sun are together any client developing Web applications may benefit on costs and time as all the products required for Web Application development may be bundled together and come with a lower price tag.

2. Less support cost - Having one provider can significantly lower the support cost.

3. May help in reviving the sinking Sun server market - Oracle can give a shot to revive sinking share of Sun server market and can provide service provider Software and hardware bundled together.

Things which may impact many IT providers :

There are multiple things which may impact many IT providers and fate of many great software's developed till date and thousands of IT man hours has come to stake from this acquisition.

1. Netbeans : Oracle has been supporting Eclipse , Now whats in future for Netbeans ( Sun ) .
2. MySQL: Oracle is database Giant , now whats in store for a opensource database MySQL ( Sun ) .

This acquisition will for sure have a large impact on the IT Industry as a whole and on many products , Lets see how Oracle predicts the future.

Android - Will it kick the age of Smarter Phones and intelligent devices

2009-04-20T22:03:00.000-07:00

Android - 'Having human like features' is the next gen open source Operating System , Middleware and Application Framework from GOOGLE which is based on Linux 2.6 and can be ported to run on any memory and processor constrained device like Mobile phones , Small gaming systems etc.

It is gaining momentum as it is open source and based on Linux which has grown and had proven its potential with time and is giving tough time to Microsoft Windows ( All time leader in Desktop OS ) .

Benefits for Device Manufactures:
Following are some of the benefits that device manufactures ( eg Motorola, Samsung , Nokia , TMobile to name a few ) will have :
1. No or very less cost for system software for Mobile and will help in reducing costs.
2. More stable platform so the users will be happy to adopt phone and users concern will only be Hardware and services it provides, Today many people base their decision on the stability of the software.
3. Wider support from development community ( world wide and many working almost on no cost ).
4. Less customer maintenance cost - As the device is based on framework available widely users can upgrade the system themselves and don't have to ping the manufacturer/ service provider back and can save couple of $'s which would have been used for customer service etc.

Benefits for Developers:
It's a big hit among the developer community as it has numerous benefits for the application developers
1. First and most important , Earlier than this developers have to build an application for various platforms like Symbian , Java , Iphone etc and this tool large amount of time and money and constrained the developer limits.
2. Developers can be sure that the system they are working on is stable and has a huge community support.

Benefits to End Users:
1. Stable system - Have to worry less about the bugs , software issues as the software has been tested thoroughly.
2. Less cost to end users as the Manufacturer doesnt have to pay licensing fees etc.
3. Support from wide community of developers.
4. Frequent and Low costs applications that can help in day to day activities.

In all Android can churn the next revolution and is a win win situation for all.