Buying portable battery pack? 3 things to know

What features should I look for in a portable power bank for my smartphone? Also, please suggest a few models.
— Anjalee, K Biswas, Merwyn Fernandes, Purab Sharma

Before you step out to buy an external rechargeable battery pack, consider...

Lithium-polymer or Lithium-ion?
Of the two, li-polymer cells are more energy-efficient and lightweight. On the other hand, li-ion cells are easily available, and are cheaper of the two technologies. Always opt for the former if your budget allows for it.

Capacity?
Battery capacity is measured in mAh (milliAmp/hrs). So if you're looking for a charger for your tablet and smartphone, we'd recommend capacities in excess of 5,000mAh. Also, rechargeable batteries offer around 80% efficiency, so it's always better to pick a higher capacity than what you require. Buy 7,000mAh if you need 5,000mAh (check phone battery for capacity details).

1A OR 2.1A?
One ampere is enough to charge most smartphones. However, some devices and tablets require 2.1A. So check your device's charging needs before buying (see charger for details).

Sony CP-F 2LSA (Rs 4,400): 7,000mAh li-polymer battery, two charging ports (2.1A)

Verbatim MB8000VZ1 (Rs 3,400): 8,000mAh li-polymer battery, two charging ports (2.2A)

Cooler Master PowerFort (Rs 2,300): 6,000mAh li-ion battery, one charging port (1A), LED torch

Eveready UM 52 Power Bank (Rs 2,000): 5,200mAh li-ion battery, two charging ports (2.2A)

Portronics Charge One (Rs 1,600): 5,200mAh li-polymer battery, one charging port (1A)

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Authors Guild appeals in Google Books case

NEW YORK: The Authors Guild is appealing a US judge's decision in a long-running case that cleared legal obstacles for Google's massive book-scanning project, court documents showed.

The group filed a notice of appeal in the case following a November 14 ruling by Federal Judge Denny Chin.

Arguments are to be filed at a later date with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.

The guild vowed to appeal the case after Chin ruled that Google's project is "fair use" under copyright law because it provides vital educational and other public benefits.

The case, which dates back to 2005, centres on a Google programme started in 2004 to create an electronic database of books that could be searchable by keywords.

Google has scanned more than 20 million books so far in the project. Books in the public domain -- without current copyrights -- are made available online to the public for free. For copyrighted books, Google offers a searchable database that displays snippets of text.

Google has long argued that its programme is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a "card catalogue for the digital age."

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Google chairman Eric Schmidt admits "biggest mistake"

NEW DELHI: Google's former CEO and current executive chairman Eric Schmidt has revealed what he calls his biggest mistake at the company.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Schmidt said, "At Google, the biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon." He also said that this is a mistake that Google is never going to make again.

As for the reason for such a big miss, Schmidt says, "In our defense, we were working on many other things, but we should have been in that area."

But even before Facebook became a global phenomenon, Google had its Orkut, though its popularity was limited to India and Brazil largely. Its next social network, Buzz, failed to gain traction. The latest, Google+, is the company's most aggressive push into the social networking domain, with free online photo storage as well as integration with YouTube and Search.

Schmidt also predicted that the smartphone segment will continue to grow at a rapid pace in 2014. He said, "The biggest change for consumers is that everyone is going to have a smartphone. The fact that so many people are connected to a super computer means, essentially, a whole new generation of applications around entertainment, communication, socializing."

He also said that Big Data and machine intelligence will create new services and change the way businessesare run globally.

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Buyer's guide: Suggest gaming laptops within Rs 40,000

I want to buy a gaming laptop, but my budget is around Rs 40,000. Please help.
—Abhay Kumar, Mukut Bhandari

In a budget of Rs 40,000, you can expect to pick a machine with an HD display and graphic card that's capable of playing games like Crysis 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Max Payne 3.

Still, you will have to turn quality settings down a bit - lowering details, game resolution, etc - in order for the games to run smoothly. This is because the graphic cards available in this price range are not powerful enough to run detail-rich titles at optimum frame rates.

As always, it is recommended that you visit a retail outlet to get a feel of the build quality, display, and keyboard comfort before selecting a laptop. Here are some options you can consider...

Dell Inspiron 15 (3521)

Price: Rs 41,590

Specs: 15.6-inch (1366x768px) LED backlit display; 1.9GHz; Intel Core i3-3227 U processor; 4GB RAM; 500GB HDD, AMD Radeon HD 8730M, 2GB; DVD-R/W; Wi-Fi; Ethernet; Bluetooth; (2x)USB3.0; (2x)USB2.0; memory card reader; HDMI; Windows 8

HP Pavilion 15-n 010TX

Price: Rs 39,149

Specs: 15.6-inch (1366x768px); 1.8GHz; Intel Core i3 3217U processor; 4GB RAM; 500GB HDD; AMD Mobility Radeon HD 8670M; 2GB; DVD-R/W; Wi-Fi; Ethernet; Bluetooth; (2x)USB 3.0; (1x)USB 2.0; memory card reader; HDMI; Windows 8

Acer E1-570 G

Price: Rs 41,990

Specs: 15.6-inch (1366x768px) TFT; Intel Core i3 3217U processor; 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD; Nvidia GeForce GT740M, 2GB; DVD-R/W; Wi-Fi; Ethernet; Bluetooth; (1x)USB 3.0; (2x)USB 2.0; memory card reader; HDMI; Windows 8.

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How social media transformed newsrooms in 2013

NEW DELHI: From being a platform for making friends to a melting pot of views and opinions, social media has transformed the way newsrooms and newsmakers interacted with the world in 2013. And, with the exponential growth of affordable smart devices, this transition is set to expand further.

From the outrage following the December 2012 gangrape in India to the coronation of Pope Francis, paying tributes to Nelson Mandela, to "selfies" of Barrack Obama and James Camaron, the year saw social media push the boundaries of protests, mourning and self-promotion. Gone are the days when having a profile on Facebook was considered being socially active. The youth today is catching up with friends on Facebooks, Twitter, BBM, Whatsapp and a plethora of apps from their PCs, mobile phones and tablets.

As this seamless mix of sociology and technology morphed into a powerful platform for public's engagement with the government, policy makers also logged on to gauge public views and looking for a stronger connect with the "aam aadmi". Analysts expect political parties in the country to make greater use of social media for their election campaigns to increase voter support, especially among the youth. The new year will see further expansion of this medium as companies making salt to software use this platform to advertise their products, services and connect with customers.

Advertisers are taking an integrated cross-channel approach across social media and traditional channels, while brands are turning to it for providing customer service and support. "In 2014, we expect more brands to recognise that digital is not a channel that is fitted into existing thinking, it needs a new way of thinking. Marketers are expected to invest more in data capabilities to understand the performance of their digital campaigns," SapientNitro Co-Global Deliver Lead and Sapient India MD Rajdeep Endow said.

However, the ever increasing rhetoric around surveillance and snooping of Internet, which left its indelible mark on companies and users, in 2013 forced tech firms like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yahoo and LinkedIn to beef up encryption to secure users' data. The issue of cyber snooping, thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations of surveillance of Internet users by governments, led to worldwide criticism and protests forcing tech firms to secure their web traffic in a bid to reassure their users.

It was a big year for social media, which saw Twitter going public, Snapchat rejecting a $3 billion offer from Facebook and hockey-stick type growth curve of messaging apps like Whatsapp and Line pushing advertisers to reach their target audiences via social networks on mobile devices.

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DoT defers spectrum auction to February 3

NEW DELHI: The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has extended the dates of auction of spectrum in 1,800 megahertz (MHz) and 900 MHz bands. The auction will now start on Feb 3, next year, instead of Jan 23, it was announced Monday.

Total spectrum put to auction is 46 MHz in 900 MHz band and 403.2 MHz in 1,800 MHz band, an official release here said.

The DoT had issued a notice inviting applications (NIA) on Dec 12 in which it was mentioned that any changes in the auction timelines will be communicated through the DoT website and the participants have been requested to monitor the DoT website actively.

The revised dates are as follows: clarifications to NIA Jan 2; last date for submission of applications Jan 15; publication of ownership details of applicants Jan 20; bidder ownership compliance certificate Jan 23; pre-qualification of bidders Jan 25; last date of withdrawal of applications Jan 27; final list of bidders Jan 29; mock auction Jan 30 and 31; and start of the auction February 3.

The government expects to mop up Rs 4,000 crore from these auctions.

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Domestic IT market to grow 9.7% in 2014: Study

NEW DELHI: IT spending in the country is expected to grow at 9.7% and touch Rs 1,51,728 crore in 2014 as companies invest in technology to control costs, drive efficiency and ensure organic business growth, a study by research firm Coeus Age said.

According to the report titled 'Enterprise Business Priorities and IT Plans, India, 2014', the domestic IT spending in India grew 8.1% in 2013 to Rs 1.38 lakh crore.

This is estimated to grow at 9.7% in 2014 and reach a size of Rs 1,51,728 crore, it added.

Based on inputs from 130 CIOs/IT heads of large and medium-sized Indian enterprises, the report gauges the perception of the companies regarding business scenario, priorities and plans regarding IT for the year 2014.

"After a very sluggish growth in 2013 -- the lowest since 2002 -- the year 2014 is expected to see the beginning of a new growth trajectory," Coeus Age Founder Kapil Dev Singh said.

2014 is the year of general elections at the Centre and with the new government formation being just six months away, the hope of revival is a natural outcome, he added.

However, businesses are also cautious on account of pressures of moderate revenue growth across industries as well as high inflation.

"Though the enterprises have coped by increasing the product prices, cutting unwanted costs and becoming more efficient, the pressure is expected to continue through 2014," the former country manager of IDC India said.

According to the report, 76% of the CIOs interviewed said their top priority is operational in nature, focused on cost control, efficiency drive, striving for a healthy cash flow and ensuring an organic business growth.

About 51% of the respondents said their IT focus is to bring efficiency and optimisation in IT management.

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Cybersecurity to get more complicated in 2014: ISACA

HOUSTON: Cybersecurity is set to get a lot more complicated in 2014, a global IT association has warned all businesses - big or small, asking them to brace up.

IT and cybersecurity professionals should resolve now to gear up for accelerated change and complexity in 2014, especially in cybersecurity, data privacy and big data, according to non-profit ISACA, to ring in the New Year securely.

"The pace of change expected in 2014 will put incredible pressure on technology professionals in the workplace with a focus on keeping IT risk in check while at the same time delivering value to the business," said Bhavesh Bhagat, CEO of EnCrisp, co-founder of Confident Governance and member of ISACA's new emerging business and technology committee.

ISACA, that provides guidance to help business and IT leaders maximise value and manage risk related to information and technology, has predicted on certain areas businesses should be preparing for in 2014.

It has asked businesses to prepare for privacy 2.0 as attitudes towards data privacy are unlikely to reach a consensus in 2014. Instead, be prepared to accommodate both those with little expectation of privacy and those who view their personal data as currency and want to control how that currency is spent, it said.

Slim down big data: Explosive data volumes were the No. 1 issue posed by big data in ISACA's 2013 IT Risk/Reward Barometer. Unmanageable data creates redundancies and is difficult to secure, it said.

ISACA has also asked businesses to eliminate the excess data and consolidate what remains, to promote sharing and protect using better controls.

Plan to compete for cybersecurity and data analytics experts: The need for smart analytics people and cybersecurity defenders with the right certifications is only going to grow in 2014.

It said businesses that plan on hiring during the new year need to make sure their compensation package and job descriptions are competitive.

Rethink how your enterprise is using your information security experts: With some elements of IT security operational responsibility (including malware detection, event analysis and control operation) increasingly being outsourced to cloud providers, smart leaders are enabling their internal security experts to become hunters instead of just defenders.

This allows them to proactively seek out the most hard- to-detect threats, build internal intelligence capabilities, construct better metrics and invest in operational risk analysis.

Ramp up for the internet of (even more) Things: With past research showing 50 billion devices expected to be connected to the Internet by 2020, start working now on a policy governing connected devices, if your enterprise does not have one now, it said.

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IT to create maximum jobs in 2014: Assocham

NEW DELHI: Information technology, banking and agriculture-related businesses are going to be among the key job creating sectors in 2014, according to a study by industry body Assocham.

"Information Technology (IT), pharmaceuticals, banking and agri-related industries such as farm equipment, fertilisers and seeds, will remain the largest employment generation sectors in 2014," the chamber said in its study.

All these sectors will stand out despite the present state of the economy where net employment is being lost and not created in a large majority of sectors.

IT will remain the net aggregator of jobs in 2014 due to recovery in the US economy, it said.

"The US economy is showing signs of improvement... A large number of American firms are expected to increase their IT spend as consumer sales pick up there," it added.

Continuous pressure on rupee will help increase the net income of IT companies and they will keep hiring, it pointed out.

"Since our economy still remains a good mix of organised and unorganised, large corporate and small enterprises, a large number of people in rural India are dependent on agriculture and tertiary industries; there are inherent and inbuilt strengths which come handy when the chips are down," Assocham President Rana Kapoor said.

Pharma sector will continue to hire in 2014. But because of some setbacks and tightening of regulations in the US and some other markets, the companies will have to invest more in improving their manufacturing and Research & Development.

Further, the study said that agri-based industries are expected to do better in 2014 on the back of a good rabi crop.

"The positive spin off would be evident in a whole lot of industries which are directly linked such as tractor and farm equipment manufacturers, irrigation firms and those involved in developing and selling seeds and fertilisers", it said.

On banking, the study said that 2014 is expected to be a better year for the sector.

"The NPAs would be reduced since the focus is very much there on the issue and there are signs of recovery in some segments of the economy. Besides, a huge number of backlog vacancies have to be filled up in public sector banks."

For the private banking sector, new licenses, which are likely to be given before April, will throw up new job opportunities.

While the new banks will leverage technology, job opportunities will arise both in brick and mortar as also in development and implementation of technology solutions, the study added.

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Bitcoin malware: India among top targets

NEW DELHI: Bitcoin craze is turning into a fertile ground for cyberfraudsters as thousands of computers, including in India, are being infected with malwares related to the virtual currency.

The findings of a survey, that has pegged the count of computers infected with bitcoin related malware at at least 12,000, comes at a time when regulators worldwide have flagged money laundering concerns about this popular virtual currency.

IT security firm Trend Micro, a 'bitcoin mining malware' is infecting computers globally leading to increasing threat of cybersecurity risks for bitcoins users.

India is among the countries that have been hit the most by such malwares, it said.

As per the survey, four out of the six countries that have the highest number of such infected computers are in the the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.

Japan was the most affected country with APAC, followed by Australia, India and Taiwan.

"Bitcoin users have become the hot target for cybercriminals as bitcoin transaction is permanent and has no reversal of charges," Trend Micro managing director (India & SAARC) Dhanya Thakkar said.

About 12,000 personal computers have been globally affected by malwares (related to bitcoin) which were causing severe slowdown of computer systems making them "virtual assets for the criminals," it added.

"Although bitcoin is claimed to be anonymous, the transaction records are still in public and it leave traces... Consequently, given enough circumstantial evidence, criminals can identify and obtain the owners personal information," Trend Micro said.

Thakkar noted that there is no regulator or authority that bitcoin users can appeal to if they fall victim to theft or fraud.

Going by estimates, as many as 67 digital currencies are in circulation on the internet and their total value is around $13 billion. Out of this amount, bitcoin alone accounts for over $9 billion.

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Indian IT: Wake up and smell the opportunity

The same advances that are changing the IT landscape are also creating new opportunities, says Vivek Wadhwa, fellow at Stanford Law School and director of research at Duke University...

A few years ago, Wall Street Journal and Forbes published articles predicting the demise of Indian IT. I responded with an article that they were dead wrong. I said that the outsourcing market had a long way to go before IT peaked; rising salaries and attrition rates were not a cause for long-term concern; and Indian IT would soon become a $100 billion industry. It did.

Now I am ready to declare the end of the line for Indian IT. There are new $100-billion market opportunities that could revitalize this industry. But from what I've seen, Indian executives seem incapable of steering their ships in the right directions.

It is not that Indian outsourcers have become less capable of servicing Western needs. It is that their customer base — the CIO and IT department — is in decline. With the advent of tablets, apps, and cloud computing, users have direct access to better technology than their IT departments can provide them. They can download cheap, elegant, and powerful apps on their iPads that make their corporate systems look primitive. These modern-day apps don't require internal teams of people doing software development and maintenance. They are user-customizable and can be built by anyone with basic programming skills.

It takes decades to update legacy computer systems , and corporate IT departments move at the speed of molasses. So, Indian outsourcers have a few more years before they see a significant decline. They certainly won't see the growth and billion-dollar deals that have brought them this far.

The same advances that are changing the IT landscape are also creating new opportunities. For example, advances in robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and 3D printing are making it cost effective to move manufacturing back from China to the US, Europe... and India.

Take the Baxter robot from Rethink Robotics. It has two arms, a face that displays simulated emotion, and cameras and sensors that detect the motion of human beings that work next to it. It can perform assembly and move boxes — just as humans do. It will work 24 hours a day and not complain. It costs only $22,000. This is one of many such robots.

AI is making it possible to develop self-driving cars, voice-recognition systems, and computer systems that can make human-like decisions. AI technologies are also finding their way into manufacturing and are powering robots such as Baxter.

A type of manufacturing called "additive manufacturing" is making it possible to cost-effectively "print" products. 3D printers can create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewellery, and even clothing. The cheapest 3D printers, which print rudimentary objects, currently sell for between $500 and $1,000.

Soon we will have printers for this price that can print toys and household goods. By the end of this decade, we will see 3D printers doing the small-scale production of previously labor-intensive crafts and goods. In the next decade we may be 3D printing buildings and electronics.

These technologies are becoming readily available and cheap, but America's manufacturing plants aren't geared up to take advantage of them. Most don't have the know-how. This is where India's companies could step in. They could master the new technologies and help American firms design new factory floors and program and install robots. They could provide management consulting on designing new value chains and inventory management.

They could operate and monitor manufacturing plant operations remotely. This is a higher-margin business than the old IT services. And Americans would cheer India for bringing manufacturing back to their shores — rather than protest it taking their IT jobs away. We are talking about a trillion dollar market opportunity.

India's technology companies can also develop sensor-based biomedical devices, cures for diseases by analyzing genome and health data, drone-based delivery systems, smart cities, digital tutors, and sensors to improve farming. Software and IT are the key to developing all these.

In my discussions with Indian CEOs, they all acknowledge the reality. They are becoming aware of what lies ahead. I have implored them to start retraining their people in the new technologies and develop new businesses and consulting practices. They listen, nod their heads, and go back to trying to close the disappearing software-outsourcing deals. They are shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

(The writer is a fellow at Stanford Law School and director of research at Duke University)

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Tech rewind 2013

Here is a glimpse of hottest tech events of 2013....

The world goes FullHD
Almost everyone and their uncle was either launching or buying products with high-definition displays. In 2013, manufacturers managed to convince buyers that they weren't seeing right if they weren't seeing things in full HD.

Samsung, LG, Lenovo, Sony - all launched pixel-packing smartphones; tablets such as Nexus 7, Kindle Fire 8.9 and the new iPads also boasted of high-density screens. Indian brands Micromax and Spice jumped onto the bandwagon too.

On the TV side, high-def champions Samsung and LG pushed the envelope with 4K panels - double the resolution of Full HD. Videos and images looked crisper, or at least we convinced ourselves that they do. And 'screen PPI' finally found its place in tech lexicon among jargon like 'processor cores' and 'camera megapixels'.

Wearing your tech
Geeks rejoiced. Google made wearing spectacles uber cool when they launched Google Glass - eyewear that lets you record videos, shoot photos, and even access the internet.

In Europe, an Italian company unveiled their version of a headmounted display called GlassUp. Gamers got their own with the Oculus Rift - a headset that melds virtual reality and immersive gaming, which began shipping to software developers.

Then, there were smart watches that connect to your smartphone; arm bands that measure heart rates, blood pressure, sleep cycles; and shoes that count every step you take.

The most 'out there' idea, however, came out of Durex's research labs. The condom manufacturer unveiled Fundawear - a range of undergarments that vibrate whenever your partner runs his or her fingers on the Fundawear smartphone app - and the couple doesn't even need to be in the same room for those... ahem... tender caresses..

Fight for survival
Till 2008, Nokia was a brand that could do no wrong. And BlackBerry made handsets that were preferred by the suits. Then Google's Android happened, and within a couple of years, Samsung - earlier known for its refrigerators and air conditioners - slowly, but steadily became the numero uno brand for smartphones.

In 2013, after a few calamitous strategic decisions, Nokia was bought over by Microsoft for a pittance - and Blackberry, despite its BB10 OS and new touchscreen handsets, is still looking for a buyer.

But already, Nokia with Microsoft is gaining lost ground. Popular apps are finally making their way to the Windows Phone platform. And BlackBerry is all set to release a BB10 upgrade in the New Year that will let users directly install Android apps on their smartphone. There's no telling where these erstwhile giants will go from here, but 2013 will always be remembered as the year when they fought for pure survival.

Mother of all leaks
It's true. They're after you! In June, The Guardian and The Washington Post made a series of shocking revelations that America's National Security Agency (NSA) had been sniffing through e-mails , web browsing history, and online chats. If you were visiting porn sites, they probably saw it; and they probably know about your secret e-mail addresses and Facebook accounts too.

Some of the tools employed by the NSA, allegedly, were produced by companies like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google and Apple.

Then in November, it was revealed that NSA had infected over 50,000 networks with malware to help with its espionage. Is there more? Apparently, yes. Ninety-nine per cent of the leaked documents are yet to be documented and exposed. Hah! So while you were cluelessly watching Bigg Brother on TV, you were also part of yet another Orwellian plot.

Bitcoin: Heads or tails?
Bitcoin was first mentioned in 2008 in a paper published under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. The following year, this digital currency became operational with the release of the first Bitcoin 'mining' client, and the first Bitcoins. The last one year, however, is when this digital currency made massive headlines.

Services such as OkCupid, Baidu, Reddit, Humble Bundle, Foodler, and even Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic began accepting it as payment. In August, Germany announced that Bitcoins can be used for the purpose of tax and trading in the country. Similarly, Finland issued a regulatory guide in September. In October, the FBI shut down the Silk Road online black market and seized $28.5 million worth of Bitcoins from the alleged mastermind. The Washington Post labelled it "the currency of choice for seedy online activities," and CNN called it a "shady online currency" .

On December 5, China Central Bank barred financial institutions from handling Bitcoin transactions in the country. This was similar to the Bank of Thailand directive in July, which deemed all Bitcoin activities as illegal. But through all these ups and downs, the price of Bitcoin reached an all-time high of nearly $1,200 in November, up from $14 at the start of the year. At the time of going to press, the value of one unit of this volatile currency dropped to $601.

John Quiggin, a professor of Economics at the University of Queensland, Australia, noted that since Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, it is "perhaps the finest example of a pure bubble" . Whether it bursts or floats depends on how long it can defy pure economics.

Taking on the big boys... and winning
Hugh 'Wolverine' Jackman held his palms slightly apart in a Namaste, and in between those hands, television viewers saw the Micromax Canvas Turbo.

In the last year, home-grown smartphone brands took the fight to foreign manufacturers and beat them in marketing, price and feature wars. International brands were forced to rethink strategies; sometimes bending backwards with freebies on purchase, huge discounts and even buy-back schemes.

As things stand, Micromax is second only to Samsung in the country, while Karbonn and Lava have also clawed their way up into the list of top vendors. Budgetconscious youth gave the nod to local brands, and carrying indigenous handsets - or being seen with one - is no longer uncool, it seems.

Ransomware: Your money or your data
E-mails inviting you to claim your lottery are old school now. It has been the year of ransomware - an evolved form of malware that proliferated in the first half of 2013.

The modus operandi is simple: Systems get infected; lock users out of their computers, while hackers demand money in exchange for digital freedom. Why kidnap when you have the internet and netbanking?

At the moment, ransomware has appeared in the form of a web page masquerading as the local police site, threatening to take action against your 'illegal' online activities. Gullible folk take the bite and pay their bail - online. Another variant called CryptoLocker puts many a network admin in a pickle with its strong encryption. And only after an untraceable online payment, they receive the decryption key!

Who's got game
This year, Microsoft and Sony unveiled their newest game consoles within a few months of each other. The new Xbox One - unveiled in May - is designed to be your go-to bum-chum for entertainment. It understands voice commands, lets you download and watch movies, listen to music, browse the web, install apps, make Skype calls - and of course, play games.

On the other hand, the new PS4 - unveiled in February - tends towards social gameplay: It lets you share game videos and screen grabs via the internet; record and upload videos to Facebook, and is even programmed to learn your likes and dislikes.

Both consoles recognize gestures, both support Blu-ray discs, and both have begun slugging it out to be the centre of your attention - only problem they haven't worked out is how to wean you away from your Full HD smartphone.

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Why more teens are quitting Facebook

Teenagers are turning their back on Facebook 'in their droves' and switching to simpler social networks and messaging apps, new research has found. Not only are 16-18 year olds moving on to rivals such as Snapchat, Whatsapp and even Twitter, teens are embarrassed to be so much as associated with Facebook, as their parents adopt the network, researchers said.

"Where once parents worried about their children joining Facebook, the children now say it is their family that insists they stay there to post about their lives," said Daniel Miller, a professor of Anthropology at University College London, who works on the Global Social Media Impact Study.

"Parents have worked out how to use the site and see it as a way for the family to remain connected. In response, the young are moving on tocooler things," he said. "What we've learned from working with 16-18 year olds in the UK is that Facebook is not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried," he added. Miller, writing on academic news website the Conversation, added that the research found that "slick isn't always best" as even the teenagers that took part in the study admitted that Facebook is technically better than its rivals.

"It is more integrated, better for photo albums, organizing parties and more effective for observing people's relationships," he said, yet other factors are much more important to teens —namely the fact they are likely to get a friend request from their mum on Facebook. "You just can't be young and free if you know your parents can access your every indiscretion," he said.

"It is nothing new that young people care about style and status in relation to their peers, and Facebook is simply not cool anymore." Instead, rather than using the network to communicate with each other, teens use Facebook as a link to older family and older siblings who have gone to university.

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Video games from 1970s revived on internet

WASHINGTON: For those old enough to remember console games like " Asteroids" or " Red Baron," from the 1970s and 1980s: the games are back.

The Internet Archive this week launched its "Console Living Room," offering browser emulations of pre-internet era video games which used to be played on consoles from firms like Atari, Coleco or Magnavox.

"For a generation of children, the most exciting part of a Christmas morning was discovering a large box under the tree, ripping it apart, and looking at an exciting, colorful box promising endless video games. At home! Right in your living room!," said Jason Scott of the Internet Archive in a blog post.

Scott added that the games are being adapted by "an army of volunteer elves" who "will be improving them across the next few days."

"Sound is still not enabled, but is coming soon," he said. The initiative "harkens back to the revolution of the change in the hearth of the home, when the fireplace and later television were transformed by gaming consoles into a center of videogame entertainment," says the Web page devoted to the games.

The effort will enable a new generation to discover games that used to be on a cartridge inserted into a console, with titles including "Ninja Golf," and "Ms. Pac-Man."

The games, with crude graphics and sounds compared to today's programmes, are still valued by nostalgia buffs who recall their pioneering technology which brought games into the home from video arcades.

The Internet Archive, known for its "Wayback Machine" which keeps websites even after they are shut down was founded in 1996 and helps researchers, historians, scholars and others find historical collections that exist in digital format.

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Google: Govt request to remove content worrying

NEW DELHI: Search engine giant Google has raised concerns about consistent demands by governments and law enforcement agencies across the world to remove content that is critical of them.

The US-based firm, which offers services like search, email, ads and mapping, said over the last four years, "one worrying trend has remained consistent: governments continue to ask us to remove political content".

The company regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over user data.

In a blogpost, Google legal director Susan Infantino said, "Judges have asked us to remove information that's critical of them, police departments want us to take down videos or blogs that shine a light on their conduct, and local institutions like town councils don't want people to be able to find information about their decision-making processes."

Between January and June this year, Google received 3,846 government requests to remove 24,737 pieces of content, an increase of 68 per cent over the second half of 2012.

These officials often cite defamation, privacy and even copyright laws in attempts to remove political speech from Google's services.

Google said it has received 93 requests to take down government criticism and removed content in response to less than one third of them during the first half of 2013. Four of the requests were submitted as copyright claims.

In the past too, Google has said the number of such requests are on the rise with growing usage of its services every year.

"While the information we present in our Transparency Report is certainly not a comprehensive view of censorship online, it does demonstrate a worrying upward trend in the number of government requests, and underscores the importance of transparency around the processes governing such requests," she said.

Tech firms, including Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo, have been seeking to release more information on Government data requests, in the belief that this would reassure their customers.

These companies have also expressed "serious" concerns about monitoring of content by government agencies and they have also beefed up encryption (security) of user data to protect privacy of their consumers.

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Moto G coming to India in early Jan: Motorola

NEW DELHI: Motorola has confirmed that it will launch its much-awaited Moto G budget smartphone in the Indian market in early January.

Responding to a query by on Twitter, the company posted that the Moto G, which made its debut in November, will launch in India in early January.

Earlier, the company had posted on its blog that the Moto G will be available in the US, India, the Middle East and other Asian markets in early January. Motorola had said that the dual-sim version of the phone would be launched in India. It has received acclaim for its low-price, good hardware specifications and rich feature set from international reviewers.

The Moto G sports a 4.5-inch screen with 1280x720p resolution and pixel density of 329ppi; the display is protected against scratches by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 layer. The phone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor and 1GB RAM. It was launched with Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and is already receiving Android 4.4 (KitKat) update.

The Moto G comes in 8 and 16GB storage options and does not support microSD cards, though it offers 65GB of Google Drive storage. The phone sports a 5MP camera with LED flash at the back and a 1.3MP unit at the front. It comes with a 2,070mAh battery that is said to give an all-day battery life. Connectivity options include 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and microUSB 2.0.

The phone's 8 and 16GB storage variants have been priced at $179 and $199, respectively. However, there is no information on the phone's pricing in the Indian market. Motorola offers several customization options for the Moto G, including removable back covers in five colours, flip covers and protective cases.

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Heritage museums head to social media to lure visitors

Curators of a small but rising number of heritage museums in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are looking to create a buzz in digital space through Facebook pages, web portals, smartphone apps and even by offering virtual tour on Google Art.

"We have a lot of art programmes and workshops which are vibrant in nature and catered to students, teenagers and even art enthusiasts. Social media forms the best way to spread awareness about these events as well as the museum," Bilwa Kulkarni, education officer at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, said.

Recently, visitors to the Facebook page of this Mumbai-based museum, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, were greeted with a quirky post: 'Mummy: The Inside Story'. It was about an upcoming exhibition on European civilization and generated much curiosity that translated into more than three lakh visitors to the exhibition that lasted about four months.

The Victoria Memorial Hall in Kolkata, Delhi-based National Museum and Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai are among the other museums in the country looking to engage people through social media. Victoria Memorial Hall — conceived by then viceroy of India Lord Curzon as a tribute to Queen Victoria — is in talks with Prasar Bharati to film a documentary that would be posted on YouTube and Facebook. "The documentary will picture a better idea about the museum," Dr Jayanta Sengupta, secretary-cum-curator at Victoria Memorial Hall, said.

It was also the third Indian museum — after National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, and National Museum, Delhi — to be featured on Google Art, the internet giant's project to allow virtual tour of some top art institutions around the world.

Victoria Memorial Hall, the most visited museum in the country with 18 lakh visitors in 2012-2013, plans to launch a smartphone app soon to help the visitors with an audio tour.

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya too plans smartphone applications for visitors. "We are working on the idea of creating mobile applications for the museum which will be geared at spreading information about the museum, visiting the museum and upcoming activities," Kulkarni said.

The museum's Twitter page too shall be active within a month, she said. Vijay Kumar Mathur, curator at National Museum, Delhi, said, "Every international museum has a strong presence on Facebook and nowadays when everyone is so connected to the medium, it was the next logical step for us to be a part of it."

Indian museums, however, are trailing international institutions in taking to social media to attract visitors from around the world.

"All major international cultural institutions are in a big way on social media," Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, director of Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai, said. "In terms of what they are doing, we are slightly backward and need to strengthen our presence," she added. Mehta targets more than 50,000 followers for the museum's Facebook page, up from around 2,000 now.

Youth forms more than 70% of it visitors and Mehta plans to attract more of them. "Since the next generation is all accustomed to using smartphones and tablets, we are planning to introduce tablets/iPads inside the museum, which will have all the information about the collection in the museum, pictures, commentary by the curators, etc," she said.

The tablet will be available within the museum for an amount of `100 for visitors, said Mehta, who is also the vice-chairman of the Indian National Trust For Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach), which is campaigning to get Delhi crowned as an Unesco world heritage city.

Intach, too, has chalked out several programmes through social media to garner support for India's first nomination for a world heritage city.

Annabel Lopez, project coordinator at Intach, said, "We have to prove that our nomination is worthy and we have to have the confidence of various stakeholders — government, NGOs and the citizens — which is possible to a great extent through social media," she added.

Intach has been conducting various educational campaigns, heritage walks and radio shows that are promoted through social networking websites to showcase the Mughal walled city of Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, and the colonial capital city of Lutyens Delhi among others.

"Social media has helped in reaching out to young people and we have had volunteers from schools and colleges who come during winter breaks and want to volunteer for the project," Lopez said. In January more than a thousand schools and around one lakh students from Delhi are expected to back the Intach campaign on Facebook in the run up to submit the final dossier for Delhi's world heritage city status.

The Indian Museum in Kolkata, the country's largest museum that is currently closed for revamp, too is generating interest on its Facebook page with more than 300 requests daily. "Our Facebook page talks about all the new features that would be added to the revamped museums," Sayan Bhattacharya, education officer at Indian Museum, said.

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India's 7 most active tech investors

Global investors have for long spoken admiringly about India's technical prowess. Now they are putting serious money where their mouth is. This flurry of action is being brought about by a confluence of circumstances — Indian tech companies are helping people around the world work smarter and play better. At home, they are tapping into a vast market as millions of Indians log on to the internet in search of new products and services.

"It is like reading tomorrow's newspaper today," said Abhishek Agrawal, the managing director of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's global technology fund Vulcan Capital. In October, Vulcan was one of the funds investing $160 million (nearly Rs 1,000 crore) in India's biggest online retailer Flipkart in its first deal in the country. "It is hard to not be (here) today."

Vulcan is one of a number of global technology funds that have made an entry into India this year. Silver Lake which manages a corpus of $ 20 billion, led the Rs 250 crore investment round at commodity software maker Eka. Others such as European investment firm Sofina, Japan's Recruit Holdings and the Dragoneer Investment Group have funded some of the country's top online retailers.

"The time to invest in India is now. This is like the 1997 was in Silicon Valley — just before the big boom," said Vivek Wadhwa, a vice president of research and innovation at Singularity University in the United States. Until the end of November, $ 1.3 billion (Rs 8,000 crore) of risk capital has been invested in Indian technology companies according to consultancy EY. While new entrants have made a splash, the rising buzz is led by the bold bets being taken by a few global venture funds that have had a ringside view of the sector for nearly a decade now.

"The world is indeed flat," said Mohit Bhatnagar a managing director at Sequoia Capital, whose fund hit pay dirt when portfolio company JustDial went public in June. Here are short profiles of seven of the most active technology investors in India:

Seedfund
Seedfund bagged one of the few exits from a consumer internet company in India when online bus ticketing firm redBus was acquired earlier this year for $100 million by South African media conglomerate Naspers. Seedfund was the first investor in the seven-year-old firm that changed the way consumers booked bus tickets in India.

Seedfund, founded in 2006, has done this before. Its first investment in 2006 was in automobile site CarWale, which was acquired by Axel Springer and the India Today Group four years later. "Our strategy was always to try and find smartly-run companies in consumer-facing businesses, who could create sectors from scratch and dominate them while spending very little money doing so," said Mahesh Murthy, partner at Seedfund.

Fund Size
Fund 1: $15 million (Rs 92 crore)
Fund 2: $54 million (Rs 334 crore)
No. of investments: 33 across 2 funds
Amount invested: Rs 371 cr across 2 funds
Top exits: CarWale, redBus
Top 5 portfolio picks: AFAQs, Vaatsalya, ThinkLabs, MyDentist, Heckyl, Chumbak
Partners: Pravin Gandhi, Bharati Jacob, Mahesh Murthy
Seed deals in last 2 years: 15
Seed/early as % of total investment: 61%
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Blue sky sectors
No. of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: 17

Sequoia Capital
Two blockbuster exits, plus a string of investments in emerging ventures, made 2013 a seminal year for technology investing at Sequoia. Nearly three years after a reshuffle of the top management renewed its focus on the sector, the Silicon Valley fund is reclaiming its DNA.

"Technology and venture investing is our mainstay, and has been Sequoia's core focus for the last many decades," said Shailendra Singh, a managing director at the Indian arm, which manages a corpus of about $1.4 billion.

In India, half of the total dollars it invests are directed at technology companies. It is a strategy vindicated by the returns earned this year. In June, consumer internet company Justdial's Rs 950 crore IPO, in which the founders and risk capital investors sold 1.75 crore shares, was the one of the largest on Indian bourses for the year.

Sequoia diluted a portion of its stake of about 19 % in the company. At the close of the year, Japan's Hitachi acquired payment technology maker Prizm, a Sequoia portfolio company, in a deal estimated at $250 million.

"We look for strong growth and unit economics," said Mohit Bhatnagar, a managing director who has led Sequoia's investments in telecom company Micromax. In 2014, at least 60% of all deals for the fund will be in the areas of payments, consumer internet, mobile enterprise software and big data, he said. Entrepreneurs say the ability to "not be dogmatic" while supporting the creativity of the promoters is what marks the fund out from peers.

"They are not greedy for controlling stake and hence promoters have flexibility in phasing out the dilution," said Loney Antony, founder of Prizm. Global teams also collaborate with the Indian arm. "We have had Partners like Doug Leone come down to India and spend time with me and the leadership team," said Dhiraj Rajaram, founder of MuSigma, a data analytics company that first raised about $25 million from Sequoia in 2011.

Fund Size: $1.4 billion (Rs 8,677 crore)
No. of investments: 70
Amount invested: $1.2 billion (Rs 7,437 crore)
Top exits: Paras, Prizm, Globallogic, Idea Cellular, Cafe Coffee Day, Just Dial, Vasan (part exits)
Top 5 portfolio picks: Just Dial, Micromax, Mu Sigma, Prizm Payments, Druva
Partners: VT Bharadwaj, Mohit Bhatnagar, Abhay Pandey, GV Ravishankar, Shailendra Singh
Seed deals in last 2 years: 8
Seed/early as percentage of total investment: 60%
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Tech -- internet, mobile, payments
No. of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: 25% of tech investments
Follow on investments: 95%

Kalaari Capital Advisors
The $160-million venture fund, which derives its name from the ancient Indian martial art form of Kalaripayattu, is the new avatar of Indo-US Venture Partners, a fund that has backed online retailers Myntra and Snapdeal. In its second coming, the firm has focused heavily on backing technology startups.

"We are keen on product startups from India that aim at a global customer base," said Rajesh Raju, MD of Kalaari Capital. The VC firm invests in its money in early stage companies, with amounts ranging from $2-5 million.

Entrepreneurs say the networking that Kalaari provides is a big draw. "Recently, they took us to the Silicon Valley to meet top investors. I always use them as a sounding board whenever am in doubt," said R Narayan, founder of Power2SMEa buying portal that has raised two rounds of investment from Kalaari.

Fund Size: $160 million (Rs 991 crore)
No. of investments: 12
Amount invested: Not disclosed
Top exits: MedPlus, Gingersoft (IUVP)
Top 5 portfolio picks: Power2Sme, Magzter, Simplilearn, Zivame, Robosoft
Partners: Vani Kola, Kumar Shiralagi, Rajesh Raju
Seed deals in last 2 years: NA
Seed/early as percentage of total investment: NA
Focus areas for seed/early investment: e-commerce, mobility, education, consumer internet
No of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: NA
Follow on investments: Not disclosed

Accel Partners
Globally venture capital fund Accel Partners is known for its propitious investment in Facebook. That track record endures in India, with early investments in Flipkart, considered the torchbearer of e-commerce in the country, and in Mu Sigma, the Big Data firm that got a billion-dollar valuation when it raised funds earlier this year.

The core Accel team-Subrata Mitra, Prashanth Prakash and Mahendra Balachandran — set up Erasmic Venture Fund in 2005. MuSigma was the first investment of Erasmic, which merged with Silicon Valleybased Accel in 2008.

Since then, the fund has been focused on technology. Mitra, partner at Accel, says it is the emergence of founders from global companies that has led to increased interest in the sector. "We see a positive trend of more and more tech founders coming out of global companies such as Zoho, Amazon, Google etc where were involved in building truly global products," he said.

Founders of their portfolio companies appreciate the strong technology understanding that the Partners bring to the table. "They have knowledge of product, innovations and the tech market," said Girish Mathrubootham, co-founder of Freshdesk, which has raised $13 million (over Rs 80 crore) in three rounds. The fund says that India, while still not as vibrant in the technology space, could soon follow the footsteps of Silicon Valley in the US.

However, exits remain a concern. "There is no ecosystem for smaller exits in tech in India, and therefore it's either very large outcomes, which take time, or the companies just don't get anywhere," says Mitra.

Fund size: $250 million (Rs 1,549 crore)
No. of investments: 62
Amount invested: $100 million (Rs 619 crore)
Top exits: MuSigma, InBioPro, TravelMob
Top 5 portfolio picks: MuSigma, Flipkart, Myntra, Perfint, FreshDesk, Virident
Partners: Subrata Mitra, Prashanth Prakash, Mahendran Balachandran and Shekhar Kirani
Seed deals in last 2 years: 17 out of 24
Seed/early as percentage of total investment: NA
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Internet, mobile, SaaS, cloud, big data, education, healthcare
No. of investments in pre-revenue or pre-product companies: 23

Nexus Venture Partners
Nexus Venture Partners, one of the earliest investors to make bets on new technology opportunities such as cloud computing and data analytics, has also recorded blockbuster exits from early-stage investments in India. Naren Gupta, the co-founder and managing director of Nexus Venture Partners, attributes this resurgence of interest in technology to the many multi-nationals that have set up advanced development labs in India.

"Combined with strong investor interest, this has led to disruptive technology startups," said Gupta, an IIT Delhi alumnus, whose fund has backed companies such as cloud infrastructure provider Aryaka, data security software maker Druva and online retailer Snapdeal.

Entrepreneurs said the operational experience of the Partners at Nexus is a big draw. "They have been to the battlefield," said Ajit Gupta, founder of Aryaka who has raised about $56 million from a clutch of venture capital investors including Nexus.

"I had no revenues or proof of concept. I just showed the power point presentation to Naren and he invested. What I also liked is that when things go wrong, they are there to support." Nexus, which manages $600 million across three funds, says right-size funds are best for investors and entrepreneurs.

"Small funds may not be able to support a startup through multiple phases of development and growth," said Naren Gupta. Nexus has been able to stay in the fray by understanding the technology landscape in Silicon Valley and India. "You have to be an excellent listener and be able to combine multiple observations into coherent thesis."

Fund Size: $600 million (Rs 3732 crore)
No. of investments: 48
Amount invested: Not disclosed
Top exits: Cloud.com, Gluster, Netmagic, Dimdim
Top 5 portfolio picks: Aryaka, Druva, Eka, PubMatic, Snapdeal
Partners: Naren Gupta, Sandeep Singhal, Suvir Sujan, Anup Gupta, Jishnu Bhattacharjee
Seed deals in last 2 years: 16
Seed/early as percentage of total investment: 100%
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Cloud, storage, infrastructure, big data analytics, data security
No. of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: 5
Follow on investments: 100%

IDG Ventures India
Sudhir Sethi, founder chairman and managing director of IDG Ventures India, says when it comes to investing in technology-focused ventures, the best is still to come. "In the next three to four years, we expect about 40 to 50 divestments. We expect companies going public, with two-thirds of them through the merger and acquisition route," he said.

The venture firm currently invests out of its $150 million (Rs. 928.1 crore) IDG Ventures Fund - I, and is expected to launch its second investment vehicle in the coming months.

The fund made five new investments in 2013, including in cloud-based product discovery and search company Unbxd and real time financial information and news analytics provider Heckyl.

"We are also excited about the Indian product story. The space is already seeing global product companies such as Tally, Manthan, Newgen, Ramco and Zoho being built out of India. Specific themes such as big data analytics, security and cloud offer tremendous global market opportunities for Indian entrepreneurs," Sethi said.

Fund Size:
Fund - I: $150 million (Rs 929 crore)
Fund - II expected to be: $175 million (Rs 1,084 crore)
No. of investments: 25
Amount invested: $100 million (Rs 619 crore) over the last 3 years
Top exits: Manthan Systems (IDG refused to disclose details of any exits)
Top 5 portfolio picks: Myntra, Perfint Healthcare, Valyoo Technologies
Partners: Sudhir Sethi, TC Meenakshisundaram, Manik Arora
Seed deals in last 2 years: Refused to disclose
Seed/early as percentage of total investment: Not disclosed
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Enterprise software, digital consumer, healthcare, medical devices
No. of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: Not disclosed
Follow on investments: 6 follow-on investments in 2013

Inventus Capital Partners
Inventus, best known as an early-stage fund, has had an exceptionally good year. The fund recorded a healthy exit when online ticketing portal redBus was sold to media conglomerate Naspers.

"Our belief is that the Indian technology segment is more broad than deep," said Parag Dhol, managing director of Inventus Capital Partners, who believes Indian engineers have moved on from coding-to-other-peoples specifications to writing-their-own. "So we spread the net wide and pick the team/market that stands out," he said.

Dhol, whose firm manages a corpus of about $160 million, says smaller funds are better suited for India as the exit market is yet to evolve. "We will take the billion-dollar exits when they come, though!" said Dhol, adding the key to a ten-fold return on investment is to pick capital-efficient companies.

The firm has made invested in nine companies over the last two years, including online advertising technology maker Vizury. Dhol says greater participation from multinational companies and fewer regulations is essential to boost technology investment in the country.

Fund Size: $160 million (Rs 991 crore)
No. of investments: 24
Amount invested: Fund I invested; 25% of Fund II invested
Top exits: Sierra Atlantic, ViVu, redBus
Top 5 portfolio picks: redBus, Vizury, Sokrati, Sierra Atlantic, ViVu
Partners: Kanwal Rekhi, Parag Dhol, John Dougery, Samir Kumar
Seed deals in last 2 years: 9
Seed/early as % of total investment: 95%
Focus areas for seed/early investment: Mobile, online retail, internet
No. of pre-revenue or pre-product companies: 3/18 in Fund I; 1/6 in Fund II
Follow on investments: 11/18 in Fund I

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Nokia removes Here Maps from Apple App Store

WASHINGTON: Nokia has pulled the plug on its Here Maps app from the Apple App Store, saying recent changes to iOS 7 harming user experience.

The Here Maps app was touted to be an alternative to Apple's initially unpopular Maps app.

However, the Finnish mobile giant, now owned by Microsoft, said that they have made the decision to take off their mapping app as the recent changes to iOS7 were not compatible with the app, AllThingsD reports.

The company said that iPhone users can continue to use the mobile web version of Here Maps that offers core location needs, such as search, routing, orientation, transit information, all completely free of charge.

A Nokia spokeswoman said that the app was simply not optimized for iOS 7 and that is why they decided to remove it.

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Telcos could have prevented NSA spying: Expert

The world's mobile phone carriers have failed to implement technology fixes available since 2008 that would have thwarted the National Security Agency's ability to eavesdrop on many mobile phone calls, a cybersecurity expert says.

Karsten Nohl, chief scientist with Berlin's Security Research Labs, told Reuters ahead of a highly anticipated talk at a conference in Germany that his firm discovered the issue while reviewing security measures implemented by mobile operators around the world.

Nohl also told Reuters that the carriers had failed to fully address vulnerabilities that would allow hackers to clone and remotely gain control of certain SIM cards. Those vulnerabilities were pointed out in July.

While the German cryptologist criticized carriers for failing to implement technology to protect customers from surveillance as well as fraud, he said he does not think they did so under pressure from spy agencies.

"I couldn't imagine it is complicity. I think it is negligence," he said. "I don't want to believe in a worldwide conspiracy across all worldwide network operators. I think it is individual laziness and priority on network speed and network coverage and not security."

A spokeswoman for the GSM Association, which represents about 800 mobile operators worldwide, said she could not comment on Nohl's criticism before seeing his presentation on the topic at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, Europe's biggest annual conference on hacking, security and privacy issues.

Nohl uncovered the issue while working on a project known as the GSM Security Map, which evaluates security of mobile operators around the globe. The map is partially funded with a grant from the US government's Open Technology Fund, according to Nohl.

None of the carriers surveyed had implemented measures for thwarting a method that allows the NSA to eavesdrop on most mobile calls by unscrambling a widely used encryption technology known as A5/1, Nohl said.

The Washington Post reported on December 13 that documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed the agency can crack A5/1. Nohl said that method would have been blocked if carriers had applied two patches released in 2008.

Nohl is credited with leading research teams that have uncovered major flaws in mobile technology in recent years.

In July, he reported on security vulnerabilities that would allow hackers to gain remote control of and clone certain mobile SIM cards. The unprecedented work prompted a United Nations group known as the International Telecommunications Union, which advises nations on cybersecurity plans, to urge the industry to take quick action to tackle the vulnerabilities.

Once a hacker copies a SIM, it can be used to make calls and send text messages impersonating the owner of the phone, said Nohl, who has a doctorate in computer engineering from the University of Virginia.

A few weeks after Nohl disclosed his findings, he said it looked like most carriers had implemented fixes to prevent such attacks.

Yet he said on Friday that while conducting research for the GSM Security Map project, he learned on closer inspection that those fixes still left plenty of room for attacks, making customers on many networks vulnerable.

"I need to go back on what I said. The majority of the operators only addressed the symptoms, not the root cause," Nohl said.

He said that his firm launched the GSM Security Map project to pressure mobile operators around the world to boost security.

The effort will also push researchers like himself not to be complacent.

"We as researchers must not give up so easily like we did in July, when we said 'The network operators addressed it. We are so proud. We changed the world,'" Nohl said.

The group will continue to update the map, which has detailed reports for each country surveyed that describe security of individual carriers.

In the map's initial release on Friday, the country whose networks were rated the most secure was France.

Not all countries are surveyed, however, because the group does not yet have enough data.

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Mobile computing speed to go upto 3Ghz next year: Karbonn

NEW DELHI: Computing speed in mobile phones will go up to 3 gigahertz in 2014, more than the present speed of processors available in most laptops.

"Miniaturization of chips leads to faster and better technology which could be used effectively for high-end processes bridging the deficit between personal computers and phones. Clock speeds (will go) up to 2.5GHz-3GHz," Karbonn's executive director Shashin Devsare said in a statement talking about trend in 2014.

At present, speed of processors available in Indian market is generally about 2.7Ghz which can go up to 3.7Ghz temporarily by using booster technology.

Devsare said he expects transformation of smartphones processor from quad-core chipsets to Octa-cores that will offer better multitasking capability and high energy efficiency.

A single core processor generally support one function at one time but multi-core processor support multiple function simultaneously like internet browsing on mobile phone and simultaneously talking on phone or any other such combination of functions in a phone.

Devsare said that he expects to see more new operating system coming to market based on open source technology other than Google's Android which dominates the market at present.

On display front, Devsare said that there will in increase in resolution of screen and "Active 3D Technology will be the next buzz."

The resolution of camera is also expected to increase from wide practice of providing 8 megapixel camera in phone to 16MP.

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Gionee Elife E7: First impressions

Chinese handset maker Gionee has launched its new flagship phone, Gionee Elife E7, in the Indian market. The phone boasts of a full-HD screen and high-end hardware including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, in addition to a slim, attractive form factor. We got a chance to spend some time with the phone, here are our first impressions:

At first glance, Gionee Elife E7 looks like a taller version of the Elife E6. However, on closer inspection, you'll notice that it looks more rectangular, majorly due to the lack of rounded corners. The phone's top and bottom edges, however, are rounded, just like the ones seen in Huawei Ascend P6.

The phone is made of good quality plastic material, but sports a glossy finish that makes it prone to smudges.

The front of the phone is dominated by 5.5-inch Full-HD (JDI) display that sports a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and pixel density of 401ppi. It also features Gorilla Glass 3 for added protection. We found the display to be adequately bright, with images and text appearing sharp and crisp. There's minimal bezel at the left and right side of the display panel, giving the phone an edgy look.

The three capacitive physical buttons for Menu, Home and Back are placed just below the display. The 8MP front-facing camera lens is located above the display, along with the sensor array. There's no branding on the front.

The left edge of the phone features a sim card tray, while the volume rocker key sits alone at the right edge. The power key and the 3.5mm headset jack are placed at the top edge, while the micro USB port is at the bottom. We wish Gionee had put the Power key at the right or left edge, as its present location makes it cumbersome to use. The keys are made of plastic and offer above average tactile feedback.

The Gionee Elife E7's back panel

The phone's right edge

Gionee Elife E7 doesn't have a removable back. The phone's back is curved and sports a glossy finish that is prone to smudges. The large camera lens (housing a 16MP sensor) is placed at the top, similar to the Nokia Lumia 1520, along with a small LED flash. There's Gionee branding towards the lower part of the back. The phone was good to hold, despite the glossy back.

Gionee Elife E7 runs a heavily customised build of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, called Amigo 2.0, which is second iteration of its UI skin. The skin is similar to Xiaomi's MiUi ROM and doesn't feature a separate app launcher. Instead, the app icons are merged with the home screen, similar to the iPhone. Even the multitasking menu of the phone is similar to the card-based multitasking menu introduced first in webOS and now in Apple's iOS 7. During our brief use of the phone, we didn't encounter any stutters or lag while launching apps or going back to the home screen, however, we still feel that Gionee has gone overboard on transition effects and animations.

Elife E7's USP is its high-end hardware that includes a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, 2GB RAM (3GB for the 32GB version) and Adreno 330 GPU, and a 16MP rear camera with 1.34m pixel size. We weren't able to play around extensively with the phone's camera but clicking a casual indoor shot (under fluorescent light) in the default mode, we observed some minor noise, and slight aberration in colours, though the level of detail was pretty good.

We'll have a detailed review of the smartphone for you soon.

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Small e-commerce companies spending big on TV ads

NEW DELHI: The dotcom boom seems to be back, at least for television advertising. And it is not just the big names spending money on the most popular mass medium, even small online retailers are spending big marketing dollars on expensive television advertising.

Fabfurnish, an online furniture retailer, which is less than two years old, will kick-start its first television campaign in January.

Backed by German e-commerce incubatorcum-investor Rocket Internet, the company has put in half-a-million euros into this campaign. However, the company did not disclose the size of the fund it has raised. "Online home decor market is in a nascent stage.

We need to create awareness about the category as well as build a brand for ourselves," Vaibhav Aggarwal, CEO and cofounder, Fabfurnish.com said. The campaign is planned for four weeks in January and will be supported by a simultaneous digital initiative.

TV advertising forms a significant part of media mix for Lenskart .com. The online portal, which sells eyewear, is backed by venture capitalists.

"We spend approximately Rs 10 crore annually on mass media advertising, which is mainly done for brand building and gaining trust of the consumers.

TV allows us to educate and create the much-needed awareness for the brand, resulting in traffic and building trust," Peyush Bansal, CEO and founder of Lenskart.com, said. While the prospects for e-commerce companies cannot be doubted, does advertising on television lead to increased sales?

Most e-commerce companies claim traffic to their portal increases and so does awareness and trust, but most of them do not have numbers to back their claims. GreenDust, an online portal selling branded factory seconds products (electronics) that are repaired and refurbished and come with a warranty, spends heavily on advertising in the mass media, including radio and TV.

Its founder and CEO, Hitendra Chaturvedi, said, "TV advertising has helped us reach mass audience and in building trust for the brand. This, in turn, has improved the brand recall and we witnessed 100% increase in number of prospective customer queries in the month we released our first advertisement itself."

He added, "TV ads have helped to break the clutter and to reach across all target audience, which has been achieved by targeting different channels covering all the genres and different languages."

According to estimates of Madison media, the advertising spend of online portals have gone up in the last two years. The ad spends of online portals in the April to July quarter was 1.2% against 0.8% in the same quarter of 2011.

The Indian e-commerce market is seeing a surge in growth. According to a 2012 CRISIL report, Indian online retail industry will grow from Rs 32 billion in 2012 to Rs 100 billion in 2015, a CAGR of 45%-48 %. To add to the growth prospects of the industry , infrastructure such as internet connectivity is expected to grow exponentially in the country.

Apart from laptops and desktops, mobile phones and tablets are becoming major growth drivers. The I-Cube 2013 report released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International said India has 200-million internet users as of October; the number will grow 40% year on year by December.

The number of internet users in India is expected to rise 18.53% in the coming months to 243 million by June 2014.

In spite of the huge potential, critics seem sceptical about the effectiveness of mass media advertising for e-commerce players, especially the beginners. They say there is hardly any data to establish the link between high traffic and increased sales conversion.

"There has been a spurt in traditional advertisements by e-commerce sites and this is primarily because mass media such as television tends to bring more credibility. But the question is whether TV advertising brings in the expected return on investment (RoI)," said Gaurav Gupta, senior director, Deloitte in India.

He, however, says massmedia advertising might be done more for brand building and spreading awareness or for establishing credibility to get private equity rather than for increasing sales. Seema Gupta, faculty — marketing, IIM Bangalore, advises small ecommerce ventures to look towards marketing activities such as activation in malls or initiatives on the digital media, which can be done over a prolonged duration and, hence, prove to be more sustainable, rather than opt for expensive mass media advertising.

"Below-the-line advertising can prove to be more sustainable as they can be done for a longer duration. It will also help in reaching out to the right target audience as compared to mass media advertising, which can burn money very quickly," Gupta said.

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Videocon rejigs management

KOLKATA: India's largest domestic durables maker Videocon has shaken up its sales structure as it looks to reposition its brands in distinct segments in order to extract maximum advantage from the expected market expansion and compete more effectively with South Korean rivals Samsung and LG.

Growth has been stagnant in some segments, although almost all sellers of durables have been hit by India's sluggish economy, which has made consumers reluctant to spend on non-essentials.

Videocon has given several senior executives new roles besides hiring people with experience in other companies.
The flagship Videocon brand, accounting for almost 75% of sales, will get premium positioning, selling products such as large-screen LED televisions, so-called side-by-side refrigerators and front-loading washing machines.
Sansui will be positioned as entry-level brand in the TV space, while Kelvinator will operate with a similar positioning in the home appliances segment. Amitabh Tiwari has been hired as national chief of sales and marketing for Sansui and Kelvinator, both under-performing brands that the group wants to revive.

Tiwari quit earlier this year from LG India as sales head and spent three months in Toshiba as sales and marketing chief before joining Videocon. CM Singh, who was chief operating officer (COO) for the north, including Bihar and Jharkhand, has been made the national COO for the Videocon brand.

Singh — also a former LG India employee — and Tiwari will be responsible for driving sales and marketing nationally for the respective brands and will report to Videocon director Aniruddh Dhoot. The new appointments are in line with the new strategy that involves leaders heading teams for individual brands, unlike the earlier structure when the business was organised according to regions.

The changes at Videocon are long overdue, said some industry experts. According to two executives, business partners of the group, the focus on individual brands is critical given that the Videocon brand's market share in home appliances has been stagnant at single digits over the past few years.

Another key hire is Sanjeev Bakshi as national sales head for brand Videocon. He was earlier head of sales at Voltas. Jyoti Shekhar, who was chief of the central region which included Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and the North-East, is becoming director, HR.

Arun Pal, formerly head of the southern region, has been made chief of the Kenstar small appliances business. Videocon Industries director Saurabh Dhoot said the reorganisation will support aggressive business objectives set out in brand-wise growth plans over the next three years. The company also wants to tap markets outside India's towns and cities besides trimming some of the fat.

"There is huge growth opportunity for us in the rural markets and we want to also reduce manpower cost," he said.

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Yahoo reveals most searched travel destination in India

NAGAPATTINAM: Nine years after the picturesque coastal town of Tarangambadi was battered by tsunami, which claimed more than 700 lives, the town has undergone a total transformation and emerged among the most searched travel destinations on the internet.

Yahoo India recently published 'Year in Review,' its annual report on internet search trends based on analysis of millions of searches by users in India in its search engine.

The report revealed that Tarangambadi, also called Tranquebar, is one of the most searched travel destinations in India after Rajasthan's Jaisalmer and Wayanad in Kerala.

"Yahoo's annual report reflects Tarangambadi's growing popularity as a popular heritage travel destination. The town has great tourism potential and if properly tapped,it will emerge as the Goa of Tamil Nadu," says Prof Maria Lazar, former Head of Department of Commerce, TBML College, Porayar who has done extensive research on heritage structures at Tarangambadi.

In the 17th Century, Tarangambadi became Denmark's chief overseas settlement. They built a fort, churches, bungalows for Danish Governors, Guest Houses and the King and Queen Streets, all near the seashore. With all these monuments and ozone rich clean beach, the coastal town is now fast emerging as one of the preferred destinations on heritage tourism map.

In addition to native visitors, a large number of foreign tourists, mostly from the Scandinavian countries, visit the town every day.

Most tourism development activities in Taranagambadi were in the post-tsunami era. Until a decade ago many Danish relics were in a dilapidated condition due to neglect. Pained to see the poor state of the monuments erected by their forefathers, a voluntary outfit called 'Danish Tranquebar Association', comprising prominent citizens in Denmark came forward to renovate the monuments in 2002.

After the tsunami attack, their activities gained momentum and with the support of the Denmark Government, Tamil Nadu Government and other organisations, helped renovate many monuments in Tarangambadi and succeeded in restoring the glory of the town.

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Airtel, Vodafone, others fined Rs 50 lakh for poor service

NEW DELH: Telecom regulator Trai has imposed cumulative penalty of Rs 50 lakh on nine mobile operators for failing to meet quality of service benchmarks in the second quarter ended June 2013, official sources said.

The regulator has imposed maximum penalty of Rs 14.5 lakh on state-run telecom company BSNL for failing to meet 13 quality of service parameters, they said, adding that no penalty was imposed on Videocon, Loop Mobile and state-run MTNL.

TRAI imposed Rs 12.5 lakh penalty on Aircel and Reliance Communications (including Reliance Telecom) for failing to meet certain parameters.

The regulator imposed a penalty of Rs 3 lakh on Idea Cellular, Rs 2 lakh each Bharti Airtel and Vodafone, Rs 1.5 lakh each on Uninor and Vodafone, sources said.

A fine of Rs 50,000 was imposed on CDMA operator MTS. Under existing regulations, Trai can impose up to Rs 50,000 penalty on telecom operators for failing to meet any quality of service parameter for mobile services and up to Rs 1 lakh for repeating such failure.

For example, if call drop rate benchmark of (less than) 2% is not met by an operator in the first quarter after coming into force of these regulations, a financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 50,000 would be imposed.

In case, in any of the subsequent quarters the benchmark for the same parameter ie call drop rate benchmark is not met, financial disincentive not exceeding Rs 1,00,000 will be imposed by the authority.

The regulator, however, can impose a penalty of up to Rs 10 lakh if it finds that telecom operators have submitted false compliance report on quality of service benchmark.

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Videocon to bid for additional spectrum in Punjab, MP

NEW DELHI: Mobile operator Videocon plans to bid for additional spectrum in two service areas such as Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, in upcoming auction starting January 23.

"Considering our growth plans, business projections and the fact that we want to give the best experience to our customers, we are planning to acquire additional spectrum for Punjab and MP (includes Chattisgarh) circles," Videocon telecom director and CEO Arvind Bali said.

Videocon is the first company to confirm its participation for the next round of spectrum auction. Last two spectrum auctions, held in November 2012 and March 2013, had seen poor response from the telecom industry.

The company currently holds 4.4 Mhz spectrum in Punjab and 5 Mhz spectrum in Madhya Pradesh telecom circle, which includes Chattisgarh as well.

The company has plans to bid for additional 2 Mhz in these service areas.

At minimum price fixed by the government for these areas, additional spectrum would cost Videocon about Rs 190 crore. However, the final price will depend on the competition for airwaves in these service areas.

Videocon has purchased spectrum through auction in 6 out of 7 service areas where it has operations and plans to provide 4G service in these circles. The company is free to use any technology in the airwaves purchased through auction, known as liberalised spectrum.

"Incremental capacity created by the additional 2 Mhz spectrum will be at least 2 times the existing capacity given the trunking efficiency. Also, the planned 2 Mhz additional spectrum in Punjab telecom circle, being a liberalised one, will give us the option to offer 4G LTE Narrowband service there," Bali said.

As per data released by telecom regulator Trai, the company has been recording highest growth in net subscriber addition in last 5 months.

Videocon has purchased spectrum through auction in 6 out of 7 service areas where it has operations and plans to provide 4G service in these circles. The company is free to use any technology in the airwaves purchased through auction, known as liberalised spectrum.

"Incremental capacity created by the additional 2 Mhz spectrum will be at least 2 times the existing capacity given the trunking efficiency. Also, the planned 2 Mhz additional spectrum in Punjab telecom circle, being a liberalised one, will give us the option to offer 4G LTE Narrowband service there," Bali said.

As per data released by telecom regulator Trai, the company has been recording highest growth in net subscriber addition in last 5 months. Videocon has targetted to achieve a 'fair market share' (FMS) in the services areas such as Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat.

FMS amounts to 12.5% subscriber share in Haryana, Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, where there are a total of eight operators, and 10% market share in Gujarat, which has a total of 10 mobile service providers.

"We expect this to happen within one year in Haryana and Punjab, followed by Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat in the subsequent year," Bali said.

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Lenovo: World undergoing PC-plus evolution

NEW DELHI: The personal computer (PC) is dead. Long live the PC. While quite a few obituaries have been written about the humble PC, the bulky machine continues to show up in homes and offices alike, even if there are smartphone and tablets around, much like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.

Says Rahul Agarwal, executive director, commercial business segment, Lenovo India, "the PC remains central to the digital lives of millions of people and businesses. The world is undergoing a PC plus evolution."

To drive home the point Agarwal cites an IDC survey conducted in April 2013 showed that 91.3% of respondents do not consider tablets as replacements for PCs. The same survey also found that 58.5% of respondents bought a tablet to be used in addition to a laptop, and not as a replacement.

While some tablets may be closing the performance gap with PCs in terms of hardware, the creation of content still demands a PC's form factor for better input accuracy.

Adds Agarwal, "The existence of a market for physical keyboards designed for tablets suggests that tablet users continue to face a compromised experience when entering text on their device's touchscreen during content creation. The additional bulk of packing a keyboard also diminishes the space savings afforded by using a smaller device."

In absolute terms, the PC industry represents a $200 billion market and offers substantial opportunity for profitable growth. There continues to be room for innovation for the PC platform to make it even more relevant and desirable than before; convertible PCs, like table PCs, are an example of this innovation.

Beside, many of the bells and whistles of smartphones and tablets come at the expense off compromising battery life, ensuring the endurance of PCs. Says Agarwal, "manufacturers regularly tout their products' latest hardware and features, like screen displays, high-megapixel cameras and multi-core processors. These product specifications are highlighted as differentiating features, but they often come at the expense of battery life. A device that is out of battery has zero features."

In its outlook for the New Year, hardware maker Lenovo expects products that enable all-day computing to be one of the focuses in 2014, as users seek to rid themselves of the reliance on additional power sources while on the move and become truly mobile.

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Apple fined in Taiwan over iPhone pricing

TAIPEI: Taiwanese authorities slapped a fine of 20 million Taiwanese dollar ($667,000) on US tech giant Apple for violating a fair trade law over local iPhone pricing.

The Fair Trade Commission said an Apple unit in charge of Taiwan sales had interfered in the pricing and mobile phone payment rates of three local telecom service providers, despite selling them the distribution rights to the phones.

It said investigations found that Chunghwa Telecom, Far Eastone Telecommunication and Taiwan Mobile had submitted their pricing plans to Apple for approval or confirmation before new models hit the market, while Apple had also asked the Taiwanese companies to change or adjust prices.

"Apple deprived the telecom operators of liberty to decide on the prices based on their own cost structures and competitive market situation, to restrict competition ... and violate the fair trade law," the commission said in a statement, urging Apple to immediately stop its illegal actions.

Apple, which can appeal the ruling, could face an additional fine of up to 50 million Taiwanese dollar if it fails to comply, the commission said.

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Tracking Santa online: 5 things to know

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, COLORADE: For kids who can't wait for Santa to arrive, the North American Aerospace Defense Command has a Christmas treat. Visions of sugar plums can be augmented by a check on the fabled fat man's progress around the globe on Christmas Eve.

Here are five things to know about the holiday tradition called Norad Tracks Santa:

How do you follow Santa's path?
Norad provides updates by phone, Facebook, Twitter and email. Smartphone apps also are available at app stores.

Norad's Santa operations center opened at 6am EST on December 24 and has received tens of thousands of calls from around the world. This year, Santa's first stop after leaving the North Pole was Novoye Chaplino, Russia, Norad said. The Canadian naval ship Regina reported seeing Santa on its radar near the Arabian Sea.

Santa usually ends his trip in North America and South America. "Santa calls the shots," Norad says on its website. "We just track him!"

How many people follow Santa?
As of 10pm MST on Christmas Eve, volunteers answered 1,01,300 calls, officials said. The website had 50.6 million page views and 13.6 million site visits as of the same time.

Last year, volunteers answered 1,14,000 phone calls from around the world. The website had 22.3 million unique visitors. Norad Tracks Santa has 1.2 million followers on Facebook and 1,29,000 on Twitter.

Among the questions kids have had on their minds when they called in previous years:

* "Am I on the nice list or the naughty list?" * "Can you put my brother on the naughty list?" * "Are you an elf?" * "How much to adopt one of Santa's reindeer?"

Why does Norad do it?
In 1955, a local newspaper advertisement invited children to call Santa but mistakenly listed the hotline of Norad's predecessor. Rather than disappoint the kids, commanders told them they indeed knew where Santa was. Noard, a US-Canadian operation based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, continues the tradition every Christmas Eve.

Why was there a controversy this year?
A children's advocacy group complained that an animated video on the Norad Tracks Santa website injected militarism into Christmas by showing fighter jets escorting Santa's sleigh on a 39-second video promoting the event. Norad says the fighter escort is nothing new. Norad began depicting jets accompanying Santa and his reindeer in the 1960s.

How does Norad track Santa?
Using the same satellites it uses to track missiles, Norad says it is able to detect heat signatures from Rudolph's nose.

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Apple shares rise on China Mobile deal

NEW YORK: Apple shares rose Monday after the company sealed a hard-won deal with China Mobile to significantly boost its iPhone offer on the world's biggest wireless operator.

In morning trade Apple shares advanced 3.0% to $565.24 per share, hitting as high as $568.30 early in the session.

On Sunday, the US technology giant and China Mobile unveiled a deal to bring the iPhone to customers on a network with an estimated 760 million subscribers and until now dominated by low-cost Android smartphones.

The US company's iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c phones will be available at China Mobile and Apple retail stores across mainland China starting January 17, they said in a joint statement.

Pricing details were not announced.

Negotiations between Apple and China Mobile took years, with one key hurdle reportedly being the US firm's demand for sales volume guarantees.

"In our view, this has been the most difficult carrier agreement for Apple to negotiate in its history," said a note from Cantor Fitzgerald.

"However, we believe the opportunity for the iPhone to expand its reach within China Mobile's wireless subscriber base will prove to be well worth the wait."

Cantor Fitzgerald estimated that there are already 35 to 40 million iPhone users on China Mobile, but they use the provider's slower networks.

Sunday's deal opens up the faster network for iPhones and positions the US company to sell phones on the even-faster 4G network as its reach expands.

Cantor Fitzgerald estimated the deal could result in 20 to 24 million iPhone sales to China Mobile in 2014. Such a performance would have an earnings benefit of $4 per share.

Barclays predicted the China Mobile deal would have no impact on the upcoming quarter, but should benefit sales in the March and June quarters.

Barclays sees a "gradual" buildup in the China Mobile's faster 4G network and that Apple iPhone sales "may build over multiple quarters."

Barclays estimated the total Apple addressable market within China Mobile at 80 million units.

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AMD unveils graphics processor for Apple's Mac Pro

NEW DELHI: Chipmaker AMD announced a dual AMD FirePro professional graphics solutions (GPUs) to boost the performance levels of the Apple's Mac Pro workstation.

AMD's FirePro D300, D500 and D700 professional GPUs offer exceptional compute power and reliability for creativity and productivity in a wide range of applications, the firm said in a release.

With industry-adopted OpenCL (Open Computing Language) support, Mac Pro users have the ability to seamlessly edit full-resolution 4K video and simultaneously render effects in the background and still have enough performance to power up to three high-resolution 4K displays, it added.

These new AMD FirePro GPUs are built on the strength of AMD's award-winning Graphics Core Next GPU design -- an architecture conceived from the ground up to intelligently managing rendering and compute workloads.

The combination of AMD FirePro GPUs and OpenCL, strongly supported by both Apple and AMD, is designed to deliver massive compute and graphics performance in one compact solution.

The dual AMD FirePro GPU options for Mac Pro feature up to 6GB of VRAM and up to 2048 stream processors per GPU, matched with top configurations capable of up to 7 teraflops of computing power.

OpenGL and OpenCL are optimised in OS X Mavericks to leverage the full computing power of the Mac Pro and dual GPUs, it said

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Sony India on PlayStation 4's high price tag

Last week Sony announced its India launch plans for the much awaited next-generation console, PlayStation 4. What was supposed to be a joyous occasion soon turned sour after Sony revealed the price of the console.

We reached out to PlayStation India head Atindriya Bose to talk about the console's pricing, and address some of your concerns as well. Here's what went down.

Could you explain the thought process that went behind the PS4's local pricing?
Certainly. In India, gaming products unfortunately attract a heavier duty. Let's assume you're importing a product that costs Rs 100. Your duty on that product will roughly amount to 24-25% of the cost of that product, and this is just the import duty. Add to this local customs clearance cost as well as port handling cost, and you're looking at a 2-3% increase.

Over and above all of this comes the VAT (value added tax), which for items of this category amounts to roughly 13.5-14.2%. When you add it all together, you're looking at a pretty substantial amount that goes into the hands of the government.

Even when you consider the price of this product in the US, once you add the 36% duty upon that number, you get a much higher price than you would with a simple dollar-to-rupee conversion.

People are contemplating importing the console from abroad through a friend or a relative, but that same logic cannot be applied for a proper business model, where you have to import larger quantities. Even if you import the console from Amazon, you will be slapped with some import duties that will raise the price of the product.

People also need to understand that India has a multi-layered distribution system market, so you are talking about a straight deal between 10-15% that is fed into distribution channels. This is not the case in bigger, more developed markets like the US.

The PS3 and PS Vita aren't locally manufactured either, so how have you managed to keep their prices in check?
In the US, a 250GB PlayStation 3 retails for around $299 (Rs 18,492) while for us, the 12GB PS3 variant is Rs 16,990. As you can see, there is a substantial gap between both prices. Not everything is a linear equation. In some cases, you also have to look at the maturity of a business since you cannot treat a console's price structure the same way you would treat consumer electronics.

What we're trying to sell in the Indian market is the complete solution, and so the business model has to take into account the console, the games, as well as the peripherals. All put together, their prices have to be such that they are in the positive with respect to the cost price, and only then can you have a viable business.

What I'm trying to say is that the PS3 has been in the Indian market for a longer time, and even though it is selling well, it cannot dictate how we price the PS4, which is essentially a new console entering the market.

The average American gamer is supposed to be 30 years-old, but in India, most gamers are still in school or college. How do you expect them to pay these premium prices for both hardware and software? Have you seen a lot of pre-order cancellations after the price was announced?
Video game software also unfortunately attracts high duties in our country. All the points I mentioned in my first answer are applicable to software, so naturally the price will be higher.

That being said, this is a challenge that is not just thrown to the consumer, but it is one we face constantly as well. Even then, we have enough early adopters who can buy the console from their pocket money if they're still in school/college, or they could be (unmarried) individuals who have just started earning and are open to spending money on technology. They look at gaming as a very meaningful hobby, so this ultimately comes down to a value equation.

Contrary to what you may have heard, we have not seen a lot of people cancelling their pre-orders. There are a few, of course, but most of them have stuck to their pre-orders.

In case there is a price cut for PS4 in the future in the European and American markets, can a price cut be expected for PS4 in India as well?
Every time there has been a price cut in Europe, it has invariably trickled down to India, so I don't see why that shouldn't happen with the PS4.

Will the PS3 get a price drop once the PS4 launches?
No, we have no such plans as of now.

Will PS4 first-party titles eventually be locally replicated? When that happens, will they be sold for a lesser price?
It's too early to say now, but once we have an established base, that opportunity looks extremely viable given that we already have a Sony disc replication plant. But even then, people shouldn't expect drastically lower prices. A locally replicated game may go down from Rs 3,999 to roughly Rs 3,499. We unfortunately do not have a magic wand that can take the price all the way down to Rs 2,499.

What are your launch plans for the PS4?
We are already in talks with high-end stores like Chroma, Landmark etc as well as Sony Centre stores all over India. Come January 6th, each of them will have PS4 kiosks that will give potential gamers a chance to try out the system first-hand. Besides launching the PS4, we also really want to educate people who enter these stores to evaluate the PS4.

Gaming store chains like Games The Shop and Game4u will have their own demonstration stations and they'll also be conducting their own midnight launch events.

By March, we also plan on restarting our PlayStation Experience, so that's something gamers can look forward too.

Will there be any PS4 Bundles available at launch?
There will be no bundles at launch. Our immediate focus is to get the launch quantity in and focus on the second wave of products. We may start looking at bundles by the time mid-summer rolls in.

How come the PlayStation monitor never made it to India? This time around, will the PS4 accessories be available here locally?
The demand for the PS monitor wasn't that high to begin with, and considering the tax structure that I just explained earlier, it just didn't make sense to us. However, this time around, first-party accessories like the controller, and camera will be available at launch.

Will non-gaming content find its way to PlayStation Network eventually?
Sony is very uniquely poised in this regard. We have access to a lot of diverse content, and we're currently evaluating what we can do for the PlayStation community. As of now, I have nothing to declare, but this is definitely an opportunity we are looking at, especially since we have used this content successfully in our other product categories like the Sony Xperia, Vaio, etc. It gives us a lot of confidence that it can be done.

We've heard certain debit/credit cards do not work on PSN. Any idea why this is happening?
Debit cards don't work on the store, and we don't have plans to add in debit card support. Most of the international credit cards like Visa and Master Card work, but cards from local or corporate banks will not work.

When will PSN cards be available locally?
That again, unfortunately, ties into our complex tax structure. It's not about how much, but more about which tax structure is applicable to PSN cards. We nearly scrapped the idea of bringing in PSN cards completely, but now we are seeing some crystallization with Steam cards and iTunes cards being sold locally.

Once the provision of the tax structure applicable to PSN cards becomes clear to us, we will go back to the drawing board to work on pricing the cards for India. So somewhere at the start of the next fiscal year, we'll be in a better position to make a comment.

Why are the digital prices of PS4 games on the Indian PSN Store so high?
I haven't gone through the entire listing, but first-party games are actually cheaper than retail. Take Killzone: Shadow Fall for example. It's Rs 3,499 on PSN, while it costs Rs 3,999 at retail.

Certain PS3 titles that are being sold at retail for Rs 3,499 are available digitally for Rs 2,799 or less. On the third-party side, we have had some great rates on the PS3. Take Call of Duty: Ghosts for example. It's Rs 4,299 at retail, whereas on PSN, it's available for Rs 2,799 only.

What kind of warranty/support can gamers expect on imported PS4s?
Any console that is purchased from a PAL territory (Europe, Dubai and Australia) will not have warranty in India, but you will be able to avail of our service facility. This means if your imported PS4 dies, you can exchange it from our service centre for a brand new Indian unit at 50% of the cost of a new console. Anything that comes from a non-PAL territory like the US will not receive warranty or service facility support.

For how long do you plan to continue supporting the PS3?
Next year's PS3 line-up with regards to both first and third-party games is looking solid so far. Considering the console's price as well as its huge library of games that starts at Rs 1,399 today, I see a very robust life cycle for the PS3 both worldwide and in India. Also, a person who is coming in as a new gamer may see more value with the PS3's affordable pricing as well as its repertoire of varied games.

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