Over 80,000 engineering seats remain vacant in TN

As many as 80,689 government quota engineering seats in Tamil Nadu have gone vacant this year. And, colleges will have to pay — it will hit the quality of the education they provide and, in some cases, cause heavy financial losses to the institutions.

Of the 2.05 lakh seats made available through the single window counselling process, which ended on Friday, only 1.24 lakh were filled. Experts said the economic slowdown had impacted engineering education to a large extent: students were making informed decisions and were willing to risk signing up for alternate courses.

District-wise data shows students believe that if it has to be engineering, it has to be in Chennai or nearby places. "Engineering has not lost its charm," said S Vaidhyasubramaniam, dean, planning and development, Sastra University, Thanjavur. "Students are only rejecting engineering education in a bad institution."



Close to 96% of seats in the seven Chennai colleges have been filled, while it is 68% forKancheepuram and 73.44% for Tiruvallur. Colleges in Virudhunagar, which steadily churns out school toppers, have also been able to fill a good number of seats. The rate of seat allocation in 12 colleges there crossed 76%.

One reason is that the district is home to topnotch institutions like Mepco Schlenk Engineering College. "This keeps other colleges in the region on their toes to face the competition," said an 8expert.

Ariyalur, on the other hand, had the lowest rate of seats allocated. Five colleges in the district have been able to fill only 33% of seats.
When a college fails to fill even 10% of seats, as is the case with some institutions, it has far-reaching consequences. "They cannot offer sustainable quality education," said Vaidhyasubramaniam.

When rural colleges fail to fill more than 10% or 20% of seats, it will have a strong bearing on the rural economy, says C Thangaraj, former vice-chancellor of Anna University of Technology, Chennai. "The government should have insisted on quality maintenance on colleges, and encouraged edupreneurs to start engineering colleges in rural areas," he added.

The All India Council for Technical Education mandates that colleges seeking approval must have facilities commensurate with their intake and not with the number of seats filled. This means that the financial position of colleges, many of which are funded by banks, will already be in the negative. "Those without strong industry backing or without good investments will be forced to approach bigger players for a takeover," said S Alfred Devaparasad, CEO of Alpha Group of Institutions.

Those who don't come in for outright sale will try to cut losses by compromising on faculty salary and additional inputs. Devaprasad believes colleges that know that the trend will change in a few years are likely to keep investing - in faculty, infrastructure and R&D.

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Amazon spending heavily on digital video ahead of holidays: CFO

Amazon.com Inc Chief Financial Officer Tom Szkutak said on Thursday the Internet retailer is spending heavily on digital video content ahead of the holidays. 

The spending is partly responsible for a cautious third-quarter forecast, the executive added, during a conference call with reporters following the company's second-quarter results. 

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Get ready for a TV-like Twitter: Scientists

Social networking site Twitter, which has more than 500 million registered users, will become comparable to a non-evolving, static structure like TV in the future, a new study predicts.

The study from scholars at Columbia Business School and the University of Pittsburgh questions the sustainability of Twitter.

"Get ready for a TV-like Twitter," said Professor Olivier Toubia, co-author of the study.

The research examined the motivations behind why everyday people, with no financial incentive, contribute to Twitter.

The study examined roughly 2,500 non-commercial Twitter users. In a field experiment, Toubia and Professor Andrew T Stephen randomly selected some of those users and, through the use of other synthetic accounts, increased the selected group's followers.

At first, they noticed that as the selected group's followers increased, so did the posting rate. However, when that group reached a level of stature - a moderately large amount of followers - the posting rate declined significantly.

"Users began to realise it was harder to continue to attract more followers with their current strategy, so they slowed down," Toubia added.

"When posting activity no longer leads to additional followers, people will view Twitter as a non-evolving, static structure, like TV," Toubia said.

Based on the analyses, Toubia and Stephen predict Twitter posts by everyday people will slow down, yet celebrities and commercial users will continue to post for financial gain.

"Twitter will become less of a communications vehicle and more of a content-delivery vehicle, much like TV. Peer-to-peer contact is likely to evolve to the next great thing, but with 500 million followers, Twitter isn't just going to disappear. It's just going to become a new way to follow celebrities, corporations, and the like," said Toubia.

The study was published in the journal Marketing Science. 

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GPS vulnerable to hacking: Study

A new study has revealed that the Global Positing System (GPS) is vulnerable to hackers or terrorists who could use it to hijack ships and commercial airliners. 

Fox News reports that the new study has exposed a huge potential hole in national security. 

GPS expert Todd Humphreys and his team at theUniversity of Texas (UT) had taken over the sophisticated navigation system on a super-yacht in the Mediterranean Sea using a laptop, a small antenna and an electronic GPS spoofer, built for only 3,000 dollars. 

The UT team was able to drive the ship far, take it into treacherous waters, and even put it on a collision course with another ship. 

However, the ship's GPS system reported the vessel was calmly moving along its intended course.

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Employees daily remain online for an hour in office: Study

Employees spend one hour every daysurfing on the internet while at work, it has been revealed.

The study, conducted by Quidco, has found that workers waste an hour by shopping or looking for holidays at their desks, the Daily Star reported.

It was found that other distractions include emails, checking the weather forecast, reading news sites or updating Facebook.

Andy Oldham, managing director of the company, told the publication that with good internet access on mobile phones, surfing the internet is no longer reserved only for those who work in front of a computer.

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MEA India becomes top app on Apple‘s App Store

In less than 24 hours after its launch, MEA India app has topped the charts ofApple's App Store. 

The application, launched by the Ministry of External Affairs, was leading in the free category of the App Store. If you have an android or iOSplatforms phone, then you can track your passport application with its help. 

In the next couple of months, people will be able to even apply for passport through this app which is available for free. 

For the first time in the world, a country's foreign ministry has been able to integrate and consolidate its entire digital presence in one's hand, thanks to 'MEAIndia' app. 

The MEA envisages the application be a "one-stop shop" for you. From getting updates from all the 124 Indian missions in the world, to getting information for consular access in case you are abroad, to booking yourself for the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, everything is now available on your fingertips. 

The MEA is the first government department to have a mobile app for smartphone users. 

It will provide details of all citizen-centric services of the MEA like passport, visa details for those travelling to India and Haj related details among others. 

Besides providing a vast information on India's foreign policies and activities, one can even take part in quiz and win Rs 1000 e-vouchers for buying books.

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How mobile phones are making your bicycle ‘smart‘

It has happened to many a bicyclist: the car beside you suddenly cuts into your path or passes close enough for you to feel the heat of its exhaust on your leg. 
A big part of avoiding those close calls is being noticed, but for years bicyclists' only defences were bright clothing, battery-powered incandescent bulbs and the cheery ching-ching of a traditional bicycle bell. 
Now that's changing. Thanks to improved LED lights, microchips and smartphone technology,bicycles can have loud horns, brake lights, turn signals and all manner of lighting. 
You can spend a few hundred dollars on a bike headlight alone these days. At just under $300, the Taz 1200 from Light and Motion in Monterey, Calif., is said to put out one-third more light than the average car headlight and is good for riding on roads and on dark trails.
But for the average street biker there are more affordable options. 
Virtually all of today's LED headlights and taillights for bikes have static and multiple flashing modes activated with the push of a button. Add to that a blue flashing light from BikeBrightz Ltd. in Toledo, Ohio and the guy pedaling home after work in the dark could be mistaken for a squad car. Strap the light bar anywhere on your frame, and at $15 each, you can vary your colour scheme. It also comes in "mean green," "rocket red," "powerful pink" and "mellow yellow." 
And then there are the lasers. 
In England, Emily Brooke is bringing her Blaze Bike Light to customers in September. The Blaze projects a green image of a bike rider in front of the cyclist, making it possible for nighttime drivers to see the glowing image even if the rider is in a blind spot.

A price has not yet been set. 
The single-speed and customizable fixed-gear bikes, which cost $325 and up, do have drawbacks, though. They don't shine as brightly in low light as they do in total darkness. Their glow fades in time.

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Google launches Start Searching India campaign

Google today introduced its Start Searching India campaign here to help internet users get the most out of the web with its search tool. 

"Internet is no longer restricted to the domain of working professionals and is fast emerging as a life enriching tool catering to the varied needs of the people from all walks of life," Google India's director of marketing, Sandeep Menon said on the occasion. 

The objective of the campaign is to help Indian users save time, by showing how they can get instant and to-the-point answers to their most common queries, he said. 

Presenting the top search trends that the people of Bhopal search for most using using Google Trends, he said that e-governance is doing well in Madhya Pradesh with mponline.com and vyapam.com figuring in the top five web searches. 

He said that Google's mission has always been to make search into an ideal assistant: a search engine that understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you need. 

Also, recent improvements to Google Search have drawn the company closer to that vision, he added.

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How to customise Windows 8 manually

Like earlier versions of the operating system, Windows 8 can check to see if software updates for your computer are available from Microsoft— and then install them for you so you don't have to remember to do it yourself. Security updates and other software patches deemed important or critical are typically installed automatically when Microsoft pushes them out. (The company often releases the updates on the second Tuesday of each month, but it can happen as needed). 

But even if you have the automatic updates option turned on, not all the software Microsoft sends you will install itself. Certain types of updates, including fresh versions of programs that have new user agreements or terms of service statements, require your attention because you are asked to read the legal fine print — or at least click the Agree button — before you can install the software. 
Some updates, like feature enhancements or updated device drivers, are considered optional and not critical to a program's ability to function. When an optional update is ready, you usually get an alert that it is available if you want it, and Windows leaves it to you to do the installation yourself.

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Step-by-step guide to protecting Facebook privacy

With the latest addition of the Graph Search to social networking site Facebook, it has become time consuming and cumbersome to customize settings for every post and each photograph. 

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, a few quick clicks here and there can help restore a profile to being less vulnerable to public access, including photographs and posts. 

To limit the way people in the friends list access the content one can simply select Friends under the 'Who can see my stuff' section in the privacy settings and further put them in the Restricted category so as to allow them access to only those posts which are made public. 

Furthermore, to save oneself from being seen in those old embarrassing photographs, a user can simply click on the Activity Log, then 'photos of me' and on the top of the page one can customize 'On Timeline' visible settings which allows for bulk-untag. 

To review the customized settings, a user can choose to view their own profile as a particular person or to public by clicking on View As in the Activity Log section, the report added.

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Indian develops tech to make software unhackable

A unique system has been designed by researchers that will encrypt software in order to make it impervious to reverse-engineering.

UCLA computer science professor Amit Sahaiand a team of researchers have developed a system which will only allow someone to use a programme as intended, while preventing any deciphering of the code behind it.

This is known as software obfuscation in computer science and it is the first time it has been accomplished.

Sahai said that the new system puts up an iron wall making it impossible for an adversary to reverse-engineer the software without solving mathematical problems that take hundreds of years to work out on today's computers.

The researchers said their mathematical obfuscation mechanism can be used to protectintellectual property by preventing the theft of new algorithms and by hiding the vulnerability a software patch is designed to repair when the patch is distributed.

The key to this successful obfuscation mechanism is a new type of multilinear jigsaw puzzle. This new technique has paved the way for another breakthrough called functional encryption.

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UK top target for cyberterrorism: Report

British lawmakers have claimed that the country has become the top target of online crooks, paedophiles and terrorists with increasing threat of cyberterrorism. 

According to The Mirror, a probe by MPs found banks did not even bother to report everydayonline thefts. 

Labour MP Keith Vaz, head of the Home Affairs Select Committee, blasted the government for being far too complacent. 

MPs have claimed that most of the attacks -- including identity theft, credit card fraud, industrial espionage and child exploitation -- were being committed from Eastern Europe. 

The report also found out that 12.5 million people had fallen prey to online crimes in the past year at a cost of 1.8 billion pounds.

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Google, others working on ‘mind-reading apps‘

In Hollywood, there are umbrella holders. Outside corner offices, there are people who know exactly how much cream to pour in the boss' coffee. In British castles, royals have their valets.

And then there is Silicon Valley, where mind-reading personal assistants come in the form of a cellphone app.

A range of start-ups and big companies likeGoogle are working on what is known as predictive search - new tools that act as robotic personal assistants, anticipating what you need before you ask for it. Glance at your phone in the morning, for instance, and see an alert that you need to leave early for your next meeting because of traffic, even though you never told your phone you had a meeting or where it was.

How does the phone know? Because an application has read your email, scanned your calendar, tracked your location, parsed traffic patterns and figured out you need an extra half-hour to drive to the meeting.

The technology is the latest development in Web search, and one of the first tailored to mobile devices. It does not even require people to enter a search query. Your context - location, time of day and digital activity - is the query, say the engineers who build these services.

Many technologists agree that these services will probably become mainstream, eventually incorporated in alarm clocks, refrigerators and bathroom mirrors. Already, Google Now is an important part of Google's Internet-connected glasses. As a Glass wearer walks through the airport, her hands full of luggage, it could show her an alert that her flight is delayed.

Google Now is "kind of blowing my mind right now," said Danny Sullivan, a founding editor of Search Engine Land who has been studying search for two decades. "I mean, I'm pretty jaded, right? I've seen all types of things that were supposed to revolutionize search, but pretty much they haven't. Google Now is doing that."

But for some people, predictive search - also in services like Cue, reQall, Donna, Tempo AI, MindMeld and Evernote - is the latest intrusion into our lives, another disruption pinging and buzzing in our pockets, mining our digital lives for personal information and straddling the line between helpful and creepy.

"To the question of creepiness, the answer is it depends who you ask," said Andrea M. Matwyshyn, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, who studies the legal implications of technology. "What works for a group of 30-something engineers in Silicon Valley may not be representative of the way that 60-year-old executives in New York tend to use their phones."

Many software programmers have dreamed of building a tool like this for years. The technology is emerging now because people are desperate for ways to deal with the inundation of digital information and because much of it is stored in the cloud where apps can easily access it.

"We can't go on with eight meetings and 200 emails a day," said N. Rao Machiraju, co-founder and chief executive of reQall, which sells its technology to other companies to make their own personal assistant apps. "We have a technology that isn't waiting for you to ask it a question but is anticipating what you need and when is the best time to deliver that."

The services guess what you want to know based on the digital breadcrumbs you leave, like calendar entries, emails, social network activity and the places you take your phone. Many use outside services for things like coupons, news and traffic.

Google Now, which came to some Android phones a year ago and iPhones in April, tells you when it is time to leave for a dinner reservation. That is because it noticed an OpenTable email in your Gmail inbox, knows your location from your phone's GPS and checked Google Maps for traffic conditions.

A couple days before you travel, it will show you weather in your destination, and when you arrive, currency exchange information and the time back home. Ask aloud that Google Now remind you to pick up milk next time you step in a grocery store, and an alert will appear when you are at Safeway.

Successful predictive search, though, is as complicated as real life. If you are in London on business, which an app would know from the events on your calendar, you probably want a PDF related to work. But if you are there on vacation, you might want directions to Big Ben.

"By the time you search, something's already failed," said Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote, a note-taking app that actively shows previous entries related to current circumstances.

Many of the apps use machine learning to get to know people over time.

ReQall's service, for instance, can block calls from interrupting you during meetings. But one day, the young son of reQall's co-founder, Sunil Vemuri, was sick at home with Vemuri's father, who was urgently trying to reach him with a medication question. Because he called more than once and reQall knew the two had the same last name and spoke often, the app interrupted the meeting.

The goal is to move beyond logistical help to sending you anything you might need to know. Google recently added book, movie and music recommendations, for instance.

"You can just imagine several years down the road, if that personal assistant was an expert in every field known to humankind," said Amit Singhal, Google's senior vice president for search.

Ads are not far off.

"The better we can provide information, even without you asking for it, the better we can provide commercial information people are excited to be promoting to you," Larry Page, Google's chief executive, told analysts in April.

Some skeptics say pushing ads and other unwanted information could be annoying or even a violation of privacy. If you watch a movie trailer on YouTube, for instance, Google Now might send local showtimes when the film arrives in your city. But what if you hated the trailer?

"People could find the interface disruptive rather than helpful," Matwyshyn said.

Baris Gultekin, a product management director at Google who helped invent Now, said the company is aware of that risk and is "very conservative" with what it shows people.

Daniel Gross, co-founder of another personal assistant app, Cue, said that is why it has started with alerts in which a person has signaled interest, by creating a calendar entry for example.

"It's a really tricky problem, because on one hand you really want to give someone the best experience you possibly can," he said. "And on the other hand, you don't want someone to have this uncanny valley type of moment: 'Oh my gosh, this feels too good.'"

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Google Glass to help students learn filmmaking

Beauty is in the eye of theGoogle Glass wearer.

At least that's what the internet search giant hopes a handful of young filmmakers will discover. Google is enlisting film students from five colleges to help it explore how its wearable computing device can be used to make movies. 

The $1,500 Google Glass headset is already being used by 10,000 so-called explorers. The device resembles a pair of glasses and allows users to take pictures, shoot video, search the internet, compose email and check schedules. 

As part of its experiment, Google will lend each school three pairs of Google Glass. 

The participating schools are American Film Institute, California Institute of the Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California. 

Google Inc. says it plans to share an update of how students are progressing sometime after school resumes in the fall. 

The company says the schools will explore how to use Glass fordocumentary filmmaking, character development, location-based storytelling and "things we haven't yet considered." 

Norman Hollyn, a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, said students will be encouraged to use Glass to tell stories incorporating the first-person point of view. 

He said one model that students might follow is one explored in the film, "Timecode," by director Mike Figgis, which uses four cameras to capture four different people simultaneously. Students will also be encouraged to try to use Glass's data overlays as a way of revealing elements of a story. At least two short films are expected to be done by the beginning of next year, he said. 

"We're kind of looking at it as, 'How can we push this to tell stories rather than just sit on a cool Disneyland ride and broadcast that out to people?'" he said. "This excited us in a lot of ways." 

Glass users can shoot video in "720p" high-definition quality by issuing voice or touch commands.

Google has already shown off a few examples of how people are using the device, such as tennis pro Bethanie Mattek-Sands preparing for Wimbledon and physics teacher Andrew Vanden Heuvel taking his class on a virtual field trip to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

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Hackers take down New Zealand PM‘s website

The hacktivist group Anonymous on Tuesday briefly crashed New Zealand Prime Minister John Key's website in protest at plans to allow the country's intelligence agency to spy on local residents. 

A group identifying itself as Anonymous NZ posted a clip on YouTube saying it had attacked Key's website www.johnkey.co.nz and 12 others linked to the ruling National Party to show its opposition to "a despicable piece of legislation." 

"John Key make no mistake the majority of New Zealanders oppose this bill," it said. 

"Due to your own arrogance and your unwillingness to listen to the people we have decided to take direct action." 

Key's website was operating normally by Tuesday afternoon and the prime minister condemned the hackers. 

"(It's) pretty juvenile behaviour in my view," he told Radio New Zealand. "These people are obviously doing something that's both illegal and inappropriate. They're trying to make their own political point, but their point's wrong." 

New Zealand's intelligence service, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), is currently barred from spying on New Zealand citizens or residents. 

Key argues the restriction should be removed so it can cooperate more closely with agencies such as the police and military in an increasingly complex cybersecurity environment. 

The bill is currently before parliament and expected to pass by a single vote, although groups ranging from the Law Society to internet giants Facebook and Google have raised concerns about the proposal. 

One of the strongest opponents is Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who received an apology from Key last year after revelations the GCSB illegally spied on him before armed police arrested him for alleged online piracy. 

The Auckland-based German national took part in a street protest against the bill at the weekend but urged hackers not to attack the government, saying it was counterproductive. 

"Dear Anonymous NZ, hacking National Party websites is just giving John Key a new excuse to pass the #GCSB bill (cybercrime). Please stop it," he tweeted.

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Google gets 100m takedown requests since Jan

Search engine giant Google has reportedly received 100 million 'takedown' requests since January 2013 for pages infringing the copyright laws. 

According to the BBC, copyright holders send millions of 'takedown' requests to Google every week in an attempt to make pirated material harder to access online. 

A technology analyst at Midia Consulting, Mark Mulligan said that because file sharing has become very decentralized, there is no central sever to shut down the entire links and as soon as one page is removed, another comes up. 

As the takedown requests for this year have nearly doubled up than 2012, editor of a news site Torrentfreak.com, Ernesto van der Sar said that the increase in requests is more about publishers putting pressure on Google to do more to tackle piracy because if people want to pirate they can always find a way to do so. 

The report said that a digital content protection specialist, Degban, makes requests for about 3,00,000 link removals per week on behalf of clients and has asked for nearly 31 million web pages, or URLs, to be removed from Google's results so far. 

It was found that more than half of Degban's URL requests were made on behalf of Froytal Services, a pornography producer. 

Other major copyright owners who file the requests include the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) and its member companies, the Recording Industry Association of America, and various film studios, such as Warner Brothers. 

BPI spokesman said that the organization removes around one million links every week to music hosted on the internet without the artist's knowledge or permission, the report added.

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Twitter launches ‘tweet abuse‘ feature following protests

Microblogging site Twitter has reportedly launched a feature that allows users to report about 'tweet abuse' following the recent incident in which a feminist activist Caroline Criado-Perez campaigning for a woman to replace Charles Darwin on the new 10 pound note was faced with tweet threats of rape and murder. 

According to The Guardian, Twitter in its blog titled 'We Hear You' has reportedly claimed that it is aware of the way certain people misuse the platform for sending abusive tweets to other users and the site is in the process of exploring easier ways to report abuse. 

The site has therefore updated its iPhone app and mobile version to allow reporting of individual tweets, which will be further expanded to the Android and desktop versions soon. 

Twitter's director of trust and safety Del Harvey said that majority of the 400 million tweets sent every day are positive, and embedded into the fabric of traditional and digital media yet the site is not blind to the reality that there will always be people using Twitter in ways that are abusive and may harm others. 

Harvey further said that feedback from users; advocacy groups and government officials always plays an important role in the development of their service to protect individual rights. 

Lawmakers and police officers have equally called in for Twitter to improve reporting tools to deal with abuse, as well as doing more to deter and block unacceptable behaviour, the report added.

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MEA India becomes top app on Apple‘s App Store

In less than 24 hours after its launch, MEA India app has topped the charts ofApple's App Store. 

The application, launched by the Ministry of External Affairs, was leading in the free category of the App Store. If you have an android or iOSplatforms phone, then you can track your passport application with its help. 

In the next couple of months, people will be able to even apply for passport through this app which is available for free. 

For the first time in the world, a country's foreign ministry has been able to integrate and consolidate its entire digital presence in one's hand, thanks to 'MEAIndia' app. 

The MEA envisages the application be a "one-stop shop" for you. From getting updates from all the 124 Indian missions in the world, to getting information for consular access in case you are abroad, to booking yourself for the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, everything is now available on your fingertips. 

The MEA is the first government department to have a mobile app for smartphone users. 

It will provide details of all citizen-centric services of the MEA like passport, visa details for those travelling to India and Haj related details among others. 

Besides providing a vast information on India's foreign policies and activities, one can even take part in quiz and win Rs 1000 e-vouchers for buying books.

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How mobile phones are making your bicycle ‘smart‘

It has happened to many a bicyclist: the car beside you suddenly cuts into your path or passes close enough for you to feel the heat of its exhaust on your leg. 
A big part of avoiding those close calls is being noticed, but for years bicyclists' only defences were bright clothing, battery-powered incandescent bulbs and the cheery ching-ching of a traditional bicycle bell. 
Now that's changing. Thanks to improved LED lights, microchips and smartphone technology,bicycles can have loud horns, brake lights, turn signals and all manner of lighting. 
You can spend a few hundred dollars on a bike headlight alone these days. At just under $300, the Taz 1200 from Light and Motion in Monterey, Calif., is said to put out one-third more light than the average car headlight and is good for riding on roads and on dark trails.
But for the average street biker there are more affordable options. 
Virtually all of today's LED headlights and taillights for bikes have static and multiple flashing modes activated with the push of a button. Add to that a blue flashing light from BikeBrightz Ltd. in Toledo, Ohio and the guy pedaling home after work in the dark could be mistaken for a squad car. Strap the light bar anywhere on your frame, and at $15 each, you can vary your colour scheme. It also comes in "mean green," "rocket red," "powerful pink" and "mellow yellow." 
And then there are the lasers. 
In England, Emily Brooke is bringing her Blaze Bike Light to customers in September. The Blaze projects a green image of a bike rider in front of the cyclist, making it possible for nighttime drivers to see the glowing image even if the rider is in a blind spot.

A price has not yet been set. 
The single-speed and customizable fixed-gear bikes, which cost $325 and up, do have drawbacks, though. They don't shine as brightly in low light as they do in total darkness. Their glow fades in time.

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Apple to launch iPhone 5S on September 6: Report

The latest to do the rounds of rumours surrounding Apple's newest flagship product iPhone 5S is its launch date, which is speculated to be September 6. 

According to Huffington Post, the iPhone 5S may be just over a month away as estimated by a German blog iFun and if true it would mean that the latest iPhone will hit the market earlier than previous versions. 

It was speculated that the reason for delay in the launch of iPhone was the manufacturer's decision to shift to bigger screen sizes as compared to the current 4-inch display. 

Although, there hasn't been any confirmation regarding the matter from the company's side, the German blog stated that 'two new device types' are expected, referring to the varied screen sizes, the report added.

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Indian IT companies may sponsor more green cards

 Indian software companies could step up sponsorship of coveted US green cardsfor employees as part of tactics to mitigate the effects of a planned American law to make work visas harder and costlier to obtain. By doing so, they can expand the pool of employees with access to work in the US, analysts said, giving Indian companies greater leeway as they try and cope with the effects of the planned law. 

The reason companies are planning to increase green-card sponsorships is linked to rules which govern the way visa allocation is counted in a bill passed by the US Senate some weeks ago. The Senate bill imposes caps on the number of work visas companies can seek every year, a limit which depends on the number of H-1B visas for specialty occupations a company already has.

Since the bill excludes 'intending immigrants' who have applied for green cards while counting the number of work visas a company owns, Indian firms are seeing great merit in the idea of sponsoring visa-holders for green cards. "We are already ramping up hiring of workers in the United States and will start offering more green card sponsorships to our employees," said PR Chandrasekhar, chief executive officer of Hexaware Technologies, which is based in Mumbai. "With these steps we think any impact of the rules on us would be very limited." 

The US restricts the number of H-1B visas to 65,000 every year. The Senate bill will raise that to 1.15 lakh, but it mandates higher fees for additional visa applications from companies where over 50% of US staff are already on a temporary work visa. Such companies will also be prevented from placing their staff at client locations in what is known in industry parlance as outplacement . This will make it harder for Indian IT firms which depend on such a model in the US, from where they get nearly 60% of their revenue. "Converting visa holders to green card holders would be a key strategy to mitigate the impact of the bill. If a company puts 90% of the eligible employees on the path to receive a green card, it would exempt them from the outplacement clause," said IDFC analyst Hitesh Shah, who added most IT companies would consider this path. 

A green card is an authorisation to live and work permanently in the United States. To be eligible, the company has to offer employees a permanent job in the United States and apply on their behalf. Unlike a visa, the green card, once granted, frees employees from being dependent on their companies to stay and work in the US. Including lawyer and processing fees, a green card could cost companies $8,000- $10,000 (Rs 4.8-6 lakh) and take several years. Between October 2011 and September 2012, Cognizant filed 1,147 green card petitions, the second most after Microsoft, according to data from Los Angeles-headquartered Myvisajobs.com. During the same period, HCL Technologies filed 81, while Wipro filed 80 petitions, according to the site. Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies and Cognizant declined to comment . 

However, analysts said these companies are actively considering more green card applications. "More green cards and US acquisitions are options, but there are others, including looking at how much work is doing in the US versus in India in some contracts," said Prashant Ranade, chief executive officer of Nasdaq-listed Syntel. "We are keeping a close eye on the proceedings and will take steps as required." The proposed changes have been passed by the US Senate, but the House of Representatives is considering a different set of bills, which are milder and less harmful for the Indian IT than the Senate bill. 

The restrictive visa rules are coming at a time when Indian software services exporters are seeing signs of demand revival in the United States. Even while they are taking evasive measures to minimise the negative impact of restrictive US visa policies, analysts said that the green card path is not without perils. Once sponsored for a green card, employees would also not be dependent on their employer to continue staying in the United States and might be able to command higher wages.

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Kerala targets 3,000 new IT companies by 2020

 Kerala aims to have at least 3,000 IT companies by 2020 under the state's new Seed Support System for early-stage investment to assist new entrepreneurs under the new IT policy of nurturing "one product startup a day", Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said Sunday. 

Speaking via video link at the Weekend@Startup Village celebrations, he also announced the setting up of a state-of-the-art Kerala Technology Innovation Zone at the Kinfra Hi-Tech park where India's first telecom business incubator, Startup Village, is currently located. 

Startup Village is the first public-private partnership incubator in the telecom sector of the country located here and has already an innovation zone set up byBlackBerry. 

The new hub will have a built-up space of 500,000 square feet with all facilities required for a world class innovation ecosystem and will nurture startup companies across a number of sectors including IT and biotechnology. 

The government's flagship Student Entrepreneurship Policy giving 20 per cent attendance allowance and five percent grace marks for student entrepreneurs has taken effect in two Kerala universities. Similar regulations will be introduced by other universities within a month. 

"All student entrepreneurs will be able to avail of these benefits this current academic year. We don't want our students to aim for a job or a visa after they complete education. We want them to become job creators and transform our economy that way. The government will provide every possible support for any entrepreneurial venture that has potential," said Chandy. 

The government has also allocated Rs.1.5 million for Startup Village's flagship programme SVSquare, to "build a bridge between Kochi and California", enabling young aspiring businessmen and women to experience first-hand the renowned entrepreneurial culture of the global technology capital at Silicon Valley. 

Industries and IT Minister PK Kunhalikutty reiterated that no startup with a potentially great and innovative idea will have to suffer for funding. 

"We have money and we have investors who eagerly want to support such ventures," he said. 

Infosys co-founder and chief mentor of Startup Village Kris Gopalakrishnan called Startup Village a "mass movement that will change Kerala" and praised the government for its support for the venture.

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