Google launches Product Listing Ads in India

MUMBAI: Online search giant Google has launched a new ad format, called Product Listing Ads, in India to provide users informationimages, price and brands of products that will help people shop better both online and offline. 

Everyday, millions of shoppers use Google search to research and discover products to purchase online and offline, and this new format connects users to product-informationlooks, price and brands, Google India said in a statement. 

Product Listing Ads will appear on shopping-related queries on Google.co.in. This feature will initially be placed on the right-hand side of the search results page above text ads, and it will be labeled as 'sponsored', it added. 

This ad format will help users easily find and compare relevant products and their prices to fine-tune what they are looking for, the statement said. 

Product Listing Ads are a great opportunity for merchants to present their business and promote their products to interested shoppers as well, it added.

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Apple received 5,000 data requests US

Apple, over the last six months, received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests for customer data US law enforcement authorities relating to criminal investigations and national security matters, the company said. 

Microsoft and Facebook published similar data last week after reaching a deal about disclosures with US national security authorities. 

"We have asked the US government for permission to report how many requests we receive related to national security and how we handle them. We have been authorized to share some of that data," Apple said. 

In a statement posted on its website Apple said that the requests were received December 1 2012 to May 31 2013, and between 9,000 and 10,000 accounts or devices were specified in those requests, which came federal, state and local authorities. 

The most common form of request came police investigating robberies and other crimes, searching for missing children, trying to locate a patient with Alzheimer's disease, or hoping to prevent a suicide, it said. 

"Apple has always placed a priority on protecting our customers' personal data, and we don't collect or maintain a mountain of personal details about our customers in the first place," the company said. 

Apple said conversations which take place over iMessage and FaceTime are "protected by end-to-end encryption so no one but the sender and receiver can see or read them. Apple cannot decrypt that data".

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'Tech Mahindra, MindTree may raise salaries by 7-12%'

MUMBAI: Mid-tier IT firms such as Tech Mahindra and MindTree may raise salaries by 7-12% this fiscal to ensure they do not lose talent to top players TCS, Infosys and Wipro, according to HR service providers. 

The larger players have announced wage hikes ranging between 6% and 10% for this fiscal. 

"Current environment is challenging and companies are looking at preserving their bottomline. Despite that, keeping employees' interest in mind, organizations have given hikes ranging 8-12%, which is a good development." 

"In general, we can expect 7-12% hikes for employees working with mid-tier IT companies," Randstad India president (staffing) and director (marketing) Aditya Narayan Mishra told. He added that as the demand for IT services increases in the coming quarters, one can expect above-average hikes.

Last week, Infosys said its employees in India will get on an average 8% increase, while Wipro said it has raised salaries by 6-8%. Onsite employees have seen salaries going up by 2-3%. India's largest software services exporter Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has increased wages by 8-10% in India and 2-4% for overseas workforce. HCL Technologies has started its appraisal process and is expected to make an announcement by July-end. Most Indian IT firms give increments around April or May.

"IT sector has been fairly conservative in terms of pay hike. We recently did a survey,we asked some of our customers on increments this year and almost 46-47% of the respondents said they are looking at wage hikes between 6-15%," HeadHonchos.com CEO Uday Sodhi said.

IT firms are also looking at the global economic scenario, which still has not been very promising and it plays an important role in determining the hike percentage, he added.

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Micromax unveils Canvas 4 with 13MP camera

NEW DELHI: Indian smartphone manufacturer Micromax has released a teaser of its upcoming handset called Canvas 4. The company has posted two teaser videos of the device on its official YouTube channel. The videos, with tagline "Can Life Be Endless," show a smartphone with a sleek body and 13MP camera. 

Expected to be an update to the popular Canvas HD smartphone, the upcoming Micromax Canvas 4 is speculated to have an eight-core processor,Samsung Galaxy S4. The YouTube channel of Micromax states that pre-bookings for the device will start June 28. 

Micromax in January said that it will launch a total of 30 smartphones this year. Since then, it has rolled out devicesCanvas HD, Canvas 3D, Canvas Music, Bolt A35 and Canvas Viva. 

A vast and diverse range at affordable price points is part of Micromax's ambitious plans to emerge as the largest phone seller in India, ahead of Nokia and market leader Samsung. In January, it claimed to have shipped 1.98 lakh phablets in Q4 2012, as compared to 1.89 lakh units sold by the South Korean manufacturer Samsung. 

In smartphones, Micromax has scored quite well recently with its entry-level Canvas 2 A110 and mid-range Canvas HD A116 phablets respectively. The company is facing a severe shortage of Canvas HD and has not been able to get its supplies in order, leading to a waiting period of up to two weeks.

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Life-like robots showcased in New York

A Japanese scientist has developed a body-double robot which resembles him closely, with tiny humanmovements and blinking eyes. 

Japanese roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, director of the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University, has been working on developing lifeandroids. 

The new robot was unveiled at the Global Futures 2045 International Congress in New York, a futuristic conference focused on the technological singularity. 

The new Geminoid, an android resembling a real person was tele-operated controlled remotely by a person offstage. 

Ishiguro has also developed another Geminoid, a fashionably dressed female android, which he has shown off in the windows of clothing stores, LiveScience reported. 

The robot was so popular that the clothing it was modelling sold out immediately, Ishiguro said. 

Ishiguro has also taken his robots on the road as part of a travelling "android theatre,"they act out scenes with humanexpressions. 

The roboticist also made the Telenoid, a pillow-like bot deliberately designed to appear ageless and genderless so that people can project an imagined face onto its neutral appearance. 

Ishiguro has tested the Telenoid among the elderly in Denmark, who took to it very well, he said. 

Another of Ishiguro's inventions is the Elfoid a smaller version of the Telenoid that functions as a mobile phone. 

Today, everyone talks to the "little black boxes" of their smartphones, Ishiguro said, so he wanted to personalize and humanize the devices. 

At the end of Ishiguro's talk, his robotic double spoke up, saying that next time, it would give a much better presentation than the real Ishiguro.

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Guava Soft sets up data centre in India

NEW DELHI: Ludhiana-based IT firm Guava Soft has started e-mail services email.biz with complete set-up in India, offering singleacter-based and name-based domains. 

The company has set up its data centre in India and has developed entire e-mail services with its in-house Indian employees. 

"Our complete set-up is in India. We have our data centre in Ludhiana. The services and applications, everything has been developed by our employee and they areIndian. The company is jointly owned by me and my brother Sachin," Guava Soft founder and chief executive officer Anshul Goyal said. 

The company has started services at a time when the US image is marred in controversy of peeping into e-mail accounts of foreign countries. Most of the prominent e-mail services are offered by US-based IT companies. 

Goyal said that within a month, email.biz will start offering integrated chat servicesoffered by other top email providers. 

The company has also launched personalize e-mail services that can be registered on 20,000 domain names registered by the firm. 

"We are offering domains in various categorysingleacter based n.biz, 7.biz, then are names based domainbengal.biz, officer.biz. At present 9,500 such domain names are available for people to use against annualge of Rs 500. We are adding 1,500 to 2,000 domain names every week," Goyal said. 

In premium e-mail services, he added, that the company is providing facility to send e-mails with attachment size of up to 500MB but at some additional price. 

"As an innovative feature we are also providing people to log in to their active email account registered with any of the known website our website. They have to use same e-mail id and password without registering on our website," Goyal said.

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European cloud computing cos see positives in NSA scandal

PARIS/LONDON: France has its Sovereign Cloud project, while across the Rhine data firms have created the label Cloud Services: Made in Germany,trying to reassure big companies that their information is stored away the prying eyes of US spies.

European firms believe revelations that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly gathered user data nine big US internet companies, including Microsoft and Google, will hand them a competitive advantage as they play catch-up with the dominant American players in cloud computing.

Yet companies and individuals may have to accept that while storing and processing their most sensitive information on servers owned by Europeans and located in Europe could keep it the NSA's eyes, intelligence agencies closer to home may be looking anyway.

"If you are going to have a Big Brother, I'd much rather have a domestic Big Brother than a foreign Big Brother," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at internet security company F-Secure, which also offers cloud services with data stored in the Nordic countries.

Cloud computing - an umbrella term for everything web-based email to business software that is run remotely via the internet instead of on-site - is being adopted by big companies and governments globally to cut costs and add flexibility to their IT departments.

In a Normandy town nestled in a loop of the Seine river lies a huge new data centre, a part of France's Sovereign Cloud project that some in the industry once poked fun at as being out of step with the realities of the borderless internet.

Last year the French government ploughed 150 million euros ($200 million) into two start-ups, including the data centre's owner Cloudwatt, to equip the country with infrastructure independent of US cloud computing giants.

Following the revelations that the NSA's PRISM programme collected user data the nine companies that also include Yahoo and Facebook, the French position now seems prescient to some people.

"People are being spied on without their knowledge, and non-US residents have no legal rights," said Philippe Tavernier of Numergy, another cloud-computing group that got state help. "We feel vindicated that our strategy is right."

As European officials seek answers the US government on PRISM, technology executives, data protection regulators and analysts told Reuters the scandal may prove a turning point for the region's young cloud computing industry.

European companies such as telecoms groups Orange and Deutsche Telekom are trying to exploit the concerns as they build their own cloud businesses.

Government agencies and municipalities, especially in more privacy-conscious countries such as Germany, are more likely to turn to local alternatives for cloud services. Sweden recently banned Google Apps - cloud-based email, calendar and storage - in the public sector over concerns that Google had too much leeway over how the data was used and stored.

"Someone is always watching" Similar changes could also gather pace in Asiacompanies and regulators were already concerned about data security in the cloud before PRISM.

A source at a major Chinese company that provides cloud infrastructure said governments were likely to impose stricter controls ondata was stored, although this would not be a panacea. "Frankly, wherever you put your data, someone is always watching. It could be the US, it could be China," he said.

Some lawmakers in the European Parliament also want rules requiring companies undertaking cloud projects to protect European users' data better, and are using concerns around PRISM to lobby for their cause. They want supervisors or judges to oversee the transfer of personal data to overseas security services, and for customers of cloud companies to be able to opt out of their data being stored in the United States.

Caspar Bowden, an independent privacy advocate and Microsoft's chief privacy adviser 2002-2011, said that before the PRISM revelations the big US cloud companies had been largely able to quell fears about data security with savvy public relations. "The headlines this past week will changethat. The nationality of the company and the location of the data do make a difference," he said.

Even before PRISM, some companies abroad planning cloud computing projects were concerned about the powers given to US intelligence agencies by anti-terrorism laws enacted after the September 11 attacks on the country: the 2001 Patriot Act and the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (Fisaa).

A European Parliament body said in a report last year that Fisaa granted the US "heavy-calibre mass surveillance fire-power aimed at the cloud" and had "very strong implications on EU data sovereignty and the protection of its citizens' rights."

Murky Cloud computing companies and their customers globally are struggling to understand when and how governments can access users' data. Many national and international laws are at a play and different interpretations abound. Also since US anti-terrorism laws require that information requests be kept secret, companies served with such warrants cannot disclose them.

This much is clear: a US cloud computing company must comply with US government search warrants and intelligence requests, just as a French or German company would when presented with a similar domestic warrant. Intelligence agencies also co-operate under what are known as mutual legal assistance treaties to gain access to data stored in one jurisdiction but needed in a lawful investigation in another country.

What remains murky, however, is whether the US government can use anti-terrorism laws on a US-based company such as IBM or Microsoft to force its local subsidiaries across the world into handing over user data. Or more simply, can the US government just order a cloud company to use a US-based computer to access data stored abroad?

"When data comes in to the US or is handled in the cloud by US companies, there is a question whether access can be obtained by the US government," said Ellen Giblin, a lawyer who specialises in privacy and data protection at the Ashcroft Law Firm. "It's a very thick and layered concern."

Contacted by Reuters, major US-based cloud providers including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google declined to answer specific questions. Many have built data centres abroad - AWS in Ireland and Australia, IBM in Germany and Ireland for example - to address data privacy concerns among non-US companies.

A spokeswoman for AWS noted that it did not take part in PRISM. On its website, AWS says data stored in the EU never leaves the region unless the customer requests it.

Cloud companies in Europe are taking different steps to meet their customers' needs. Some are putting forward their local credentials such as the state-funded Cloudwatt and Numergy in France. German firms use the Cloud Services: Made in Germany label as a marketing tool if they can certify certain conditions such as contract terms that comply with national privacy laws.

Axel Heantjens, an executive at Orange Business Services, recently advised a French luxury group that needed computer servers in the Americas for a global cloud project but did not want them in the United States because of security concerns. "I told them to consider Costa Rica or Canada," he said.

Others such, as the German lawyers' association, are turning to technological fixes. It now encrypts data that 800 members of its information technology group put in a cloud computing programme provided by T-Systems, the IT services unit of Deutsche Telekom.

Since only the association holds the encryption key and not T-Systems, the product adds an extra layer of security.

Such encryption has been unpopular among companies because the scrambled data crippled the functionality of cloud programmesSalesforce.com or Microsoft Office 365.

Now a number of tech companies have got around some of the problems, including California-based start-up CipherCloud. The company's software encrypts data on the fly as it is sent up or retrieved cloud applications. The key to unscramble the files is kept by the customer and never given to the cloud provider.

"We've grown rapidly because so many people around the world are worried about cloud security," said CipherCloud CEO Pravin Kothari.

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See, what led to recent hike in mobile tariffs

NEW DELHI: The so-called 2G scam,suspected government corruption in the award of telecom spectrum led to the cancellation of 122 service licences across the country by the Supreme Court, is one of the reasons for recent tariff hikes, apart denting the global image of India's flourishing mobile phone industry, experts maintain.

The mobile phone industry, which was adding over 10 million new subscribers to the network every month in the past year, has seen the growth fall to less than five million now, experts say.

"The issue has definitely impacted the cost of telecom services in India," Mahesh Uppal, director of telecom consultancy firm Com First, told IANS.

"When the number of players increased and competition was cut-throat, the tariffs were low. Everybody wanted to lure subscribers. So the new licences did lead to cheaper services," he added.

Now, the reduced competition, he said, has allowed operators to hike telecom tariff.

Experts also said that till recently telecom companies were getting some radio frequency spectrum, or airwaves, free with their licences. More was allotted based on criteria related to the number of subscribers they were serving.

"But now they have to pay for both the licences and the spectrum separately," Uppal said.

As many as 122 telecom licences were ordered cancelled by the Supreme Court, finding that the process followed in 2008 was faulty. Among them Uninor had 22 licences, Loop 21, MTS 21, Videocon 21, Etisalat 15, Idea 13, S-Tel 6 and Docomo 3.

The main reasons for cancellation were that the bids were accepted on a first-come, first-served basis but the last date was suddenly advanced, allegedly suiting some players. The cost of a pan-India licence for 2G auction in 2008 was kept at Rs.1,658 crore and the total money collected on 122 licences was Rs 10,772 crore. Some found this price too little.

Last month, Reliance Communications raised call rates by 20-30 percent across India. Bharti Airtel did away with its promotional offers in January. Idea recently said it is not mulling any tariff hike for the present. Experts stated that bigger players are increasing tariff but the smaller players will still look at the numbers.

The private players in the sector include Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, RCom, Tata DoCoMo and Aircel. Only BSNL and MTNL are in the public sector.

The Indian government lost Rs 1.8 lakh crore in the 2G spectrum allocation scam. Many high profile politicians and officers were arrested in the case. Former telecom minister A Raja was arrested February 2, 2011 along with his personal secretary RK Chandolia and telecom secretary Siddharth Behura. Raja got bail May 15, 2012.

DMK Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi was arrested May 21, 2011 as co-accused in the case and has beenged by the CBI for allegedly accepting a Rs 214-crore bribe in the 2G scam. Kanimozhi was granted bail by the Delhi High Court Nov 28, 2011.

On February 2, 2012, the Supreme Court ordered the scrapping of 122 telecom licences issued to nine companies in 2008.

On June 7 this year, a Delhi court dismissed a plea seeking lodging of an FIR against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran for their alleged role in the 2G case. It dismissed the plea and fined petitioner Vivek Garg, an RTI activist, Rs 20,000.

Jaidip Ghosh, partner at KPMG in India, said there was pressure on the cost and now the situation had changed after a few telecom players exited the market following the verdict in the 2G issue.

He said tariff was still low in India and there was still some "headroom to increase price". The headline tariff was declining for a few years but the industry reached a stagnation point during 2011-end and 2012.

The situation prevalent between 2008-end till 2011-12 has changed now.

"After the licences were cancelled, these players had to exit the market. This has also led to the regulator and the government fixing a base price of spectrum to make the auction process transparent," said Rishi Tejpal, principal research analyst with Gartner.

"All the operators now consider the new base price quite high and unrealistic," Tejpal told IANS.

"With the increase in spectrum prices, the margins of the telecom firms have been impacted. Their cost of operations went up. They have tried to offset it by passing it on partially to the customers in the form of increased headline tariffs."

Even though the market was still very competitive, the operators were firm on not reducing tariffs, he said. "There will be no reduction in prices in the near future for sure. On the contrary, we may see the tariffs going up."

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New iPad app allows users to click telescopic images

WASHINGTON: A new iPad app has been developed, which allows people to click telescope images of celestial objects the comfort of their couch. 

The app created by the online Slooh Space Camera allows people to command and control their robotic network of space cameras, Fox News reported. 

Slooh's professional telescopes click an image of the celestial object and provide user with a time, date and observatory-stamped photo that will be loaded into the digital skywatcher's personal app.

Slooh president Patrick Paolucci said in a statement that it starts out blank until a Slooh Space Camera is commanded. 

He said that the image taken is truly yours and not a picture that was clicked months or years earlier by some one else. 

The app is free to download, but costs 1.99 dollars to command a mission; it also contains info about various celestial objects that they can investigate on the interactive skyt.

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Samsung to launch 'faster' version of Galaxy S4

SOUTH KOREA: Samsung Electronics plans to sell a variation of its flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone that will transmit data at nearly twice the normal speed, the head of its mobile business said on Monday. 

JK Shin, also co-chief executive of the world's biggest technology firm by revenue, said the phone would be sold in South Korea as early as this month. 

Samsung was in talks with several overseas carriers to take the phone, Shin told Reuters in an interview at Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, just south of Seoul. He declined to name the carriers. 

"We'll be the first with the commercial launch of the advanced 4G version of the smartphone," Shin said. 

The new S4 will use LTE-Advanced 4G technology, an upgrade conventional 4G called LTE, or long term evolution. LTE-Advanced offers data transmission at up to twice the normal 4G speed. The phones will be powered by Qualcomm chips. 

A movie download that takes 3 minutes with conventional 4G would take slightly more than 1 minute, Samsung said. 

Samsung's shares have lost almost $20 billion since June 7 after analysts cut forecasts for Galaxy S4 sales by as much as 30% on industry data that showed the high-end smartphone market was getting saturated. 

The same problem is hitting sales of the iPhone 5, made by Samsung rival Apple. 

Samsung's market capitalisation is still a hefty $195 billion. Its shares closed down 0.2% on Monday. 

Shin showed little concern about sales prospects for the S4, which hit stores in late April. The mobile devices division is the company's biggest profit generator. 

"S4 sales remain strong. It's selling far stronger than the (Galaxy) S III ... and the new LTE-Advanced (4G) phone will be another addition to our high-end segment offerings that ensure healthy profit margins," Shin said. 

Shin declined to provide forecasts for S4 sales. He said the new S4 would be slightly more expensive than the current one. 

The South Korean firm hopes the addition of hardware offerings such as faster data transmission, along with its widely anticipated move to introduce models with unbreakable or flexible displays, will help it protect margin growth. 

"As operators seek to provide more data-centric mobile services, I think this will become mainstream 4G technology globally in the coming years," Shin said. 

Shin also said sales of Samsung's tablet products in the US market jumped 3.3 times since it installed brand shops within Best Buy's stores in April, and is now considering expanding the format in Latin America and Britain. Samsung declined to name potential retailers. 

Eyes on network business Having conquered the smartphone market that Apple virtually created with the iconic iPhone in 2007, Samsung is seeking to do the same in the network business with the booming 4G mobile equipment market, challenging bigger rivals such as Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia Siemens Networks. 

Many countries need to upgrade mobile base stations to handle not just 3G but also 4G, or build them scratch to support 4G connections. 

Shin said the network gear market was one of Samsung's fastest growing businesses, mainly thanks to 4G equipment sales which had been rising more than 30% a year since 2010. 

The new phone would help this part of Samsung's business, he said. 

"Such technology leadership will set the pace for the competition and help us become a major player in the network gear market," Shin said. 

Samsung has won some 4G network deals major South Korean carriers, US's Sprint Nextel and Japan's KDDI and Hutchison Whampoa's British unit, but it needs to crack China to close the gap with traditional vendors in the overall gear equipment market. 

Shin said there had not been much progress in Samsung's push to penetrate China's 4G equipment market yet, but it was increasing investment in the country. 

China's three mobile operators - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom - plan to spend a combined 345 billion yuan ($56.3 billion) this year on network upgrades. That includes investment in 4G, which multiplies mobile broadband speeds by up to five times for users of iPhone and Galaxy phones compared with 3G. 

Many analysts believe Huawei and ZTE - already big suppliers of China Mobile since only 10-15% of 3G network contracts went to foreign vendors - will be winners, leaving others to fight for smaller bits of the pie. 

Samsung hopes to show Chinese clients that 4G networks with new technology can be built faster and with lower operating costs.

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Microsoft Boot Camp 2013 Gives Students Inside Track on Tech Trends

Four-city Microsoft Student Partner (MSP) Boot Camp kicks off in NOIDA, Uttar Pradesh 

New Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) inaugurated at GL Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management 

Over 300 enthusiastic technology students gathered at the 2013 Microsoft Student Partners (MSP) Boot Camp held at the GL Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management in Noida today, to get the inside-track on tech trends that will fuel the MSP program over the next year. The event marks the start of a first-of-its-kind multi-city MSP Boot Camp tour which will equip over 1,200 MSP’s over 600 colleges across the country with the knowledge to help share their passions for the latest technologies among their peers. 

Taking in four locations including Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh; Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Lonavala, Maharashtra and Tadepalligudem, Andhra Pradesh, the Boot Camps represent an immersive briefing session whereby MSP’s can hear first-hand Microsoft officials about the programs and technologies that will be the company’s focus in the coming fiscal year to further their own understanding as well as to spread the word among their peers. MSP’s attending the Boot Camp received invitations to the keynote event as a result of their continued dedication to evangelizing new technology within their respective institutions. 

As part of a worldwide network of student technologists, MSP’s get access to Microsoft tools, technologies, and training, and gain valuable experience to help them develop real-world skills and resources to help them prepare for successful careers. The program represents a unique way for students to connect, collaborate, share the passion of technology among the community and helps in shaping students as technology leaders of their campus. 

India has the biggest MSP program in the world with almost 1,200 MSPs across 600 institutions. Commenting on the role of MSPs to empower the Indian eco system, Joseph Landes, General Manager, DPE, Microsoft India. said “India has a large, vibrant developer community and in order for that to materialize into real economic growth it is crucial to help future innovators discover their true potential by providing access to technology. The MSP Program empowers young minds to turn ideas in to realty and encourages them to unleash their creativity towards helping to solve real world issues through social innovation and entrepreneurship. 

The event also saw the inauguration of a new Microsoft Innovation Center (MIC) at the GL Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management bringing the total number of MIC’s in India up to 26. The new MIC will operate as an innovation hub providing incubation and expert hands-on support on Microsoft technology innovation, research, and software solutions, aiming to create a pool of student technology experts in the state. 

Commenting on the occasion, Mr. Pankaj Agarwal, Chairman, GL Bajaj Institute of Technology & Management said, “We are happy to associate with Microsoft and focus on nurturing innovation. We look forward to drive applied technology solutions, startup incubation and contribute to the socio-economic change in the community and the economy through Microsoft programs” 

Divyansh Singh, an MSP based in Bhopal since 2009, summing up the excitement of the participants, said, “The Boot Camp has been an awesome experience for us and sets us up nicely for an upcoming year full of innovation and exciting product launches! The advantages of being an MSP keep on getting better each year be it the early access to MS technology, hot-of-the-shelf trends shared by senior ‘geeks’, the opportunity to further our career options and of course the bragging rights around campus. 

About Microsoft India 

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ 'MSFT') is the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – at any time, any place and on any device. Microsoft Corporation (India) Private Ltd is a subsidiary of Microsoft Corporation, USA. It has had a presence in India since 1990 and currently has offices in nine cities - Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, New Delhi and Pune.

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Germany plans more online surveillance: Report

BERLIN: Germany's foreign intelligence service plans a major expansion of internet surveillance despite deep unease over revelations of US online spying, Der Spiegel news weekly reported.

Spiegel said that the BND planned a 100 million euro ($130 million) programme over the next five years to expand web monitoring with up to 100 new staff members on a "technical reconnaissance" team.

The report came ahead of a state visit to Berlin by US President Barack Obama during which the German government has pledged to take up the controversy over the US phone and Internet surveillance programmes.

Spiegel said the BND aimed to monitor international data traffic "as closely as possible", noting that it currently kept tabs on about five percent of emails, Internet calls and online chats while German law allowed up to 20 percent.

Unlike the US National Security Agency (NSA), Germany's BND is not allowed to store the data but must filter it immediately.

"Of course our intelligence services must have an Internet presence," Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told Der Spiegel, without confirming the details of the report.

The state must ensure "that we balance the loss of control over communication by criminals with new legal and technological means," he added.

Under the so-called PRISM programme that was exposed this month, the NSA can issue directives to internet firms such as Google and Facebook to gain access to emails, online chats, pictures, files and videos uploaded by foreign users.

Germany,sensitivity over government surveillance is particularly heightened due to widespread spying on citizens by communist East Germany's despised Stasi, said last week it was sending a list of questions to the Obama administration about the programme.

The European has also expressed disquiet over the scheme and warned of "grave adverse consequences" to the rights of European citizens.

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How your future TV may look like

WASHINGTON: Japanese engineers have unveiled the prototype of a flexible, plasma television that can roll upa window shade.

Japan's Shinoda Plasma Co demonstrated the plasma screen at the Display Week 2013 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, last month, winning an award for 'Best Prototype at Display Week'.

The company calls its invention a 'Luminous Array Film', or LAFi. Instead of being made one large, flat sheet of glass, the display uses a thousand tiny glass tubes.

Each tube is 1 mm in diameter and a bit more than 3 feet long. The panel can be rolled into a cylinder less than 4 inches across, Fox News reported.

In spite of their tiny size, the tubes are hollow, and can hold the inert gas and phosphors required to make the light to create an image.

Shinoda already makes larger displays it calls SHiPLA based on 2 metre by 1 metre panels, which have been used to create large, curved displays for museums and other public displays.

The company is working on developing a display with even smaller tubes - going 1 mm to just 0.5 mm - which will make it possible to roll up into an even tighter circle.

Shinoda is positioning the product for digital signage at this point, but intends to come out with a version for home entertainment displays.

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Free mobile roaming soon, but conditions apply

NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator Trai allowed free mobile roaming on payment of a fixed fee July 1 and reduced national roamingges for others by up to 57 per cent. 

Trai, however, said making national roaming completely free ofges is not practical as of now. 

"The authority has decided to reduce the ceiling (upper price for roaming call and SMS rates) across board, permitting telecom providers to issue special tariff voucher and mandating that a roaming plan will be offered (for post paid customers)," Trai Chairman Rahul Khullar told reporters here. 

The ceilings on roamingges prescribed by Trai in 2007 were Rs 1.40 per minute for outgoing local calls and Rs 2.40 per minute for outgoing STD calls. 

These ceilings have been reduced to Re 1 per minute for outgoing local calls and Rs 1.50 per minute for outgoing STD calls. 

Similarly, the ceiling for incoming calls while on national roaming has been reduced Rs 1.75 per minute to 75 paise per minute. 

Khullar said operators have been mandated to provide two types of roaming plan for customers. 

"In one case,ges on incoming will be free but a fixge will be levied and in the other regime you don't give free incoming and there will be no fixedges. The philosophy of authority is let customers decide what they want...competition in the market will help in driving tariffs down," he said. 

The new plans will be among the 25 tariff plans that a company is allowed to offer to its customers. 

"The essential idea of free roaming is that roaming tariff should be equal to home tariff (when customer is not roaming).... the short point which we want to make is fully free roaming ... is not practical," he said. 

Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal had earlier said that free national roaming would be implemented by October.

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Murthy is IT industry's Don Bradman: Investors

BANGALORE: It was paeans and poetry at Infosys's 32nd annual general meeting held in Bangalore on Saturday. And it kept everybody in good humour. The signature IPL saxophone tune played in the background welcoming NR Narayana Murthy back to his home turf nearly two years after he resigned the company. Shareholders hailed Murthy as the Don Bradman and Visvesvaraya of the IT industry. Some called him a messiah of good tidings. 

Gundu Rao, a shareholder, said, "We are so happy that NRN is back. When he said that Infosys was his second child, it is expected of parents to handhold their children for sometime, if they find that their child is in a bit of difficulty. 

And this is nothing unusual in our Indian ethos." Jagadeep D, an employee with Canara Bank, who along with his wife holds 40 shares in Infosys, said that he was overwhelmed with the news of NRN making a comeback. 

"In the last two to three years the company has faltered on growth. When news of Cognizant overtaking Infosys came, there was a clear indication that Infosys was facing some drawbacks and a certain lacuna had been created." 

Hanif Sheikh, a shareholder who had come Pune, said, "Even though Murthy is 67 chronologically, biologically he's 47. JRD Tata retired at 87, and recently Ratan Tata retired at 75. So NRN is good enough to continue for another 10 to 15 more years." 

But many shareholders were disappointed with the company for its dividend payout of Rs 42 per share for the year, which fell short of last year's Rs 47 per share. 

A shareholder said Infosys's payout traditionally is around 30 % of its net profit compared to 90 % in some other companies. TCS, one said, pays more than Infosys. Shareholders complained that the company had been sitting on cash and not giving bonus shares for the past ten years, nor considering a stock split after 2005. 

Some asked the company's board to consider increasing the dividend payout to 50% of net profit. The company's CFO Rajiv Bansal said that as a policy the company's divided payout does not exceed 30 % of net profit. 

Thirty-year-old software engineer and shareholder Neel questioned whether NRN bringing his son Rohan Murty as executive assistant (EA) was an exception and if other board members could bring in family members as EAs. The question was not answered. 

The 32nd AGM saw 383 shareholders in attendance with 86 shareholders being represented through proxy votes. 

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Aircel 'survival' under threat as debt rises

MUMBAI: Forits recent parleys on radical options to get back on track - relief on debt repayments, sale of some assets, sale of everything - Aircel is back to square one,everyone who has something to do with it does not want to do anything more with it than they absolutely have to. 

The glimmer of hope arising the multitude of talks took another beating on June 13, when India's top investigating agency announced it had moved forward in a corruption probe involving Aircel's Malaysian promoter Maxis and its owner T Ananda Krishnan. And India's seventh-largest telecom company, which was once gunning for top-three status, was pushed back into the vicious circle of cash and credibility it has been ensnared in for the past two-and-a-half years. 

After a building spree that went awry and burdened it with Rs 24,000-crore of debt, Aircel needs, according to a banker who is clued into the company's workings but did not want to be named, at least Rs 6,000 crore to start firing again. This could be capital promoters, new loans banks or proceeds an asset sale. But the corruption probe has damaged the company's credibility, and no one wants to commit more. 

Meanwhile, desperation is writtenover Aircel's operations and choices. Aircel declined to participate in this story, but a company official who did not want to be named says that, even with 61 million subscribers, its network is running 60% empty. Further, he adds, at its current rate of growth, it will take five years for the company to fill its network. 

The past few months, Aircel has been selling minutes on its network in Mumbai to rival Reliance Communications at one-third the going market rate. Employees are edgy, the management unsure and the promoters distant. 

A person familiar with the company's financials says Aircel is losing around Rs 1,680 crore annually at the operating level. On top of this, it has to pay interest on its debt and, come January, will also have to start repaying principal. And the root ofits troubles is a case linked to Maxis' entry into Aircel and an unbridled expansion. 

Other people's money
In 2005, Maxis, along with a 26% partner in the Reddy family that runs the Apollo Hospital group, bought Aircel serial entrepreneur C Sivasankaran for $800 million (about Rs 4,390 crore). A year later, it received licences for 14 more circles, besides the eight it had, giving it a pan-India presence. 

Aircel received 2G spectrum, or radiowaves, in 2008-09, along with a few new players such as Unitech and Sistema. "There was an urgency for a full rollout to beat others," says a former official who was part of the Aircel management team, on the condition of anonymity. 

The management drew up a $3.5 billion-expansion plan, of which $1.5 billion was to come in as promoter equity. "It went through without too many questions," recalls a second former official Aircel's management team, who too spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The guys (at Maxis) were on top of what we were doing." 

But the equity infusion kept getting deferred and much of the capital expenditure at the time was built on vendor credit, largely Chinese suppliers ZTE and Huawei. At a meeting of the management team held in Gurgaon, the promoters said the additional equity would come after the 3G auction, scheduled in mid-2010. "We decided to live short term and thought we will finalise the financial structure with 3G and 4G bidding," says the first ex-management team official quoted above. "So, the company had put in $3-3.5 billion of investment without a single dollar of equity investment." 

It started coming back to haunt Aircel. "The (telecom) industry is a long-term play," says Hemant Joshi, partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells, a consulting and accountancy firm. "Only long-term funds should be used for long-term purposes because it takes huge time for it (telecom business) to mature. In the Companies Act, there is a provision asking auditors to check whether a company has used short-term funds for long-term purposes." 

To generate funds for 3G bids, the management suggested hiving off its tower business. So, it sold its 17,500 towers to GTL Infrastructure for about Rs 8,000 crore, and spent Rs 9,900 crore to buy 3G and BWA airwaves. "3G was the smartest bid because it covered 95% of our revenues," says the first management team official quoted earlier. "It was the additional 4G spend, prompted by promoters that was unwarranted. There was also no separate strategy for 4G. We took the 3G strategy and also used it for 4G, which shows." 

Call drops
According to this official, till this point, the promoters were "very sincere" about India and "committed" to Aircel. The call dropped when what is now called the 2G case, related to the 2008 licence awards, started unravelling. It claimed a former telecom minister, company promoters and executives, and bureaucrats. 

As the scope of the investigation widened, Sivasankaran told the CBI that the then telecom minister Dayanadhi Maran ed clearances to the company and compelled him to sell it to Maxis; further, as a quid pro quo, Maxis invested Rs 550 crore in Sun TV, the direct-to-home (DTH) company belonging to the Maran family. The CBI, in October 2011, filed a case against T Ananda Krishnan, who controls Maxis, Ralph Marshall, a non-executive director at Maxis, and the Marans.of them have denied any wrongdoing. 

"That was the turning point," says the first management team official. "The promoters could not come to India. They kept sending people who did not know the Indian market. Decisions taken would be reversed soon after. They lost complete control." 

This drift affected Aircel's 2G operations, and it started losing momentum. Elsewhere, 3G - on which it had spent a pile - was not taking off. "When you have made the capital expense and revenues are not coming, you bleed badly," says the former employee. "Decision-making became a monthly thing, being a quarterly affair. Everyone came out of those meetings (with Maxis) frustrated." 

Starved of cash, credibility and commitment, Aircel started cutting its losses. It shut operations in five unprofitable circles: Gujarat, Haryana, UP-West, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. "It was short-sighted," says a former senior Aircel official, not wanting to be named. "Once you shut operations in parts, you start getting seen as a regional player. It creates disorder among ranks, staff and customers." By January 2013, its customer base had shrunk to 61 million, against 66 million a year earlier. 

A fallout between Aircel and GTL over the tower deal added to the bleeding. Aircel had promised GTL it would expand to 60,000 towers, which did not happen. Aircel agreed to refund Rs 1,600 crore to GTL by June 2012, and paid Rs 200 crore and issued a bank guarantee of around Rs 1,000 crore. It has struggled to pay the remainder. The latest is that GTL has claimed Rs 2,000 crore Aircel, which has, in turn, challenged GTL's service quality and is seeking damages. 

An analyst who did not wish to be named sums up Aircel's woes in four points: it remained unprofitable innew circles and never passed the mid-sized category; it splurged to acquire customers, who left before it could generate a profit on their connection; it stepped back when competitors were adding subscribers, opening up a gap; and poor execution. 

"The promoters took good long-term decisions. Only it was with other people's money," says the first former Aircel management team official quoted earlier. BK Syngal, the former head of VSNL and now a consultant, terms this a "systemic problem". "How was the money lent? Who checked what the borrowed funds were used for? Now, they are refusing to put in money and the problem lies on the banks' head," says Syngal, senior principal, Dua Consulting, a telecom consultancy firm. 

Aircel recently initiated informal talks with lenders to restructure its 24,000-crore debt. Banks - not wanting to set a precedent for the telecom sector, to which they have loaned Rs 92,000 crore - have asked Aircel's promoters to put in more money. "Operational excellence cannot turn it around," says the first former Aircel management team official. "Only an equity infusion to retire high debt can." 

Maxis raised $3.3 billion in its IPO in 2009, but it has been reluctant to channel this into India while the future of Aircel is inextricably woven with a legal case. Its 26% partner, Saudi Telecom, has dissented further fund infusion into Aircel. 

Many solutions have reportedly been discussed at the behest of various stakeholders: outright sale to Sistema, merger with Tata Teleservices and the sale of its BWA spectrum for $800-900 million. But ultimately, each comes down to credibility and an assurance that the company's legal woes won't trip such corporate actions. And, today, Aircel and its promoter are in no position to give that.

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