Vodafone, Aircel look up ways to speed up NOFN

Vodafone and Aircel have started talks with the government on how to speed up the much delayed national broadband project. The government recently setup a committee on NOFN to fastrack the project. The NOFN project has assumed greater importance after the announcement in August of the Digital India initiative, a programme to transform the country into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

A way is to get private companies lay down optic fibre in the second phase of NOFN, which aims at providing broadband connectivity to 250,000 panchayats by December 2016 at an estimated cost of Rs 30,000 crore.

Aircel had a workshop with the DoT and Bharat Broadband Network officials on how they can collaborate on the project and what they should do to build the high-speed data network. BBNL, a special purpose vehicle set up by the government in 2012 is responsible for management and operations of NOFN under the administrative control of the Ministry of IT and Communications. The NOFN project, which was initially estimated to cost Rs 20,100 crore and was approved by the Cabinet in October 2011, is running behind schedule and has seen a cost overrun of 75% because of delays… See more 

Indian smartphone market share in Q4 2014 comes down

It is the first time ever when the Indian smartphone market shrunk following a piling up of inventories by handset makers at the start of the October-December period. However, Samsung continued to maintain its leading position in the smartphone market with 22% share in the fourth quarter of 2014. 

Smartphones made up 35% of the overall mobile phone business in the country, which was nearly 3 times of its share in the same quarter of 2013. In Q4 2014, the smartphone market declined 4 percent while the feature phone market dipped 14 percent over Q3 2014. 

Apple has posted a tough competition to the Korean consumer electronics brand Samsung in Q4. According to IDC, online exclusive brands are hurting the Samsung brand in value for money category. 

Intex came out as the third largest smart phone vendor in India with 8% share, surpassing Lava during this Quarter. Lava however remains stable with a good amount of visibility of its distributers… See more

States to enjoy 42% net tax receipts as funds from Centre

Following the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, the coming fiscal will see the states getting more money as the Centre decides to give 10% more funding from its divisible resource. Keeping the federal structure of the country intact, the Government accepted the Finance Commission Report, thus informing the Chief Ministers of the states about this new move.

The Commission, headed by former RBI Governor YV Reddy, submitted its report on December 15 that suggested passing 42% of net tax receipt to the states. Though this will mean a big drain on the finances of the Centre, the recommendation of finance commission is for changing the revenue-sharing between the Centre and the State. It has recommended a grant of over 1.94 lakh crore to meet the deficit of 11 States… See more

Facebook launches Ads Manager App

Facebook launches Ads Manager app for ioS devices. The app, called Facebook Ads Manager, is initially available on iOS, and allows its users to create and edit ads, track spending, view ad results, receive ad-related notifications, and more.

These notifications can alert advertisers to things like ads that are coming up for expiration, when you’re nearing a spending limit, or other ad performance metrics, like Page Likes or how your ad it compares to other similar ad sets…. See more

NASSCOM kick-starts Digital Literacy Week as part of NDLM

With a target to bring digital literacy to over one lakh Indians, the NASSCOM Foundation has launched the Digital Literacy Week. This initiative, a part of the National Digital Literacy Mission (NDLM), will complement the government’s vision to empower at least one person per household with critical digital literacy skills by 2020. 

The National Digital Literacy Mission is a far-sighted, dynamic and integrated platform of digital literacy awareness, education and capacity programmes that will help rural and the underserved communities fully participate in the global digital economy. The NASSCOM Foundation is the industry partner to the Government of India to accomplish the first phase goal for NDLM or “DISHA” by making 10 lakh individuals in India digitally literate in 18 months. This programme is expected to touch the lives of more than 250 million individuals over the next few years and aims at helping citizens adapt to the increasingly digital world. 

According to Dr Ganesh Natarajan, Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation, “The three Rs of education, namely Reading, (W)Riting and (A)Rithmetic which were all the rage in the 60s are now passé. They have to be joined by a fourth pillar, namely Digital Literacy to function in this technology-driven world. The NASSCOM Foundation has been focussing on making technology central to enabling change and the Digital Literacy Week is a great way to unite the volunteering strength of the industry and create a nationwide Digital Literacy impact.”   

The content for making a lakh Indians digitally literate comes in seven modules and is presently teachable in Hindi, English, Telugu and Kannada. The seven modules are Power in Your Hands, Internet, Email and Social Media, Useful Information, Government, E-commerce, and IT Security. Everyone going through these seven modules will be digitally empowered at the end of the course after passing an assessment conducted by NIELIT (National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology). See more 

India Tablet Market sees strong growth in Q4 2014

The year ended on a positive note for the tablet market by having posted a strong growth in Q4 2014. The market has also witnessed a steady growth during the festive third quarter. According to IDC, India tablet market reported shipments of 0.96 million units in Q4, a quarter-on-quarter growth of 3.6%. Strong performance of local players as well as increasing interest of the PC OEMs in the tablets space contributed to the expansion of the market over Q3. The share of PC OEMs in the market has grown by more than double year-on-year. 

“The market saw a correction post the introduction of BIS regulation in July 2013. Unbranded tablets were wiped off from the market, thereby contracting the bubble of growth witnessed in 1H 2013 and hence resulting in year-on-year decline in growth,” says Tanvi HYPERLINK “http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=PRF004408” Mann, Market Analyst, Client Devices IDC India. 

7-inch tablets placed in less than $150 price band populate the market and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. While Android still has majority of the pie, we do see vendors exploring the 8”-9” windows form-factor. 

Wi-Fi-enabled tablets have faced a steep decline over the quarters, losing out to connected tablets. The market is swiftly moving towards 3G connected tablets that posted a double-digit growth in Q4 and accounted for approximately 60% of the total shipments. Additionally, we expect 4G tablets to pick up as more service providers roll out their LTE spectrums by 2H 2015. See more 

HID Global expands its IronTag RFID Transponder Series

HID Global has announced that its Identification Technologies division has launched its IronTag 206 RFID transponders that deliver the highest flame resistance rating available in a UHF tag. The transponder has a UL 94 V0 rating, which signifies that IronTag 206 units immediately self-extinguish when an ignition source is removed and will not drip particles that might cause flames to spread.

 

“Today, HID Global customers can use RFID tags in virtually any environment, enabling unprecedented insight into new areas for process control and improvement,” said Richard Aufreiter, Director of product management for Identification Technologies with HID Global. “IronTag 206 transponders deliver uncompromised performance in the form of a lightweight, high-temperature on-metal UHF tag with up to 16 times more user memory than most UHF tags today.”

 

Originally designed for tracking aircraft parts during assembly and maintenance, all IronTag transponders tolerate harsh conditions and are engineered for optimal performance when mounted on metal surfaces. The new IronTag 206 withstands temperature extremes, from -40° F (-40° C) up to 428° F (220° C). IronTags are available in versions optimized for E.U. standards (869 MHz) or U.S. standards (915 MHz), with options for large user memory ranging from 2176-bit up to a spacious 8192-bit.

 

The rugged IronTag 206 transponders deliver exceptional size-to-performance ratios. The tags are only 1.3 × 1.2 × 0.23 in (34 × 31 × 6 mm) in size and they deliver a read ranges up to 8.2 ft. (2.5 m) on metal. All IronTag units are waterproof and resistant to shock, vibration and chemical exposure. The tags can be affixed with screws, clamps or high-temperature stickers. See more 

PNY introduces HP x778w USB 3.0 Flash Drive

Intending to make storage devices trendy, PNY Technologies has launched HP x778w USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The drive is thumb-sized, lightweight and compact and stores up to 64GB of your favourite documents, images, music, movies and more. 

The USB flash drive is shaped like an ice-cream and is made up of durable rubber housing. To attach the USB drive to the wallet, purse or backpack, there is a built-in strap hole design. 

The HP x778w features USB 3.0, offers fast speed transfer of files, performs an impressive read-and-write capacity of up to 90/30 MB/sec (64GB) and is also fully compatible with all versions and models of laptops and desktops. 

Available in a variety of storage capacities, ranging from 8GB to 64GB, it is compatible with the latest versions of Windows operating systems, including Vista, Windows 7 & 8 and also works with Mac OS: 10.3 and above. 

The drive comes with a 2-year warranty from the date of purchase. See more

Xiaomi to take legal action against illegal websites

Xiaomi will be taking legal action against websites selling its phones illegally and infringing on the company’s trademark in India. The company at present has an ongoing patent dispute with Ericsson.

The Swedish telecom equipment maker had alleged earlier this month that Xiaomi was selling MediaTek-powered smartphones through Xiaomishop.com, in violation of an interim order of the Delhi High Court that allowed the company to only sell Qualcomm chipset smartphones. The Chinese smartphone maker had then told the court that the website was not an authorized seller for Xiaomi products.

In more steps to conform to Indian laws and assuage lingering concerns, Xiaomi is in talks with manufacturing partners Foxconn and Inventec to set up a manufacturing base in India, its second most important market after China, apart from moving its data servers to the country by end of 2015. See more

Samsung adds 4G handsets to its smartphone range

Samsung has launched three more 4G phones, starting with a price tag of Rs 9,900.

All these 4G models -Galaxy Grand Prime 4G, Galaxy Core Prime 4G and Galaxy J1 4G -will be available in India from the second week of March. They will come with Android 4.4 (Kitkat) operating system which can be upgraded. Samsung also showcased its 88-inch SUHD television and the world’s first convertible refrigerator.

Samsung is driving the next step of smartphone evolution by offering quality 4G LTE-enabled devices. It however would continue to give equal importance to its 3G devices as well. See more