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Many more Indian companies are entering the mobile handset busi- ness. What does this mean for consumers? Sonia Sharma finds out .Around 9 million handsets are consumed every month in India. That pretty much makes us one of the largest mobile phone markets in the world. Also these days, people are getting increasingly conscious about the kind of mobile phones they carry. Everyone wants a good looking phone and possessing one is no longer just the privilege of the upper class. Another noticeable change is that phones are becoming entertainment devices with better music quality along with multimedia features like cameras and GPRS receivers. All this has been achieved without compromising on the phone’s looks.

Ironically, the Indian handset market is marked by the presence of five major and many smaller global handset compa-nies.However, till date only two Indian companies have made it big in this segment. But today, the scenario is changing and many more Indian companies are venturing into this sector to dig into the mobile boom pie. The best part is that these companies are not some obscure newcomers in the Indian market. Some of them are big shots in the consumer electronic segment.
Kunal Ahooja, CEO, Spice Mobiles Ltd, an Indian mobile handset company, says, “The Indian market is the fastest growing in the world. There is a huge demand at the entry level and mid tier segments. This is where we being an Indian company have an edge over the MNCs because we understand the Indian psyche better and build customised handsets for our consumers. On the other hand, global brands that are present here build brands at the global level and then bring them to India - a move which cannot cater to the needs of all segments of mobile users.”
Currently mobile penetration in India is around 25 per cent. It is expected to grow to 40-50 per cent in the next four years. On the other hand, the replacement market is also growing rapidly, making it a very lucrative proposition for these companies.
According to our sources, Onida, a leading brand in consumer electronics like TVs and washing machines, has already launched a handset called V110, which has a standby time of 28 days. This is an important aspect as battery has always been the most important criteria especially in the hinterlands where there is a perennial shortage of electricity. But Onida is not limiting itself to the entry-level and mid-level phones. It will soon come out with a smart phone as well.

Beerud Seth, CEO,Webaroo, talks to Anand Singh about SMS QupShup an SMS community service, which lets its users to send free group SMS across the country
SMS GupShup is a social messaging platform. Tell us something more about the service
SMS GupShup was inspired by a desire to bring more content to mobile phones, even the most basic of handsets.
It is a free group messaging service that helps mobile users create and join groups and send/receive group messages or greetings. Users, as well as publishers such as bloggers and news organisations can generate the content. SMS GupShup has more than 2 lakh user-based commu¬nities in categories such as finance, entertainment, spirituality, education and business.
How is SMS GupShup performing? What all can be done with its features?
Since its launch in April 2007, SMS GupShup has grown dramatically. It is actively used by mil¬lions of users on a daily basis to share content across a variety of categories such as finance, entertainment, colleges, clubs and associations, religion, jokes and politics.
These groups reflect the emerging SMS trend in India. There are a number of things one can do with SMS GupShup like creating multiple groups to stay in touch with friends, family, colleagues and customers, access a picture gallery for latest content etc. Apart form that, one can also search for new friends and groups through our systematic list of all the categories of communities.
FToday our users include every segment of mobile users like stock brokers who send tips to their clients (Nikstock), organisers to announce parties (LetzParty), by the spiritually minded to share religious thoughts (SikhNetwork), jokesters to share jokes (SMSWorld), leaders to organise their community (SinlengNews) and much more. We have some¬thing for everyone.
The trend of messag¬ing through Web por¬tals is on an upswing. This facility is also used for mass campaigns. Please high¬light the news serv¬ice pro¬vided in Orissa and other initiatives taken by Webaroo SMS GupShup?
SMS GupShup does not publish any content of its own - all of it is User Generated Content (UGC). We only provide a platform for users to express themselves, which in other words is microblogging. Odisha is one of our partners, which sends out breaking news from within Orissa. As mentioned earlier, just like Odisha, SMS GupShup has more than 2 lakh user-based commi nities in categories like finance, entertainment, spirituality, education and business.
What other features will be included in SMS GupShup in the near future?
We have a very aggressive product roadmap wherein we will launch newer and better features and will also continue to provide delightful user experience to millions of our users who have reposed faith in our product.
We are also striving to make a contribution to the society by using the power od messaging. For instance, we are the official SMS partner for the United Nation’s (UN’s) End Poverty 2015 campaign. SMS GupShup will promote the cause of this cam¬paign among millions of its users. The UN has also created a community ‘EndPovertj^OlS’ on http:/Avww.smsgupshup.com, which anyone in India can join by sending an SMS: “JOIN END-POVERTY2015″ to 567678.
Who are your competitors in the Indian market?
SMS communities are still a very nascent seg¬ment in India but definitely has a potential to grow bigger. Currently the only other company providing similar services is Netcore through its MyToday SMS service.

The problem with the software world today is that they are platform dependant. Not all of them but the majority. Application are being made as windows only or mac only. Linux being open source has a sot of application built for it with source code available. Thus open source application generally are available as source linux binaries and windows binaries . in a sense open source is more cross platform than closed source application a generalisation but the numbers support it.

It’s problem that doesn’t seen to be solvable microsoft will release application programming interfaces to developers but they are obviously not going to release source code. Cross platform applications need to run on a different layer from the os something that is installable on any os something like’s sun’s java. Which runs anywhere and allows . java based applications to be run on any operating system . java has invaded the mobile phone markets as well and anything from games to software applications are now installable on your phone.

Every family has its black sheep every armour a chink batteries and hard drives have come to be the bane of technology’s existence hard drives are bottlenecks and batteries just don’t last as long as they should especially now that they are gaining in importance with everything shifting towards mobile computing and sadly they have been found wanting desperately.

Enter the sugar battery .it’s still a fuel cell but in this case the fuel is anything that contains sugar even soft drindks. It this catches on you will be sharing your coke with your phone and laptop. Not only do these batteries last up to four dimes longer than lithium based batteries they are easy to recharge ar e bio degradable an d run on sugar . so you keep wondering when someone will yell april fool ! such innovations are desperately required in the battery segment. The cange this promised is radical because we might soon se ourselves refilling our own batteries and never running out of charge. The developers of this technology are based at sain louis university missouri. Usa

There are software that allow you to focus on productivity a new breed tat does away with all the bells and whistles and focuses only on utility and ease of use by providing you with the bare minimum of tools needed to do the job. If you spend long hours getting your fine gertips numb at the keyboard try out dark room. This is a software that gives you a full screen text editor . so what’s special . well it blanks out the entire screen when it is is in full screen mode and suppresses pop ups and other notifications theus ensuring it get your undivided attention . the mac variation of this tool is called write room and there’s a java based editor called jdarkroom it you are working in linux.

For those of you who like to use personal information management tools there’s tiddlywiki which acts as a personal notebook to sort these little tasks into various parts of your day . it is actually a single html file that has css and java script coke incorparated into it . when you download it and start sing he file it overwrites itself based on your preferences when you save any information to it every new entry is known as a tidtion to it .

IBM is right back into spotlight. Ibm research lab scientists have been inspired by the self assembling proes pattern found in the formation of tooth enamel seashells and snowflakes. Applaying the principle behind these scientists there have built a next generation computer chi p using a special polymer.

IBM might not be in the microchip war but is has a legacy of its won . the y have always been show stoppers with their breakthrough . ibm has made at least 10 significant breakthroughs in the past few years . recall the cell processor integrating ibm’s power architecture. The industry wide problem of transistor leakage in chips was solved by ibm in January 2007 . a special material with superior electrical qualities was used in the primary on/off switching portion of the transistors which made them more power efficient. Ibm worked with amd . sony and thshiba in partnership for this development.

In february they replaced sram with the speedy edram on the 65nm microchip to be able to increase the on processor memory using about 33 % lesser space on the chip . in April ibm with their 3d chip stacking technique showed that stacking semiconductor components vertically instead of horizontally gave performance boosts and energy efficiency.

How long are we going o be tied to the keyboard and mouse. How long will we have to type sms and make phone calls using our already sore thumbs?

Over the years we have hears of and seen la lot of technologies that promise to radically change the way we interact with technology gadgets and gizmos. The keyboard and mouse was revolutionary then came the stylus and tablet pcs speech recognition promised but still needs some work eye control and brain control is being researches with prototypes already out the future seems promising or is it just teasing us ?

In recent times two products have caught the world’s fancy the iphone and the wii. The iphone is remarkable for a lot of reasons including the fact that it runs os z on a phone but it captures the limelight mainly because of its interface. It’s not new technology not by a long shot all apple’s done is use its patented multi touch technology on a screen some thing that macbook users have already become used to when using the touch pad on their laptops. A touch pad that recognises the touch of two or more fingers isn’t wild enough t o have technology enthusiasts raving but the fact that it’s on a phone is good because it changes things radically. No more pressing buttons just tap screens . pinch to zoom in reverse the action to zoom out . the ipod is already famous for its much acclaimed interface as I mac os X

We in India are still quite insulated from it but soon enough we will be touched by the icy hand of digital tights management too and twill be a black day for us all for a while after its introduction record companies strongly claimed that dram was in the interests of the artists new it’s taken for granted and even admitted that drm is a way to get more money out of consumers.

RAYS OF HOPE

In his now famous thoughts on music steve jobs started a chain of thought that no one expected him to what if the big four record companies were to start selling drm free music through I tunes? Knowing hat you have purchased music that does’t impinge on your fair use rights and will continue to word even after you have gone through even pc upgraded five new portable media players and three different music management programs it’s like the wanton file sharing we indulge in now only lega! Emi tested the waters soon after announcing that select tracks will be available on itunes sans dram and at a superior encoding rate for and additional $0.40 taking the price of a drm free song to $1.29.