Category: Software

MUMBAI: Video reports from all 64 matches of the 2010 Fifa World Cup South Africa will be broadcast in International Sign on Fifa.com.

For the first time, the official site of soccer‘s governing body Fifa and the Fifa World Cup is enabling deaf and people with hearing impairments across the globe to follow all 64 matches of world football’s showpiece event even more comprehensively
 
International Sign, also known as IS, is an international auxiliary language used at international meetings such as the World Federation of the Deaf (WFD) Congress and events such as the Deaflympics.

Fifa president Joseph S. Blatter says, “Football is a universal sport and it must be accessible to everyone. We are therefore delighted to be offering this service for people with hearing impairments and the deaf.” 
 
The WFD represents approximately 70 million deaf people worldwide, which assists in making sign language available to deaf people, especially regarding matters of education and information.

All International Sign match report videos will be available at www.fifa.com soon after each game.
 

NEW DELHI: Discovery Science and Discovery Turbo are to be launched in Sri Lanka and will be aired on the island nation‘s direct-to-home platform Dialog TV.

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific claims that Discovery Networks have a very good viewership in Sri Lanka with its three channels – Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and Discovery Travel & Living. With two new channels it is strengthening its portfolio in the region.
 
Underlining the company‘s growth strategy, Discovery SVP and GM -India Rahul Johri said, “The launch of Discovery Science and Discovery Turbo on Dialog TV reiterates our strategy to offer viewers distinctive, relevant and highest quality content from the Discovery portfolio to viewers in Sri Lanka.”

Dialog TV CEO Nushad Perera added, “Discovery channels enjoy strong brand affinity in Sri Lanka, and its programming compliments our philosophy of enriching and adding value to viewer experience. The addition of Discovery Science and Turbo will serve to complete our channel offering; providing viewers an inclusive infotainment experience.” 
 
Discovery Science is the network dedicated to making science programming accessible, relevant and entertaining and reaches more than four million subscribers in the Asia Pacific region.

New programmes include 100 Things That Will Change Your Life, Beautiful Minds, and How It‘s Made. Discovery Turbo is a channel dedicated to all things motored. Offering adrenaline-fuelled entertainment for those who love the thrill of speed, some new programmes are Mean Green Machines, Wheelers Dealers, and Racer Girlz.

NEW DELHI: Even as the activity requirement for the Bandwidth Access (BWA) auction completed 90 per cent on the ninth day, the bid registered a Pan-India total of Rs 89.8 billion, higher than five times the base price of Rs 17.5 billion.

The bidding remained confined to some of the main service centres with other bids remaining unchanged at the end of round 68. The bid for Mumbai touched Rs 14.04 billion, higher than Delhi’s bid of Rs 13.85 billion.
 
Tamil Nadu closed at Rs 12.73 billion, Karnataka at Rs 10.06 billion, Andhra Pradesh at Rs 9.03 billion, Gujarat at Rs 5.61 billion, Punjab at Rs 2.81 billion, West Uttar Pradesh at Rs 1.77 billion, Kerala at Rs 1.69 billion, Madhya Pradesh at Rs 775.7 million, Haryana at Rs 738.3 million, Rajasthan at Rs 682.2 million, Bihar at Rs 176.9 million, Orissa at Rs 162.1 million, and Assam closed at Rs 156 million.

The bids for the rest of Maharashtra, Kolkata, east Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, North-East, and Jammu and Kashmir remained unchanged. 
 
Thirteen service centres – the rest of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, Kerala, Punjab, West and East Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and North-East – will not see much change with no applications for price increment for tomorrow’s rounds.

The operators in the race are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius) Limited, Bharti Airtel, Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited, Qualcomm Incorporated, Reliance WiMax Limited, Spice Internet Service, Provider Private Limited, Tata Communications Internet Services Limited, Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited and Vodafone Essar Limited.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial operations from 1 September.

NEW DELHI: It was not really a match that he should have lost, particularly after she admitted she was a bad driver. But cricket ace VVS Laxman lost a Zapak online car racing game to actress Neha Dhupia.

The match between the two marked the launching of the Gillete Mach3 India Gaming Championship (IGC) in association with Zapak for the second season after successful run in 2009.
 
While expressing joy at defeating Laxman, she said playing games online was a fetish that many actors possessed as their work put them under a lot of strain. She was confident that IGC 2010 would soon become the leader in online games in the country.

Laxman said he preferred playing Hozzat! which was about cricket, the game he loved most – on and off the field. He found the game to be a stress reliever.

Both agreed that the message of online games like IGC was one about encouraging sportsman spirit. And even as she said she should not be judged by the way she played her game, she claimed she was far better in acting. 
 
Zapak Digital Entertainment CMO Arun Mehra said the game had attracted 1.6 million players in 2009. “With over 7 million registered users, Zapak.com has started a gaming revolution in India in less than three years of its inception. The Gillette Mach 3 India Gaming Championship 2010 will expand to 34 cities from the previous eight, marking its strong presence across the country.”

The Gillette Mach3 India Gaming Championship 2010 is based on the idea “Be a winner, Change your World”. The lucky winners are entitled to receive prizes worth Rs 15 million.

Commenting on the launch of Gillette Mach3 India Gaming Championship, Gillette India Marketing Manager Sharat Verma said, “Last year the India Gaming Championship was such a phenomenal success that we have once again partnered with Zapak to bring out the Gillette Mach3 IGC 2010, giving all sports enthusiasts across the country a chance to try their games online and live the passion themselves. Our aim is to make the Gillette Mach3 India Gaming Championship ‘10 – the biggest in the world.”

BANGALORE: Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced the industry’s broadest family of ultra slim and light 7mm Z-height drives.

Of the two drives announced, CinemaStar drives are specifically designed for A/V streaming devices and power the most popular set-top boxes (STB), PVRs, portable video players, DVR-enabled TVs and video surveillance systems in the market today. This fifth generation 2.5-inch, 5400 RPM, 8MB cache, Serial ATA 3Gb/sec interface CinemaStar drive continues this tradition, delivering the right balance of capacity, power-management and outstanding low acoustics.
 
Continuing to push acoustic performance, as well as hard drive and systems reliability, Hitachi has implemented several design improvements to enhance its new CinemaStar Z5K320 drive family. At 1.9 idle / 2.0 seek bels, the new CinemaStar Z5K320 family delivers the quietest 7mm 2.5-inch experience for bedroom-quiet systems, claims Hitachi. Reliability enhancements include an improved protection scheme for power fluctuation and enhanced Thermal Fly-Height Control for improved error rates. 
 
The other series of drives that Hitachi has also launched are the TravelStar 7200 rpm and 5400 rpm drives that include the Travelstar Z7K320 and Travelstar Z5K320.

MUMBAI: Close on the heels of the international online gaming company True Games adopting the name of UTV True Games, Indiagames, the mobile, online and ITV Games Company and a global mobile game publisher, has decided to function under the brand name of UTV Indiagames.

UTV Indiagames will continue to innovate and deliver interactive range of games directly to the gamers worldwide. 
 
The company will adopt the new brand name as part of its ongoing synergy with its majority stake holder – UTV Software Communications Ltd (UTV) and the registered name of the company will continue to be Indiagames Ltd.

The original logo of the Company will continue to be a trademark of Indiagames and used as appropriate from time to time.

Indiagames says that there would be no change in the company‘s management or operations and the shareholding pattern would remain unaltered.
 
Indiagames founder and CEO Vishal Gondal said, “UTV and Indiagames have significant business synergies. We believe that the new brand creates a stronger positioning for the two companies in the business environment.”

After UTV acquired a controlling stake in Indiagames in December 2007, the companies have strategically worked together to develop and design premium quality games, introducing gaming to newer digital platforms and market them globally.

NEW DELHI: Even as the Communications and Information Technology Ministry declared that the activity requirement will be set to 90 per cent in Clock Round 65, the auction for Bandwidth Access (BWA) registered a Pan-India total of Rs 86.04 billion, just a little short of five times the base price of Rs 17.5 billion.

With the bidding remained confined to some of the main service centres with other bids remaining unchanged at the end of round 62 on the eighth day, the bids for Delhi and Mumbai touched Rs 13.05 billion each.
 
The bids for Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, Assam, North-East, and Jammu and Kashmir remained unchanged.

Twelve service centres – the rest of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, East Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, and North-East – will not see much change with no applications for price increment for tomorrow’s rounds. 
 
The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius) Limited, Bharti Airtel, Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited, Qualcomm Incorporated, Reliance WiMax Limited, Spice Internet Service, Provider Private Limited, Tata Communications Internet Services Limited, Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited and Vodafone Essar Limited.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial operations from 1 September.

NEW DELHI: Cloud computing is the best way to beat piracy of computer software which affects 65 per cent of the aggregate software market.

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steven A Ballmer said this was because unlike other programmes that required use of DVDsetc., intellectual property was interwoven with the software and therefore could not be copied.

This would also help entertainment devices in protection of intellectual property, he said.

Ballmer was addressing a press meet to underline the importance of India in its overall cloud services strategy and announce the launce of Windows Azure.
 
Cloud services are estimated to create 300,000 jobs in India. NIIT is launching a training programme and Microsoft has also tied up with Cognizant who have developed solutions to enable implementation, CDC Software who has rolled out the Cloud versiojn of CDC Response, and the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore which is launching an application on Azure to study resource allocation constructs.

Windows Azure is a cloud services operating system that serves as the development, service hosting and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the internet through Microsoft® datacenters.

It supports multiple languages and integrates with existing on-premises environment. To build applications and services on Windows Azure, developers can use their existing Microsoft Visual Studio expertise. In addition, Windows Azure supports popular standards and protocols including SOAP, REST, XML, and PHP. 
 
Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, whereby shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on-demand, like the electricity grid.

It is a paradigm shift following the shift from mainframe to client–server that preceded it in the early 1980s. Details are abstracted from the users who no longer have need of expertise in, or control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that supports them. Cloud computing describes a new supplement, consumption and delivery model for IT services based on the Internet, and it typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet. It is a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote computing sites provided by the Internet.

MUMBAI: India is one of the markets Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat)’s cable television unit E-Vision is likely to expand into from next year. This was revealed by its CEO Humaid Rashid Sahoo al Suwaidi, following his highlighting the point that United Arab Emirates as a market could get saturated by that time.
 
Currently, E-Vision has 500,000 homes in the UAE wired up to its OFC cable network which will in all probability increase to a million by 2011. This will cover all the homes in the Gulf state. The OFC project cost in excess of a billion dollars. Additionally, it is present in 18 markets abroad – in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. 
 
The other markets Etisalat is eyeing include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan.

Speaking to Reuters, he said that talks are on with local companies in these nations.

MUMBAI: Sun Direct, the direct-to-home service provider has announced a new offer to lure the football lovers. The DTH player is offering a free broadcast of the FIFA World Cup 2010 on ESPN and Star Sports for the new subscribers.
 
As per the offer, the new subscribers of Sun Direct can view the FIFA World Cup 2010 on ESPN and Star Sports free of cost. The offer is valid from 5-12 June.

For the existing subscribers, Sun Direct is offering a the channels at Rs 40 + taxes. 
 
Sun Direct CEO Tony D’Silva said, “We constantly challenge ourselves to live up to the expectations of our subscribers. With the launch of the FIFA World Cup offer, we would like to be in the midst of all the action and add fire to the gaining momentum among the football fans. The sports season is sure to create an adrenaline rush among the football fans.”