Category: Software

The home to such iconic characters as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and the Sandman, DC Comics will soon publish new, online content featuring new characters and concepts through Zudacomics.com.

DC Comics will launch Zudacomics.com in October. This is a new web comics imprint where online comic creators can showcase their work and fans get to vote on their favorite comics. With the official tagline ‘click here to continue,‘ the site has numerous logo variations to reflect the imprint‘s scope and ambition as well as its diverse community of readers.

Following the site‘s launch, the majority of the web comics will be selected by Zudacomics.com‘s visitors, who will vote on new web comics presented to them in periodic competitions. Winners of the competitions will receive commissions to create a year‘s worth of their web comics for the site, and will have their work published in print formats as well.

DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz says, “There is an explosion of creativity in web comics. We want to build a great stage for this new generation of creators to perform on, a solid system for their work to reach audiences online and in print, and for the creators to share in the profits their creations can generate. In this time of rapid technological and cultural change, DC wants to be a good publisher for the evolving and growing community of online comic creators, so that we can be their partner for showcasing new kinds of works to entertain future generations.”

Creators will be encouraged to send submissions that run the full gamut of comic book genres — from humor, romance, science fiction, fantasy and superheroes.

Editorial for Zudacomics.com will be handled by Ron Perazza, DC comics director of creative services and Kwanza Johnson, DC comics online editor and overseen by DC Comics SVP-creative director Richard Bruning.

Johnson and Perazza will be charged with selecting the submissions for the site‘s competitions; additionally, the editors can declare as many as six submissions as instant winners during the calendar year. All Zudacomics.com creators who are instant winners, competition winners and competition finalists will be paid by DC Comics.

The site will have numerous variations of a site logo that reflects the scope and ambition of the imprint. The firm says that in designing the Zuda logo, it was important to echo back to the interactive nature of the web, the creativity of the medium and the diversity of the comics community. The firm soon realized that there shouldn‘t be just one logo. They wanted to reflect the different ‘faces‘ of web comics that it is looking to publish.

Unlike a traditional comic book page (which traditionally measures 6 5/8″ X 10 1/4″), a Zuda web comic will consist of a series of 4:3 aspect ratio screens, so that users will be able to read a web comic installment without opening an additional window in their browser or excessive scrolling. Ongoing Zuda web comics will run for at least 52 total installments, in addition to the initial submission.

DC Comics has chosen IBM Global Business Services to design and build the new site. The site will embrace Web 2.0 technologies such as blogging, commenting, rating and tagging to encourage maximum community participation and feedback on artists‘ submissions. The DC Comics creative and technical teams are working side by side with consultants, visual designers, information architects and developers from IBM‘s Media & Entertainment practice to design everything from the technology architecture to the look and feel and overall user experience for the site. Through the use of open source technologies, the new site will enable collaboration and innovation as well as flexibility to allow DC Comics to continue to enhance the site with industry leading functionality over time.

The Zudacomics.com teaser site will go live in July, timed to this year‘s San Diego ComicCon; the teaser site will allow pre-registration for the site and provide updates for the imprint throughout the summer.

DC Comics, and its various imprints, currently publishes more than 70 comic book series, MAD Magazine and MAD KIDS and more than 300 books a year, including manga titles from CMX and titles from the new MINX imprint aimed at teenage girl readers. With the launch of Zudacomics.com, DC Comics furthers the company‘s commitment to publishing diverse material for an increasingly diverse readership in new and diverse platforms.

MUMBAI:Sify Limited has entered into alliance with Microsoft for Microsoft Unlimited Potential in India. Microsoft‘s initiatives would be provided in Sify‘s over 3500 strong ‘I-way‘ cyber Café chain and home internet access services.

Partnership also includes other Microsoft certification programs, affordable utility computing for the middle class and content for online education through the Sify I-way cafe chain.

Sify will offer its cyber café subscribers access to licensed Microsoft Office software to begin with, so that they can use the café as a virtual office for their needs. This will include training them in the use of MS Office for Microsoft Office Certification to increase their productivity and skills.

Sify is also supporting Microsoft in bringing the industry together for the path-breaking ‘IQ PC‘ initiative. The PC, aimed at families with school going children, will include 100 hours of free Internet access. This is over and above the Microsoft suite and its partner offerings from Brilliant, Pacsoft, Edurite, etc.

Sify chairman and CEO Raju Vegesna said, “I believe this is a path breaking initiative that will go a long way towards helping bridge the digital divide. The programme will also contribute to economic development by empowering people for a technologically advanced society. We are very happy to partner with them in this initiative as it furthers our objective of empowering millions of Indians with IT services and the Internet to improve the quality of their lives. Our alliance also encompasses providing low cost utility computing for the masses that is affordable and easy to use.”

Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan said, “Microsoft ‘Unlimited Potential‘ is an effort to help people everywhere achieve their goals and dreams — their true potential — through relevant, accessible, and affordable technology. The idea is to work together, given the confluence of objectives of Sify as a company and our ‘Unlimited Potential‘ commitment, to offer affordable, easy to use services to Indians by leveraging Sify‘s IP capabilities, market reach over its sophisticated network and data centre infrastructure across the country.”

MUMBAI: Lonely Planet TV (LPTV) will now be available in the search engine www.searchforvideo.com, a multimedia search engine technology for consumers and digital content providers owned by Fusa Capital Corporation.

In addition to being included in the searchforvideo index, a LPTV publisher page is available to searchforvideo.com users. It displays the most recent LPTV videos and makes it easy to locate video content by keyword.

searchforvideo VP business development David Clarke said, “Lonely Planet guides have shown travellers the way for over 30 years. searchforvideo is delighted to have Lonely Planet onboard to provide our users with LPTV‘s original and user generated video content. Now our users can view international travel advice from off-the-beaten-track and backpacking to budget or pampered travel to major cities and get inspired for their next travel adventure.”

The IPTV market will grow from $779.2 million in 2006 to $26.3 billion in 2011, according to the firm.

But perhaps the biggest single IPTV growth generator in terms of user numbers will be the 2008 Olympics, which will be held in Beijing next year.

Dickson also expects China to add more than 20 million new digital TV subscribers this year and more as the Olympics approaches next year.

“WWIL decided to write the amount off even as it focusses on its digital rollout plans. The assets include old analogue headends and cable TV equipment,” says a source.

The net loss has mounted to Rs 1.07 billion for the FY‘07 fiscal. High subsidies in the Cas (conditional access system) markets of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata has led to operating loss of Rs 233 million for the year.

Revenue, however, has grown 35 per cent to Rs 2.1 billion on the back of new customer acquisition and first phase of Cas implementation.

The company is expected to continue bleeding due to pressure of seeding the market with subsidised digital set-top boxes. The cost of acquiring subscribers is estimated at Rs 1500 and could go up with intense rivalry from direct-to-home (DTH) operators.

And to mark its launch, the IT platform announced a deal wherein those who failed to make it to the Hero Honda Sa Re Ga Ma Pa musical talent show on Zee TV can post their videos or audios on iShare and stand the chance of getting chosen to perform in the finals.

Zee TV marketing head Tarun Mehra said one of the five short-listed entries will be selected to become the ‘Voice of Rediff’ and get to perform in the finals.

He said that the show was the world’s first Indian music contest (‘Sangeet ka pratham vishwa-yudh’) and a platform like iShare would help aspirants from all continents to take part and be part of the contest.

Earlier, Rediff.com CEO Ajit Balakrishnan told a press meet here that the principal aim of iShare was to link the 53 million Indians worldwide outside India with those within the country.

Rediff.com vice president marketing Manish Agarwal said the multimedia social content sharing platform will allow users to share videos, music, pictures on a single platform.

He said the platform would be ‘a catalyst for Indians to share and connect’, sharing the joy of a digital lifestyle. He claimed that what might have proved to be a technological complexity had been turned into product simplicity by the software developers at Rediff.Com.

With multimedia entertainment on the Internet expected to be one of the fastest growing segments online, the launch of iShare is part of a strategy by Rediff.Com to give a complete online offering for videos, audio files and pictures, and unlimited storage facility.

The iShare platform comes with an easy to use utility tool, which users can install on their personal computers and upload multiple files even at low-speed without having to worry about the source of the file. Users will be able to upload pictures and videos made in mobile phones, digicam, digital camcorder and music from mp3 players like ipods.

Agarwal said that another advantage was that iShare supported recordings in any format – mpeg, wmi and so on – and could convert them into ‘flash’ format.

He admitted that the aim would also be to build the platform into a business opportunity and there will be commercial advertisements as well.

It comes equipped with an SD Card, a hands free with dedicated MP3 controller keys placed on top of the phone. The model has a duo-tone color combos that give you a wider choice to mix ‘n match with the user‘s wardrobe.

An official release states that its sleek ID design was awarded the coveted iF Design Award at CeBIT 2006. It has a VGA digital camera with 2X/4X digital zoom. One can set pictures as image caller-IDs for contacts.

For music lovers, all the MP3 controller keys on the E61 are on the top of the phone, giving them the freedom to browse your play list, choose songs, play, and rewind and adjust volume when they‘re on the move. Incoming calls can be accepted with ease, as the MP3 player automatically pauses until you hang up.

The 6 equalizers including Flat, Bass, Pop, Rock, Jazz and Classic, let the user set their style and it also has a lyrics display feature that can be activated. The E61 also provides extendable memory through its mini SDTM card slot which allows continuous downloads. The model is priced at Rs 5300.

The total subscribers including cellular and fixed line grew to 206 million during the period, thus ensuring one in five Indians has access to a phone.

But the 12th Indian Telecom Services Business Voice&Data Report (Volume 2) says that despite this impressive growth, the rural teledensity is only 4-6 per cent vis-a-vis urban teledensity of 50 per cent. Most service providers will focus on this gap to grow in the coming years, the survey shows.

The annual survey is conducted by Voice&Data, Cyber Media’s flagship magazine for the telecom sector.

Cellular subscribers grew almost 73 per cent in 2006-2007 to touch 157 million mark but the fixed line phone subscribers declined 3.3 per cent, taking the total below 50 million. (48.9 million in 2006-2007 as against 50.6 million in 2005-06).

In the last financial year, India added more mobile lines per month than China. On an average, 5.5 million cellular lines were added every month, taking the mobile subscriber base to 157 million from 91 million in 2005-2006.

Commenting on the survey, Voice&Data Chief Editor Prasanto K Roy said, “This is a nation gone mobile. The money’s all in mobility. So is the growth, and it’s not just the 73 per cent jump in subscribers to 157 million that’s important. It’s the whopping 56 per cent revenue growth to $12.5 billion in revenues that spells a healthy, and competitive, mobile landscape.”

Cellular revenue is now double the $6.7 billion revenue from fixed phones, three times the $4.2 billion from long distance – the main income-earner until recently for telecom. Cellular pushed up the telecom services industry beyond Rs 1000 billion, to a whopping $24 billion level, says the Voice&Data survey.

Revenue from seven telecom services – cellular, fixed line, international long distance (ILD), national long distance (NLD), internet and broadband, VSAT and radio trunking – increased to Rs 1076.81 billion during 2006-07 from Rs 885.22 billion in 2005-2006.

Fixed line services chipped in slightly less than a third to the overall services revenue at Rs 301.90 billion, with the remaining coming from NLD (Rs 71.86 billion), ILD (115.06 billion), Internet and broadband (Rs 20.40 billion), VSAT (Rs 540 million) and radio trunking (Rs 360 million).

However, fixed line services, NLD and radio trunking recorded a decline of 11.6 per cent, 20.3 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively.

BSNL, Bharti, Reliance, Hutch, VSNL emerged as the best service providers, followed by TTSL, MTNL, Idea, Aircel, and TTML. According to the Survey, the top revenue earners across all services during 2006-2007 were BSNL and Bharti Airtel.

Despite a fall in the fixed line subscribers and a marginal decrease in revenue, BSNL maintained its lead this year as well. BSNL recorded revenue of Rs 401.35 billion during the year compared to Rs 401.77 billion in the previous year, way ahead of Bharti Airtel’s Rs 178.88 billion.

Reliance Communications and Hutchison Essar were at third and fourth slots with revenues of Rs 146.84 billion and Rs 105.65 billion respectively,

The other state-run telecom service provider MTNL was at number 7, down from fifth position last year, with a decline of 11.5 per cent to Rs 49.23 billion in 2006-07. Tata Tele Services Ltd (TTSL) climbed up to sixth position from eighth last year.

Source: CyberMedia’s flagship telecom industry journal Voice&Data’s V&D 100 July 2007

The year 2006-2007 was marked by drastic reduction in the cost of owning a cellular handset and a connection. Introduction of life time validity schemes, low cost of services, low roaming charges, low STD cost, and a slew of value added services led to a 72.7 per cent jump in subscribers, according to the survey.

More than three-fourth of the total mobile subscribers were on GSM-based technology whereas the six CDMA operators contributed around 23 per cent.

Bharti Airtel, with maximum subscribers, garnered 23.7 per cent of the cellular market share followed by BSNL and Reliance Communications with 17.8 ,per cent and 17.7 per cent share. Hutchison Essar was at number four with 16.8 per cent share followed by Idea Cellular with 8.9 per cent.

Each of the top five companies achieved more than 50 per cent growth in subscriber base during the year. The survey found that all cellular companies plan to roll-out more services this year. Idea Cellular went public to raise capital for the expansion. Spice Telecom too raised funds from the market last month.

In terms of revenue from cellular services, Bharti was the leader once again followed by Reliance Communications, Hutchison Essar, BSNL and Idea Cellular.

Bharti is present in all the 23 telecom circles with a turnover of Rs 134.31 billion generated from 37.14 million subscribers.

During 2006-2007, the revenue from the fixed line services, including fixed wireless phones, declined by 11.6 per cent to touch Rs 301.90 billion from Rs 341.61 billion in the previous year. The fixed line subscriber base fell 3.3 per cent to 48.91 million from 50.58 million.

BSNL led the market in terms of revenue with MTNL at number two followed by Bharti Airtel, TTSL and Tata Tele Services Maharashtra Ltd.

However, the fixed line revenues of BSNL, MTNL and Reliance Communications fell 16.6 per cent, 17.5 per cent, and 10.3 per cent, respectively during the period.

Bharti Airtel and TTSL beat the trend and posted a revenue growth of 28 per cent and 46.5 per cent respectively.

On the basis of subscribers the market leader was BSNL followed by TTSL at number two and MTNL, Reliance Communication and Bharti Airtel at third, fourth and fifth spots.

Reliance lost considerable market share as its fixed line subscriber base fell by nearly 50 per cent to 1.56 million. Bharti’s subscriber base also fell by 5.2 per cent to 1.27 million.

Though there is a decline in the number of subscribers and revenue, fixed telecom players are upping their ante, says the Voice&Data survey. This year fixed line service providers are expected to launch new services like IPTV and Metro Ethernet that will utilize the existing fixed line infrastructure in the country.

To expand their subscriber base fixed line service providers will look at promoting services like Wi-Fi and WiMax, besides fixed–mobile convergence.

The first volume of Voice&Data’s V&D100 for 2006-2007 had focused on the telecommunications equipment market, which grossed Rs 771.70 billion. Of the total, carrier equipment contributed Rs 427.63 billion, phones brought in Rs 234.52 billion and the enterprise equipment brought in Rs 109.55 billion.

The Top 10 equipment vendors in the country were Nokia (Rs 158.91 billion), Ericsson (Rs 50.04 billion), Motorola (Rs 40.90 billion), Cisco (Rs 40.37 billion), Alcatel-Lucent (Rs 35 billion), Wipro (Rs 34.71 billion), LG Electronics (Rs 31.40 billion), TCS (Rs 30.06 billion), Infosys (Rs 26.81 billion) and ZTE (Rs 25.96 billion).

NEW DELHI: India’s telecom services industry grew by 22 per cent to Rs 1076.81 billion during 2006-2007, helped by a 46 per cent increase in telecom subscriber base.

The total subscribers including cellular and fixed line grew to 206 million during the period, thus ensuring one in five Indians has access to a phone.

But the 12th Indian Telecom Services Business Voice&Data Report (Volume 2) says that despite this impressive growth, the rural teledensity is only 4-6 per cent vis-a-vis urban teledensity of 50 per cent. Most service providers will focus on this gap to grow in the coming years, the survey shows.

The annual survey is conducted by Voice&Data, Cyber Media’s flagship magazine for the telecom sector.

Cellular subscribers grew almost 73 per cent in 2006-2007 to touch 157 million mark but the fixed line phone subscribers declined 3.3 per cent, taking the total below 50 million. (48.9 million in 2006-2007 as against 50.6 million in 2005-06).

In the last financial year, India added more mobile lines per month than China. On an average, 5.5 million cellular lines were added every month, taking the mobile subscriber base to 157 million from 91 million in 2005-2006.

Commenting on the survey, Voice&Data Chief Editor Prasanto K Roy said, “This is a nation gone mobile. The money’s all in mobility. So is the growth, and it’s not just the 73 per cent jump in subscribers to 157 million that’s important. It’s the whopping 56 per cent revenue growth to $12.5 billion in revenues that spells a healthy, and competitive, mobile landscape.”

Cellular revenue is now double the $6.7 billion revenue from fixed phones, three times the $4.2 billion from long distance – the main income-earner until recently for telecom. Cellular pushed up the telecom services industry beyond Rs 1000 billion, to a whopping $24 billion level, says the Voice&Data survey.

Revenue from seven telecom services – cellular, fixed line, international long distance (ILD), national long distance (NLD), internet and broadband, VSAT and radio trunking – increased to Rs 1076.81 billion during 2006-07 from Rs 885.22 billion in 2005-2006.

Fixed line services chipped in slightly less than a third to the overall services revenue at Rs 301.90 billion, with the remaining coming from NLD (Rs 71.86 billion), ILD (115.06 billion), Internet and broadband (Rs 20.40 billion), VSAT (Rs 540 million) and radio trunking (Rs 360 million).

However, fixed line services, NLD and radio trunking recorded a decline of 11.6 per cent, 20.3 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively.

BSNL, Bharti, Reliance, Hutch, VSNL emerged as the best service providers, followed by TTSL, MTNL, Idea, Aircel, and TTML. According to the Survey, the top revenue earners across all services during 2006-2007 were BSNL and Bharti Airtel.

Despite a fall in the fixed line subscribers and a marginal decrease in revenue, BSNL maintained its lead this year as well. BSNL recorded revenue of Rs 401.35 billion during the year compared to Rs 401.77 billion in the previous year, way ahead of Bharti Airtel’s Rs 178.88 billion.

Reliance Communications and Hutchison Essar were at third and fourth slots with revenues of Rs 146.84 billion and Rs 105.65 billion respectively,

The other state-run telecom service provider MTNL was at number 7, down from fifth position last year, with a decline of 11.5 per cent to Rs 49.23 billion in 2006-07. Tata Tele Services Ltd (TTSL) climbed up to sixth position from eighth last year.

Source: CyberMedia’s flagship telecom industry journal Voice&Data’s V&D 100 July 2007

The year 2006-2007 was marked by drastic reduction in the cost of owning a cellular handset and a connection. Introduction of life time validity schemes, low cost of services, low roaming charges, low STD cost, and a slew of value added services led to a 72.7 per cent jump in subscribers, according to the survey.

More than three-fourth of the total mobile subscribers were on GSM-based technology whereas the six CDMA operators contributed around 23 per cent.

Bharti Airtel, with maximum subscribers, garnered 23.7 per cent of the cellular market share followed by BSNL and Reliance Communications with 17.8 ,per cent and 17.7 per cent share. Hutchison Essar was at number four with 16.8 per cent share followed by Idea Cellular with 8.9 per cent.

Each of the top five companies achieved more than 50 per cent growth in subscriber base during the year. The survey found that all cellular companies plan to roll-out more services this year. Idea Cellular went public to raise capital for the expansion. Spice Telecom too raised funds from the market last month.

In terms of revenue from cellular services, Bharti was the leader once again followed by Reliance Communications, Hutchison Essar, BSNL and Idea Cellular.

Bharti is present in all the 23 telecom circles with a turnover of Rs 134.31 billion generated from 37.14 million subscribers.

During 2006-2007, the revenue from the fixed line services, including fixed wireless phones, declined by 11.6 per cent to touch Rs 301.90 billion from Rs 341.61 billion in the previous year. The fixed line subscriber base fell 3.3 per cent to 48.91 million from 50.58 million.

BSNL led the market in terms of revenue with MTNL at number two followed by Bharti Airtel, TTSL and Tata Tele Services Maharashtra Ltd.

However, the fixed line revenues of BSNL, MTNL and Reliance Communications fell 16.6 per cent, 17.5 per cent, and 10.3 per cent, respectively during the period.

Bharti Airtel and TTSL beat the trend and posted a revenue growth of 28 per cent and 46.5 per cent respectively.

On the basis of subscribers the market leader was BSNL followed by TTSL at number two and MTNL, Reliance Communication and Bharti Airtel at third, fourth and fifth spots.

Reliance lost considerable market share as its fixed line subscriber base fell by nearly 50 per cent to 1.56 million. Bharti’s subscriber base also fell by 5.2 per cent to 1.27 million.

Though there is a decline in the number of subscribers and revenue, fixed telecom players are upping their ante, says the Voice&Data survey. This year fixed line service providers are expected to launch new services like IPTV and Metro Ethernet that will utilize the existing fixed line infrastructure in the country.

To expand their subscriber base fixed line service providers will look at promoting services like Wi-Fi and WiMax, besides fixed–mobile convergence.

The first volume of Voice&Data’s V&D100 for 2006-2007 had focused on the telecommunications equipment market, which grossed Rs 771.70 billion. Of the total, carrier equipment contributed Rs 427.63 billion, phones brought in Rs 234.52 billion and the enterprise equipment brought in Rs 109.55 billion.

The Top 10 equipment vendors in the country were Nokia (Rs 158.91 billion), Ericsson (Rs 50.04 billion), Motorola (Rs 40.90 billion), Cisco (Rs 40.37 billion), Alcatel-Lucent (Rs 35 billion), Wipro (Rs 34.71 billion), LG Electronics (Rs 31.40 billion), TCS (Rs 30.06 billion), Infosys (Rs 26.81 billion) and ZTE (Rs 25.96 billion).

The new version will also have a bigger hard drive and increase the capacity to 80 gigabytes for storing downloaded content such as video games and high-definition movies.

However, the larger capacity Playstation will not be available in US and Canada until August. Sony spokesman David Karraker said that the move is in sync with the company‘s upcoming strategy of eventually offering downloaded high-definition movies, video games, movie trailers and demos.

The announcement comes two days before the E3 Media and Business Summit in Santa Monica, California, where Sony rivals Microsoft Corp. and Nintendo Co. are expected to put their latest games and related products on display.

Karraker said Sony would use the event to focus on ways to increase the number of consumers who own PS3s and other products such as the PlayStation Portable handheld system. It would also look at expanding the system‘s library of available games.

He said that Sony would be releasing about 100 new video games during the current fiscal year, including 15 titles that are exclusive to PS3 such as the hack-and-slash action title “Heavenly Sword.”

In April, Microsoft began selling a version Xbox 360 Elite, with a 120-gigabyte hard drive priced at $479.99. It currently has no plans to slash rates of Xbox 360 in Japan where it trails far behind rival machines at Nintendo Co Ltd.