3 more IITs join in to bring Aakash 2 cost down

The government plans to involve three more IITs in the world's cheapest Aakash tablet PC project to make it more indigenous and further lower its price. 

Apart from IIT Rajasthan, which is spearheading the project, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur would also be roped in for the project, sources in the HRD Ministry said. 

The development follows after a meeting chaired by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal yesterday where senior officials from the Ministry as well as from Department of IT were present. 

The sources said much emphasis was laid on indigenisation of the tablet. At present, several components including the processor are procured from outside. 

The aim is to give shape to the indigenisation plan within the next two years and make the product 90 per cent Indian. At the same time, emphasis will be laid on further lowering the prices of the device, they said. At present, the device is available to students at Rs 1,100 after government subsidy. 

Earlier, the HRD Ministry had decided that the tendering process for rolling out the improved version of Aakash, will be handled by the Department of Information Technology. 

This followed after differences cropped up between IIT Rajasthan and Datawind, the manufacturer of the tablet, over the issue of enhanced specification demands. 

The HRD Ministry has already said that it will require an additional 22 crore units of Aakash and for this fresh tenders will be issued enabling other companies along with Datawind to also get a chance. 

Several PSUs and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing are also expected to chip in to roll out the second phase of the Aakash. The speed of the device will come at 800 MHz instead of 300 MHz at present.

THE NEW TECHNOLOGY "MANIFESTO"

The new Technology Manifesto, which will officially launch later this week, outlines a number of proposals to boost the availability of technology skills in the UK.

For example, it calls for help for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) graduates with personal debt, and wants Government and private sector companies to consider the policies of companies towards graduate recruitment when awarding contracts.

The manifesto also wants large technology companies to share their expertise with emerging entrepreneurs in the sector. It suggests the establishment of an advice hub based on web 2.0 technologies and Government-sponsored programmes to enable UK companies to learn how global companies run their businesses.

Reduced taxes will also help to to encourage investment in UK IT companies, increase R&D and entice global IT companies to open offices in the UK, according to the manifesto.

This includes more generous Corporate Venturing relief to encourage large companies to invest in smaller firms in the IT sector and an extension for the SME R&D tax rate to all technology firms. Also, the manifesto calls for a simplification of the Enterprise Investment Scheme to allow serial entrepreneurs to be able to apply for EIS tax relief when they play an active role in the companies they invest in.

Furthermore, the manifesto calls on the government to deliver the required digital infrastructure.

Accelerating the rollout of high-speed broadband, establishing an intelligent transport system and implementing ‘smart grids’ to improve the efficiency of electricity delivery alone could create 700,000 jobs, according to Richard Holway, veteran industrywatcher and founder of TechMarketView., who was involved in the drafting of the manifesto. Not all of these jobs would necessarily be in IT, however.

samsung mobile newly launched with an extraordinary features

Samsung Electronics Co said on Monday it would launch a mobile instant messaging tool in its latest push to attract more consumers to its handsets and challenge rivals such as Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion.

The new service, called ChatON, will be available from October and preinstalled in Samsung's feature phones as well as smartphones running on its own bada operating system and Google's Android software, it said.

With the move, Samsung enters an already crowded mobile messaging market, which telecoms carriers fear will hit revenue from profitable text messaging services.

Apple plans to roll out iMessage, enabling the millions of iPhone and iPad users to send messages to one another over the Internet at no cost, and RIM aims to leverage the popularity of its BlackBerry Messenger with a new music service.

Samsung's messaging tool will work across all major smartphone platforms including iPhone and BlackBerry and will allow users to send text, images, and hand-written notes, as well as chat in groups and share video clips.

It plans to expand the offering to all Android-based smartphones and tablets, and it will also be available for download to consumers using rival Android, iPhone and BlackBerry models.

THE DEATH OF THE PC

The Death of the PC
If you look at the entire HP portfolio, the PC business is the most discounted. In a customer account, where HP sells its entire portfolio of imaging and printing products, server, storage and networking, and clients, it’s the clients that get beaten down the most in price negotiations.

The IPG portfolio can recover the deep discount provided on the hardware from supplies of print cartridges and paper; ESSN can make up for hardware discounts from integration services, application migration services, etc.

On the consumer side, the PC is being attacked from both sides—media-tablets and smartphones on one, and soon we will see Internet-ready TVs eating into their market shares in homes. With high-speed broadband, consumers will have access to applications and streaming content from the cloud and they would not require a high-performance PC for the same.

Lets remember that none of the PC OEMs have had any notable success with smart phones and media tablets—Dell with its Streak and Acer with its Iconia have failed to make any considerable impact in this market, and that will be the case in the future as well. HP too has said goodbye to its media tablets and smartphones plans, and has announced the shutdown of its WebOS device division.

For the next five years at least, the media-tablet and the smartphone market will be driven by the handset manufacturers and all the PC OEMs will have to strive really hard to make an impact. They will need to transform themselves in a major way if at all they want to become notable players in this fastest-growing market. However, so far I havent seen any such intent for transformation among PC OEMs.