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Scilab ported to Android – Coming on Aakash!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:08:00 +0000

Here is an EXCLUSIVE, especially for the Engineers, Mathematicians & scientists out there! Scilab is now available on Android. And what’s more, it completely retains its original open-source flavour.

A team from IIT Bombay, under the aegis of the National Mission on Education through ICT (a flagship initiative of the Ministry of HRD, Govt. of India) has been working on a port of Scilab for Android. The motivation for the Android port was because the low cost tablet device “Aakash” that the Ministry of HRD of GoI is planning on giving to students in India has Android as it’s operating system.

While Prof. Kannan, the leader of the team at IIT Bombay, says this is still a work in progress, they are the first in the world to bring to you a video of Scilab on an Android tablet!

What is Scilab?

Scilab is the state of the art computational package. It can be used in the design and simulation of engineering systems. It can be used by mathematicians and social scientists. It can also be used for simple calculations. It can be used by students in schools to those who do research. It is available absolutely free of cost. It is also an excellent open source alternative to Matlab.

Who uses Scilab?

Students, scientists and engineers. It can also be used for data acquisition and control.

Why is an Android port such a big thing?

Until now, Scilab has not been ported to Android to run in native mode. The team at IIT Bombay had previously ported it on to Debian running as an App under Android. Unfortunately, however, Scilab may run slowly if not installed in native mode.

This is the first time that Scilab has been ported to Android to run in native mode. The speed is excellent, given that the underlying hardware is a simple Arm Cortex A8 processor, with very little accessories, such as RAM. As a matter of fact, the team at IIT Bombay says the graphs getting generated are at speeds comparable to desktops. If Scilab runs fast, one can simulate even complicated models in a reasonable time and too on the go on an Android Tablet.

The best part is – Scilab will come pre-installed on Aakash.

Google Apps Vault now in India: Google’s latest app for Businesses

Kaushambi — Wed, 09 May 2012 13:47:21 +0000

Google has announced the launch of Vault for Google Apps in India. Vault is an app that is a one-stop solution for storing critical business data including emails, conversations, chat messages and more. It has enhanced archiving capabilities and Google claims that an app like this can save thousands of dollars in case of litigation that involves electronic discovery (e-discovery).

Unlike most of the other Google services, Vault is not a free service. It is an optional Google app that will cost users $5 per month. No other investment in terms of architecture/e-storage is required on the part of the user as Vault functions on a totally web based architecture.

With Vault, Google aims to make e-governance easier. Business owners and managers of companies who are already functioning in the Google environment can purchase Vault to store, archive and retrieve critical business data.

They will also be able to set specific data retention policies which can be applied to all or few users. Once such policies are in place, Vault will retain email, chat messages and other electronic conversations even if they are deliberately or inadvertently deleted.

As a real life example, "boy that Timberwolf was one shitty deal" were the words that landed Goldman Sachs in one of the biggest soups during the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Bosses and business owners will be able to use Vault to keep a tab on the archived messages and reprimand employees who indulge into inappropriate conversations. ‘Holds’ can also be placed over users. Holds are types of restrictions that may bar users from deleting their emails or chat messages.

Vault by Google Apps also aims to make e-discovery easier. For the uninitiated, e-discovery is the discovery or retrieval of information held in electronic format. The process is primarily done to aid legal proceedings, investigative procedures and audits. Administrators will have access to a dashboard where they can collect, organize, view and retrieve all relevant documents to a specific case and take a well informed decision after proper assessment.

In case of legal action, Vault allows easy retrieval and export of generic and specific email/conversations in a standard format which can be used for further review.

These exports can be critical in the analyses of a case during litigation or even during audit procedures. "And most of those documents these days are in electronic form" says Kent Walker, Senior VP & General Counsel at Google, while talking about record management practices and the time a company is being sued or faces the possibility of being sued.

But why should a business owner in India buy the Vault app? Is such an articulate record management practice really worth having in India?

The answer is a YES.

India Inc woke up to the digital age long time back and organizations including the government have put into place the use of electronic data in many areas. A record management system like the Vault can allow for the organization and retrieval of conversations that may hold the key to a dispute.

Such communication could very well be used in the court of law or even to resolve petty arguments with the auditors. Reliance on electronic means for day to day functioning of businesses in India is increasing.

Data management/recovery tools like the Vault could very well be the app that saved a business in case of litigation which calls for exhaustive e-discovery.

In which case, the $5/month fee would seem like the best investment ever made.

India’s internet plight – Only country in Asia below 1 mbps average Speed!

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 02 May 2012 07:25:12 +0000

The Akamai State of Internet report for Q4, 2011 is out – and it does not paint a good picture for India. Among all the countries surveyed by Akamai, India is the only country in Asia to have average internet speed of less than 1 mbps and less than 1% broadband adoption rate.

While countries like Japan & Hong Kong have average internet speeds of 10 mbps, India (0.9 mbps) has 1/10^ththeir average speeds. I am not even talking about South Korea, who has the fastest average internet speed in the world at 17.5 mbps.

Average Measured Connection Speed by Asia Pacific Country/Region

India does make in Top 10 of one particular list (which it should not) – India has 9th highest rate of attack traffic in the world and 5th highest in Asia.

Attack Traffic – Top Originating Countries/Regions

As far as narrowband connectivity (below 256 kbps) goes, India comes in at 5th in the world. More than quarter of Indian internet users are on less than 256 kbps connectivity, making India one of the countries having slowest internet connectivity.

Broadband Adoption in India

Akamai report states, India was the only country with high broadband (> 5 mbps) adoption rate of below 1%. Given such low penetration, one would think that India would be experiencing tremendous growth, however, that is far from truth. The report states that after strong growth in the third quarter of 2011, it lost whooping 26% in the fourth quarter, ending the year at meagre 0.5% high broadband adoption. Even countries like Thailand (6.7%), Malaysia (3.8%) and China (1.5%) have much higher percentages of high broadband connectivity.

Broadband Adoption Rate (above 5 mbps speeds)

There is one silver lining – although speeds above 5 mbps have not grown much, normal broadband connectivity (above 2 mbps) have grown at decent rate of 85% year on year. But again, if you look at QoQ growth, India showed a negative growth of 18%. So we have lesser internet consumers on 2mbps connectivity then what we had in previous quarter. India ranks a very lowly 88th in the world when it comes to rate of broadband adoption. Only 8.4% of Indian internet consumers have over 2mbps internet connections!

Broadband Adoption Rate (above 2 mbps speed)

It is fair to say that India has missed the terrestrial broadband revolution – However, I ‘d expected that these numbers would be much higher due to launch of 3G. Looks like we have a fair way to go before we can call ourselves an IT hub.

Would be interesting to know reader’s views on this!

Google Drive is real…and its launched!

Arun Prabhudesai — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:26:28 +0000

Rumors of Google Drive have been floating around for donkey’s years, every now and then people spoke and wrote about it – But Google never uttered a word about it… until yesterday!

Google has announced launch of Google Drive – a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Before you run to sign-up for Google Drive, let me tell you that it is not open to general public as yet. As with any of the Google product launches, they will be opening it up slowly – so hold your horses.

What is Google Drive?

As you would expect from any cloud drive, it offers space to store anything and everything, but with lot of extra’s. Think of Google Drive as a beautiful mix of Google docs, Google+ & Gmail with lot of storage. Here is what Google Drive offers:

Create and collaborate.

Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere

All your stuff is just… there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.

Search everything.

Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article.

And if you are a gmail user – you have more good news… Google has extended the free mail limit storage of Gmail from 7.5 GB to 10 GB. In next 24 hours you should see your inbox size growing heavier!

Go register your self for Google Drive so you will be the first ones to get access when it arrives!

Google+ SMS launched in 41 countries!

Arun Prabhudesai — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:33:56 +0000

Google+ has been constantly adding new features to its platform since its launch last year. Every couple of weeks there is a new feature getting added making Google+ more and more appealing to users. It went through a much talked about makeover couple of weeks back.

Although, the initial euphoria about Google+ has long died, users are steadily starting to use Google+ platform. It is expected that the platform will have 400 million users by end of 2012!

Now, with their newest announcement – Google+ SMS – users from over 41 countries can update and receive Google Plus messages on SMS. There is absolutely no need of Internet at all.

India & US were the only 2 countries which had the facility to update Google plus using Mobile SMS. However, this new feature is now extended to other countries as well.

How to post update on Google+ using SMS

How to Receive SMS notifications & reply to them over SMS

Have you updated your Google plus timeline using a SMS? If you have do let us know how well it works!

Amazon launches AWS Marketplace with 3rd party cloud apps!

Arun Prabhudesai — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:05:05 +0000

Amazon has today announced launch of AWS marketplace, an online store where customers can find, buy, and quickly deploy software that runs on AWS. This is sure to make setting up your website or application on the cloud very easy.

The AWS marketplace looks very similar to Google app marketplace, where users can select from bouquet of third party apps that are already pre-configured and integrated with Amazon Web Services. For example: if a user wants to setup Ecommerce shop on amazon cloud, he can do it in minutes.

Here’s how to get started:

Go to http://aws.amazon.com/marketplace and search for software.
Learn about products, including pricing, support information, and customer reviews.
Launch the product in your EC2 account with 1-Click or, for hosted SaaS software, visit the vendor’s website to sign up.

You’ll be charged for what you use, by the hour or month, and software charges will appear on the same bill as your other AWS services.

AWS marketplace already has the most popular softwares from well-known vendors including CA, Canonical, Couchbase, Check Point, IBM, Microsoft, SUSE, Red Hat,SAP, and Zend as well as many widely used open source offerings, including WordPress, Drupal, and MediaWiki.

With launch of AWS Marketplace, amazon has ensured that anyone can get their business running on cloud literally in minutes. And, with nearly all popular applications available, it surely will be quite popular.

Give it a try and let us know what you feel!

Airtel to bring 4G mi-fi device for Indian consumers

Arun Prabhudesai — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:48:56 +0000

Airtel became the first Indian telecom operator to launch 4G (4th Generation in Mobile Network Technology) services when it was launched in Kolkata on Tuesday. 4G services are based on LTE (Long Term Evolution) technology which is capable of offering speeds of upto 40 mbps, three times that of 3G. The services will soon be expanded in phased manner in the places that Airtel has won the licenses.

In a bid to expand its 4G footprint, Bharti Airtel is also talking Qualcomm to buy their 4G licenses.

Currently, Bharti is offering 4G based data cards, which can be used to access internet more than 3 times faster than existing 3G technology. The internet can be accessed on Laptops and PCs using these USB data cards.

However, given the fact that very few people have 4g compatible mobile phones, these services can only be accessed through data cards.

To overcome this problem, Airtel is in advanced talks with Chinese vendors to launch Mi-Fi’ devices (similar to vodafone) that will help people in India to access 4G services from their smartphones or wireless enabled phones on the move.

This according to me is a great move, especially because usage of internet on mobile is growing fiercely in India. Additionally, even after launch of 4G phones in India, very few people will be able to afford it. A 4G Mi-Fi device can work as an excellent and cheap intermediate device that will allow users to access internet not only on PCs but also on mobile phones. A 4G mi-fi device can also work as a perfect internet access device for tablets which are expected to double in numbers this year.

Compared to other vendors it is quite clear that Bharti Airtel is taking 4G quite seriously. According to the reports – Bharti is also slated to bid in the second round of 4G auctions later this year as it is eying the 700 MHz band which is known to be three times more efficient than the 2,300 MHz band auctioned some two years ago.

Let us hope that Airtel brings in this 4G device sooner than later!

What’s your opinion?

Facebook on an acquisition spree: Tagtile follows Instagram

Kaushambi — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 17:14:00 +0000

A few days back, we carried a post on Facebook and Instagram’s surprisingly overpriced marriage. There’s one more announcement that been unleashed as a part of Facebook’s sudden app acquisition spree. Facebook has acquired Tagtile, a San Francisco based loyalty and customer acquisition startup founded by IITians. For the uninitiated, Tagtile allows merchants to give their shoppers rewards through coupons or loyalty points for checking in with smartphones during store visits.

The entire company including its assets is being acquired for a sum that remains undisclosed. Whether this will be close to its billion dollar acquired predecessor Instagram or not, is something that only time and Mark Zuckerberg will tell. One of the main aims of this acquisition for Facebook is to capitalize on the fact that businesses can send coupons to their customers which they may print or redeem using their mobile phones directly.

What is Tagtile and how does it work?

An app that helps local businesses to connect with their customers to increase revenue? Is Facebook shelling out monies to acquire something that sounds so simple? Founded by two Indian IIT grads Abheek Anand and Soham Mazumdar, Tagtile offers simple solutions to connect with customers without any overheads whatsoever. Here’s how.

According to Tagtile, businesses simply need to plug in their customized Tagtile Cube which is a small box, into a power outlet. The Cube has a sensor that allows users with the downloaded app to earn tags by simply tapping their phones against the Tagtile Cube. The app is currently available on iPhone and Android platforms. Through social media integration, users can receive and share loyalty points and offers from the merchant, directly through their phone.

In effect, Tagtile makes it possible to get information regarding a user’s location at a particular business without having them to do a manual check-in. It is interesting to see Tagtile using sensors instead of near field communications (NFC).

Benefits for businesses:

Tagtile’s merchant dashboard gives updated minute by minute information about stores.
The Tagtile app allows the business to track customers and the frequency of their visits.
Marketing material is in-built with the starter kit. Custom offers, push notifications and niche targeted information are sent directly to customers’ smartphones.
No overheads are added, whether it is sales people, internet connections or staff.
Tagtile links a customer’s purchase history with their identity, helping businesses to know them thoroughly.
Social media integration helps businesses to gain more customers through word of mouth. Existing customers can post their experiences on social media and increase brand reputation.

Why Tagtile?

Google recently gave us all a glimpse of their foray into augmented virtual reality (VR) glasses which track users and feed real time information to the user via a VR display. As one would imagine, the revenue potential from a target advertisement perspective in a device like that is unheard of. If the day comes when people are seen wearing such VR devices on the streets, local business would certainly want to track customers and throw deals / coupons towards those who are walking their way.

After all, real time tracking will allow target and location specific advertisements like the world has never seen. Tagtile is all about local businesses building better relationships with their customers and Facebook may very well be seeing a potential on this forefront.

Whether or not that is the case, it is clear that Facebook is revving up its talent pool to cover niches where it still hasn’t seen the growth that it would like to. Mobile and local commerce are areas where Facebook can do much better and the acquisition of Instagram and Tagtile are Facebook’s first steps in catching up. But with NFC phones, FourSquare’s check-ins and the likes, we’ll have to wait and watch to see how effective Facebook is in convincing local businesses to use their Tagtile service. In comparison to its competitors, Facebook overwhelming user base remains its greatest competitive edge.

Will customers be tapping their phones for coupons against Tagtile Cubes in every store they enter? Should small app developers rejoice and expectantly wait to be acquired by Facebook in the near future? Or is Facebook simply trying to imitate and intimidate Google by expanding its footprint across different and versatile service platforms on the internet? Cross your fingers, we say!

Modern Indian Art now on Google!

Kaushambi — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:21:11 +0000

So what if you don’t have the monies to check out an exclusive Van Gogh exhibition at the TATE London, roam around at the Uffizi in Florence or fly out to MoMA in New York to check out a few modern artworks?

You can now log on to the Google Art Project website to check out the world of art inside out, stroke by stoke. Launched in Chicago in February 2012, the Google Art Project is like an online museum that houses 30,000 works of art from 151 museums across 40 countries and still counting. Works of art include paintings, historic and religious artifacts, drawings, important manuscripts, sculptures, photographs, audio guides, viewing notes, expertly narrated videos, detailed information, maps and so on, stated the Google Art Project website.

On 5 April 2012, two prestigious Indian museums namely the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) located in Kala Ghoda, the art precinct of Mumbai and National Museum in Delhi were added to Google Art Project’s repertoire of housing stunning collections, ET reported. This India chapter of the project will be formally inaugurated in Delhi on April 10. Although many online art galleries in India have very good collections of modern Indian and experimental art, the Google Art Project is another ballgame altogether simply because of its sheer international scale.

The project recently added the White House in Washington, SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar to its ensemble.

Here are some of the stunning features of the Google Art Project.

High resolution imagery is used to give users a virtual tour of galleries around the world. Also, 46 specific artworks have been made available with gigapixel photo-capturing technology. This means that these works are photographed in great detail so that users can zoom into a work of art to view the texture of paint, brush strokes and even parchment cracks!
Detailed street view images for 46 museums are available on the Google Art Project. Users can navigate through more than 385 rooms within galleries, art houses and listed museums. Users can virtually visit selected galleries in 360 degree view. Although Google Street View India entered into regulatory problems with the government when it was launched earlier, this time they have been successful in using it in India with due permissions.
Google+ and Google Hangout have been integrated into the Google Art Project so that users can video chat with experts, art educators and connoisseurs provided by Google.
Users can build their own galleries housing their favorite art and share it on social media. They can further edit, record and upload YouTube videos of their own galleries.
Google Art Project will house more than just traditional fine art. This includes images of the Dead Sea Scrolls, digitized archives of famous figures in history, 3D models of 18th century French cities amongst many other interactive features.
Sifting through so many artworks is made simple by the toolbar on the Google Art Project website. By clicking on Explore and Discover, users can find the exact work of art by type, period, artist, country etc.
Videos from third parties and other art education content have also been included.

[Source]

So how is this platform going to change our experience of consuming art? A few critics argue that the tangible and palpable feeling of seeing a work of art for real is irreplaceable.

Online art definitely means more access, wider distribution and more commercial success. But gaining an understanding of the more physical features of art such as canvas, texture, paint, size, colors reflected in the light and the sense of how it would look on the wall of your home are bound to be diluted.

But like every other technological advancement Google Art Project too attempts to carry forth the noble intention of increasing access to knowledge, drawing favorable and not-so-favorable criticisms.

On the other hand, the sunny side is way too obvious to mention. It would be a dream to look at the works of masters along with new and upcoming experimental artists from the comfort of your home.

For the first time, India will be able to showcase its wealth of art to the world – from the works of Tyeb Mehta, Raja Ravi Varma, Rabindranath Tagore and M F Husain amongst many others. The Google Art Project is being seen as complementary and not competitive to a physical museum visit. Not only will this access further pique the curiosity of art buyers but will also allow educators to introduce students to the world of art without physical boundaries. This will eventually lead to frequent visits to the actual museum.

"The art project is no longer just about the Indian student wanting to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, it is now also about the American student wanting to visit the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi." – Amit Sood, Head, Google Art Project [Source]

Give Google Art Project a spin and let us know what you feel!