NumberTank is Giving 30 Minutes Free Talktime Everyday |

It was just 2 years back, that there came a flood like situation in India in term of number of websites which allowed users to send free SMS. Their revenue model varied right from in-sms ad in 160by2 to footer ads in the leader i.e. way2sms. Most of the people didn’t know that there were sites like freesms8 which offered full 160 character length without any charges.

These situations and strategies make people think about their revenue models but for websites like Way2Sms, the revenue came from the advertisement which were shown up on their website. Their service attracted a huge mass that they were consistently in top 30 most visited websites of the country.

Keeping the same strategy in mind, NumberTank, a Surat (Gujarat) based startup is going one step further and offering free web to mobile calling to its users. Its not 2-3 minutes but it is as high as 30 minutes of internet to mobile calls everyday free. As a user you can make calls to people on your contact list free for 30Mins everyday (carry-forward-able). Currently the calls can be made to India, US and Canada. More countries would be added soon. However, you need to have an invite from existing members to join the network.

Their homepage looks like one of a social-networking website, however its not a social website exactly. NumberTank also offers commonly available services such as birthday reminder via SMS etc.

Our Take

The 30 minutes free talk-time offer looks interesting enough to attract huge masses. However, there are other constraints such as the call quality etc. which needs to be taken care of.  Their viral invitation based method may work initially to attract the users, but to be one of the top websites, they will also need to have a strong revenue model to support the system.

 Ankit is founder of TechDip. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil or Google+

SocialDealFactory, Social Deals For Retailers |

2011 in Online Indian Industry will be marked by the rebirth of ecommerce followed by deals. Well, pundits may snub this off as just a bubble but the bubble is shining right now. However, I also think that ecommerce will dissolve into social commerce going further, where people will not only buy things, they will share with friends and ask to vote for them and all end up in getting good deals. Businesses have also spotted the trend and are trying to grab the attention with lucrative deals but it’s just not about creating a single deal. Creating a deal is just one of the things, one needs to analyze and improvise from it. Socialdealfactory(SDF), a Pune based startup recently launched a social deal builder for retailers. So if you are a retailer you tie up with SDF. SDF will help you in creating deals quickly, manage them and also provide you vital analysis on the performance of the deal.

How does SDF work?

SDF boasts that creation of deals won’t take more than 5 minutes and could be done in 4 easy steps. So for example, if you are a retailer and since New Year is coming you would like to offer some deals for your community. You select a package provided by SDF, create a deal, SDF will help your deal to go viral after publishing it on your social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. With this SDF also provides you real time analysis.

Why SDF is cool?

1. Easy to create, manage and customizable. As a retailer not only can I create a deal in five minutes but also avail the deal for certain number of users or limit it by time like announcing ‘Deal of the Day’. Apart from this publishing onto your social network like Facebook is a no-brainer job.

2. Great mechanism for SME retailer’s especially. It is easy to manage, cost effective and leads to higher rate of engagement on your social networks. In fact, Suketu Talekar, Co-Founder of Brewcrafts India Pvt Ltd. (Doolally) and a happy customer of SDF expressed the same

3. SDF has 3 different plans and a full customized one for retailers with an initial 30 day trial period. With these retailers also have the option to either pay a monthly subscription fee or have a PAYG (pay-as-you-go) model for the use of the product. The PAYG model is also great to have as some retailers might like to have occasion specific deals.

4. SDF also shares the data collected of the customers as they download deals with retailers. This will help retailers to know who are their genuine fans and try to make them as brand ambassadors.

5. Analytics is one of the USP of SDF and I believe this really gives the picture and sense of ROI for the retailers. A retailer can actually compare its monthly investment vs. the awareness it has created and the number of people downloaded and actually used the deals.

SDF does have a great future and with clients such as SheepStop, Cafe Aroma, Faaso’s, etc., the chances are getting bright. A simple and interesting concept that is sure to gain attraction by businesses going mad about social media in the coming years.

As a retailer, do you think will it solve your problems or do you think it will create a hole in your pocket? Well, I suggest you that try out the trial period offer and then plan ahead.

Indian Court Orders Social Networks to Remove ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ Content |

So, the battle which was ongoing between the government of India and social-networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter  has come to an end with a local court ordered Google, Facebook and up to twenty other Internet firms to remove “unacceptable” images from their sites.

This is what was the exact statement of civil judge Mukesh Kumar:

Contents which are uploaded by some miscreants through these social media sites are highly unacceptable and are inflammatory and derogatory which cannot be accepted by any religion.

 This is being seen as the outcome of the recent verdict from Telecom Minister of India Kapil Sibbal which was strongly critisized by Indian users on Social networks. Sibal instead tried to focus upon building a new system/framework which don’t actually have the exact power to remedy the entire situation, because they cannot force these Internet companies to reveal the user-identity of those who post such content nor they can be forced to remove it anyhow. With this piece of thought in mind, it will be too interesting to see as to how these companies respond to the court-orders.

In countries like Thailand, where any kind of content defaming against the royal family is considered as a crime, Google has removed videos from their video website (YouTube) but these things are less clear cut in our country as the online-content is not clearly in breach of the country’s Cyber-laws.

 Ankit is founder of TechDip. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil or Google+

Donate My Automobile FAQ |

It is no secret that thousands of people want to donate their car. However, there are quite a few unanswered questions that many Americans have about automobile donations. Because automobile donations provide much needed funding to many charities nationwide, I think that it is important that these question get answered. With that said, I have compiled a list of frequently asked vehicle donation question. I hope this article helps any Americans that decide to read it!

Question: How much cash can I expect to be able to write off after I donate my car?

Answer: I decided to do this question first because, when talking to people about car donations, this is the question that seems to come up most! So, without further ado, here is how it works. If the donated car is sold for $500 or less, that donation will result in a $500 tax write off. However, if the donated vehicle is sold for $501 or more, the donation will result in a tax write off equal to the amount of cash the automobile is sold for.

Question: Is 100% of the sale price of my vehicle donation given to the charity once the car is sold?

Answer: Although, I would like the answer on this question to be yes, the truth is that the answer is no. However, this is for good reason. Because people do not want to pay the cost associated with donating their vehicle such as towing, auction fees, ect…, this cost must be absorbed into the sale of the car. However, because many car donation companies work with a very high volume, they are able to cut the cost of a great deal of these services resulting in a larger amount of money being donated to the charity.

Question: Does my vehicle need to be in good running condition to be donated?

Answer: No! When it comes down to it, the vast majority of automobile donations in the United States are junk cars. Therefore, they do not have to run to be donated. Junk cars that are donated to charity are usually sold for the scrap metal and working parts that they contain. Therefore, even junk cars that no longer run can be a great source of income for many charities.

Question: Can I donate things like boats, R.V.s and motorcycles?

Answer: Yes, just about anything with an engine will be accepted by most car donation companies. However, items like these cost much more to tow away. Therefore, for an automobile donations company to be able to accept it and generate a profit that can be donated, they generally have to be in good condition.

I hope that this article has answered any automobile donation question that you may have! Please come back to read more of my articles soon!

Muvi.com – A Startup for Bollywood Social Review |

If you watch Hollywood movies and read online reviews about them, then you must be knowing about RottenTomatoes. An Indian startup muvi.com is offering the same service for Bollywood as RottenTomatoes provide for Hollywood.

Muvi.com is a social review website which helps the online mass to quickly search and read reviews about any recent Bollywood movie so as to make a smart decision whether the movie is actually worth watching or not. Muvi.com have their own special scale named Muvimeter on which they rate these movies. Right now, they are open in beta but still they’ve managed to get as big as 12,500 registrations on their website.

Their present stats reveal that  they have 2,75,884 movie reviews till date for more than  4,800 movies. Their investors column is empty which reveals that they are on bootstraping as they don’t have raised any funds.

Our Take

This concept of Social Review Website is not new as we already have giant like desimartini, reviewgang etc. But still there is a difference as their rating system is working on HMM algorithm which is based on tweets etc. and gives more appropraite ratings.

Some of might think of it as useless as rating doesn’t matters a lot to all of us. But still let us wait till the time when Muvi.com comes to its fullest.

 Ankit is founder of TechDip. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil or Google+

Zaheer Khan invests in Sher Singh - Exclusively.in’s new label |

Exclusively.in, an e-commerce website that features sales of unique fashion items, have bagged a big one – cricketer Zaheer Khan is one of their investors!

Khan has invested in Sher Singh, a new label launched by Exclusively.in. Not only that, Khan would also be the brand ambassador for this label. His involvement not only brings to the table an obvious increase of funds, but also helps big-time in improving brand recognition. The exact investment though is still not known.

Exclusively.in, provides daily offers on unique fashion apparels like jewelry, embroidered clothing etc. It also offers travel deals, limited edition collectibles and much more. Exculisvely has backing from all the biggies like Accel Partners, Tiger Global Management and Helion Venture Partners, having received funding to the tune of $20 million in the previous round.

Sunjay Guleria, CEO and co-founder of Exclusively.in, says things are on the up for Exclusively.in :

“From the brand Sher Singh we are targeting sales of about $100 million in the next two years and for the group overall that includes business from Exclusively.in we are aiming for $200 million turnover in the next three years”

Further, this could be the start of a new trend in India : instead of starting from scratch, celebrities can now partner with existing ventures. Not only does this help out the ventures, but the celebrities would also get a ready infrastructure and a set of customers loyal to that venture.

 A student of Electronics Engineering, Aneeq Dholakia, among other things enjoys writing. An avid Barca fan by heart and an analytical thinker by mind, Aneeq aims to be perennially involved with technology in any way he can.

Interview With the Guys Behind String Theory - Startup ProvidingOn-Campus Service For Apparel Needs [College Startup] |

We have been trying to unearth startups brewing in colleges across India and across the world.

In our quest, we came across String Theory – a college startup which provides on-campus service for apparel & article needs (both designing & doorstep-supply), ranging from college tee-shirts, batch tee-shirts, daily sweats, mugs to complete apparel & printing solutions for college fests & other meets.

The founders of String Theory, Piyush Poddar and Ankit Gupta are both 3rd year students of RVCE, Bangalore. We had a small chat with Piyush. Here’s a part of it:

Why entrepreneurship? Walk us through the inception phase of the startup, how it all began.

Descending from an entrepreneurial bent lineage, I’ve always believed, ‘the best person you could ever work for is yourself.’

Our eco-system seems to have been tailor made to get us through the four years in complete discipline (Read: 85% attendance, no cell phones, 5 minutes too late for a class means 55 minutes too early for the next) & right into a suit (if we are not mass recruited i.e.) at a suave office some place uptown where we could be an ideal employee under a nagging employer who would pay us (hopefully) a decent salary for our services.

I found this bargain to be uncomforting & decided to pursue something of my own.

That’s quite insightful, so how did you reason out your move?

I practically & carefully, weighed the pros & the cons of starting up against playing by the rules:

Pros

• I would be putting theory to practice thereby making college the learning experience it ought to be.
• It would make it so much more easier for me to get into an Ivy league institution for that famed course in business. Yes, entrepreneurs are respected world over!
• Even if in course of time, I decide to switch lanes & take up a job, the grilling I would under go while starting up will always come handy & it would anyway do wonders for my resume.
• It’d supplement my pocket money, & most importantly, it will instill in me the confidence & spirit of a self made man.

Cons

• I would have to put in much effort that would take away all the extra time I have which could rather be utilised, let’s just say, in a more amusing & spirited way. Though, in time I realised that it was just the contrary & the last few months that we have worked on String Theory, have been the most vibrant, cheerful & rewarding times.

Tell us about your founding team, how you came together and decided this is what you would like to work on?

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one battling with the above mentioned emotions. Discussing it aloud with my friends, I ,Piyush and Ankit with the String Theory Merchandise

found the perfect comrade in my friend Ankit.

String Theory as a concept hit us while we were sitting making inconsequential conversation over coffee. It miraculously checked into all the parameters that we had laid down in our minds for it to be a viable start-up, the most important of them being scalability.

The first few months were onerous but eventful, working on the necessities, making the business plan (most important), identifying sources of revenue, obtaining permissions, carrying out negotiations, beating out deals, etc. We had never worked so hard, every new keynote, every new thought, every new campaign, every new print ad, all of it was carefully prepared & the joy of it all coming to life is beyond words.

Who all are your clients at the moment? Any turnover figures you’d like to share.

We have added to our list of distinguished clientele, (besides RVCE) the likes of IIT Roorkee, IIIT Hyderabad, MSRIT Bangalore, and BIT Bangalore.

Number wise, we have had a turnover of over 1.5 lacs (in just 60 odd days), but the more valuable yet undermined are the intangible benefits that we have derived from it – a heavily bolstered confidence, towering respect in the circles, amazing networking opportunities & an exceptional learning experience.

Was there support from your college especially the authorities and management ?

Contrary to our conviction, the top brass of our college management now supports us extensively at all levels.

What is your future plan?

In the dynamic times we live in, future plans are ever-changing with new possibilities opening up every day hence we at String Theory make short term plans and strive hard to achieve it.

Our short term plan as it stands :-

• Have active ground operations in 4 institutions by the end of this year & increase it to a strong 10 in a years time from now.
• Deliver on our promise of end-to-end colligating solutions by increasing our product range at our client institutions.
• Developing the E-Commerce side of our business so that the alumnus of institutions can avail are offerings no matter where they are put up.
• Perfect our supply chain for an improved customer experience.

Tips for other college startups

Have a definite aim & vision for your startup, chart out the path towards achieving them with timelines & strive hard to keep up with them.

A big challenge that every college startup faces is to balance both work & academics in the limited time one gets, failing which both aspects suffer & opportunities are lost. Every opportunity lost can make a world of difference to your business. I would advice them to address this challenge by working towards forming a strong team & structuring it well from day 1 so that responsibilities are well distributed & business does not suffer due to academics & vice versa.

There are various bodies (eg. National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN)) which have a vast pool of resources & are dedicated towards supporting & facilitating student Entrepreneurs. They hold regular workshops which polish you & help you develop a sustainable business model, attending them is a tremendous value add (it was for us).

We think having a college startup is an experience totally different and helps one to realise the different dimensions in life. It also helps one to get a head start and have real life experiences in many fields. And, if you’re really lucky like Zuckerberg, you may be onto the game of your life.
Why should you start up in college? The best answer as Piyush puts it is:

It’s better to own the race course than be a race horse.

NFC Equipped SIM gains support from 45 Global Carriers |

In a latest development in China, 45 major mobile operators in the world have decided to support GSM Association’s NFC integration with SIM cards.

Countries like South Korea and Japan have been using NFC to make payments for a while now, but it seems like the practice is going to become quite common sometime soon.Along with Indian players like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and MTS, some of the major players backing this new standard are:
AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telecom, Etisalat, KPN, Mobily, Orange, Rogers, Saudi Telecom Company (STC), SFR, SK Telecom, Softbank, Telus, Verizon and VIVA Bahrain.

What is NFC ?

NFC is basically a decendant of the RFID technology. It’s a new wireless technology that allows devices to connect with each other and communicate over short distances, typically using a touch or swap gesture.

NFC possesses huge potential in the fields of mobile payments, check-ins and data transfers. It’s because of this the companies are looking to create a mobile payment system that could possible rival the credit card market. Previously NFC integration was possible only at the manufacturers level, but with this new technology it seems like any phone can be equipped with the feature.

Currently there are a few phones that support NFC including the Google Nexus S, Samsung Galaxy II and Nokia C7. With widespread agreement to the new standard, we can expect new technologies and services that take advantage of NFC to come soon.

How will this affect the Indian market? Do you think we are about to see a major roll out soon? Let us know in the comments....

Facebook Brings Business Cards for Users |

Social networking giant, Facebook, always gives surprises to their users. Previous year they provide a unique feature, called timeline, and this year in the very first week they once again introduced an exciting thing to this timeline. Guess what ??

Facebook ties-up with British business card maker, Moo has resulted in an interesting development for its users. Facebook has introduced, what it refers to as Facebook business cards – a new feature on their social network’s new profile layout (i.e. with Timeline) that assigns every Facebook user with a unique business card.

The business card, like any business cards with a classic, squared corner appearance will contain the user’s details that he/ she has provided in their profile, along with an image.

How to avail this feature ?

To avail the feature, users can go to the About section on their timeline page. Once there, you can spot a tiny business card icon in the Contact Info section. Hovering over that icon, users can see a glimpse of what their business card would appear like (as shown in the figure below).

If what you see, catches your fancy then you can proceed over to the next step, which is printing the card. Here’s where Moo comes into action. Interestingly, first 50 Facebook cards for any user is free. Beyond that, users will be charged a small fee by Moo.

“Next, click on the offer and you’ll be taken to a card creation page. Your last 50 cover photo uploads will be imported onto the image side of the cards, along with your Facebook username and your location, plus a small thumbnail of your profile photo. With your Facebook cards, each card can have a different cover photo (up to 50 per pack) and you can remove any images you don’t want on your cards at this stage. The profile photo and username information will appear on every card on top of the cover image.” – Explaining the process further, Moo, in an official post.

Have you Tried Selling and Buying Class Notes on Notehall India? |

Being a college student myself, I understand the whole dynamics when students run to get class notes photocopied as soon as exams approach. I had always felt a need for a better solution to the notes dilemma than the physical dilly-dallying.

If I can buy an e-book online, why can’t I buy class notes? Notehall India is trying to fill that gap by building an online marketplace for students to buy and sell their class notes. Mr. Sunny Mahajan, the Notehall India CEO, in a talk with us said:

You can call it the Ebay for notes without the auction feature. I saw the Notehall owners on a TV show called Shark Tank and approached them to allow me to bring the idea to India. I brought Notehall India here in late 2010.

So, Notehall India is run by an Indian team and is independently owned. The Notehall US team, who originally had the idea are a part of the team as well. The whole concept is very simple yet innovative – if you’re a student willing to sell your class notes you can do so by registering on their website.

If the class notes uploaded by you sell, you’ll earn some money. People who are not so good at making notes (me included) can always have the option of buying the already uploaded notes. In this case, you’ll have to pay a small amount. Currently Notehall notes are available for 8 universities – Amity University, Delhi University, IP University, JMS, Manipal University, Pune University, RTU, Symbiosis International University and UPTU.

The whole concept albeit a simple one will still require effective marketing on the Notehall India team’s part. I say so because students these days do not have the patience to upload notes. More people will have to be made aware of the whole initiative. Sunny has a 40+ team deployed to collect notes from different colleges. I assume that a majority of them would be students who’d also act as campus ambassadors or as interns and procure notes from their classmates.

Notehall India does not have any investor and has been boot-strapped by Sunny till now. They’ve had around 100 student transactions, which is good as they have started out in the month of August.

Notehall India has two other initiatives under its belt at this time:

• DU Scholarships – Notehall India gave out over 50 scholarships to the best students in DU on the basis for their academic performance.
• DU Blog – A blog about the city Delhi from the point of view of a college student, looking at culture, things to do, place to go to and life in Delhi.

The future plans involve extending Notehall to every major University and provide Notehall services to students all over India. Ads and document sales are the means of how Notehall India will generate revenue.

Our Take

Such innovative ideas should be implemented more by budding entrepreneurs. After all, entrepreneurship is solving the problems around you despite the problems around. Earning out of it is a challenge and the whole journey teaches us a lot.

Although the idea isn’t very profitable at a first glance to me, the whole initiative if undertaken in the right manner will be a boon for students across colleges in India. The note-sharing process might make the students a little bit more lenient while writing notes down, but if you’ve been a recent college grad you’d know that students these days are increasingly using their computers to study. Notehall India seems to use the same concept and integrate their classrooms with a pinch of e-commerce.

P.S. If you liked this post or the whole Notehall concept, do take a glance at our Startups page. It might be of some interest to you.

TRAI Plans to Implement IMEI Blocking of ‘Stolen’ Mobile Handsets |

Stolen mobile handsets might finally be rendered useless to help curb mobile thefts in and across the country. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is likely to soon announce its fresh recommendations on blocking the lost and stolen mobile phones.

Up until now the telecom service providers could only block SIM cards of stolen mobile handsets to prevent misuse of stored data and personal information. But with the increasing cases of mobile theft and the ever-growing illegal handset market in the country being primary concerns, the move aims to provide some relief to the innumerable mobile phone users which constitute more that 70% of the total population of the country.

“… It (recommendations) was likely to come by the end of this month, but we have come across some problems with regard to duplicate International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers in mobile handsets available in the market, which is difficult to track. We are discussing it internally… it will take time, maybe by the end of this year,” a source in TRAI said, as reported in a TOI report.

IMEI is a unique 15-digit code that comes with every GSM mobile and helps to uniquely identify the handset. By using the global positioning system (GPS), a mobile operator can track the handset user.  Back in 2004 when the attempts to resolve the issue started, many service providers had no capability to track or block IMEI. Hence no breakthrough could be achieved. But since 2008, the telecom department has asked service providers to disconnect mobile phones that do not have IMEI numbers. Thereafter telecom service providers put the Equipment Identity Register in their systems so that calls from mobile handsets without IMEI are rejected.

These recommendations come at a time when TRAI has been in the news recently after increasing the cap on the number of SMSes to 200 per day per SIM in order to stop pesky calls and SMSes. The regulatory body had previously announced a cap of 100 SMSes per day per SIM but later increased the limit after receiving criticism from all corners.

Once implemented, these recommendations would contribute in a large extent towards not only preventing mobile thefts and tracking down of the illegal handset market but also in putting a check on the use of mobile phones for the anti-nation or terrorist activities. How successfully would it be implemented, only time will tell, but its introduction definitely comes as a positive step from the Government.

Camcorder Batteries : Complete Analysis.. |

A camcorder, short for video camera recorder, is an electronic device, combining the functionalities of a video camera and a video recorder. Its not a new thing when people have problems with camcorder batteries. That is why it is important that the camcorder batteries are being properly used and charged, so that they last longer. In this article, we will give you some useful information about camcorder batteries, how to charge them properly, etc.

What to do with a new battery

Charging the camcorder batteries is the first thing you need to do after buying a new camcorder. Almost all camcorder batteries require three to four charge/discharge cycles in order to reach maximum capacity. Plug in the battery in the charger. A red light (usually) should go on. That means that the charging has begun. When charging for the first time, camcorder batteries may indicate that they are charged after 20-30 minutes. This is normal behavior with rechargeable batteries. You just need to unplug the battery from the camcorder, plug it back in and repeat the procedure.

Charging and discharging your battery

It is very important to fully charge and fully discharge camcorder batteries (to condition) every two or three weeks, in order for the battery to reach and maintain its capacity. You can choose not to do so, but that will significantly shorten the battery’s life. This does not apply to camcorder batteries, made from Lithium and Ion, as they do not require conditioning. Discharging camcorder batteries is very simple; just use your camcorder until it shuts down on its own, or until you get a low-battery warning. Then simply plug in the battery, and leave it to fully charge.

Other useful tips

If you do not use your camcorder for a month or more, it is recommended that you store your camcorder batteries in a cool, dry, and clean place. In addition, rechargeable batteries are discharged by themselves if they are left unused. Remember to leave your batteries fully charged, if you plan on storing them. Camcorder batteries will discharge more quickly when the temperature of the environment they are in is higher. So, do not leave you batteries out in the sun. Many different brands (Sony, Duracell, Energizer, Varta, Panasonic, Rayovac…) of camcorder batteries exist, and it is perfectly acceptable to use any of them. You just need to make sure you use the batteries with the right voltage, and you are good to go. Invest in a good charger. Browse the internet, read some reviews. Chargers that have micro-controller chips are usually a very good choice. It’s a great choice if you do not want to visit the store many times. It is not good to short circuit the battery’s poles because it would discharge the battery. Do not connect and disconnect the battery and the charger within a short interval of time. This will prevent irregular charging of the rechargeable battery.

This is a guest post by Steve Writhy who writes on the behalf of Digiquick which offers all kinds of camera equipments and laptop accessories including laptop batteries etc.

Open Source India 2011 Kick-Starts Today! |

Open source developer? Need a kick start to your carrier? Here comes a golden opportunity for you all to hone your skills and show your mettle. The 8th edition of OSI Days, which begins on 20th of this month, brings three consecutive days of learning and exciting time with 3,000+ open source innovators, enthusiasts, and gurus at Bengaluru’s NIMHANS Convention Centre.

The event will be inaugurated by Ramesh Chopra, founder and editor, Electronics For You. Regunath Balasubramanian, principal architect of the Govt of India UIDAI project, will be the guest of honour at this year’s event.

Open Source India (formerly LinuxAsia) started in 2003, with the mission to accelerate the growth of adoption of Open Source in Asia. A key attribute of Open Source India is that it tries to bridge the gap between the ‘community’ and the ‘industry’.

While OSI provides a platform for advocacy of principles powering Open Source, majority of its content is focused on topics that are related to the industry. Thus, the primary target audience of OSI Days is techies. Different tracks are designed to address different segments of techies, such as: software developers, IT implementers, CIOs, and CEOs and CTOs (of IT firms), etc.

However, techies alone are not responsible for all business and policy decisions–and reaching out to those, who do make such decisions, is also a goal that OSI tries to attain. Again, specialized tracks are designed to address issues this elite audience faces. Thus, one often finds academicians, bureaucrats, government officials, senior decision makers from SMEs and corporate, etc attending Open Source India too.

This year the focus is on PHP, Database and Managing IT infrastructure and hence the event is also being classified as follows:

PHP Days Nov 20-21 Database Days Nov 21-22, and

IT Infrastructure Days Nov 22

OSI Days is organized by the ‘Forum for Open Source Initiative in India’ (FOSII), in association with LINUX For You magazine, and powered by the EFY Group of publications. The convention also aims to provide a BIG opportunity to open source lovers to interact with the gurus from the world of Linux and open source with many notified and honored personalities from the field of IT, more information of which can be found at http://2011.osidays.com/speakers

So what are you all waiting for. Gear up and start innovating!

Nokia Lumia 800- Detailed Review |

The much awaited Nokia Lumia 800 is out now. This latest collaboration of Nokia and Microsoft that sees Lumia 800 with Windows 7.5 (mango)operating system developed by Microsoft and  Nokia hardware reliability.

The first feature which will grab your eyeballs is surely the Integrated internet interface merged with contacts in phonebook and messaging centre like facebook, twitter and LinkedIn etc. that means you need not install separate social networking apps.  Another great feature is the office integration, the office integration I found to be truly indispensible. The ability to open word docs, PDFs, PowerPoint and excel spreadsheets is a huge advantage for this phone. Yes, these functionalities can be provided in rudimentary form on rival devices, but nothing functions as smoothly, quickly and effortlessly as it does here. It’s an absolute breeze to do a quick edit of a word doc while on the tube, and then zap it off via 3G while you walk out of the station. Bravo Microsoft.

But every technological aspect has some pros and cons in it, and this phone deeply flawed in many ways.  Most critical with this phone is the mess it makes of traditional functionality, the very first issue is that as soon as you purchase this phone you will have to install Microsoft’s proprietary Zune software to copy music and video to the required formats and copy it to the device. It is a poor program with an unintuitive interface that will take some getting used to.

Also believe it or not it does not have Bluetooth connectivity and front facing camera that surely lowers down its usability, although it supports 3G and WiFi connectivity.

Now talking about its hardware and performance specifications it works breezy smooth with its 1.4 GHz Qualcomm processor paired with 512 MB of RAM and 16 GB of storage capacity. One of the star features of the Lumia 800 is the Camera, which boasts 8 megapixels through a wonderful Carl Zeiss lens. It takes brilliant photos by day (comparable to a low end compact cameras), and shoots 720p HD video. However, like most smartphones it struggles at night. Nokia claims the Lumia 800′s battery will last for 9.5 hours under normal usage, although I found it realistically to hover around 5 hours maximum.

Final verdict-

Pros

• Beautiful body and screen
• Fantastic camera
• Integration with Office is brilliant
• Integrated social networking apps

Cons

• OS favors style too much over usability
• Cluttered design and inaccurate touch screen
• No Bluetooth and front facing camera
• Poor battery life

The Lumia 800 feels like a work in progress. It is a nice hi-tech phone with a wonderful camera and stunning screen. The front end menu system is beautiful and a refreshing change from the stale Apple iOS and Android based operating systems. Beyond this however, its touch screen is inaccurate and functionality has taken a back seat to building a pretty design.

All in all a good effort but a price tag of whooping Rs. 29,999 and absence of some critical functionality like the Bluetooth and front facing camera dos not makes it a value for money, it’s hard to recommend.

The Ultimate List of CarPooling Initiatives in India |

I’ll not use the Wikipedia definition here. Rather, I’ll try making the point clear by giving out an easy example. I have a car. I use it to go to my college daily. Say four other students in my college also use their cars to come to college. What we’re doing is basically five people using five different cars to go to the same place while going through the same route. We’re wasting a lot of fuel in the process.

This very example shows that if one of us would have used our car, and picked the others in the way we could have saved 4/5th of the cumulative fuel used in one trip. That fraction has a huge weightage as the fuel used on one side by a car is not anything less that 2-3 L (approx estimation) for a car each. Using one car and picking others on the way, and charging them a fraction of the cost incurred in the whole trip is known as car-pooling. It saves commuters money as well as prevents wastage of fuel.

The above example is a very crude one, and the figures might be wrong. But, it must have given you an idea of how much of the world’s fuel we car-owners waste daily due to lack of carpooling initiatives or services in India.

While informal carpooling in India might be happening in different places it’s time we start having an organised system where any newbie can register for a ride to his office/college. Here are some of the initiatives being taken currently in India:

• OliveTrips– Perhaps this is the most unique car-pooling initiative taken in India as of now. OliveTrips, based in Vadodara, connects people so that they can undertake shared trips together and save money and fuel.The unique thing about OliveTrips is that they send customized EcoReportshowing how much fuel and money was saved due to the carpool the rider was part of – something which should definitely make people feel good and encourage them to use the service again. Not only that, the OliveTrips app used to calculate the savings helps to calculate the CO2 emission as well, which is then mentioned in the report.People interested in either giving out their cars for ride-sharing or in being a passenger can go to their website and register. The registration process is a bit detailed, but is focussed at making the whole ride comfortable for the individual by helping him/her find out the right ride-sharing group. After all, carpooling shouldn’t become a menace for eve-teasers. The noble initiative is for free, and the vehicle owner has a choice of selecting the individuals he wants to travel with after having a look at the interested people’s profiles.
• MegaCarPool– This carpooling service is available in New Delhi and was started out by infrastructure construction company HICC Ltd. The best thing I liked about Mega Car Pool is that its members are verified before they can enter into any carpool. The verification process involves a visit at home by a Mega Car Pool employee who then looks at the person’s identification credentials and decides whether he/she is fit for ride-sharing or not. It also includes presentation of residential proof, driving license and citizenship ID.When a member is selected, he’s given a smart card with ID code and a GPS device is installed in his car. People who do not own any car can only enter into the club if a car-owner refers them. The following image will help explain the card system better:

  
  

• Carpooling.in – It’s a web portal which lets users anywhere in India create a carpool event. Interested members can get in touch with them through the site’s help. Although the website does not get a lot of traffic, and is not a validated way of forming a carpool, yet one can see current carpool listings from different cities like Gurgaon and Trichy.
• Wipro’s eShareride – Wipro launched this ride-sharing initiative for its employees a year ago in Bangalore and it has been doing good as far as I know. It was tested out with 100 people initially, and seeing the positive in-house response the whole thing was supposed to be phased out to more than 10,000 employees in their Bangalore offices. For facilitating the car-pooling process, application named eShareRide helps the staff helps its staff in boarding cars from various parts of the city to reach office and back to their residences.
• vRideAlong– An initiative by Bangalore based professionals, vRideAlong is a not-for-profit, self-funded, ‘Go Green’ ridesharing (carpool/bikepool) initiative. Started out in Bangalore the service has now spread across cities like Delhi, Mumbai and even outside India. The process is simple – register with your Corporate Email Id, add a route with origin, destination and intermediate locations, add a journey specifying date, time etc and then simply search ‘ride-sharers’ or ‘offer’ a ride to find people and contact them through their email service.

Companies should come up with more such initiatives. Being an IT giant, it might have been easier for Wipro to make a software for the whole thing.

The above initiatives are really doing a good job of conserving fuel and reducing the carbon footprint. I believe more such initiatives should be undertaken. These carpools can only be effective if they are concentrated to local regions. Although, we’ve seen some of them in the metropolitan cities, it’s time we start having organised Car Pools in smaller towns as well.

Car pool services can be non-profitable as in OliveTrips’ case, and profitable as in MegaCarPool’s case. I believe we should look upto the western nations where carpooling has become a common thing.

If you know of any car pooling startup or initiative near you just get in touch, so that we could update this list for others’ goodwill.

Google Shuts Down Buzz; Streamlines Products |

Google has learnt its lessons and is on a path to consolidation. It has finally realised that Google Buzz, was a bummer and has decided to shut it down. Other notable products that are going along with this are : Jaiku (acquired in 2007), iGoogle’s social features and Code Search.

Google VP of Product Bradley Horowitz writes on the Google Blog:

Changing the world takes focus on the future, and honesty about the past. We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+. Our users expect great things from us; today’s announcements let us focus even more on giving them something truly awesome.

What has Google learned from these products’ failure?

Horowitz states that privacy as a feature was the core philosophy which went into designing of Circles, a part of Google+. This has come after a fiasco in Buzz, where it revealed everyone you emailed with frequently the identity of others you emailed with frequently. Not good, especially if you have stalkers.

Jaiku, a product that had been with Google since 2007, was quite similar to Twitter. Only if the company had realised what they had and not wasted their time with Buzz. Instead they chose to make the founding team work on other doomed social projects (Wave, Buzz). While much of what Jaiku offered has been successfully integrated into Google+, it has been quite late in coming.

All these lessons are fine, but has Google truly understood social engineering?

Many have questioned the actual goal of Google entering the social space. Google’s strengths lie in data engineering, then why is a company, trying again and again something which it has repeatedly failed?

Former Google employee, Doug Edwards, shared the company’s true aim:

It’s not because they enjoy warm and fuzzy social interaction and they think oh, this would be a really wonderful way to bring our friends together and build a social circle. I think they take a much more calculated view of the value of the data they cannot get if they do not have a social network that is widely used. I think that scares them.

So if Doug is right about Google’s vision, apparently, Google is aiming to harvest that vast amount of user generated information and use it to sell products back to you. What an irony! You are being used to identify what you would like to buy, based upon all that you share!

It is quite admirable how hard Google is trying to make Google+ a success: streamlining its products, integrating the services and focusing on the core products, one can only hope that they get it right this time around. Google+ has around 40 million users as of now, but people have rejected it and are no more active on it, as seen on Twitter and Facebook.

What Google really needs now is a rethink, merely approaching this an engineering problem is not going to help.

Helion Partners invests US$ 3.5 million in Vienova Educatio |

Helion Partners, an early stage investment firm, has announced an investment of US$ 3.5 million in Vienova Education. Vienova Education is a startup based out of Delhi, providing affordable education via schools in North India. The fresh supply of funds follows the first round of funding by Indian Angel Network (IAN) and others in 2008.

What is Vienova?

Vienova uses technology to develop solutions to affordable eduction in India. It aims to address the vast divide between the private and public sector schools, and make quality education available to all strata. It is headed and founded by Parikshit Jain, an IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus who envisions Vienova’s aim to expand its network to more than 100 schools with teacher and student subscribing to the same curriculum and ethos. The fresh flow of investment will enable the company to move forward towards this very aim.

Sanjeev Aggarwal, Senior Managing Director of Helion Advisors has now joined the board of Vienova, following the investment. He will be joining current members, Saurabh Srivastava, Co-Founder IAN and Rohit Chand, founder of IIS-Infotech and Axis-IT&T.

Helion is a muti-stage, India focused venture fund with a total kitty of US$ 350 million, with investments in diverse spaces like outsourcing, internet, retail services. Along with IAN, which is geared towards providing resources and mentoriship to early stage business, Helio’s investment in Viena will definitely help to fuel its growth.

Mr. Parikshit explains how Viena aims to expand and maintain its growth:

By relying on innovative teaching practices and technologies, leading to huge customer traction, we aspire to quadruple our current content to over 20,000 hours by 2014. By cashing in on the strong customer demand from private sector schools, we shall continue our rapid growth and hope to achieve revenues of US$ 15 million by 2014.

Mr Sanjeev Aggarwal of Helion said on the current scenario of Indian education:

Education offers interesting opportunities, particularly in the mass market segment, for investors with a 5-10 year horizon. What’s more, through Vienova, we are very excited about providing quality education alternatives to the next generation, the social impact it can have and the huge scale that businesses in the sector can achieve.

Our Take

This deal again showcases that the the education sector in India is poised to grow, as there is a great demand for quality education and educational services at affordable prices for the masses. With over 100 million children in the country, it is turning out to be a lucrative option for many businesses.

While establishing schools and devising profits out of them might not be an ethical option, the educational services field is sure ripe with opportunities galore. Vienova seeks to meet challenges in this segment with a combination of low cost technology, teacher training and tailored education content.

Zarabol: A Twitter-like Product From Rediff |

Rediff India has launched a Twitter-like Mico Blogging named Zarabol that works just like Twitter. It has almost all the features of Twitter including #hashtags and @replies. Even the interface of the Website looks same as that of Twitter in past.

Features

• 140 characters limit for status updates.
• Two-way following (same as in Twitter).
• #hashtag support for topics.
• @reply to tag someone in a update or reply.
• Can add a photo or video with update.

However, it still lags far behind other micro-blogging sites in terms of features it provides. It doesn’t have features such as re-tweet on Twitter. Also, it is interesting to see that there is not even a single link to Zarabol on Rediff’s Homepage.

Our Take

It has been Rediff’s strategy to change with time as they previously had launched many products such as Rediff Bol Messenger after getting inspired with Yahoo Messenger. We would also like to mention here that Rediff was once considered to be India’s most visited and recommended website after sites like Google, Yahoo and Youtube. Now, it’s lagging behind as far as it being an online portal is considered. 21 percent of the site’s visits consist of only one pageview.

They were once called as India’s Yahoo. But then the quality of service and content kept decreasing day by day with their homepage serving semi-porn stuff (such as Oops video moment etc.)

However, we would also like to mention that though the quality has been on the lower side, still their traffic has been increasing. It is the tenth-most visited site in India, which is still a very good rank. With the Q3 results to be announced soon, they’ve launched this micro-blogging platform so that they have something more to buzz about!

 Ankit is founder of TechDip. A student of Software Engineering. He is a passionate writer who loves writing about anything and everything related to Technology. Ankit aims to be at the top in every field he is involved in.Catch him on Twitter @techpil or Google+

A Few Questions Answered Regarding Car Donations |

It’s coming to be that time again. You know the time of every year where Uncle Sam digs as deep as he can into consumers pockets! Tax time, that’s it. Well, if you have an old beat up clunker that doesn’t run in front of your house, you may want to consider a whole new tax deduction! By donating an old vehicle, you could be in for a bigger tax deduction than you expect. As a matter of fact, the minimum that you will get is $500.00 which is sure a great start!

So, how easy is donating a vehicle, well, here are a few commonly asked questions that should help you along your way:

Question: Does an automobile have to be in good running condition to be donated?

Answer: No, as a matter of fact, most cars that are donated by consumers are in a junk car condition meaning that the vehicle does not run and would not be good to sell to anyone! However, these junk cars can be scrapped for scrap metal which often equates to hundreds of dollars that will be donated to a charity from junk car.

Question: If the automobile is not in good running condition, do I have to pay to have it towed to the donation facility?

Answer: You shouldn’t have to! Because the majority of automobiles that are donated by Americans are junk automobiles that do not run, the majority of automobile donations companies have a contract with a towing corporation that makes towing your donations away easy and affordable for the donations corporation. In most cases, the corporation that accepts car donations will be the party that will pay to have the donation towed to their facilities.

Question: What are the Federal Guidelines for vehicle donation tax deductions?

Answer: The IRS’s vehicle donation tax law, allows the taxpayer to claim a charitable tax deduction as follows: If vehicle is sold for less than $500, you can claim the fair market value of your automobile donation up to $500 or the amount it is sold for if less than fair market value. If the vehicle sells for more than $500, you can claim the exact amount as an auto donation tax deduction for which the vehicle is sold.

The exact amount that your vehicle sold for will be indicated on the notification emailed to you, which also serves as your charitable tax deduction verification.

This article was written by Joshua Rodriguez and is brought to you by: Cars Helping Charities: Car For Donation | Donate A Car

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