We're 23 hours and 52 minutes away from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy SIII as I write this. On Twitter, tweets on this topic are flowing at a steady 0.3 tweets a second for the past few hours. That's if you call it S3. If you look at Samsung, it's 1.0 tweets a second. Galaxy is 0.8 a second.Nearly half of the tweets about S3 are links to something — maybe to the many rumour round-ups and photo leaks flooding the Internet, though only 0.7 per cent of the tweets are sharing pictures or videos. 99 per cent of the tweets are positive, which means there are no identifiable angry and upset words. Looking at the tweets, I see that there are a lot of 'can't wait to get my hands on..' statuses. 23 per cent of the updates are retweets. 18 per cent are getting replies. The rest are just flowing through the Twitterverse. 90 per cent of the tweets are from unique users, not just repeats. 12 per cent of the tweets contain a queation, mostly are-you-ready tweets. Let's see what they ask post-launch. Only 14 per cent are using a hashtag the top used at the moment being S3. This could change closer to the event. In fact, everything could change, and you can check that out for yourself. I have in front of me the people who are most associated with the tweets. And the list of top associated terms. And I'm most interested to see that 56 per cent of the users mentioned in S3 tweets are women. This stat hasn't changed for some hours.And now how about if I tell you that this isn't about the Samsung Galaxy SIII or 3 at all. It's about a fantastic Twitter analytics tool just created by social analytics expert, Dan Zarella and you can see and use it for free. I must say it makes for a very useful quick check for companies looking for some umderstandable data about the social buzz on their products. it's not bad for content producers either. Or anyone for that matter.Enter any term in the querry box and wait to get your report complete with all the pie charts and statistics. This job has so far been done by experts, using paid software and providing a greater level of data and insights. But Tweet Charts at tweetcharts.com is great data too. All that remains to be done is to make it useful by combining the stats with actual observations. And next, convert what you learn into benchmarks for planned change and action. For example, Baba Ramdev may be interested to learn that only 10 per cent of the tweets about his antics are positive. Sure, his followers (for his current mission) may not be on Twitter. Still.Mala Bhargava is a personal technology writer and media professionalContact her at mala at pobox dot com and @malabhargava on Twitter
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A flick, a wave, a nod, a tap. No gesture is out of bounds as tablets and phones take over the world, and new ways of interacting with them are explored. Some mean that you don't touch the surface, a technology that Microsoft has taken to another level with the Kinect. Sony has come up with a pre-touch sort of interaction where you hover just over the device. Computers are not immune to gestures either, as entire operating systems begin to incorporate movements on screen or touch pad. We will soon take gesture-based interfaces for granted as they become natural and ubiquitous. For now, here are a handful of apps that are quite touchy. ANYDOIntuitive Android app takes the thinking out of doingAnyDo is a squeaky clean, get-things-done app that is superlatively intuitive, adding a layer of touch gestures to make it even more usable. Sometimes that take so much managing they become tasks in themselves. But if you don't need something very complex and multi-layered, try the free AnyDo with its surprising number of features. It automatically becomes a widget on your homescreen. When you tap it, a clean screen invites you to enter things to do for Today, Tomorrow, This Week, or Later. You can voice-enter these and tap to confirm. You can set a reminder. To move tasks around, just press, hold and move. When you're done, a quick flick of the finger across the task will cross it out. When you've finished several tasks, give your phone a good shake to get rid of the lot. You can also sync with Google Tasks. Overall, AnyDo takes all the thinking out of task management. CLEARSwipe away your list of things to do with this iOS appClear got itself a lot of attention because everyone believed it demonstrated the future of gesture-based apps. It's even simpler than AnyDo, but that means it sacrifices on some functionality. Not a free app, it's just $0.99 and sits best on the iPhone though it works perfectly well on the iPad as well. Simpler to-do apps are best when on a handy device like a phone (or a piece of paper, for that matter) while complex collaborative apps will be easier to work with on a tablet or computer. Once you tap into Clear, you just tap to create a list and within that, a task. When you're done with it, just brush it away with a careless flick of the finger. Or keep it satisfyingly crossed out. Everything is done with swipes and pinches — there isn't a button in sight. You pinch open to expand lists and pinch inwards to collapse them. The gestures are actually more intuitive than with AnyDo, but then you don't have the added yet out-of-the-way functionality or the ability to voice-enter tasks. The lists are in nice bright colours, which of course adds to the pleasure of using an app. If you're looking for the simplest of to-do apps, you couldn't do better than Clear. DAEDALUS TOUCHWrite your stuff at a pinch and edit with two tapsThis text editor iPad app with an unpronounceable name can actually be disorienting at first because the "old way" of tapping on buttons and menus doesn't apply. Documents are not even called documents and pages aren't pages. Instead, you swipe through stacks of paper and pinch open to get a sheet to write on. A stack has as many sheets as you like. You double tap to get into edit mode. Unlike other apps, there's no handwriting, sketching, photo import, or other functions. It's just you and what you need to write. It's particularly interesting if you have separate chunks to write but all related to one subject or task. Daedalus has a customisable extension to the keyboard called Button Row where you can add things you do often. For example, you can set a set of quotation marks for quick access. When you then select a phrase, you can quickly click on the keyboard shortcut to enclose it in quotes. For $4.99 you get an app that uses gestures to manage files and quicker typing. RECHNERDo the math with a gesture or twoAnything can be more enjoyable if it's nicely designed — even the humble calculator. Rechner has been designed specifically for touch — specifically for the iPhone, in fact. Also works on the iPod Touch and iPad for $0.99. Rechner has a minimalist unthreatening design, attractive in its very simplicity, but best of all is how you swipe right to add and left to subtract. Other functions sit in a drawer and are not as slick. It's said to speed up calculations by up to 200 per cent but whoever calculated that must be in an exceptional hurry. TWEETBOT Twitter with a garnishing of gesturesFrom among the army of Twitter clients came Tweetbot, jostling out all the others as it optimised for the iPad recently. Tweetbot has many conveniences that others miss, but it also uses gestures to enhance its intuitive usability. You light-tap a tweet to open it up for options. You barely touch a link to find it opening up to a web view or letting you get straight to media like photos and videos. It was already clear and crisp and is now updated to take on the Retina Display of the new iPad. It's a smooth, flowing app which refreshes when you pull down the timeline with a finger. Where the swipes come into their own is when you swoosh left to see the conversation (all parties) for a tweet and right to see replies. Tweetbot has a lot of other exclusives — or near exclusives. You can mute people without unfollowing them. You can use multiple Twitter accounts. Most brilliant of all, you can read a linked article in web view or Readability mode, setting fonts and dark-light to suit your needs as you read longform. mala(at)pobox(dot)com, @malabhargava on Twitter (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 16-04-2012)
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Pradeep Singh is at ease as he lounges on a charpai, smoking a hookah in the courtyard of his ancestral house. His male cousins sit beside him while the womenfolk demonstrate the art of milking cows to guests from the city.For many Indians who live in western-styled, air-conditioned houses in urban areas, this pastoral setting in Haryana is an alien lifestyle, one that Singh packages and exhibits as a tourist attraction."People need a change from regular outings," said the 48-year-old landowner. "And I was always a bit of an entrepreneur."For years, a vacation for middle-class Indians meant a trip to a hill-station or a beach resort. But with rising affluence and evolving taste, there is a growing inclination to explore the "other India" and return to their roots.Their prosperity has not yet trickled down to rural areas. Many villages still do not have access to electricity, sanitation or clean drinking water and this has led to the emergence of starkly different lifestyles.While city dwellers are increasingly westernised, Indian villages still abide by centuries-old agrarian customs.In 2006, Singh converted his farm into an amusement park of sorts. Here, tourists can ride a tractor, plough fields, cook on an earthen stove or make cow dung cakes while interacting with the local community."People want their children to connect to the rural side of the society," said Singh. "And they want to reconnect with their own roots."Rural or farm tourism is a relatively new concept in India, allowing urban Indians and foreign tourists get a taste of rustic life. They can live with a family or independently, and assist with day-to-day village activities, while learning about agriculture, wildlife, traditional art and culture.The Ministry of Tourism website says it supports over 150 such rural projects in the country."The aim is to not let the rural lifestyle die," said Subhash Verma, president of the Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India. "Also, to showcase and economically support village handicrafts and artists."While Singh, a wealthy landowner, is in this business to make money, his farm in Jhajjar, an area famous for its pottery, is giving many villagers stable employment."I have been able to send all my children to school," said Kalavati, a widow who cooks millet rotis for guests at the farm. She was earlier a construction labourer with no fixed income.Rural tourism has also helped people like Sukhbir Nath.Men in Nath's family had been snake charmers for generations until the Indian government outlawed ownership of snakes. While many from his community lost their livelihoods and were forced to take up menial jobs, Nath now plays the snake charmer's flute to welcome tourists at Singh's farmhouse."Tourism is great because it is one of the largest economic multipliers in the world," said Inir Pinheiro, whose company Grassroutes promotes village tourism in Maharashtra.While environmental activist Ashish Kothari is wary of outside operators using the village community as a selling point for their tours, he supports community-managed farm tourism."Farm tourism is the new buzzword," he said. "If managed by and for the local community, then it will benefit them."Village Life, Within LimitsUrban Indians are keen to embrace village life, but few such tourists leave the city behind entirely."Our children are not acquainted with the village life at all, so we thought it would be entertainment, plus we will know of the other India," said Delhi-based advertising professional Rakesh Budhiraja, while watching his son take a mud bath.Special toilets were built on Singh's farm so that guests didn't have to answer nature's call in the open."(On a village trip) we get hand sanitisers, sunscreens, our own water, biscuits for our kids in case they don't like the food here," said Vandana Shah Irani, a tourist from Gurgaon.The gap between the city dwellers and their hosts has caused friction, and the impact of the flood of tourists is worrying for some. Singh has stopped taking big groups of tourists into the village and avoids organizing home-stays."In the past, we had school children who were disgusted by the cow dung, made faces at the villagers and laughed at the dialect," he said.It is not just village pride that is threatened by tourists. The business can also jeopardise the ecological climate.While rural tourism is supposed to be eco-friendly, environmental activists such as Kothari believe that most places merely pay lip service to the concept."Ninety-nine percent of the tourism in India ignores the impact it has on the community," he added.Singh, for his part, now takes only serious study groups to interact with the village community."We can't take 1,500 children into a village," he said. "If you can contribute to the culture, and take away from the culture, we organise tours."Pinheiro's company also does not allow more that 40 tourists in a village at a time. They are asked to take their waste back to the city."The community packs the garbage in a plastic bag and hands them to the tourists," he said. "Garbage does not belong to the village; it belongs in the city."(Reuters)
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At last, the Indian handset manufacturer Micromax Informatics has entered the tablet market but with a twist. The company has launched an education cum entertainment tablet targeted at 67 per cent (i.e. about 20 mn) of the Indian urban youth. The 'Funbook' on Ice-cream Sandwich (Android 4.0.3) comes with 7" capacitive screen, runs on 1.2GHz processor and is 1cm in thickness. It has 4GB internal memory that can be extended upto 32GB. Micromax has partnered with various content and service providers such as Pearson, Everonn, GK Publishers, Scholarshub, Vidyalankar, Universal Tutorials, CAPS, and Zion for the education related content on its very first tablet. BigFlix, Zenga and Indiagames will provide entertainment and gaming applications."We have entered into strategic partnerships with about 900 content and service providers to offer more than 600 courses for the students," said Deepak Mehrotra, CEO of Micromax at the tablet launch. "Apart from the preparatory material for medical, engineering and MBA, the e-learning apps will allow access to courses ranging from class 1 to degree courses for CBSE, ICSE and various state boards."Mehrotra claimed that Funbook happens to be the very first tablet that was conceptualised and manufactured in India.The device priced at Rs 6,499 will be available at 100,000 retail outlets across 50 cities in India. The consumers can also order it through snapdeal.com. To make online content available to users, the device will come bundled with Tata Photon plus.The Funbook has a 0.3 MP VGA front facing camera and comes with HD Video playback at 1080p. The tablet comes in silver and black colours.
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BenQ announced the launch of its palm-size mobile projector Joybee GP2 in India on Wednesday. The projector is specifically designed for multi-purpose usage such as multimedia digital entertainment, educational purpose, business presentation and with more focus on travelling.GP2 has been designed to combine ease-of-use with optimal performance allowing users to create big picture screening experience. The device has all-in-one iPhone/iPod compatible dock including optional battery pack, highly power-efficient 3LED projections technology, 720p HD-ready short-throw projection, 200 ANSI lumen brightness, superior multimedia tablet connectivity, multiple format support, SD card slot, USB reader, file transfer to 2GB on board memory from computers and two 2W stereo speakers.The Joypee GP2 is built around a DLP chip along with an LED light source which can be project for 30000 hour without decrease brightness in the Eco Mode.Rajeev Singh, Country Head & general Manager, BenQ India said "GP2 is not a replacement of the LCD/LED/TV but it can be use as a portable TV set while you are on vacation".The GP2 can project up to a maximum image size of 160 inches. It has 1.13 short throw projections which can fetch your image up to 44-inches at a distance of 1-metre. It has two in-built speakers that can be useful for living rooms, offices and listening music via iPod dock.The product will be available in the market from next month at the price of Rs 39,167 (the optional battery will charge Rs 5000 more)."We have launched this product in 20 countries covering all four metros and B class cities including Chandigarh, Lucknow, Indore, Chochin, Bhubneshvar and Guhavati is more a more focused market for us", added Rajeev.The product will be available at all the leading stores which are projecting LCD, gaming device etc. including Croma stores, also alternate channels like online shopping websites. According to the company, they are planning to sell 2500 devices in this financial year with targeting more individuals through retail chain stores.
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They say it all the time: tablets are only good for consumption, not creation. And phones are only good for tapping out a bit of email. For one, you cannot type as you are used to doing. Keys are not spread out enough and you cannot even spill your coffee in peace. For another, the software just is not there. True, you have no end of notepads and to-do apps, but where are Word and Excel and Photoshop? And where is the familiarity of Windows?Well, if your device has a browser, and you have a keyboard, you are in luck. Add to that a VGA-out cable to connect to a television or monitor, and you are in business. With these, and a promising cloud-based platform called nivio, you can access Windows and a bouquet of 120 applications (increasing 10 per day) on any device — that means the iPad, Mac, Android devices, Chromebook and others that have a browser supporting HTML5. We have been talking about software in the cloud for years. But other than services to major corporations, they have not touched the individual user. Nivio comes out of over two years of beta to offer the operating system, desktop, storage and applications from its app store. You register with nivio via your browser. You get a unique URL and 10GB of space free to begin with. So, yes, you can use it as your cloud storage if you choose. Next, you find that there are three parts to the platform. First, nDrive — the online storage and synchronisation app. It lets you sync all your data to all your devices, simultaneously. When you make a change in one place, it replicates on all devices. Nivio says it sends only the changes, so this saves bandwidth and time. You can work on a file at one place, leave it open and go off and resume elsewhere. There is a client to download, upload, share and manage files from anywhere.The next and more impressive chunk is the nDesktop. You log in with the browser or an app, your device turns into a Windows 7 desktop. I was tickled to find my iPad sport a Windows desktop, complete with touch-cursor. On this desktop, you can put in applications from the third part: nApps in the nCentre or the app store. Some apps are free, some can be rented. As a user, you have different usage plans and once in, you just log in to access everything. For students, it is Rs 80 a month for a 10-hour plan and Rs 225 for unlimited. For everyone else, it is Rs 250 and Rs 600. For small businesses, with additional functionality including a virtual network, it's Rs 875 per user per month for unlimited usage. Nivio has just been launched in the US and comes to in India on 5 April. But nivio has had a partnership with Airtel to offer nDrive and an online desktop since 2009. We do not know how many customers took the service as this was a beta, but they say the partnership helped them develop the market. The guys at nivio are aiming at several customer segments for their service. How about people who have really old machines? Say you have a bunch of old computers at the office and you are not interested in upgrading them, but they are not exactly throwaways. Use them for temporary tasks and projects, accessing heavyweight applications through nivio. You can even run the most recent versions of everything on an old PC because these are not being installed on the machine and demanding better hardware. Another lot who will find nivio a practical solution are those who cannot afford Windows, MS Office and much of the other software. Students could fall into that category. Anyone who works on multiple devices will also find nivio both convenient and cost-saving. Instead of buying several versions of software for a hefty sum, you rent it and it is tied to you, not the device you are using. I was able to see the entire suite working at a good speed pre-launch, but how the service holds up given our connectivity will only be clear after rollout. The access to Windows and applications is perfectly legit. It works in a partnership between nivio and Microsoft under the Service Provider License Agreement. It is not actually Windows 7 directly that you use, but Windows 2008 R2 Server delivering a Windows 7-like experience. Nivio has some competition from two services launched recently: OnLive and CloudOn, both are yet to arrive in Asia. OnLive caused a big stir when it offered Windows, Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader on the iPad and Android tablets with 2GB of storage. No other applications, however. CloudOn brings Microsoft Office to the iPad. Sachin Dev Duggal, founder and CEO of nivio, says this validates the concept and the space. And it's a space for which he has many more plans, moving on from what happens to be a world first.mala(at)pobox(dot)com, (at)malabhargava on Twitter (This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 02-04-2012)
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Investors in Apple Inc have a one-word answer for those who wonder whether this corporate juggernaut can maintain its phenomenal momentum in the years ahead: Asia.The iconic maker of the iPhone, iPad and iPod has barely scratched the surface of the region, home to around 60 per cent of the world's population - a fact that Apple itself alluded to in reporting an eye-popping set of earnings this week.Apple's numbers, which included a 70 per cent jump in December-quarter revenues and a doubling in profits, actually excluded sales of its hottest new product, the iPhone 4S, from its biggest single potential market, China.The latest iPhone did not go on sale there until this month, and there were near-riots as demand immediately ran ahead of supply, with empty-handed shoppers throwing eggs at Apple's typically minimalist glass-fronted store in Beijing.And in China's long shadow, other virtually untapped Asian markets such as India and Indonesia are waiting to be conquered, together home to around 1.4 billion people."I want an iPhone because of the lifestyle, it's a trendy phone to have," says 19-year-old Dylan who works at a hip fashion boutique, The Goods Dept, in downtown Jakarta.Sporting a trendy haircut, a long pendant necklace, jeans and vintage Ray Ban sunglasses, he is typical of style-conscious consumers everywhere to whom Apple's sleek devices are not so much useful gadgets as essential fashion accessories.But Dylan, and hundreds of millions of other aspiring Apple customers from Jakarta to Shanghai to Mumbai, have a problem: they cannot afford to buy the main objects of their desire. At about $830, even the older iPhone 4 costs twice the monthly salary of a young foreign exchange dealer in Jakarta.That simple fact - unaffordability across emerging Asia - has begun to test faith in Apple's ability to maintain its torrid sales growth without a big foray into a new product category, like TV. Though its shares keep rising, its future earnings become cheaper: valued at about 30 times earnings a few years ago, Apple's stock now trades at half that multiple.As Apple waits for Asian incomes to catch up, there is a risk that savvy competitors, especially main rival Samsung Electronics Co, could catch it napping with cheaper products that are becoming better, and cooler.Indonesia remains a redoubt of Research in Motion Ltd's <RIM.TO> BlackBerry, largely because it is more affordable, according to those like Dylan who use it: "If they (iPhones) got cheaper, I would consider buying one," he says matter-of-factly.Pricing is also an issue in India, where the smartphones of choice belong to Samsung, maker of the Galaxy, and to Nokia and RIM's BlackBerry."I would much rather have bought one but I didn't have enough money to buy it. It's as simple as that," said Soubhik Mukherjee, 26, a social-media marketing strategist in New Delhi."It's quite ridiculously priced in India ... I don't have that kind of disposable income."Mukherjee plans to buy a smartphone next month and is considering a BlackBerry or a Samsung Galaxy. "Apple's biggest strength till now has been the user interface. It is the sleekest phone possible, the possibilities, design, basically the App store ... But I guess now there is an alternative. Two years ago it wasn't there, but now it's there."The Cult Of AppleIndustry experts say Apple could develop a cheaper version of iPhone for the big Asian markets, without jeopardising its prodigious profit margins, but other obstacles would remain, such as compatibility of new products with local telecoms networks and how to distribute them.In China, for example, network technology is not sufficient to fully support iPhone and iPad capabilities, so some customers there cannot surf the Internet through either device unless they connect to a WiFi hotspot such as at a cafe or hotel.China's biggest service provider, China Mobile Ltd with more than 600 million subscribers, may not have matching technology in place commercially until late this year or 2013.Network problems also exist in India where 3G telecom services are only now starting to be rolled out, just as Apple prepares for the 4G revolution in its advanced markets.The pick-up of 3G in India has been slower than expected, partly due to high service prices but mainly because most Indians still use phones just to talk or send text messages. Internet browsing and making video calls are a technological world away for those living outside India's cities.Even after overcoming Asia's network challenges, Apple still needs to cater for the region's fondness for pre-paid phones. Consumers prefer not to sign up for 12-month or two-year contracts under which telecoms firms are more likely to subsidise the cost of an iPhone and help drive sales."I don't see the carriers subsidising the cost of the handset," said Anshul Gupta, principal research analyst at consultancy Gartner Inc."There's no money with the consumer, there's no money with the carriers ... When they (carriers) subsidise the cost of the handset, they will have to pay Apple the money upfront."WaitingDespite signs that Asia is not all low-hanging fruit, ripe for the picking by Apple, some industry analysts are confident the region's collective yearning for an iPhone will ultimately be satisfied, and Apple's profits will keep soaring as a result.China has more than 950 million mobile phone users, more than Europe's population, and its economy threatens to overtake the United States as the world's largest within 15 years.Barclays Capital says Apple's five stores in China and one in Hong Kong are its busiest and among its best revenue-generators on the planet, a hint of the potential in coming years as it confronts Samsung on its Asian home turf.Chinese demand is so strong that smuggling of real iPhones and sales of fakes are rising and copy-cat stores masquerading as real Apple outlets - and selling genuine Apple products - have sprouted up everywhere from Beijing to Kunming."Network incompatibility and those kind of issues will probably get resolved very quickly. I don't think that is an issue which could be a real hurdle," said Gokul Hariharan, an analyst at J.P. Morgan in Hong Kong."Pricing, probably yes, would need to come down over time to enable market penetration, but I think for now the brand is basically viewed more like an aspirational brand... Even 10 to 15 per cent penetration is actually quite a high number."Around the region, Apple distributors are finding novel ways to ease the burden of buying an iPhone or an iPad. Croma, an Indian electronics store chain store owned by the Tata Group, is offering a WiFi-only version of the iPad 2 for a down-payment of just 2,458 rupees with the rest due in 12 equal monthly instalments.Currently, though, Apple's overall sales in the Asia-Pacific region, excluding the mature market of Japan, account for less than a fifth of group sales and the penetration of the iPhone, its top seller, trails behind its biggest rival, Samsung.For some analysts, this is Apple's biggest risk: while it waits for Asians to scrimp and save for an iPhone or an iPad, these consumers instead develop a taste and a loyalty to other products such as Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets.Apple's share of the smartphone market has more than doubled in China since the first quarter of 2010, but Samsung, which recently passed Apple as the world's top smartphone maker, has meanwhile seen its share more than quadruple.Apple stole back its global lead with sales of 37 million iPhones in the December quarter, more than double its sales from a year earlier, versus 36.5 million smartphone sales for Samsung, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.But other hungry competitors are also aggressively targeting China and eyeing other new Asian markets.China's own Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp are producing smartphones for less than 2,000 yuan, half the price of a basic iPhone 4.Apple EnvyApple's new boss, Tim Cook, who took over as chief executive shortly before founder Steve Jobs died in October, is targeting China aggressively and has indicated that Apple's experience there could help it to penetrate other new Asian markets.Apple has hinted that adding carriers is probably one way to expand in these countries, but no announcements have been made."I have tried to be very clear in the past, and I will do so again, that we have a ton more energy in the China market today," Cook said in presenting Apple's results on Tuesday."China is an extremely important market for us and we continue to look at how to grow it further."Some analysts say Apple needs to hasten its Asian expansion, developing cheaper handsets and working with more telecoms carriers in the region, but confidence remains high that it can conquer new markets and keep the juggernaut rolling.In Indonesia, consumers like shop assistant Dylan will be waiting for it."The chance for Apple to dominate the market is there, perhaps over three years from now as our GDP per capita is increasing and the iPhone price is going down," said Harry Su, head of research at Jakarta-based PT Bahana Securities."I'm sure many Indonesians would love to buy an iPhone."(Reuters)
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IT products maker WishTel on Friday said it will participate in the second round of bid for low-cost tablet PC 'Aakash', though it had lost out to Datawind in the first round.The government will float a tender for the upgraded version of the tablet, Aakash 2, soon. However, neither the timing of the tender nor the number tablets to be supplied has been decided yet."We are eagerly waiting for the same, given an opportunity we are getting ready for this project, it is a very ambitious project," WishTel Chief Executive Officer Milind Shah told PTI.Aakash, termed as the world's cheapest tablet PC, was launched in October last year by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal. It comes with a price tag of mere Rs 2,276 whereas the high-end tablet PC will cost anything between Rs 25,000 and Rs 40,000.Aakash is be supplied to students at a subsidised rate of Rs 1,500."Between ourself and Datawind, price for device was competitive, we lost out on deliverables in terms of service support, maintenance, logistics, taxes and other things. For the device, we were lower against Datawind by 10 cents, or 8 cents to be precise," Shah said.In the overall bidding, too, Wishtel lost out to Datawind by just around 3.5 dollars, he claimed.When asked about the expected price of upgraded version of the tablet, he said, "I still cannot answer this really until we don't really know the specifications." No company can make claims of supplying Aakash 2 as specifications are not yet finalised, he added.Shah said the low price of the device may not be a problem for the company as the volumes are very large."See the difference that's going to be happen with Aakash2 is that there are huge volumes that are being committed compared to Aakash 1 ... they are talking about five million devices ... the economics works out differently for such large volumes," he said.The company on Friday launched two tablet PCs, Ira and Ira Thing, at a price ranging from Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,500 to cash in on the burgeoning market for the low-cost PCs in the country.Featuring a seven-inch touchscreen and Android operating system, the tablets support HD video, WiFi and 3G. The devices come with an in-built memory of 2GB (Ira) and 4GB (Ira Thing), which can be extended up to 32 GB and are based on VIA Technologies' chipsets.The company claims that the devices can also support 23 Indian languages with Linux operating system. WishTel has a network of over 350 distributors across India. The devices are manufactured at its facilities in Maharashtra and Gujarat. (PTI)
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