Robots have becomes a familiar site in factories. While at present they are machines that perform tasks for which they are programmed, eventually we intend robots to be self-learning machines that study patterns and causes and make their own decisions. This is what a few startups from India are trying to achieve and their robots can not only make their own decisions, but their software can also be updated remotely, are easy to use and ten time more cost effective than a robot supplied by the large companies. Startups like Grey Orange Robotics, GridBots, Omnipresent Robotics, Gade Systems and Systemantics have kick-started the robot revolution to rescue Indian manufacturing. If you just take the Indian automobile industry, as an example, the annual wage payout by large OEMs is around $3.5 billion or 10 per cent of the total revenues of the industry. This payout is growing and is marred by continous demonstrations to raise the wages for shop-floor workers. Many a time, the product quality standards are found wanting and this needs immediate correction. If India has to manufacture for the world then robots need to be deployed on a large scale. In two years, these startups would have inspired several other start-ups to build thinking machines. Sometimes there is a feeling that there are very few parallels between drones and robots. But there are differences and these robots matter to us. One would think in an industrial world dominated by a Denso, Siemens & Kuka, start-ups don’t seem to stand a chance. But the opportunity is large and predicted to be $1.5 trillion, in annual spends, by 2020, according to Gartner. The current spends are $800 billion. It is large enough market to make a dent, even today, and these young entrepreneurs are here just to do that. Robots To The RescueGridbots and GreyOrange Robotics are trying to achieve “singularity”, which basically means that machine intelligence will far exceed human intelligence. “Singularity will happen in 40 years. But before that a robot or a machine has to be a butler and solve problems that exist in factories,” says Samay Kohli, co-founder of Grey Orange Robotics in Delhi. The trigger of plunging in to robotics for Kohli and Akash Gupta, the co-founder, was their fondness for creating thinking machines and being science fiction buffs. It was obvious that they would try their hand at making robots from a young age and the passion actually took seed in their alma-mater, BITS Pilani in 2008. Their machines were recognized at the Robo Olympics for winning the Kung Fu championship and they also participated in a Robo Cup Soccer tournament. “These competitions, held every year, want us to build robots that can one day beat a human sports team,” says Kohli. Meanwhile his education helped him visit Virginia Tech and the University of Louisiana, in the USA, to study robotics. At the time of graduating, in 2010, college they founded the company in pursuit of making affordable robots for factories. They decided to differentiate and focus on a few sectors such as retail. The low hanging fruit was the grading and sorting of material in an ecommerce company or a warehouse or logistics company. Their argument for entering the segment was simple; “large industrial organizations are often sold versions of robots whose software cannot be updated for ten years and these systems need an entire IT system to manage them”, says Kohli. Being expensive, industrial robots do not make sense to several industries in agriculture, basic packaging and poly-pack material handling. Currently, industrial robots handle heavy equipment and commercial robots can handle only boxed items in warehouses. The idea of Grey Orange Robotics found its sweet spot. The team began building their bots for handling poly-packs, which immensely benefitted Indian courier and logistics system. They received angel funding of $1 million by the end of their first year and began approaching Flipkart and Myntra, ecommerce giants, to use their bots to sort material. Now the e-commerce industry has been using over 30 odd bots delivered by Grey Orange. What these machines do is that they are like a radio controlled car, but much more complex in tech, that goes around the warehouse and brings the item to the shipper. Then another product takes over where it sorts the items based on orders placed or cancelled. These robots can sort 500 items, per hour, while an average human can do about 300 items a day. This was the cost saving that they bought to the table of these companies that were dependent on logistics software to make the consumer happy. Also the company’s robots do not need onsite servers; any update of the software is done remotely. Sanjay Nath, founder of Blume Ventures, and one of the angel investors in the company, says “Indian startups, in the engineering segment, have huge potential to solve industrial problems. The number of startups will increase with the make in India campaigns being run by the government.” This year Tiger Global, the US based fund, invested an undisclosed amount, sources say about $8 million, in Grey Orange because the company could scale up to meet growing orders in the A-Pac region. The materials for the robots come from six countries. The precision parts and gear box comes from Germany, the chipsets and advanced electronics come from the USA and Italy. Today 70 odd engineers build these bots in Singapore and they are 6 times cheaper than robots provided by larger companies, which basically charge not less than $ 1 million. Pulkit Gaur, GridbotsWhile Samay and Akash solve problems for warehouses, Gridbots, an Ahmedabad based start-up, is trying to solve hazardous and dangerous problems faced by scientists in nuclear plants. Their robots dispose nuclear tubes or rods and nuclear waste. Pulkit Gaur, who founded GridBots, worked in a software company for three years before plunging full time in to building robots. While pursuing his software career he realized his passion for building software, for machine learning, and also building machines that could minimize human intervention. In 2010, he showcased a robot that could clean radioactive tanks, which garnered great interest and he was immediately contracted by government agencies to build robots for them. NTPC and the Bhaba Automatic Research Centre contacted the company to supply bots that could dispose nuclear tubes in to steel tanks with heavy water. It is difficult for an engineering startup to keep the money flowing because the timeline to deliver a product and receiving the payment takes months. Pulkit and team created a consulting arm to work with any company looking to set up robots in their facility. “Soon efficiency will need to be created in Indian manufacturing and many companies will adopt robots,” says Gaur. He is now scouting for opportunities in the food processing industry and automobile paint shops. Today 95 percent of GridBots work is done for the government of India. The business model for Grid Robots is to charge per robot deployed, which also includes an annual maintenance fee and software upgrade. A couple of months ago the Tata Power plant in Mundra had a unique problem because a 2-feet long wooden log had jammed one of the steam pipes. This had led to one of the five turbines, of 800 MW, to be temporarily shut down and the plant was incurring a loss of Rs 2 crore per day. Gridbots, was called in to bring their 150 mm (width&height) stringer robot to retrieve the wooden log and relieve the steel pipes in a matter of two days. After a grueling 36-hour operation, the robot was able to pull the ‘block’ out of the pipes. This start-up is currently self funded and it has sunk in more than Rs 2 crore. The good news is that it is finally preparing a plan to raise $4 million to invest in a R&D centre. However, talent is a problem. Pulkit Gaur has also created an education company, which teaches only robotics. The company called Edubotix sets up labs across the country’s colleges and schools. Gagan Goyal, ThinkLabs (BW Pic by Shubhabrata DasSimilar to Edubotix is another company called Thinklabs, which was started by ex-IITian Gagan Goyal in 2007. His company has set up robotics labs in 90 cities and has also trained teachers in robotics. It has been funded by Seed Ventures and has raised $1.2 million. “Today there is a need to inculcate robotics education from a young age; this is the only way India can tap talent to make robots in ten years,” says Goyal, founder of ThinkLabs. The company supplies smart kits, mostly Arduino boards along with 8 Bit microcontrollers, to school students and allows them to innovate based on logic. There are some who want to take their learning from University and the Corporate world to build robots and they are already readying themselves for a major push in manufacturing. Robots AssistantsOmnipresent Robots, founded in 2010 in Delhi, is one such company that has been in R&D stage for a while. Aakash Sinha, who studied robotics at Carnegie Mellon in 2003, moved back to India- in 2007- to set up the office of US based robotics company iRobot. A couple of years later Sinha, a veteran of building 3000 robots and robo-tanks back in the USA, realized that India had a unique set of use cases. That is when he jumped in to start his own company. “Everyone is catching on to the made in India campaign now. But our robots were being made four years ago and can be used at homes,” says Sinha. They started with pilot program and created a bomb disposal robot which was later accepted by the DRDO, at Delhi, in 2011. After a few years, one filled with iterations, along with the government agency, the company realized that robots can be used at homes too, say to clean and vacuum. They are now scouting for $2 million to scale up their business plan and operations. The whacky ideas don’t stop there. Others are thinking of applications in retail shops. Founded in 2012, Gade Systems – started by Sasi Kiran Gade – is trying to make the Corporate world accept robots differently. “Imagine robots helping you in the trial room or giving the consumer the store’s perspective on the product,” says Gade. It is not easy though because he is yet to create a business model. However for the moment he is hard at work to build several applications that can make the robot work for any given task. He has personally, through family sources, invested $70,000 and is in the process of raising $1 million by the middle of 2015. Today his product “the shopping assistant” is ready to be commercialized and is completely localized. Similar to Gade Systems is Systemantics, which was also funded by Blume Ventures in 2014, and the company had built a robot arm for industrial use with the help of the Department of Science and Technology. Robotics, as an industry, is still a nascent subject in the country and most of the robots are only programmed for limited operations. Visit a Tata Motors plant in Pune and you will find that robotics is playing a major role in the manufacturing industry, especially in welding, material handling, sealant applications, painting, foundry applications and automated press shops. They bring consistency in quality of the outcome. “There is significant amount of reduction in fatigue and safety risks. The applications are cost effective only in the areas mentioned above and one cannot provide a ratio at a manpower level,” says Girish Wagh, Vice President at Tata Motors. Similarly walk in to the Hyundai factory in Chennai and you will find that robots have been deployed for difficult jobs. “Our efforts are to harness human intelligence and use automation in areas where the jobs need high precision, which cannot be achieved even with a highly skilled worker,” says T Sarangarajan, VP Product at Hyundai Motors India Limited. He says that Robots can be used in some things which involve the 3Ds– “dirty, difficult and dangerous processes” or “where work could pose a health related risk”. For example, in the body shop, robots are used for high precision welding. Welding is difficult, dirty and accident prone task. The weight of the welding gun can at times go beyond 10 kgs and using robots minimizes the exposure of the worker to such hazards and ensuring precise welding. This culminates into greater stability for the end product. According to the Gartner Hype Cycle 2013 machines are becoming better at understanding humans and the environment — for example, recognizing the emotion in a person's voice — and humans are becoming better at understanding machines — for example, through the Internet of things. At the same time, machines and humans are getting smarter by working together. The pet peeve, of analysts, is to say that “smart” everything is the future of business. We must keep in mind that it is not in plain coding or services; it is creating an architecture or framework for digital services. The problem though does not stop there, the R&D spend in India is less than 2 per cent in manufacturing, because most of the R&D is happening at the global headquarters of MNCs. Maybe Indian manufacturing companies need the capital, in the form of loans and equity investment, to build or buy robots, which will be operated by human beings. Then and only then will the made in India campaign win in the long run.
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For the past couple of days I’ve been “Periscoping” with Twitter’s new video streaming app. Not streaming my own activities – I don’t have the courage for that yet – but being a bit of a voyeur and checking out other peoples’ broadcasts. Periscope and Meerkat are two new apps and open to you if you have an iPhone, though they’ll turn up for Android devices soon enough. A bunch of techies I spoke to asked me what the big deal was and pointed out that video streaming had always been available. “What about UStream?” they demanded. What about Ustream is that no one knows how what or where to use UStream. With video streaming having been made as easy as pressing a button on your phone, everyone is, quite abruptly, a broadcaster. At the moment users are only just discovering and trying out Periscope and Meerkat. They’re comparing features, making wishlists of features, and bumbling about with video streams. You could easily get turned off as you try out these apps right now. For some reason, showing you the inside of a fridge has become a tradition already. You can see someone’s messy room, go along for the car ride to office or the walk back home, go weak at the knees at everyone’s cute puppies and purring cats, or listen to someone taking requests for karaoke. But already, the future possibilities are beginning to show up. As you get into the app and look at the feed of streams, you’ll also find you can all but attend presentations – as they happen – feel the buzz in a newsroom, look at how busy they are (or not) at an ad agency, and most incredibly, go along, from your place far away, with a reporter as he or she covers a happening. Sure, someone can just turn on Skype or something and show you what’s happening elsewhere, but not with this smoothness, not with this ease, and not out on Twitter for anyone to join in. In fact, when a stream is in progress, you can just use the comment box to ask questions or otherwise say something. I just amused myself with a stream in which a lady, for some reason, decided to show us her chicken coup. I spent a few minutes asking her things and reassuring myself she wasn’t going to eat them up and went on to the next thing – a view of the San Francisco bay from another lady’s house. It was beautiful and she laughed when I said she could just dream all day. What I’m getting at here is that participation is possible from across the world. The experience is somehow intimate, making it all the more powerful and really letting you see the world from someone else’s eyes. If a person chooses to stay quiet, it isn’t as much fun, of course. But if the person wants to interact, you have a powerful interaction going. A young man was driving home in Calcutta. On the way, he proudly pointed out new hotels, flyovers and other parts of the city. I remarked that he sounded very proud of his city and he said yes indeed, he was. He felt it was a place where there was more “bonding” than in other places in India. He considered himself very lucky to be living there and even luckier to be heading towards his new flat, close to the airport, in a nice green area. A few moments of this interaction made me feel happy for someone else. Broadcasting video has so far been something only professionals and tech savvy people could do. Not any more. Periscope and Meerkat are designed to keep all the technology away from the user and just leave him with a button to press. Then, position your phone, and you’re on the air. In the first flush of how much investment these apps have got, which one of them will survive and which not, and other nitty gritty, I don’t hear too much about how the use of video anywhere anytime is going to pan out. If people can use something, they can misuse it, and that’s where the fun begins. If someone had an iPhone, one of these apps, and a healthy internet connection, he could have streamed everything that happened inside that AAP meeting and we’d have known who beat up who. What happens when there’s a nice bribe in progress, and someone streams it all live, then and there? What happens if you’re in a movie hall and you just stream the whole movie out? A psychiatrist friend of mine is worrying about what the implications would be if one of his patients decided to video stream something at the clinic – perhaps involving other people. Could everyone’s privacy be in peril this way, just as it was with Google Glass? Will we constantly have to be on guard and be TV ready, doing only what we think is ok to stream live to the world? As you can imagine, there’s immediately no end of filming of women, dancing, parties, and intensely personal material. That’s side by side with all the fantastic boat rides, hike into the hills, interviews, access to people you’d never get a chance to talk to otherwise. As someone who’s always been intensely interested in new technology, I think the democratisation of video with one-button broadcasting is exciting. But as usual, one has to consider the serious flip side, specially as you can’t keep mobile phones out of everywhere and nor will video streaming apps go away easily, back where they came from, leaving the world as it was a few days ago.
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Motorola made a comeback to India last year in a brand new avatar with some impressive devices at affordable prices. The company grabbed a lot of attention and forced smartphone makers to provide a better experience package at an affordable price range. The Moto G and the Moto X received a worthy upgrade last year and it was only a matter of time when the smallest of the lot, the Moto E, received an update. The all new Moto E 2015 has grown in size and sports a 4.5-inch display. The overall design has seen an improvement and it looks and feels better than the last gen. It is still curvy and feels thick, although it fits perfectly in the hand. The back has a rubberised finish for a good grip and you also get a removable textured rim that sits around the edges. This rim is an attractive addition to the smartphone as it boosts the overall quality of the device. One can even change the looks of the smartphone by simply replacing the removable rim from a variety of coloured ones available from Motorola. Other minor updates include a quad-core processor (Snapdragon 200) which is a bump from the previous dual-core version. The Moto E will also be available in a 4G variant which will come with a snappier Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor. The internal memory has also seen an upgrade as you now get 8GB of onboard storage along with a microSD card expansion and yes, now you also get a front camera with a low quality VGA (640x480) resolution. The loudspeaker at the bottom of the display has been removed and now it is fitted right next to the earpiece. This was probably due to the larger screen size. Motorola has also added a larger battery which provides more juice and longer standby time. Running on the latest Android Lollipop update the software experience is quite swift and to make it even sweeter, Motorola has added the Ambient Display feature which was first featured on the Moto X. This feature gives you notifications without having to unlock your device. Motorola, just like Xiaomi, has looked onto the issues from the last year’s model and improved them on the Moto E 2015. While it is quite worth the price, it is not worth upgrading from the last year model until you have the money to splurge. There are some minor tidbits that make it an attractive package, but there are a bunch of smartphones like the Redmi 2 and Lenovo A6000 at a similar Rs 6,000 price range.
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The stature of digital technology is such that, without it, the general pace of our lives will divulge into bewilderment. Digital platforms being integrated intimately to our lifestyle have become the standards of our daily activities. In present times, we are connected to technology in a way or by another. They have improved our modes of living, transforming every aspect to which we are connected. Communication, education, business, governance, entertainment and so on, have all become inclusive dimensions of digital technology. It has perforated into more subtle aspects of live and relations. For instance, mobile devices have turned out to be the standard mode of communication between family members and friends confirming safety, security and connection. Digital parenting is an emerging trend assisted by technology. These are platforms and technology tools that aid parents to develop engaging and personalized experience to monitor their children throughout their busy schedules. With these, parenting has been brought under the realms technology. In present times, parents have to deal with diverse issues surrounding their children. It becomes arduous to handle these primary aspects of life along with tedious job and professional responsibilities. While dealing with the subtle issues of parenting, modern parents are faced with confusion and stress. Rising number of queries in the internet regarding these issues proves the condition. The former state of digital parenting can be traced back to online contents in forms of blogs and articles as well as classified platforms related to parenting. Parents started turning to internet in search of advice and solutions to deal with parenting issues. This led to growing bulk information in web domain referring to kids and parenting issues. However, internet is open source and most of the information are inadequate to deliver an effective solution. They are incomplete and irreverent in majority of contents. On the other hand, there is no authenticity of the source. Although few contents are being delivered by professional counselors, they provide incomplete insight to personalized problems. Most of the contents are from inexperienced individual sources describing how they solved their own issues. These materials provide no holistic approach and sometimes may even render adverse effects. Internet and mobile device has become essential elements for the generation. Digital parenting comprises of tools and services accessed via these same platforms. As mobile device connected to internet are common to parents and children, a set of tools deployed in internet, which can be accessed via these devices are used to address diverse issues of parenting. These tools help parents to manage their own lives around their children. They facilitate several aspects such as managing doctor visits, tracking social growth, monitoring cognitive and physical growth. Parents can set timeline and alerts on important dates such as medical checkups, appointment with a doctor, immunisation, exam schedules and so on. They provide a platform to trace the basic aspects of life and growth of their children. A good advantage of digital parenting channels is access to personalized resources. As every child is unique, brought up under unique circumstances, they require customised solution to diverse issues. To handle the problem of teenage, kid’s parents can access special guidance to settle down common issues. Services such as proactive connection to psychologists can be accessed to discuss any behavioral changes in a child. These tools can efficiently maintain every task surrounding a kid, which are required for their complete growth, both physically and mentally. The best way to use these platforms is to sign up for the service at the initial stages of conceiving and use them till the child reaches teenage. These provide a comprehensive data about the lifeline of the child and assist by offering better counseling as well as solutions to common problems. Just a digital device works as a one-stop solution to parenting. There are productivity tools, made available in the market offering intuitive and secure digital solutions.Digital platforms promote better parent-kid relationships by assisting parents to understand their kid’s behaviors, psychology and attitude. They can observe their children closely using digital technology. Interaction can be made better and simpler by helping parents to connect and respond to their children more effectively. For instance, social media tracking helps parents to monitor activities of their children in social media. By going through their updates and comments, parents can easily make out what their children are going through. This helps parents to understand their kids better and respond correctly at the right time. In addition to this, parents can monitor their kid’s activities in the internet and interfere with negative influences. Internet is both a bane and a boon for children depending on how they use it. It is an utmost necessity for parents to monitor children’s activity in the internet. Parental control of access to internet is essential. Digital parenting assist parents to take these measures both efficiently and effectively. As children are more prone to digital fronts, the rise of variety digital products has brought forth new complexities in parenting. Internet can be accessed via different platforms such as computers, tabs and smart phones. The thin barrier between positive and negative influence of internet on children can sometimes be the real issue in handling kids. In this scenario, tools used in digital parenting helps parents to control a home network, without being worried about the internet. These tools also assist parents to guide their kids when they are in the wrong path. Digital parenting is in an evolving stage. There are diverse tools and applications that are emerging as innovations to assist parenting hand in hand with modern lifestyle. As technology has become integral to our lives, there is no way but to live with its complexities. The best one can do is to customise the resources and utilise them in a meaningful way. New traits such as digital parenting can be a great boon for modern day parents if used properly. They help to get along with busy work schedules as well as to comply efficiently with responsibilities. Parenting is an unavoidable obligation, which has been a difficult task, mingled with the dynamics of a contemporary world. While parent works days and night to secure the future of their children, they cannot afford to spend the necessary time with them. In this backdrop, digital parenting is emerging not as a trend, but as a survival tool. Authors Tushar Srivastava & Vatsal Goel, are Founders, www.nurturey.com
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Samsung showcased its brand new flagship smartphone the Galaxy S6 along with the innovative S6 Edge with dual curved display at MWC 2015. The company announced the two smartphones on Monday (22 March) for the Indian market and customers can pre-order the device from today before it hits the stores on the 10th of April.The Samsung India R&D team is said to have a major role in the design and innovation of the new phones. The engineers of the team have also been involved in the application of the modem, camera, internet browser, personalised themes and the download booster technologies. Asim Warsi, Vice President of Marketing, also said “The new range of Galaxy S6 smartphones will be made in India eventually.” This is a big move by Samsung as flagship smartphones by the company have always been made and shipped from the company’s home ground, South Korea. Samsung already has two manufacturing facilities and three R&D centers in India. The main focus this time has been on the all new design of the flagships. The S6 and the S6 Edge are actually good looking devices and the new design and materials are definitely a nice touch, but the DNA of the device feels old as it gives off a distinguished Samsung look. The front and back now have a glass finish which, being glossy, make the smartphones slippery although the metal frame does give it a solid feel. The S6 Edge is more interesting out of the two and definitely something to look out for as the dual-edge display brings in a whole new way of how you interact with your smartphone. The slight curve on the edges makes swiping more fluid and natural. Samsung also has a bunch of features and apps dedicated from the edges. There have been sacrifices as well as you don’t get a removable back or an SD card slot, something which was popular among flagship Samsung devices. Both the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge feature a 5.1-inch Quad-HD (2560x1440) Super AMOLED display and Samsung’s own octa-core Exynos processor since they weren’t happy with the heating issues on the Snapdragon 810 processor. The smartphones also feature upgraded cameras with 16MP rear snapper with OIS and a f/1.9 lens and a front 5MP snapper with the same f/1.9 lens with real-time HDR.The Galaxy S6 will be available for Rs. 49,900 for the 32GB model, Rs. 55,900 for the 64GB model, and Rs. 61,900 for the 128GB model. The Galaxy S6 Edge is priced at Rs. 58,900 for the 32GB model, Rs. 64,900 for the 64GB model, and Rs. 70,900 for the 128GB model. There is a special offer for the customers pre-ordering any of the devices where they get free one-time replacement on the display in case it is damaged. This is the same protection plan was announced by HTC for its new flagship smartphone, One M9, in the US.
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It’s difficult to say whether smartphones are perpetuating the addiction for selfies or whether sheer narcissism is forcing cellphone manufacturers to come up with selfie-oriented devices. Either way, taking pictures of yourself on an everyday basis, if not several times a day, has become the new normal. And Micromax has decided to milk the phenomenon for all it’s worth with a phone, the Canvas Selfie, that has a 13 megapixel shooter on both front and rear.Of course, raw megapixels don’t necessarily mean you’ll get a good image, so Micromax has played with things enough to make sure the cameras really boost light and reduce noise. Inevitably, there’s some softness in images shot in low light, but the artificial boosting of brightness will make selfie addicts more than happy. I rather doubt that the targeted audience will be overly fussy about top notch photography or want to bother with settings. So, the camera application is simple and entirely selfie-oriented. There are buttons for making the eyes wider, face slimmer, skin smoother, complexion whiter, and even the teeth get a makeover. Basically, it’s truth, lies and selfies.The Canvas Selfie has a dedicated camera button on one side, but it doesn’t launch the camera from a phone that’s asleep or even on the lock screen. You have to be on one of the homescreens or one of the apps. There’s a self-timer so the user can quickly get into a pouting pose or stick close to whoever’s close and look inseparable.The Canvas Selfie has a strange design. Not the usual rectangle but pronounced curves top and bottom. You could either find it stylish or strange, depending on your taste. There’s a faux leather back – it really looks like plastic leather, if there’s such a thing. It’s a light phone and quite slim and easy to hold. The screen is just 4.7 inches, so it doesn’t get into the awkwardly big category at all.The specs on this phone are mid-range. The screen is a 720x1280 with 312 pixel density. It’s a good looking screen and comfortable to use. There’s a 1.7GHz octa-core Mediatek processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB storage. You do have a micro SD slot and two SIMS. The phone is running on Android 4.4.2, a bit behind the current common version. The battery is a 2300mAh and adequate for this device. It isn’t built for heavy gaming and although it performs well enough, it isn’t noticeably smooth and gets a shade heated up.The Canvas Selfie costs Rs.15,499 and anyone considering it must take a look at a number of other options from HTC, Xiaomi, Asus and indeed from Micromax itself. But the Selfie phone is the one to pick if one is looking for a budget phone with a camera good enough to work indoors and entirely meant for fun with one’s own photos.
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Catering to the growing demand, XOLO launched LT2000, bringing the benefits and convenience of superfast connectivity for the socially active mobile generation who wants nonstop entertainment on the go. XOLO LT2000 delivers extreme performance for real time streaming of videos and movies, online gaming, socializing, online shopping, and more via the web or apps.Featuring 1.2 GHz Quad-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 (64 bit) processor, LT2000 offers seamless data processing, giving access to multiple apps without slowing down the device performance. With Cortex A53 Core at heart, XOLO LT2000 promises powerful combination of features, performance and battery efficiency. LT2000 is loaded with LPDDR3 1 GB RAM which is twice as powerful as old LPDDR2 RAM, enabling faster app launches, faster multitasking and at the same time low power consumption. LT2000 comes with brilliant 5.5 HD display protected with Scratch resistant Dragontrail Glass for protection against surface scratch, improved touch & perfect light transmission. To enjoy the big screen experience at a lightning speed of 4G for extended hours, LT2000 is packed with 2920 mAh battery.The device comes loaded with 8 GB of internal storage, expandable upto 32 GB and runs on Android 4.4 KitKat OS, upgradable to the latest Android 5.0. With 8 MP rear camera with BSI 2 sensor & 2 MP Front Camera, XOLO LT2000 delivers superior quality images, even at low-light conditions. Panasonic's New Communication Systems LaunchedAs a part of Panasonic India’s efforts in continuing to focus on product differentiation combined with developing innovative technological solutions, the company on Thursday (19 March) introduced its third generation dynamic HDVC solutions- KX-VC1600 and KX-VC1300 along with various software based VC solutions. The HD Visual communications systems are a clear departure from previous videoconference systems which make it possible to instantaneously communicate and collaborate with colleagues and industry experts across meetings in remote locations. Specially designed for the SME segment, the new product range is targeted towards providing cost effective and high quality products for SME customers. Other than this, the product also targets lucrative verticals such as education and healthcare market.Toru Hasegawa, Divisional Managing Director, System Solutions Division, Panasonic India said, “The launch of this product will certainly enhance our portfolio catering to the communication segment. We are confident that with these solutions, Panasonic will offer a unique integration of software based infrastructure coupled with hardware based room end points to provide a complete video conference experience at highly cost effective price to customers.”Mphasis appoints Jai Ganesh as VPMphasis, a leading IT solutions provider, today announced the appointment of Dr. Jai Ganesh as Vice President & Head of Mphasis Next Labs.In his current role, Jai will lead Mphasis Next Labs to focus on disruptive and transformational innovations in the SMAC (Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud), IoT and Automation space through applied research, IP Creation, thought leadership and new product, service, platform and solution development. Mphasis Next Labs will work with Academia, Research Labs, Start-ups and New Technology Partners.“I am immensely excited to be part of Mphasis and its strategic initiative - Mphasis Next Labs. With a talented team, we look forward to bringing the best in research and innovation on emergent and future paradigms related to Mphasis’ focus areas and meeting the evolving industry needs”, said Dr. Jai Ganesh, Vice President & Head at Mphasis Next Labs.Snapdeal Introduces Luxury Yachts Snapdeal, one of India’s largest online marketplace, on Thursday announced the launch of luxury yachts on its marketplace, a first in India. In partnership with West Coast Marine Yacht Services, India’s premier luxury boat dealer, a line of yachts is currently available for purchase on Snapdeal starting at ? 20, 00, 000.Luxury products and services is a $14Bn market in India, growing at 30% YoY, according to a recent KPMG-ASSOCHAM report. Snapdeal.com houses luxury and premium products across diverse categories including gem-studded watches, jewelry, apparels, and appliances among others. The company also recently launched ‘The Designer Studio’ and acquired Exclusively.com to expand the assortment in premium fashion. With the introduction of luxury yachts, Snapdeal further strengthens its product portfolio in luxury and premium products Segment.Speaking on the association Tony Navin, Senior Vice-President, Electronics and Home, Snapdeal.Com, said, “Strengthening luxury and premium product portfolio has been one of our key focus areas and we have been consciously expanding the luxury product assortment through strategic alliances with national and international luxury brands. Through this association with West Coast Marine Yacht Services, we are further widening our assortment in the luxury segment for users seeking premium products across categories.”ITC Infotech Partners With AsigraITC Infotech, a leading global IT services & solutions company, and a fully owned subsidiary of ITC Ltd, today announced its partnership with leading Cloud backup and Recovery software firm Asigra. The partnership will enable ITC Infotech to offer niche cloud-based solutions, fully automated and compliant backup as well as recovery backup for organizations across the globe. Leveraging its vast experience across industry sectors, ITC Infotech has for over a decade been delivering end-to-end IT solutions and services to customers worldwide. The current partnership comes at a juncture when cloud-based backup and recovery services have become an imperative for all businesses. ITC Infotech’s end-to-end cloud backup and recovery solution powered by Asigra is a robust, one stop solution, that will address backup and recovery needs as well as provide edge-to-core protection with a single platform for Servers, Desktops, Laptops, Tablets and Mobiles. Rudimentary and traditional backup solutions have so far remained a challenge for organizations with regard to time, cost, quality and security. ITC Infotech, through this partnership, will deliver a comprehensive and enterprise-class backup and recovery service, capable of scaling across vertical markets and organizations of every size and scope.Polaris Expands Strategic LeadershipPolaris Consulting & Services Ltd. (Polaris), a leader in solutions and services that enable unprecedented operational productivity for the Global Financial Services industry, on Thursday announced the appointment of Uma Ratnam Krishnan as a Director on the Board and N.M. Vaidyanathan as Chief Financial Officer of the company with effect from March 19, 2015.The Board of Directors have declared an Interim Dividend of Rs 5 per share (100 per cent) to the shareholders whose names are on the Register of Members as on the record date, 31 March 2015. Hiring Activity Sees 10% GrowthNaukri Job Speak Index for the month of February 2015 was at 1639, recording a 10 per cent increase in hiring activity over February 2014. The sectors which recorded maximum increase were Banking and Finance Services (BFSI) and IT at 77 per cent and 76 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase in February 2015. Geographically, Pune and Hyderabad were leading the tally and registered a yoy growth of 36 per cent and 24 per cent in February 2015 as reflected by the Naukri Job Speak Index. V. Suresh, Executive Vice President and Chief Sales Officer, Naukri.com said, “After a flat growth in January 2015, looks like the job market is getting on track. With economy showing signs of positive growth and with the appraisal season round the corner, we can expect the job market to gain further momentum in the coming months.” Juniper Networks And Mirantis Expand Partnership Mirantis, the pure-play OpenStack company, and Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR), the industry leader in network innovation, today announced an expanded engineering partnership that provides customers with a reliable, open-source software-defined networking (SDN) fabric to deploy OpenStack clouds at scale. Mirantis OpenStack, an OpenStack distribution that is easy to install and operate at scale, will now support and interoperate with Juniper Contrail™ Networking, a standards based SDN solution for enterprise and service provider customers. Mirantis OpenStack also supports and interoperates with OpenContrail, an open source SDN solution. According to a recent report by 451 Research, the OpenStack market size is estimated to reach $1.7 billion by 2016. Enterprises and service providers are increasingly looking to open-source software for its increased flexibility, cost savings, no vendor lock-in and the ability to customize integration with other infrastructure and applications.
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The world’s second curved smartphone has arrived. LG announced its new G Flex 2 smartphone for the Indian market at its Tech Show on Wednesday (18 March). The new smartphone was first shown off at CES 2015 in Las Vegas and managed to create a similar kind of buzz and interest when the first gen was launched.The highlight of the device is of course the curved design and this time around LG has managed to put a display which has a 700mm-radius curvature with the back having a 650mm-radius curvature for a better fit in the hand and the pocket. The curved display, according to LG, brings in an immersive experience and also brings the mic closer to your mouth (really?). The self healing back panel has been added yet again and upgraded to a much improved version which now heals light scratches in about ten seconds, a vast improvement from the last generation’s three minutes.The smartphone is also considerably smaller now as the P-OLED display has shrunken to 5.5-inches from 6-inches with a higher and sharper full HD resolution. This size seems like a wise choice as the original G Flex felt quite large. It is also the first smartphone that runs on Qualcomm’s newest Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor, thanks to which LG has maintained its streak of providing the newest generation of processors on its smartphones ever since it launched the Optimus 2X, with the world’s first dual-core processor.Yes, the hardware has been updated and yes, LG has managed to slap a price tag of Rs 55,000 which is less than what we saw at the launch of its predecessor. But the price is still quite high as one is mostly paying for the curved design which, to be honest, is not a game changer. For a lesser price, one can go for the Moto Turbo, which also offers quite a unique design with its Kevlar finish at the back and a much sharper and brighter display. Even the iPhone for that matter would sound like a wise choice as it is a no-nonsense smartphone. Also, the G Flex could have a hard time once Samsung starts rolling out the S6 and the S6 Edge in India, where price will be a crucial factor.
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