Tech upgrade

c m y k c m y k
PAGE 13
Apple is working on laptops and
smartphones powered by
hydrogen fuel cells
Facebook was the most searched for
word on the internet during 2011 for
the third year running
MONDAY 26 | DECEMBER 2011
BENGALURU
APPly yourself
Talk to Me Android App is
a speech language transla-
tion app for many lan-
guages, which also sup-
ports text to speech. Send
your translations to friends
via SMS text message or
email the audio file. It is
very useful is very useful
to those trying to learn
another language or travel.
Android
TALK TO ME
A real-time database of IP
addresses and email
addresses involved in send-
ing spam. This utility uses
databases from all over the
Internet. iPhone.
SPAM IP EMAIL
ADDRESS LOOKUP
London: Increasing number
of smartphones, capable of
recording videos and taking
high quality pictures, are
eating into sales of slim
point-and-shoot cameras, a
new survey has revealed.
Recent data from retail
analysts NPD revealed that
the percentage of photos
taken on smartphones such
as Apple iPhone has gone
from 17 per cent last year to
27 per cent this year, global-
ly, as their cameras increas-
ingly match the performance
of dedicated compacts.
According to the survey, the
big losers are camcorders
and cheaper point-and-shoot
cameras, whose sales
dropped by 17 per cent in
the same period, The Daily
Mail reports. Sales of SLRs
and other detachable-lens
cameras lens went up by 12
percent, and the new larger
lensed compacts champi-
oned by manufacturers such
as Sony and Panasonic grew
16 per cent. ANI
CHINA EYES
NEXT-GEN INTERNET
Beijing: China will allow
commercial use of its next-
generation internet system
by 2015 after putting it on
trial in 2013, a media report
said. The new system
expands the capability of the
Internet Protocol address
and improves the speed of
the internet. It is also
expected to create employ-
ment, the Chinese cabinet
said in a statement. The new
technology, called IPv6
(Internet Protocol version 6),
is an upgrade of the current
IPv4 whose IP addresses are
about to be all used up. The
new IPv6 technology opens
up a pool of internet
addresses that are a billion
to trillion times larger than
the total pool of IPv4
addresses and are virtually
inexhaustible for the fore-
seeable future, experts said.
IANS
FUTURE PILOTS TO FLY
FOUR DRONES AT ONCE
SMARTPHONES EATING
INTO CAMERA SALES
Tech plus
Tech scan
Washington: Western mili-
taries are experimenting
with having future drone
pilots command up to four
aircraft at once, adding new
potential challenges even as
a top-secret U.S. drones
crash in Iran exposed the
risks of flying unmanned air-
craft thousands of miles
away.The initiative could
help satisfy feverish demand
for unmanned planes at a
time when budgets are tight,
and military officials said
they see great promise in
initial tests under way in
Britain and the United
States. Reuters
Washington, Dec.25:
Microsoft, which owns a small
part of Facebook, dipped its
own toe in the online social
scene with a low-key unveiling
of its So.cl (pronounced
social) service.
The site, which is for students
to share interesting discoveries
online, looks like a curious
blend of Facebook and Google
+.
Right now its restricted to
certain universities, and is a
blend of web browsing, search
(Bing, of course) and network-
ing - including what it calls
video party.
Developed by Microsofts
FUSE Labs, it is an experi-
mental research project
focused on exploring the possi-
bilities of social search for the
purpose of learning.
In effect, Microsoft is trying to
build on the fact that many stu-
dents are looking for the same
sorts of things online, and it
gives them a way to put togeth-
er and share their findings with
other members interested in
the same academic area.
Well see if its young users
stick to such a lofty goal.
Microsoft says its not meant
to replace Facebook, Twitter or
LinkedIn, or to replace search
engines. Indeed, you must log
on with your Facebook
account.
So far, Microsoft is restricting
So.cl to the University of
Washington, Syracuse
University, New York
University and a few other
schools. But it says that anyone
who wants to get more involved
in the project should email
them on Socl@microsoft.com.
Will So.cl be the first step of a
greater social project under
way at Microsoft? Thats some-
thing it is not willing to share.
Reuters
Toronto, Dec.25: Research In
Motion, still smarting over hav-
ing to change the name of its
yet-to-come operating system,
faces a similar trademark chal-
lenge to its popular instant-mes-
saging service BlackBerry
Messenger. The service, which
allows BlackBerry users to send
each other text and multimedia
files and see when they are
delivered and read, is widely
known and even promoted by
RIM via the shorthand BBM.
That has proven an encum-
brance to BBM Canada, which
measures radio and television
audience data and expects its
day in a Federal Court against
RIM by February.
The companys chief execu-
tive, Jim MacLeod, said he
wants RIM to stop advertising
the BBM moniker but would
also consider changing his
much smaller companys name,
for a price.
We have to be practical, they
operate worldwide, we dont.
But were not prepared to just
walk from our name, MacLeod
said.
RIM seems equally deter-
mined to keep using the BBM
name and not to pay MacLeods
company anything.
We believe that BBM Canada
is attempting to obtain trade-
mark protection for the BBM
acronym that is well beyond the
narrow range of the services it
provides and well beyond the
scope of rights afforded by
Canadian trademark law, it
said in an emailed statement.
RIM has launched its BBM
Music song-sharing service in
recent months, and heavily pro-
moted third-party apps that tie
into its instant messaging prod-
uct, which boasts some 50 mil-
lion active users.
BBM Canada was established
in 1944 as the Bureau of
Broadcast Measurement. It
changed its name to BBM in the
1960s and to BBM Canada in the
early 1990s, MacLeod said. The
company, owned by a collection
of broadcasters and advertisers,
has annual revenue of around
$50 million. RIMs sales were
more than $5 billion last quar-
ter.
Im sure to a really big com-
pany this looks like relatively
small numbers, but to us its a
big deal, said MacLeod. BBM
Canada employs around 650 peo-
ple, compared with RIMs
roughly 17,000.
Earlier this month RIM
dumped the BBX name for its
new operating system after
being served with an injunction
in a trademark fight with U.S.-
based Basis International. RIM
has renamed the platform as
BlackBerry 10.
Industry Canada denied RIMs
2009 request to register the BBM
trademark, saying the name
was already in use, but has
granted RIM until January 5 to
respond.
BBM Canada launched its
legal action late last year.
MacLeod said his company
contacted RIM in July, soon
after RIM launched a large-scale
BBM advertising campaign. In
response to BBM Canadas
cease-and-desist letter RIM said
there couldnt possibly be any
confusion between the two
names - a similar tactic was
later used in the BBX spat.
RIM repeated that line of argu-
ment in Fridays statement.
The services associated with
RIMs BBM offering clearly do
not overlap with BBM Canadas
services and the two marks are
therefore eligible to co-exist
under Canadian trademark law.
The two companies are in differ-
ent industries and have never
been competitors in any area.
MacLeod sought a meeting to
discuss the issue with RIM co-
CEO Jim Balsillie several
months ago, but said he has
received no response.
McLeod pointed out that RIM
had even taken legal action of
its own against software startup
Kik Interactive over its instant
messaging service that includes
claims of trademark infringe-
ment. Its a trademark they
dont even own, its ours,
MacLeod said
Reuters
The technology of fun: Four things to keep you going through the week
Sony's PS Vista comes in second to 3DS on hardware sales chart this week; Square Enix's latest RPG tops software charts.
GAMES WEBSITE BORED AT THE OFFICE? GIZMOS
Console: XBox/PS
Game type: Adventure
Developer: Ubisoft
The Good: Solid voice acting Good anima-
tion that captures the Tintin vibe.
The bad: Repetitive missions Platforming
lacks challenge Puzzles are too easy to solve
Poor Kinect implementation.
The verdict: If youre not a fan of the fiction,
though, or you dont have younger children
who might appreciate simplicity, theres little
incentive to play the game.
KLOUT
Link: http://klout.com/home
San Francisco start-up Klout wants to be the
official scoring system of the social Web. Sign
into it with your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn
accounts and it'll calculate your Klout score
a figure that considers not only the number of
your connections but also who they are and
how actively you engage with them.
BLACKBERRY CURVE 9380
7
10
Microsoft enters online social scene
RIM faces tough legal challenge on BBM trademark
GARDEN OF TIME
Developer: Playdom
Link: www.playdom.com/games/gardensoftime
The Time Society is a mysterious organization
established in the early 20th century to guard
the secrets of time travel, and preserve the flow
of history. Their journey takes them to the far-
thest corners of the Earth, and the farthest
reaches of time. The Society is tasked by its
reclusive founders to find hidden objects out of
place in history, and to preserve historical arti-
facts in their various Gardens of Time.
The Society has found itself extraordinarily
busy as of late forcing them to seek out new
apprentices to fill the ranks. Their latest
recruit...is you.
Developer: RIM
Price: From `19,500 to `21,000
The Good: Sleek and slim form factor Classy
build quality Distinctly usable despite the
small size BB7 gives modern web browsing.
The Bad: No camera autofocus; poorer in low
light Just 512MB of built-in storage.
TECHNOMICS
Will Google fight Apples
Siri with Alfred?
New York, Dec.25:
Google recently had
acquired the tech compa-
ny that has developed
Alfred, a smartphone app
that acts as a personal
assistant to make recom-
mendations based on
your interests and your
context, such as loca-
tion, time of day, intent
and social information.
According to Clever
Sense, the company that
created Alfred and that is
now part of Google, the
app uses artificial intelli-
gence technology to sift
through the Webs vast
amount of data and to rec-
ommend restaurants,
bars and other real-world
places that you might
like.
That sounds a lot like
Siri, the personal assis-
tant technology that
comes built-in to Apple
latest iPhone. Siri offers a
much broader range of
capabilities than those
that appear to currently
be available with Alfred,
allowing users to speak
into their phone to man-
age their calendars, find
nearby restaurants and
even inquire about the
weather.
But Alfreds AI recom-
mendation technology
could provide an impor-
tant building-block that
Google could pair with its
existing voice-recogni-
tion technology to create
its own answer to Siri.
Googles head of mobile
Andy Rubin famously
dissed Siri at the AsiaD
conference in October,
saying that I dont
believe that your phone
should be your assis-
tant.
Your phone is a tool for
communicating. You
shouldnt be communi-
cating with the phone;
you should be communi-
cating with somebody on
the other side of the
phone, Rubin pro-
claimed.
But in the frenetic arms
race to develop and pro-
vide the most popular
smartphone software,
Google cannot afford to
be missing something
that Apple has espe-
cially with some industry
observers speculating
that Apples Siri could
provide a new paradigm
for searching the Web
that circumvents
Googles search engine
(and, importantly,
Googles lucrative search
ads).
Meanwhile, the tech
blog Android and Me
reported that another
secret Siri-like project,
code-named Majel, is in
the works at Google and
could be released, in
some initial form, in the
coming months. The tech-
nology, named after the
voice of a computer in
Star Trek , is an evolution
of Googles existing voice
actions, allowing a phone
to understand a users
natural language instead
of specific voice com-
mands, according to the
report.
Whatever the moniker -
Alfred, Majel, or some
other name it looks
like 2012 is shaping up to
be a battle of the virtual
assistants.
Heres what Google has
to say about its deal to
acquire Clever Sense,
financial terms of which
were not disclosed:
The Clever Sense team
is at the forefront of
developing a recommen-
dation engine that con-
nects the online and
offline worlds by deliver-
ing personal and sophisti-
cated information to
users at the right time,
the right place and within
the right context. By com-
bining their technology
and expertise with our
team and products, well
be able to provide even
more people with intelli-
gent, personalised recom-
mendations for places to
eat, visit and discover.
Reuters
Alfred uses artificial intelligence technology to sift through the Webs vast amount of
data and to recommend restaurants, bars and other real-world places that netizens like
A screen shot of Microsoft So.cl
W
e are approaching
2012! Its time to
p r o g n o s t i c a t e
about the year to come.
Here is my wish list on how
to help health care move
ahead in 2012.
Healthcare ICT is a set of
tools that facilitates the
care giver to deliver in the
best way possible to the
consumer it does not
replace the practice of med-
icine, nor does it change
the fundamental dynamics
of how health care works in
India and around the
world. But certain aspects
that need to change in 2012
so that a personalised ser-
vice of a better quality,
improved outcome and
lower cost is delivered.
First, there should be no
social media ban on health-
care including in the field
of traditional medicine. It
is now a well known fact
that holistic health is best
delivered by integrating
mind, body, spirit and mod-
ern and traditional medi-
cines. The fine line, where
fractional medicine cuts
into religious scriptures, is
well known. The draconian
ban will only result in the
West patenting the use of
herbs which we have been
using for ages as we are not
yet very vocal on the social
media sites about our usage
of herbs to maintain good
health.
Second, we should
include technology adop-
tion as a part of continuing
medical education (CME)
for the care givers. It is well
known that the adoption of
health ICT suffers because
the care givers, including
doctors and nurses at large,
are not sure what ICT does
and how it can be adopted.
Different Councils, accred-
iting agencies and industry
associations give impor-
tance to training in ICT sec-
tor.
Today, ICT has enabled
impressive body of evi-
dence illustrating that it is
doing things right and
doing the right things in
health care which has
resulted in better outcomes
and lower costs as against
traditional belief of more
care is better care .
Third, we should include
investments in health ICT
as part of subsidy. We have
infrastructure status for
healthcare. However, when
it comes to a trade off situa-
tion to upgrade a piece of
medical equipment versus
investment in health ICT,
its only the former that
gets thumbs up. Globally,
including the US, govern-
ments had to spend or legis-
late and provide incentives
and punitive to ensure
compliance to healthcare
ICT norms. India needs to
move into that direction. In
the current economic sce-
nario where a large num-
ber of techies are not gain-
fully employed in the off-
shoring services sector, a
positive legislation for
health ICT will bring about
hundreds of jobs. This is a
good way to beat recession,
give budgetary support to
different populist Yojanas
of our Government and
also mitigate the skill
shortages in ICT integra-
tion.
Lastly, do not scrap UID
or any database creation of
citizens. There is an air of
uncertainty on the UID pro-
ject. The various efforts
need to be harmonised to
ensure that citizens are
able to meaningfully con-
nect patients with their
health care providers.
Patients should be able to
view the summary infor-
mation contained in their
doctors charts and also col-
lect self-reported and
device-reported informa-
tion and share it with their
clinicians. There is a pow-
erful trend that can help
share ones health experi-
ences socially with others.
Health IT faces various
challenges to provide the
proper platforms to pro-
mote individual and com-
munity health.Let us wish
2012 is a better place health
wise!
Kapil Khandelwal is
Director, EquNev Capital,
a niche investments bank-
ing and advisory services
firm and a leading health-
care and ICT expert.
A Dose of IT
Kapil Khandelwal
Healthy thoughts
on healthcare
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN