Destination Nagpur - an event by NASSCOM

Destination Nagpur
9:00 AM To 6:00 PM
24 November, 2006
Hotel Centre Point Ramdaspeth Nagpur

Its an IT event presented by NASSCOM & organised by VED Council & VASE, following the tremendous success of its precursor "Opportunity Nagpur".

This event, to be held on the 24th November 2006, will highlight the advantages of Nagpur as the hub of IT business in India. It will attract the big players in the IT and associated industries, making it one of the most important events in NASSCOM's calendar for the year.

Nagpur is India's fastest developing city with International importance due to the 4000 Hectares MIHAN project that is fast coming up here. Boeing has already decided to put their MRO facility here and big Logistics, IT and Health care corporates are expected to start operations shortly.

For more info please check out:
http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/Templates/Events.aspx?id=50333

Next Generation Mobile Phone coming your way...

Synaptics, the company which makes the trackpads which you use on your laptops intends to offer a high resolution touch screen material called ClearPad to mobile phone manufacturers.

If I understand it correctly whole phone can be made up of this new material, so it possibly mean we can touch anywhere on the phone body and it can do something we want? And we can also show some grphics anywhere on any side of the phone.

Synaptics calls this concept Onyx and you can check this out on their website at http://www.synaptics.com/onyx/

There have been a lot of innovations in mobile software/platform level and obviously hardware has been also scaled up to meet the advanced software, but this truely can mean a giant leap and can begin a new era and we can see the phones which we have till now only seen in sci-fi movies or may be even better than them.

It means phone displays, stylus, phone keypad will be things of past and you will be able to change the look of your phone everyday, whenever you want without need for any add-on cover or things like that.

Whole phone will be your display screen as well as touch screen.

Future looks wonderful :-)

Read mobilecrunch discussion at: http://mobilecrunch.com/2006/08/22/synaptics-offers-up-its-vision-of-future-mobile-devices/

Software platform for small devices

Microsoft announced .NET Micro Framework a couple of days back. Its a platform for devices like watches, Sensors, actuators, remote controls, wearable devices etc.

I think it will be subset of CF (compact framework), as CF is a subset of .NET Framework.

You can read more about it on Daniel Moth's blog at: http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/2006/05/net-micro-framework.html

and on: http://www.aboutnetmf.com/

Well I am certainly looking forward to it and want to know more about how it can be ported to a device.

Agile - A revolutionary approach to programming

Agile development emphasizes close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements churn was not a crisis.

It helps the companies to adopt proactively to ever changing requirements. They are revolutionary in the sense that they contradict the tradional waterfall model in many ways and present a whole new different yet very practical approach to software development process.

Read the Manifesto for Agile Software Development at: http://www.agilemanifesto.org/

and visit the agile alliance at http://agilealliance.org/ to get more info about agile methods.

Palm OS fights back

Palm OS users have reasons to rejoice as their favourite Palm OS is back with new Treo 700p.

The 700p announced today sports a 1.3-megapixel camera, bluetooth, and software allowing it to act as a modem -via bluetooth or USB- to Windows and Mac PCs. Its a CDMA device which supports EV-DO (evolution, data optimized) and this is really a big plus for it as it allows users to experience broadband internet on their devices.

We hope that soon its GSM version will be launched and available in India. Current CDMA model is going to be available only on sprint and verizon in near future.

PDA Watches

For all of you geek out there, there are 2 interesting choices for you from Fossil. One is watch running the good old familiar Palm OS and other with MSN Direct service. Check them out at http://www.abacuswatches.com/

Good news is that their street price is as low as $50, you can get some good bargains from amazon.com too.

I think it can be even used for small applications. PDA model has same memory as Zire21 model, that is 8 MB. Field Force Solutions targetting these PDA watches can be offered for small corporates which do not want to spend a huge some of money to just get the PDA hardware.

You can read a complete review of Palm PDA watch at http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=31360

Microsoft Email Pushes Blackberry?

In a strategic development, Microsoft has tied-up with major cellular operators for a new breed of mobile phones that will allow users receive email when it hits servers instead of getting it when they synchronise with their servers.

Unlike the Blackberry and its peers who are way ahead in this game, phones running Microsoft's latest Windows Mobile operating system will receive emails "pushed" directly from the company server, sans the need for a separate mobile server or additional license payments.

Microsoft says that Direct Push technology added to Windows Mobile 5.0 gives customers faster access to all of its Office Outlook information. The new version communicates directly with Microsoft Exchange Server and Windows Small Business Server without the need for servers and other middleware.

Speculation is rife that Microsoft will most probably overtake RIM as the leading mobile email provider while RIM which has approximately 4.3 million Blackberry customers, has been sued for allegedly infringing patents belonging to NTP, a US technology company.

New Linux-based Palm OS Unveiled

Access and its wholly owned subsidiary, PalmSource, have announced the Access Linux Platform (ALP), the latest evolution of Palm OS for Linux.

The ALP is designed to be an integrated, open and flexible Linux-based platform tailored for smartphones and mobile devices and to provide a complete, consistent and customizable solution for handset and mobile device manufacturers and mobile operators.

Access and PalmSource expect to make the ALP Software Developer Kit (SDK) available to its licensees by the end of this year (2006).

ACCESS Linux Platform An open and flexible software platform - Major components of ALP include:

* Standard, commercial-grade Linux kernel - version 2.6.12 and above
* Optimized implementation of GIMP ToolKit (GTK+) - popular open source libraries for the creation of graphical user interfaces
* GStreamer - an open source, modular and multi-threaded streaming media framework
* SQLite - a high-performance database engine commonly used in embedded devices

A number of ACCESS and PalmSource technologies have been incorporated into ALP, including:

* ACCESS NetFront™ browser - a proven success with over 200 million deployments in 721 commercial products for more than 30 handset and 90 Internet device manufacturers worldwide
* PalmSource messaging and telephony middleware - a highly modular and scalable implementation
* PalmSource mobile applications including PIMs, multimedia, messaging, PalmSource HotSync® and Palm Desktop -includes the recognized ease-of-use that users expect

Mobile CAD

Power CAD is a CAD software which you can use on move using your Pocket PC.

A short summary of features will include:

* Opens Industry Standard CAD files
* Tons of powerful commands
* Great annotation capabilities

Many of us use Pocket PCs because we are looking for a certain degree of mobility. Much of the software that people use in their daily work now has counterparts on the Pocket PC. Now with PowerCAD, you can take even this software on the move with you.

You can buy the viewer for just USD 99.

Check it out at:
http://www.givemepower.com/home/

PDAs and Smartphones making inroads in India

It started with Hi-Tech mobile phones powered by Symbian OS and mobile phones like Nokia 7650, Nokia 3650 which started this trend. Soon Sony Ericsson started shipping P800 and P900 in India and PDA Phones became a craze and a status symbol. Then there came Phones like Ngage and 6600 from Nokia which really did very well with youth.

Youth started using these bigger and bulkier devices instead of popular smaller and lighter devices used earlier. They saw value in audio clippings and streaming video they can enjoy on these phones. Game enthusiasts always had their favorite gaming station in their pocket in form of these smarter phones cum PDAs.

There were advanced devices like Nokia Communicator already available since a long time, but they never caught imagination of our youth primarily because of their high prices.

Recently Airtel introduced Blackberry on their network, which offers you seamless email connectivity anytime, anywhere.

A few days back TataIndicom started offering Ego on their network. Ego is a very advanced device running Pocket PC platform and windows user will definitely love it due to its already familiar windows interface and applications like word, excel, internet explorer and windows media player.

Blackberry and Ego both are relatively expensive than other smartphones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson. May be if these companies start offering finance and EMI schemes for these handsets like Reliance does for its mobiles, then they can really become popular among masses. Till then Symbian OS is going to rule the smartphone market in India.

Only major PDA OS yet to be widely available in India is Palm inspite of its Treo Smartphone being very popular in abroad. Palm has acquired China Mobile Soft, a Chinese mobile software company primarily offering Linux based pdas and soon plan to launch a special version of Palm running on top of Linux. Well Palm and Linux is an interesting combination, lets wait and watch what does it do to continuously evolving PDA and Smartphone scenario in India. LG is expected to ship first Palm on Linux handset in the market.

PDA phones/Smartphones really make you more productive personally as well as professionally and this fact is slowing being understood by Indians.

My company develops softwares for mobiles and mobile field force, for more info please visit our website www.palewar.com

Related Links:

Nokia - http://nokia.co.in/
Blackberry - http://www.airtelworld.com/blackberry/
O2 - http://www.seeo2.com/web/template/Region.vm?region=in
EGO - http://www.tataindicom.com/misc/ego.asp
Treo - http://www.palm.com/in/products/smartphones/treo600/