MediaTek’s Hotknot technology to give NFC a run for its money

MediaTek is busy developing Hotknot, a proximity pairing technology that will give some serious competition to NFC. The Chinese chipset manufacturer itself has gone on record to confirm it.

The new technology may be similar to NFC when it comes to the application, but if you consider its implementation, its way different than the latter. The connectivity option that is already available in a large number of smartphones makes use of the antenna and RF chip to establish a wireless connection. But Hotknot will rely on capacitor touch ICs which will be placed on the devices’ touchscreens.


The components that will be placed on the display will help the handset detect compatible devices in the vicinity. And the technology also claims to use data acquired by proximity and gravity sensors. This information was revealed to EETAsia, report the folks over at NDTV Gadgets.

Apparently, Hotknot will facilitate wireless connection between a wide range of devices including TVs, smartwatches and tablets. And if the company is to be believed, its implementation costs much less than that of its rival. Very soon, MediaTek will send its software packages to Chinese manufacturing companies to give them a fair idea about it.


MediaTek is currently in talks with FocalTech because this company has the biggest share in the touch controller IC market in China. Let’s wait and watch how Hotknot fares in the technology realm.

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Minecraft sales top 15 million in 2012

We already knew that sales for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition came in over the 5 million mark for 2012, but today we’re getting a broader picture of the sales the franchise managed last year. Mojang has shared a list of Christmas Day stats for all versions of Minecraft, and in doing so, the company has also revealed how many sales each version brought in throughout 2012. Needless to say, the numbers for each impress, while the final tally for the franchise in general is pretty staggering.

First though, let’s check out those Christmas stats. Mojang says that on December 25th, 70,808 players either purchased or redeemed codes for the PC and Mac version of Minecraft. When we zoom out and look at the week of December 24th, that number grows to 241,845 purchases. In all, the PC/Mac version of Minecraft brought in 4,177,843 sales throughout the year, which isn’t bad for a game that has been available for a number of years already.

Of course, while the PC version’s sales were impressive, they couldn’t top the sales of the Xbox 360 version. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was purchased 100,416 times on Christmas day, jumping up to 325,591 sales during the larger Christmas week. 5,002,370 sales was the final tally for Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, which again is something that we already knew.


With the huge number of people getting a new smartphone or tablet on Christmas day, it definitely isn’t surprising that the sales for Minecraft: Pocket Edition managed to come in on top of the Xbox 360 and PC versions. The mobile version of Minecraft netted 283,939 sales on Christmas day, 706,419 on Christmas week, and 5,899,727 for 2012 as a whole. Both iOS and Android sales are counted in this figure, so it would appear that Mojang is cleaning up across all platforms.

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CES 2013 promises new generation of "smart" gadgets

At the world's largest technology conference that kicks off on Monday, the most intriguing innovations showcased may be gadgets and technology that turn everyday items into connected, smarter machines.


This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas promises a new generation of "smart" gadgets, some controlled by voice and gestures, and technology advancements in cars, some of which already let you dictate emails or check real-time gas prices.


Pundits have long predicted that home appliances like refrigerators and stoves will be networked, creating an "Internet of things." With advancements in chips and the ubiquity of smartphones and tablets, it's now happening.

"We've been talking about this convergence of consumer electronics and computers and content for 20 years. It will actually be somewhat of a reality here, in that your phone, your tablet, your PC, your TV, your car, have a capability to all be connected," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. 

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Pune man shirts up with Rs1.27 crore gold

Popularly known as the ‘goldman’ in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Dattatray Phuge’s novel attempt to grab eyeballs paid off on Thursday. The 40-year-old shot to fame for making the most expensive fashion statement this city has seen in a long time.

Phuge was spotted wearing a shirt made up of 22-carat pure gold which is worth a whopping Rs1.27crore. The shirt weighing 3.5 kg includes a belt of 325 grams. Known for his penchant for gold, he self admittedly wears gold ornaments weighing 7 kg in his daily life.

It pieces together 14,000 gold spangles interwoven with 1 lakh rings on a specially imported white velvet cloth. It features six Swavorski crystals as buttons.

The shirt has been designed by city-based Ranka Jewellers, who employed 15 skilled artisans from West Bengal. They laboured for 18 hours everyday over two weeks for completing the piece. But where will the Goldman wear his shirt of gold?

“At major public events or where he needs to make a statement, otherwise it will stay in the locker,” said Seema, Phuge’s wife. Ask Phuge the reason for this eccentric act and he promptly replies, “I wanted to catch everyone’s attention.”


Both Phuge andRanka Jewellers said that this ‘stunt’ would earn the ‘goldman’ a place in the Guinness or Limca Book of records. Given his weakness for the bling, it is little wonder that Phuge was one of the favoured clients of Ranka Jewellers. A few weeks ago, Phuge met the jewellery brand owner with a unique request. “I said that I owned everything right from chains to rings, bracelets, watches in gold. Now, I wanted something that no one would have,” he said.

“That’s when Tejpal Ranka suggested making a shirt of gold. Just like Shivaraj Maharaj used to wear a chain shirt while going to war, this garment was to be similar. I didn’t think it was possible but was excited with the idea as it would help us garner international attention,” he added. A well-known landowner, who also runs a co-operative credit society and financial institutions, Phuge also has political connections. His wife Seema is an NCP corporator in Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation. She was earlier with the Shiv Sena.


Despite the bling, Phuge said that he doesn’t fear for his security. “I have been wearing a heap of gold since many years. I am always surrounded by my trusted boys and no one can dare to harm me,” he challenged. Even the fear of the taxmen doesn’t worry him. “It’s all tax paid money. I have no fear of the taxmen,” Phuge said.

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Western Digital India launching home networking solutions

NEW DELHI: Western Digital, one of the world's largest computer hard disk drive makers, today said it will launch a series of networking solutions in the country to tap the burgeoning demand for connected homes market.

According to estimates, there were over 80 million connected homes globally in 2011, which is expected to grow to close to 900 million by 2016. This would mirror strong growth across product segments like gaming consoles, Blu-ray connected players and hybrid set top boxes.

"Network demands within the connected homes are growing exponentially with members of the family watching movies, playing games or browsing the internet simultaneously on their smartphones, laptops, tablets, gaming consoles and smart TVs," WD sales, branded products (India, Middle East and Africa), Khalid Wani told reporters here.

"With our solutions, customers can experience full-HD content and lets users connect multiple devices easily," he said.

The company will launch four products in the third week of September under the "MyNet" category -- N900 Central, N900, N750 and N600 -- with prices ranging from Rs 5,699 to 25,999.


"There is a strong growth in the number of internet users and we expect this to fuel our growth in this category as well," he said but declined to comment on sales targets.


Using the routers, users will be able to access movies, videos and games online on multiple devices like mobile phones, tablets, smart TVs, PCs and other Wi-Fi connected devices.


The company estimates the Indian router market to grow at about 12-14 per cent in 2012 to be close to Rs 1,730 crore from Rs 1,560 crore in 2011.

Nasdaq-listed Western Digital reported revenue of USD 12.5 billion for 2011-12 compared to fiscal 2010-11 revenue of USD 9.5 billion. It has about one lakh employees globally.

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DoT reportedly extends deadline to phase out old phones

The Department of Telecommunication has reportedly given one more year to mobile manufacturers to conform to the new radiation emission guidelines, and to phase out existing models that do not comply. The existing models that have been introduced on or before August 31, 2012 will be allowed to be in the market for another year.

LiveMint which claims to have a copy of the internal DoT note reveals the department has revised the specific absorption rate or SAR value from the current 2Watts per kg to 1.6W.kg after recommendation of an internal government committee.


The DoT note said that, starting 1 September, “only mobile handsets with revised SAR value of 1.6W/kg would be permitted to be manufactured or imported in India for the domestic market.”

However, as stated earlier, the deadline has been now extended to August 31, 2013 for the existing models. The extension of the deadline was made after various stakeholders sought more clarifications on the new norms.


Pankaj Mohindroo, national president of the Indian Cellular Association lobby group, says the move cannot be dubbed as the extension of the deadline. LivemMint quotes Mohindroo as saying, “This is just keeping in mind the (18-24 month) product life cycle of the existing models. The government has carefully considered the demand and supply position of mobile phones with the revised SAR value, time required to launch new models of mobile phones and phasing out of existing models.”

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Asia's fastest data cable links Tokyo to Singapore

A new high-speed undersea data cable has opened to traffic in Asia.

The 7,800km Asia Submarine-cable Express (ASE) connects Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.


It transfers data via an optical fibre system at 40 gigabits per second, and is three milliseconds faster than any other cable between Singapore and Tokyo.


The gain in speed may sound small, but could prove critical to financial trades made out of the region.


So-called "high frequency trades", controlled by computers, involve making what may be hundreds of thousands of transactions in less than a second - all determined by a program that tracks market conditions.


With banks and hedge funds competing against each other, the size of the profit or loss can come down to a matter of beating the competition by a fraction of a second, explained Ralph Silva, a strategist at Silva Research Network.


"High frequency trading is basically computer trading - you program a set of rules and as events happen - the computer decides buy or sell commands," he said.


"As all incoming data is received by all banks at the same time, and because the computers are all the same with the same speed of processors, the length of time the command takes to get to the exchange makes a big difference.


"So if all banks come to the same trading decision at the same time, the one to get the transaction to the master computer first wins.


"Three milliseconds in computer time is an hour in human time."


The route for the new cable was chosen to be as straight as possible, reducing the time to get information from one end to the other to 65 milliseconds.


The data transfer capacity of 40Gbps is the equivalent of downloading a high-resolution DVD in about two seconds.

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Now, enjoy 3D films without glasses

A new technology has been developed that will make it possible for viewers to enjoy three-dimensional programmes without those bothersome 3D glasses.

Though prototypes of these TV screens already exist, consumers will not have to wait much longer for the market introduction of these autostereoscopic displays.

Nevertheless, the content might be a bit problematic - the 3D movies currently available on Blu-ray are based on two different perspectives, i.e. two images, one for each eye.


However, autostereoscopic displays need five to ten views of the same scene (depending on the type). In the future, the number will probably be even more.


This is because these displays have to present a three-dimensional image in such a manner that it can be seen from different angles – indeed, there is more than one place to sit on a sofa, and you should be able to get the same three dimensional impressions from any position


Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz Institute, HHI in Berlin recently developed a technology that converts a Blu-ray’s existing 3D content in a manner that enables them to be shown on autostereoscopic displays.


“We take the existing two images and generate a depth map – that is to say, a map that assigns a specific distance from the camera to each object,” Christian Riechert, research fellow at HHI said.

“From there we compute any of several intermediate views by applying depth image-based rendering techniques. And here’s the really neat thing: The process operates on a fully automated basis, and in real time,” he said.

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Android Flash Player RIP: How to Get it Now That it's Gone

HTML5 has won the war with Adobe Flash for mobile devices. As of today, Flash for Android devices won’t available to download anymore from the Google Play store and the company said it has stopped development of Flash for mobile devices.

Adobe delisted Flash Player from Google Play, and you won’t be able to get any updates that fix bugs unless you have a device with Flash already installed or pre-installed by the manufacturer (here’s a list of the Flash-certified Android devices). In other words, Adobe is telling everyone to move on from Flash on their phones.

If you have an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean phone, then Adobe says Flash Player is not supported. If you had Flash preinstalled and updated to 4.1, the company recommends you uninstall Flash, as it is not certified and could “exhibit unpredictable behavior.” If you have a Nexus 7, then the tablet does not come with Flash pre-installed, and the new Chrome browser does not support Flash anyway.

Some popular video providers have not transitioned to HTML5, so if you still want Flash on your phone, there are ways around it -- just keep in mind that this is not recommended by Adobe and that the experience with the plugin can be very poor. Also note that downloading the Flash Player apk file from unofficial sources could open the gates to malware on your phone or tablet, so it’s not recommended to get the file from third-party sources.

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Let me know if you find Martians: Obama to NASA

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE: US President Barack Obama on Monday ribbed scientists behind NASA's roving robot Curiosity, instructing them to let him know right away if they found life on Mars.

"If in fact, you do make contact with Martians, please let me know right away," Obama joked, as he called the scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California from Air Force One.

"I've got a lot of other things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go to the top of the list. Even if they're just microbes, it will be pretty exciting."

Curiosity touched down on Mars last week, after a high-risk landing, and will hunt for soil-based signatures of life on Earth's nearest neighbor and send back data to prepare for a future human mission.

It will also haul a Mars Science Laboratory as far as halfway up Mount Sharp, a towering three-mile (five-kilometer) Martian mountain with sediment layers that may be up to a billion years old.


Obama said that thanks to the dedication of NASA scientists, Curiosity "stuck her landing and captured the attention and imagination of millions of people not just across our country, but people all around the world.

"You've made NASA proud. You guys are examples of American know-how and ingenuity, and it's really an amazing accomplishment," he said, and offered a political vow to maintain critical investment in science and technology.

Obama's call was another example of the advantages of political incumbency: he got to talk to the scientists in his official role from his presidential plane while his Republican foe Mitt Romney only got to talk about them.

"We just landed on Mars and took a good look at what's going on there," Romney said in Florida on Monday.


The Republican also lauded America's 1960s missions to the moon and suggested that China, which plans to land a probe on the moon next year for the first time, "take a good look at our flag that was flown there 43 years ago."

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Government to migrate critical IT infrastructure on cloud computing

NEW DELHI: At a time, when private enterprises are only testing the waters around cloud computing, India's central government has made a bold decision to migrate critical information infrastructure on the cloud.

Department of information technology is planning to set up a national cloud based network that connects all state data centers which would make that the backbone of national e-governance plan, which when completed would deliver many government to citizen and government business services via the internet.


 In effect, each of the 28 states and 7 union territories will now have a private cloud of their own. The Department of IT has invited proposals from IT companies like HP, IBM, Cisco and Dell to set up and maintain private clouds in each state. The move may cost the Centre less than Rs 100 crore, and will help the exchequer prevent wastage of money on duplication of resources.

State Data Centres built at a cost of Rs 4-5 crore each, are operational in about 16 states, with the rest lagging behind. UP, Punjab, Assam, Mizoram, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh are laggards, even as all states in the South have fully functional data centres, provisioning many public services online.


The move will save taxpayer's money and time, as IT resources like servers and storage will be shared amongst departments, and also provide elasticity and on demand services.


"SDC will now be operated as a Private Cloud for each State and will be managed by a third party," the draft tender put out by the Department of IT, last month.


Though India has woken up only now, other government have taken a lead. US was one of the first government's in the world to come out with a federal cloud strategy, which was invoked by CIO of the US Vivek Kundra in 2010-11. The Obama government has allocated $20 billion of the Federal Government's IT budget to migrate existing infrastructure on the cloud.


UK government has also come up with a G-cloud strategy for reduction in costs, and achieve 'economies of scale'.


An India-based e-governance official at a US based IT firm told ET that the company had been making presentations to the government for last six months, on cloud adoption, as other governments are adopting across the world. The official expects the final RFP to be out in 2-3 months, as the new IT Secretary J Satynarayana has come on board.


The public cloud computing market in India is expected to grow at $685 million by 2014, according to an independent research firm Zinnov Management Consulting.


US IT companies HP and IBM are expected to benefit the most, if India goes the cloud way, as most operational data centres have been built and being operated by the two firms.

As per Zinnov Consulting, the overall Indian market for Cloud is about $860-$912 million. Of this Public Cloud market comprises of only 20% share, while the remaining 78-80% is accounted by Private Cloud. Zinnov estimates Public Cloud market to grow to $685 million by 2014 in India.

"The IT department at center has been talking about setting up cloud computing based services for a while now but what remains to be seen is how fast these services will be set up," said Prof Sadagopan - Director of IIIT - Bangalore and Chairman - Core Committee Meeting at the Center for e-governance, Karnataka. "Once established, it'll be big shift from our current PC culture but we also need greater understanding of the data security challenges that could arise out of this." 

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Suitors bid low for Kodak patents: Report

As Eastman Kodak Co's patent auction draws to a close, the bankrupt photography company has only received lowball bids for the patents that it believes are worth $2.6 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported citing unnamed sources.

All offers for Kodak's 1,100 digital patents, for which Apple Inc, Google Inc and Microsoft Corp are reportedly bidding, have come in significantly below the $500 million mark, the Journal said.


Bankrupt Kodak is selling the patents in order to repay creditors. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection in January after failing to keep up as consumers and rivals shifted to digital photography from film photography.

"Our patent auction is a complex and dynamic process, and is very much ongoing," Kodak spokeswoman Stefanie Goodsell told Reuters.


"We and all participants are still bound by the court order on confidentiality and cannot comment prior to an outcome."


The auction process is expected to continue through the weekend and Kodak lawyers are due to present the bids to the bankruptcy court on Monday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), according to bid procedures.


The photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products such as cameras, had obtained a $950 million bankruptcy loan from Citigroup and is expected to pay that off from the proceeds.

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Power generation from Maheshwar project gets nod

BHOPAL: The National Green Tribunal has allowed Shree Maheshwar Hydel Power Corporation Ltd (SMHPCL) to increase the water level at the Maheshwar dam upto 154 meters from the existing 145.76 meters and also gave permission to commence generation of 40 megawatt of electricity.


Tribunal's principal bench, headedby Justice A S Naidu and Dr G K Pandey, on Thursday set aside a petition seeking to stop SMHPCL to increase the water level in the dam. Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has been campaigning against increase in water level in the Maheshwar dam.

In its order the bench observed that it was satisfied that adequate measures have been taken by the ministry of environment and forest for protection of the villagers. The order also allowed SMHPCL to generate 40 MW of electricity by increasing the water level upto 154 meters for a period of three months.

The National Green Tribunal Act 2010 was set up for effective and expeditious disposal of cases relating to environmental protection and conservation of forests and other natural resources. It is a specialized body equipped with the necessary expertise to handle environmental disputes involving multi-disciplinary issues.


Meanwhile, in an e-mailed statement, SMHPCL director Alok Sinha hailed the NGT decision to grant permission to fill water level in dam reservoir to 154 metres, maintaining that the decision has exposed narmada bachao Andolan's false claims on submergence of villages. 

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Virus found in Mideast can spy on bank transactions

A new cyber surveillance virus has been found in the Middle East that can spy on banking transactions and steal login information for social networking sites, email and instant messaging, according to a leading computer security firm, Kaspersky Lab.

Dubbed Gauss, the virus may also be capable of attacking critical infrastructure and was very likely built in the same laboratories as Stuxnet, the computer worm widely believed to have been used by the United States and Israel to attack Iran's nuclear program, Kaspersky Lab said on Thursday.


The Moscow-based firm said it found Gauss had infected more than 2,500 personal computers, the bulk of them in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Targets included Lebanon's BlomBank, ByblosBank and Credit Libanais, as well as Citigroup Inc's Citibank and eBay's PayPal online payment system.

Officials with the three Lebanese banks said they were unaware of the virus. PayPal spokesman Anuj Nayar said the company was investigating the matter but was not aware of any increase in "rogue activity" as a result of Gauss. A Citibank spokeswoman declined to comment.

Kaspersky Lab would not speculate on who was behind Gauss, but said the virus was connected to Stuxnet and two other related cyber espionage tools, Flame and Duqu. The U.S. Department of Defense declined to comment.

"After looking at Stuxnet, Duqu and Flame, we can say with a high degree of certainty that Gauss comes from the same 'factory' or 'factories,'" Kaspersky said on its website. "All these attack toolkits represent the high end of nation state sponsored cyber espionage and cyber war operations."

Kaspersky's findings are likely to fuel a growing international debate over the development and use of cyber weapons and espionage tools. Those discussions were stirred up by the discovery of Flame in May by Kaspersky and others.

Jeffrey Carr, an expert on cyber warfare who runs a small security firm known as Taia Global, said the U.S. government has long monitored Lebanese banks for clues about the activities of militant groups and drug cartels. He said Gauss was likely built by adapting technology deployed in Flame.

"You've got this successful platform. Why not apply it to this investigation into Lebanese banks and whether or not they are involved in money laundering for Hezbollah?" he said.


Several analysts said they were not surprised to hear that most of the Gauss infections were discovered in Lebanon. "Beirut is a hot spot for the clandestine movement of money by states," said a former U.S. intelligence expert on money laundering who asked not to be named.

New York's state banking regulator this week accused Britain's Standard Chartered Plc of violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws by scheming with Iran to hide more than $250 billion of transactions.

Experts said that surveillance viruses like Gauss are perfect tools for government intelligence units to gather information for such investigations, though they did not specifically link Gauss to the Standard Chartered case.


"Espionage happens all the time," said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at anti-virus software maker F Secure. "In the old days you had to go where the information was to copy it. Today it is on computers and networks."

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Mars rover Curiosity ready for its driver’s license

PASADENA, California (Reuters) – After flying more than 350 million miles (563 million km) from Earth, the Mars rover Curiosity is about to get its driver’s license.

Mission control engineers in California will spend the next four days remotely installing new computer software in Curiosity that essentially reorients the brains of the six-wheeled vehicle for maneuvering around the surface of the Red Planet.


The nuclear-powered rover, about the size of a small sports car, can only store so much pre-programmed information in its computer module at once, having less on-board memory capacity than a typical cell phone.


Its previous flight-control software was tailored for the complex tasks of atmospheric entry, descent and landing that brought the mobile science lab to a historic touchdown on the floor of a vast, ancient impact basin called Gale Crater earlier this week.

A new version of the software, uploaded to Curiosity while it was still en route to Mars, is instead specially designed to let NASA engineers safely drive the rover, operate its robot arm, use its power drill, collect samples, sweep away dust and perform other functions as it goes about its science mission.

“Curiosity was born to drive. This software includes the capability for Curiosity to really go out and stretch her wheels,” Benjamin Cichy, the rover’s senior software and systems engineer, told reporters on Friday at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Los Angeles.

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Olympics fans use the Web to sneak around tape delay

When the Olympics opening ceremony began last week, Erik Thauvin did what many tech-savvy sports fans would do after learning about the tape delay: search for a live stream of the event.

Live feeds on the Web were getting shut down left and right, so it took some finagling on his part. Eventually Thauvin, 44, a programmer in Everett, Wash., found an illegal stream with sub-par video quality and hundreds of “nightmarish” pop-up ads. “It wasn’t even worth spending time on it,” he noted. It proved to be so much of a headache that he eventually relented, waiting until primetime to watch NBC’s rendition of the event.


Officially, NBC has defended its decision by saying such "complex entertainment spectacles" do not "translate well online because they require context." But it's worth noting that consolidating viewership into primetime also means higher Nielsen ratings, which ultimately translates into more ad dollars — much needed to recoup some of the $1.3 billion the network shelled out to broadcast the Games. NBC delivered with the kickoff, with 40.7 million viewers, a 17 percent spike from the Beijing opening ceremonies four years prior, and averaging 35.8 million the first three days.


Even though the network is streaming every sporting and medal event live on its website and its NBC Olympics Live Extra app, many people aren't satisfied. For one thing, only cable and satellite subscribers can access the service, and more are cutting the cord than ever. A Nielsen report , for example, found 1.6 million people in the fourth quarter of 2011 had recently said goodbye to their cable service.


Fans have also complained that the opening and closing ceremonies aren't available as live streams, and that the web video feed has been marred by technical glitches and other annoyances. These issues have sent people like Tara Jenson, 37, scrambling for other ways to watch live. Jenson, a Linux system administrator in Minneapolis, set up two virtual private networks (VPN) to bypass NBC's broadcast, one on her home media server and the other on her iPad, tethered to a 4G hotspot, so she can watch at work. Her preferred coverage? The BBC, which is notably devoid of “NBC’s dumb commentary,” she said.


While the BBC’s terms of service for its streaming player don’t mention viewing from outside the U.K., it refers users to its frequently asked questions for more information. There, the network clearly lays out that its broadcasting rights extend only to the U.K. Olympic content for both its iPlayer and streaming app are geo-blocked, so viewers outside the U.K. can’t watch its live feeds.


Jenson’s VPN masks the location of her computer and iPad, making it appear as if she were logging online from outside the U.S., so her clever workaround lets her watch the BBC’s coverage. 

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MapMyIndia launches android-powered navigation device CarPad 5 at Rs 19,990

After the launch of not-so-successful CarPad, MapMyIndia has come up with a 5inch tablet 'CarPad 5' that doubles up as a navigation device as well as a smartphone. The CarPad 5 is priced at Rs 19,990.

Running on Android platform, the CarPad 5 has a 5 inch capacitive display is powered by 1GHz single core processor. For connectivity, this Hybrid device has in-built 3G and Wi-Fi support.

This device can be used for messaging, mails, chat, web browsing, social networking and downloading apps from the Google Play. 


For a smooth navigation experience, the company's latest 3D mapping solution, Aura has been loaded on the CarPad 5. Along with the country's detailed maps, this software is capable of offering real time traffic updates, house level search, security (track and trace), and discounts offers in the vicinity.

It also offers live turn-by-turn voice guidance to places, augmented reality with 3D landmarks, buildings and terrain, house-level details, travel guides and nearby information and friend finders.

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Street sensors to help locate parking space

LONDON: For the first time, a mobile application will guide drivers in UK where to park and allow them to pay on phone for the parking.

Sensors which can alert motorists to empty parking bays are being trialled in Britain for the first time, the 'Daily Mail' reported. "This has potential for the whole country. We're piloting the first system of its kind in the Europe from this Wednesday. Smart sensors are being installed in parking bays for the first time on-street in the UK," a spokesman for Westminster City Council was quoted as saying.


"It will reduce congestion and minimize the need for motorists to endlessly trawl the streets searching for somewhere to park," the spokesperson said. Westminster City Council along with carpark firm 'Town and City Parking Ltd' are piloting this system here.


The small glass-domed sensors are embedded in the centre of each bay and can tell when a car is present, absent , or has over-stayed its allotted time. Details of empty bays will be collected centrally and sent via mobile phone and wi-fi to motorists on their phones, who can then drive to the vacant space. Drivers have to pay for to park over the phone. Once fully operational, that the system will also send special alerts to drivers when their paid-for time is getting over.

If a driver overstays the allotted parking time, the sensors will send a signal to the parking authorities who will send around a warden to issue a penalty ticket to the motorist.  

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