IN CASE YOU DID NOT READ THE HINDUSTAN TIMES TODAY

Though This statement of mine is not going to be favored well with all the Telecom Providers, but I thought I must share it with my blog readers and other twitter followers etc, who don't have access to either the Hindustan Times or don't read it. Here are the snapshots of the full cover page of the Hindustan Times (National Daily) and the blow up of the article mentioning my comments on the state of the Telecom Providers.

"I’ve shifted to fixed telephones now for all important business calls,” says Gagandeep Sapra. As CEO of System 3 Group, a data centre provider, he cannot risk depending on an unreliable connection.

“Though they don’t offer mobility or have restricted mobility, getting someone to call on your office desk is the best practice and safer for business,” Sapra says."

Goodbye TV, hello streaming - The Telegraph Calcutta (Kolkatta)

Another story done by Rahul Jayram of the Telegraph, about the trend of people watching Television shows online. I as most others, am a great fan of you tube, but with itunes having so much digital content available and high speed bandwidth availability (atleast for some of the lucky few), I have also moved quite a bit to watching digital media, than regular Television. Though a meeting with Niyam Bushan, had us discuss the penetration of Television being much higher than Print or Online, and how the next destination for all of us should be the Idiot Box, this is an interesting story.

I have highlighted my comments with in the story for my readers

Goodbye TV, hello streaming
Indians overseas can catch their favourite television shows online, reports Rahul Jayaram

It’s 10 pm on a Tuesday in Singapore. Chennai-raised company executive Laxmi Sivakumaran is itching for her favourite Tamil soap. A key moment in Selvi, the current Tamil mega serial, is set to unfold. A house is about to be divided. It’s Indian television entertainment at its melodramatic peak. What happens next?

“I log on to the Net,” chuckles a chatty Sivakumaran. “I get online and don’t even need to download the episode.”

Welcome to watching your pick of the soaps on the Internet. Sivakumaran is one among many users abroad who go online to view soaps they’re addicted to. Portals such as www.idesitv.com, www.muft.tv, www.yupptv.com, www.biggboss2.in.com and Network18’s www.in.com have become the go-to zones for Indians abroad who’ve been longing for a slice of desi masala. “I don’t have a TV, so the Web is a boon,” says Sivakumaran.

In faraway Glasgow, Scotland, Mumbai-born Rajesh Pathak, a catering professional, kept up with all the juice in episodes of Bigg Boss 2 on the show’s website www.biggboss2.in.com. “Indian TV channels are quite expensive here, so I prefer to view Indian shows online,” Pathak says. Sneha Mathur, a Mumbai-born medical student in Austin, Texas, stresses that the web is how she catches up with Indian shows. She left India in the middle of last year but caught Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’s final episodes on www.muft.tv while in the US.

The USP of most of these sites is that viewers can watch their favourite shows without having to download a video clip, courtesy video streaming — a technology that enables you to watch an audiovisual clip online. To view such a clip, you just go to a website and get registered (in most cases for free, though some have charges), click on the language of your choice, move to the TV serial link and get a list of the most recent episodes of your chosen show. Depending on the website, the quality of the clip and the strength of your Internet connection, the streaming begins. It’s also an option for those who live in India but have missed an episode of their favourite show.

However, the bulk of these sites resides in a shadowy zone as far as the legality of their uploaded content goes. While there are no figures to establish how many users actually avail of these services, technology and cyber legal experts admit that it is as well-established a phenomenon as downloading films and music from the web.

“These websites are culpable under the Information Technology Act of 2000,” says cyber affairs lawyer Pavan Duggal. “But this law basically takes into consideration e-commerce-related electronic data and information issues. When this law was framed in 2000, few were concerned about matters pertaining to uploading videos of TV channel shows,” he says. “People can be charged with hacking, or with streaming illegal content or violating copyright. But cases are few and far between as it’s very difficult to catch portal hosts.”

Gagandeep S. Sapra, technology columnist and CEO of System 3 Group, Delhi, adds that users can’t be identified unless they are using a credit card for payment. “Second, who will share this information with the authorities? The biggest problem is that users don’t know whether this is fair play or piracy and hence litigating the user becomes very difficult.” The Telegraph technology columnist Tushar Kanwar points out that most of these websites have been put up outside India and under fictitious identities.

Clearly, it’s not easy for television channels to take action. “We routinely put out legal notices to websites to take down content which infringes on our copyright. However, many such websites are very difficult to trace and may be registered in jurisdictions where copyright enforcement is extremely difficult,” admits Sameer Rao, senior vice president (strategic planning and commercial) of STAR India.

Giving a fillip to the phenomenon is the fact that video streaming is as easy as uploading a video on a Facebook profile. For the former, the connection is between the user’s computer and television set, instead of a digital camera and a computer.

To upload TV show episodes, the TV and the computer need to have compatible TV tuner cards. Once the connection is set, and as a serial begins live on TV, it starts getting converted into a video file on the user’s computer. When the video file is complete and transferred to the PC, the user logs in to any of the websites mentioned where he or she is a registered member and uploads the video. Most users, it appears, upload just for the fun of it — though some websites may hope to make money from advertising if they can capture enough eyeballs.

In the case of websites such as www.biggboss2.in.com, there are daily uploads of the current day’s episodes. Other websites, including www.yupptv.com and www.idesitv.com, upload serials more irregularly.

To combat unlicensed streaming, STAR hopes to put up its own shows on approved websites. Rao says the channel has entered into licensing deals for their content with several established websites such as www.rajshri.com, www.mypopkorn.com, Bigflix and Eros to show both full length episodes and clips.

Some TV channels, in fact, believe online video streaming can lead to an increased global reach. “We’re going to see a growing merger between multiple media platforms such as Internet and TV. In a bid to expand our reach abroad, we have tied up with outlets like BigFlix.com to stream some of our programmes so that legally registered viewers can view them,” says Gaurav Gandhi, executive vice-president, business operations and content sales, NDTV Imagine.

Sapra stresses that video streaming is on a high. “India will soon see this come up in a big way. We’re soon going to be in a situation where two years from now you’re riding on the Delhi Metro, have high speed Internet available on the train, and then watch TV on your hand held PDA, laptop or cell phone, without having to download — that’s the potential of streaming. TV sets are going to have a hard time selling,” he says.

“The distance between the TV and the PC appears to be collapsing,” says Kanwar. Sapra adds there are “very exciting days ahead.” Laxmi Sivakumaran would raise a toast to that. Selvi is just a click away.

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The above article appeared in the Telegraph Calcutta Edition, on January 11, 2009, and the rights for this story lie with The Telegraph. I am not an author of this story, it is replicated here, only for the purpose of reference to G-Spot readers.

Laptop Nanos - Telegraph Calcutta (Kolkatta)

The Tata Nano brought in the revolution to mini / small / sub notebooks. The Atom Revolution. Rahul Jayram, with the Telegraph had done a wonderful story in August 2008, that I forgot to publish here on the blog. The Story had my interview / comments in it, and I have highlighted those in the middle of the blog post for my readers, who don't get the Telegraph

Vikas Kumar, 32, a middle-level executive at an information technology (IT) company, all too often hits the road. Little surprise then that the Delhi-based Kumar has long had a love affair with computers and has saved up money to buy a laptop, perhaps a Dell Inspiron. But now that he has heard of low-cost laptops and computers that are soon to hit the stores, he’s prepared to wait. “There’s every chance of computer prices crashing, so I'll bide my time” he says.

Kumar is being prudent. In a bid to reach out to the mass market, computer makers have embarked upon a quest for lower priced personal computers and laptops.

In January, Chennai-based Novatium Solutions launched a Rs 4,999 desktop called netPC and has now inked a distribution deal with state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. On June 23, software giant Intel launched what was perhaps the world’s smallest processor, the Intel Atom processor, which will power low-cost desktops (called Nettops) and super-light laptops (called Netbooks).

To begin with, the Nettops and Netbooks will be produced by three Indian companies. While Zenith is already out with its Nettop PC, Wipro and HCL are readying to storm the market with Nettops and Netbooks. A Netbook will carry price tags of Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 while the bill for a Nettop will range from Rs 11,000 to Rs 15,000. The prices will be considerably lower than the current prices of a desktop, which now costs about Rs 35,000, and a laptop, which comes for about Rs 45,000, both depending on the configuration.

“The point about low cost computers is about entering the Indian household. There are only around 8 million home PC users in India, while around 30 million people still go to cyber cafes,” says the Mumbai-based entrepreneur and co-founder and chairman of Novatium, Rajesh Jain. “Low-cost computers like the netPC will make cyber cafe users buy these computers. The way to make that happen is by entering the market with a dramatic entry price point.”

The company has already sold around 7,000 netPCs. “We are looking at penetrating 100,000 households in the current financial year,” exults Jaideep Kohli, chief operating officer of Novatium in Chennai. Kohli is also clear that the Rs 4,999 product is aimed at the mass market. “The netPC is a simple, hassle-free machine to be used by children, youngsters and home makers.” So it doesn’t have a central processing unit (CPU), software, hard disc and random access memory (RAM). “All these reside in the central server at the administrator’s end,” Kohli explains.

Netbooks and Nettops fall in a different bracket. Though cheaper than most existing desktops and laptops, they’re not as inexpensive as netPCs. Netbooks are also small and convenient to carry around.

“The Intel Atom will lead to the availability of a range of affordable Netbooks and Nettops. These devices, enabled with broadband connectivity, will help bring the Internet and basic computing experience to many more people in India,” says R. Sivakumar, managing director, sales and marketing group, Intel, south Asia.

Rajesh Gupta, director, sales and marketing group, Intel, south Asia, Mumbai, explains that Intel wants to expand the availability of computers and the Internet to smaller towns such as Raipur and Rajkot. So it has been working with state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). “In the interiors of states such as Gujarat and Maharashtra, we have a tie up with BSNL service providers. They are computer sellers and also our direct sales agents. So the BSNL outlet becomes a one-stop shop to get these basic computers and a broadband connection,” says Gupta.

The Netbook is light — 1.2 kg, versus a standard mainstream notebook’s 2.5-3 kg — and small, with a 10-inch screen size (versus screen sizes of 15-17 cm in regular laptops). It has a 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HDD and XP Home with an integrated web camera. It will be Wi-Fi enabled (by next year WiMax enabled also). That means you can use it without wires. And you can make phone calls over the Internet free of cost with software that enables you to do so.

The big question, of course, is whether the new laptops and desktops will grab hordes of buyers. Bangalore-based Ashok Tripathy, head, personal computing division, Wipro, believes that Netbooks are just right for first-time buyers, or those looking for simple Internet use and portability. “These Netbooks are ideal for people who want to surf, who want a second notebook at home, for travellers who want a light machine or for people who do office applications, e-mail and not too high-end computing,” he says.

Some technology experts, however, are sceptical. “The availability of lower powered machines at great prices will expand computer usage,” says Gagandeep S. Sapra, technology columnist and CEO of System 3 Group, an IT infrastructure and consulting firm in Delhi. “But to sell it you’d have to fight the typical Indian mindset. We think if it’s expensive, it’s good; if it’s cheap, it’s bad. The bada hai toh achchha hai mentality is difficult to overcome.”

Diptarup Chakraborti, an analyst at IT research and advisory firm Gartner Research, Mumbai, is not impressed by the prices. “At Rs.20,000-25,000, Netbooks don’t come all that cheap,” he says.

But Nettops are, and Vikas Kumar can go out and buy a laptop that may just be the industry's version of the Tata Nano.

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The above story appeared in the Telegraph Calcutta, news Paper on August 3, 2008. The Story has not been written by me, and I am not claiming to be the owner of the Story. All rights for this story are reserved with The Telegraph.