By far the most awaited game of the year, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV) takes gamers on the streets of Liberty City, a dystopic version of New York City in 2008. What propels this violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire is the fun factor weaved into every scene. GTA IV has vehicles that look even more fantastic.
In what will be the first such comprehensive exercise in the IT industry, all the 91,000-odd employees of India's second-largest IT services provider, Infosys Technologies, will now have to pass certification programmes to get promoted. The certification programme, conducted every March, is now being extended across the board and will test the employees' domain expertise, and grade them accordingly to be eligible for promotion.
B K Modi-controlled Spice Mobile is all set to launch its GSM phone for Rs 800 this month. Branded as the 'People's Phone', the handset, a very basic model, doesn't have a display screen. Spice officials believe the company will sell around one million units in India and 10 million globally over the next 12 months.
Entertainment, Dhruva will be working with the company to produce games that could be marketed both in local and international markets. The company will also introduce the use of motion-sensing technology, made popular by Nintendo Wii, to PS2 game developers this year.
Thanks to the development of power-efficient and smaller components, small form factor desktop PCs from Acer, Dell and HP have become quiet popular among home and professional users. SFF PCs are mostly sold with kits that include a motherboard, case, power supply, and central processing unit (CPU) cooler. This makes them cheaper when compared to professional PCs. Most of the SFF systems in the market are based around Intel processors, particularly the mobile CPUs.
Projectors seem to have come of age and there is no dearth of quality images, if you have the money .
Highlighting piracy as the main problem concerning the Hindi film industry, founder of Yash Raj Films, Yash Chopra, said Bollywood is losing Rs 16,000 crore annually to piracy. During Ficci Frames 08, he appealed to the I&B Ministry to work out a plan of action against piracy. YRF has digitised its distribution in a bid to combat piracy. They are also getting aggressive on the new media. He lamented industry does not have the legal authority to book the wrongdoers in piracy.
In its efforts to thwart Microsoft, IBM had unveiled Lotus Symphony a few months back, challenging the former's dominance in the office desktop software market. The package includes a word processor, spreadsheets and a presentation suite. Edward Orange, director, Lotus Business Unit (Software Group), IBM Asia-Pacific, said, "Since it's free, Lotus Symphony is a formidable challenge to Microsoft's new Office 2007 suite in the market for Windows-based productivity software."
According to a survey conducted jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB, the consumer Internet market is growing at 30 per cent and this is lucrative enough for Microsoft and Google, with each trying to outdo the other. The 38.5 million Internet users, according to an IAMAI study, have become the prime target for numerous advertisers clouding the web. Recently, Microsoft launched the platform in India with four leading publishers.
Logitech Squeezebox, the new music gadget on the block, is a wireless box that uses wi-fi to play music. It can be integrated in home theatre system and speaker or ear phones too.
The company also maintains that its original equipment (OEM) partners such as Taiwan-based Asustek Computer, HTC, HCL, Gigabyte and Palm, will start rolling out cheaper internet-enabled notebooks and handsets at prices that will drive mass adoption in emerging markets.
Indian PC and console game developers and publishers are gradually waking up to the potential of developing games completely in India.
With a fast-expanding pool of billionaires and millionaires, India is now an important market for pleasure-craft peddlers.
Publishing companies in India are betting big on real life stories from the world of business to woo readers.
Want to install a GPS device in your car or mobile phone? We check out some systems and give tips on what to look out for.
Nasscom estimates that the KPO industry is poised for a 45 per cent per annum growth till 2010. The current hotspots in KPO are engineering and design, basic data search, integration and management and biotech & pharma.
Online Advertising has come of age as companies realise its potential. The online advertising market is expected to see phenomenal growth in the near future.
Osim revealed its plans of opening 10 showrooms in Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities in India. They have a positive approach to operations in India.
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and MacWorld in San Francisco, both this January, promise to mark an exciting beginning for all those who can't get enough of gadgets.
Financial frauds in the cyber space may rise in 2008, warn online security vendors.
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