Ahmedabad, 5 January 2012

As a part of the celebration of 50th anniversary of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad(IIMA, a project of gestural installation has been installed in the campus, allowing viewers to quite literally STEP INTO their memories, this interactive installation recognized simple hand gestures to swim about, select and flip through a swarm of images from a selected period.

A gestural installation is designed and built by MediaShala (A tech+design firm from India). The installation attempts to explore the vocabulary of gestures that can be used to navigate through archived data constituting mainly of categorized, tagged and dated images.

Programmed in C# on the .NET platform , it took us about two weeks to implement the whole system ; a major chunk of it included writing code to recognize gestures.

This is second such installation in Amdavad

At Ahmedabad’s Science City, there’s on exhibition on electricity designed by China light and power company. In one of the corners, they too have set up gestural installation that works in same way as shown above in the video.

Ahmedabad, 15 December 2011

All Swarnim Express Volvo buses of the Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) are now having a wi-fi facility.

Swarnim Express Volvos are on road connecting the city of Ahmedabad with Vadodara, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Surat. The service was first launched in Ahmedabad-Vadodara Volvo bus. After good response, it was later activated in Rajkot, Jamnagar and Surat buses also.

Wi-fi service is provided free inside the buses. To prevent misuse, a traveler needs to ask for a card from the conductor. Pin number to use wi-fi is given after a passenger submits his/her email and mobile number.

Gandhinagar, 14 December 2011

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today suggested a new concept of ‘Mobile Governance’ (M-Governance) for greater application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for larger good on the lines of ‘e- Governance’ and ‘Good Governance’.

Inaugurating a three-day conference of e-INDIA at Mahatma Mandir at Gandhinagar, considered as the country’s largest ICT event, he said that mobiles are now being used by the common man with ease and Gujarat is the first to spread its usage in governance. He wished Indians used IT with as much ease as mobile.

Mr. Modi recalled that India missed the gains of Industrial Revolution as it was the slavery rule, but has risen to adapt Information Technology and particularly the youth have been benefited. India has come out of its image of snake-charmer to ‘mouse churner’.

He said that Gujarat has made long strides in the field of IT during the last decade, especially in governance. The state celebrated 2004 as ‘Year of e-Governance’. The Gujarat Government’s major initiatives included e-Dhara for computerization of land records, broadband connectivity in all the 18,000-odd villages in the state, Citizens’ Charter providing information about 100 public services at 300 Janseva Kendras, e-Gram, SWAGAT to redress online peoples’ grievances, e-Mamta, long distance learning.

Mr. Modi said that the letter ‘e’ takes care of easy, economic and effective governance. The state government has also initiated recruitment process, bar coding of ration cards and computerization of all the check posts on highways through e-Governance.

Prominent among those spoke on the occasion included Union Government’s Additional Secretary Shankar Agrawal and Gujarat’s Additional Chief Secretary (S&T) Ravi Saxena.

The conference is being attended by 400 delegates and 150 exhibitors from all over the country to deliberate on 50 different sessions.

Nadiad, 11 December, 2011

At a house in Gujarat’s Bilodara village of Nadiad taluka, a Compaq laptop suddenly exploded into flames, and lucky for its owner the fiery blast occurred while the laptop was on a table in charging mode and not in owner’s lap.

Rajendrakumar Raj who lives in Astha bungalows in Bilodara had bought this laptop from Anand in October 2007. The blast happened on Saturday when he had put laptop on charging mode.

According to Raj, a plastic chair on which the laptop was put was partially burnt. He said his son wanted to play a game on laptop, but the machine was not charged enough, therefore he informed his son to play the game only after charging. While Rajbhai was busy with some other work, he suddenly heard a loud voice of blast.

“Thanks God that I didn’t allow my son to play video game at that time,” Raj said.

Raj contacted a shop from where he had bought this laptop. Raj said the shopkeeper informed the company about this incident.

As per the primary assessment, one of the six batteries was found exploded.

Ahmedabad, 2 December 2011

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will open the seventh edition e-India, the country’s largest conference on information and communication technologies (ICT), at Mahatma mandir in Gandhinagar on December 14. Shri Ravi Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary(ACS), Department of Science and Technology Gujarat, and General Program Chair announced this today at a press conference in Ahmedabad. This is the first time that this is being organised outside New Delhi or Hyderabad.

The three-day event is jointly organised by the Union Government’s Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Gujarat Government, in collaboration with Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd. The event is being co-organised by the Department of Information Technology, the Ministry of Communications and IT, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS). This is the first time that this is being organised outside New Delhi or Hyderabad, where the conference was organised four times and twice, respectively, during the last six years.

Mr Saxena also said the Gujarat Government’s new IT policy will be announced next year, in tandem with the Centre’s IT policy.

About 4,000 participants, including bureaucrats, corporate leaders and experts, are expected to participate in the event in which three major thematic sessions on e-governance, education and health will have about 50 sub-sessions with 400 speakers. An exhibition showcasing products and services and e-India awards will be other attractions.

About one million votes have already been polled recommending the awards in various categories.

Mr. Ravi Gupta, Programme Convener and CEO of Elets Technomedia Pvt Ltd said, “this conference would be a unique platform of sharing knowledge, challenges, ideas and best practices among stakeholders driving ICT initiatives in the domain of Governance, Healthcare and Education. It would have thought provoking session, workshop, interactions etc. It would have three major tasks focusing on eGov, digital and eHealth under multiple thematic sessions.”

Mr. Sunil Kakkad, CMD-SIS and the platinum sponsor of the conference said, “this conference expects to bring together more than 4000 high level representatives from ICT industry, government, civil society , academia and private sector from India. As a company deals in hardware, system integration and Telecom equipments manufacturing, eINDIA is a platform for all the stakeholders in the ICT Community for knowledge sharing and learning. I look forward to participating in such enriching event.”

Gandhinagar, 7 December, 2011

Prof. Uri Shani, General Manager of Israel government’s Water and Suez Authority today called on Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi and discussed mutual cooperation of Gujarat and Israel in the area of water management.

According to official release issued by the Chief Minister office, the government of Israel is keen to take up projects in the areas of cost effective water desalination technology to convert sea water into sweet water, automation technology for water pipelines and canals, solar energy system for technology desalination plant, conservation of rain water, rain water recharging and harvesting technology, waste water reuse technology and water purification.

Chief Minister’s adviser on water issues Shri B.N.Navalavala, Water resources department principal secretary Shri HK Dash, Irrigation secretary Shri S.J.Desai and Chief Minister’s secretary Shri A.K.Sharma were present in the meeting.

Gandhinagar, 7 December, 2011

Mr. John Davies, Vice President of America’s Intel Corporation today called on Gujarat Chief Minister Shri Narendra Modi in Gandhinagar and presented a hardware technology manufacturing project meant for educating the teachers through technology in Gujarat.

The presentation on Hardware technology for education transformation was given by Mr. John Davis in cooperation of Gujarat government’s public enterprise unit GNFC and N-Code solutions.

The Chief Minister was briefed about MoU signed by Gujarat government’s Science and Technology department and Intel corporation.

Senior IAS Ravi Saxena, Maheshwar Sahu, AM Tivari and the officials of Intel Corporation and GNFC were present on this occasion.

New Delhi, 30 November, 2011

Two opposition members of parliament in Lok Sabha including one from Gujarat, asked the Prime minister a written question about the difference between a mail and an email.

C R Patil, a BJP MP from Navsari in Gujarat and Purnmasi Ram, a JD(U) MP from Gopalganj in Bihar sought to know from the Prime Minister the difference between the two modes of communication.

“Mail is a paper based dak/communication. Email is an electronic form of dak/communication,” Minister of State for Prime Minister’s Office(PMO) V Narayanasamy replied.

The two MPs also sought to know if there is a restriction on general public to send their grievances to senior officials and ministers through email and whether most of the emails received by government establishments remain “unanswered and deleted without replies.”

The Minister replied in negative to both the questions.

The MPs also sought to know number of complaints received through email by the officers of DoPT and the number of them pending for action and reply to complainant.

“The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances does not centrally maintain data/information about the emails received by Ministries/Departments of Government of India,” the Minister said in the reply.

He said as per Central Secretariat Manual of Office Procedure (CSMOP), email is like any ordinary dak/communication received in the Government and the officers are liable to take cognisance of the complaint received from general public through mail and e-mail.

“Action is taken against officials adopting dilatory tactics or wilfully causing delays in disposal of work assigned to them, as per Central Civil Services Conduct Rules,” he said.

Ahmedabad, 26 November, 2011

In this video, Google India Managing Director Rajan Anandan addresses the students of IIM Ahmedabad(IIMA) and other local management institutes at RJMCI auditorium of IIMA campus in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on first day of Confluence 2011 on 25 November, 2011. Rajan Anandan in his speech talks about next trends in the area of technology in India. He enthusiastically covers recent and next trends in internet and mobile technology related area in his speech with figures and projections.

About Rajan Anandan

Rajan Anandan is the Managing Director of Google in India. In this role Rajan is the Vice President responsible for Sales and Operations in India. He joined Google in February 2011. His career includes global leadership roles at Microsoft, Dell and McKinsey & Company.

Prior to Google, Rajan was the Managing Director of Microsoft India, responsible for all aspects of Microsoft’s software, OEM and services business in India. Under his leadership, Microsoft India was recognized as the Number 1 subsidiary among the emerging markets worldwide (China, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and India).

Before joining Microsoft, Rajan was the Vice President and Country General Manager of Dell in India where he grew the Dell business from $250 million to over $800 million and also held several leadership roles including being the Executive Assistant to Chairman Michael Dell. Before Dell, Rajan was a Partner with McKinsey & Company in Chicago. He holds an M.Sc. from Stanford and a B.Sc. from MIT.

Ahmedabad, 25 November, 2011

“About 40 per cent search queries on Google India comes from mobile phones today as against US (14), UK (6) and Russia (11),” said Rajan Anandan, Managing Director of Google India speaking at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad’s Confluence 2011 summit.

“Mobile Internet fastest growing vertical,” he further said.

According to Anandan, about 67 per cent of e-commerce in India happens in mobile and consumer appliances. “The Web 1.0 and 2.0 is happening together in India. And the mobile phone space is leading the way with currently 50 million mobile Internet users in India. In fact, this year alone about $500 million worth mobile phones will be brought in India,” said Anandan adding that smartphones growth in India is currently at 56 per cent CAGR.

“In 2011, 21 million smartphones are being sold in India. This will grow to 32 million in 2012, 52 million in 2013, 72 million in 2014 and eventually 100 million smartphones by 2015. Also, the emerging opportunities for innovation in India are in areas like mobile, e-commerce and SaaS,” Anandan added.

]]> http://DeshGujarat.Com/2011/11/26/google-india-gets-40-search-queries-from-mobile-phones/feed/ 1 http://DeshGujarat.Com/2011/11/18/apple-iphone-4s-india-price-announced/ http://DeshGujarat.Com/2011/11/18/apple-iphone-4s-india-price-announced/#comments Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:13:57 +0000 DeshGujarat http://DeshGujarat.Com/?p=30243

Mumbai, 18 November, 2011

Airtel will be selling the iPhone 4S base model (16 GB) in India at Rs 44,500 whereas the top-end 64 GB model will cost Rs 57,500. The 32 GB model will be sold for Rs 50,900. The models are scheduled to be launched on November 25 in India. It is reported that at midnight on November 24, 2011 (12am, Nov 25), select stores in major cities will remain open to sell the first units of the iPhone 4S to waiting customers.

The handsets to be sold in India are fully unlocked ones.

The new, revised price for iPhone 4 (8GB) is Rs 37,900 whereas iPhone 3GS (8GB) model will be sold at Rs 20,900.

Bharti Airtel has already started taking pre-orders for the 16 and 32 GB variants of the iPhone 4S on its online store at the above mentioned prices.

Apple started selling iPhone 4S in US on October 14. While the phone looks similar to iPhone 4 in design and screen size (3.5 inches), the hardware inside has seen a significant upgrade.