Vineet Nayyar donates Rs. 30 Crore to charity

Vineet Nayyar, Managing Director of IT services firm Tech Mahindra has donated a third of shares in the company, converted from employee stock option plan (ESOP) in the past, worth over Rs. 30 crore to a Delhi-based charitable organization run by his wife.


He has gifted 3.5 lakh shares, which is worth Rs. 31.78 crore as per the closing price of Tech Mahindra shares on Wednesday at NSE, to Essel Social Welfare Foundation. Essel Social Welfare Foundation, an umbrella organization to many other NGOs, supports education of underprivileged children, including the girl child and the visually handicapped. It is run by Reva Nayyar, a retired bureaucrat who has in the recent past been involved with ministry of woman and child development and has been instrumental in enactment of policies and legislation pertaining to women and child welfare.

Google to insert automated captions on YouTube

Google is to add automatic captions to the tens of millions of English-language videos it hosts on YouTube, the web search giant said Friday.

The move will make the videos more accessible to deaf viewers but will also help Google index the content and supply relevant ads.

Google has been experimenting with the automated captions for several months with a handful of high profile partners like the University of California, Berkeley, Yale University and National Geographic. All other captions on YouTube videos were provided by the videos' producers.

Google has been working on speech recognition technology for some five years, and uses the technology to transcribe audio voice mails through its Google Voice service, and to provide spoken Web searches from smart phones.

However, engineers warned that the technology is far from perfect and that the machine translations are sure to contain mistakes.

கதவை திற .......... வரட்டும்....

சன் பிக்சர்சின் தீராத விளையாட்டு பிள்ளை எதிர்பார்த்த அளவு வெற்றி நடை போடாத நிலையில் செவ்வாய் மாலை சன் நியூஸ் ரிலீஸ் செய்திருக்கும் "தியான பீட விளையாட்டு பிள்ளை" வெளியிட்ட சில மணித்துளிகளிலேயே உலகெங்கும் சூப்பர் டூப்பர் ஹிட் ஆகி இருக்கிறது.
புன்னகை தளபதி 'நித்தி' இதுவரை பார்த்திராத புதிய கோலத்தில் நடித்திருப்பதே இந்த படத்தின் வெற்றிக்கு காரணம் என கூறப்படுகிறது. மேலும் படத்தில் நடித்திருக்கும் கதாநாயகி யார் என சஸ்பென்சாக வைத்திருந்ததும் தமிழ் ரசிகர்களிடையே பெரும் பரபரப்பை ஏற்படுத்தியது .
வழக்கமாக ஒரு நாளுக்கு நான்கு ஷோ மட்டுமே படங்கள் திரையிடப்படும் நிலையில் இந்த திரைக்காவியம் அரை மணிக்கொரு முறை சன் நியூஸ் சேனலில் ஒளிபரப்பட்டது அனைத்து ரசிகர்களிடேயும் வரவேற்பு பெற்றது.
குப்பென்று பத்திகொள்ளும் என எதிர்பார்க்கப்பட்ட அஜித் ரஜினி பிரச்சனை பொசுக்கென்று முடிந்து விட்டது. அடுத்த படம் வேறு வெள்ளி கிழமைதான் வரும். அதுவரை பதிவு போட என்ன செய்வது என பதறி கொண்டிருந்த பதிவுலகிற்கு " நித்தியின் சித்து விளையாட்டு " ஸ்டான்ட் காட்சிகள் பெரும் டாபிக் ஆக அமைந்ததால் எல்லோரும் சேனலுக்கு நன்றி தெரிவித்து யூடூப் லிங்க் கொடுத்த வண்ணம் உள்ளனர்.
தங்களது ஆன்மீக குரு இதுவரை எவ்வளவோ தியான முறைகளை சொல்லி தந்துள்ளார். ஆனால் இத்தைகைய புதிய தியான ஆசனங்களை எங்களுக்கு இவ்வளவு நாட்களாய் சொல்லி தராமல் ஏமாற்றி வந்தது ஏன் என படத்தை பார்த்த சீடர்கள் அதிர்ச்சி அடைந்து வருத்தம் தெரிவித்தனர்.
தங்களது எல்லா படங்களுக்கும் இடைவிடாத விளம்பரம் போடுவது போல இந்த படத்திற்கும் சன் டி.வி.யில் "அடுத்த காட்சி 9 மணிக்கு... 9.30 மணிக்கு... 10 மணிக்கு " என இடைவிடாத ப்ளாஷ் நியூஸ் ஓடிய வண்ணம் இருந்தது குறிப்பிடதக்கது.
அதே போல் ஊர் ஊராய் சென்று படத்தின் ரிசல்ட்டை பாலோ அப் செய்யும் தங்களது பாரம்பரிய முறைப்படி, இந்த படத்திற்கும், திருவண்ணமலையில் ஆசிரமம் முற்றுகை, புதுவையில் படம் எரிப்பு, கடலூரில் பறந்தது செருப்பு என விடாது பாலோ செய்து சூடாக ரிசல்ட் சொன்ன சன் நியூஸ் சேனலின் கடமை உணர்வை தமிழ் குடிமகன்கள் மெய் சிலிர்த்து பாராட்டி புளகாங்கிதம் அடைந்தனர்.
படத்தின் பின்னணி இசை நன்றாக வந்திருக்கிறது. குறைவான நேரமே கொடுக்கப்பட்டாலும் டெர்ரராக இசை அமைத்த இசை அமைப்பாளருக்கு நல்ல எதிர்காலம் உள்ளது.
எங்கே படத்தின் காட்சிகள் மக்களுக்கு புரியாமல் போய் விடுமோ என அஞ்சி க்ரியேடிவ் டீம் அமைத்துள்ள வர்ணனை வசனங்கள் அடுத்த வருடத்திற்கான விருது பெரும் சாத்திய கூறுகள் உள்ளது.
படத்தில் ஏகப்பட்ட கவர்ச்சி காட்சிகள் இருந்ததால் அதை தாங்களே சென்சார் போர்டாக செயல்பட்டு அனைவரும் பார்க்கும் விதத்தில் U செர்டிபிகேட்டுடன் வெளியிட உதவிய எடிட்டரின் பணி பாராட்டுக்குரியது

"தியான பீட விளையாட்டு பிள்ளை" - சன் பிக்சர்சின் முதல் சூப்பர் டூப்பர் ஹிட்

HSBC MF plans to unveil Brazil Equity Fund

Mutual Fund is set to launch an open-ended fund of fund scheme called HSBC Brazil Equity Fund. The fund has filed an offer document with the market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The fund's performance will be benchmarked to the MSCI Brazil 10/40 Index. The minimum application amount is Rs 10,000.

Last week, Benchmark Mutual Fund launched its first international exchange-traded fund, the Hang Seng BeES, based on the Hong Kong stock exchange's Hang Seng index. In July 2009, JPMorgan Asset Management had launched Greater China Equity Offshore Fund, while in September, Mirae Asset Global Investment launched its Mirae Asset China Advantage Fund.

Wipro employee commits $4 Million fraud

IT major Wipro has tightened internal control in the finance division after it was noticed that one of its employees embezzled crores of rupees in the last three years. The employee, who was working in the 'controllership' division within the finance department in the last three years, stole a password and transferred funds from Wipro's account at a bank.

Suresh C Senapaty, Wipro's CFO has also confirmed the incident. "This has been a case of embezzlement, which we discovered in December, and it's very unfortunate that this person succumbed to this," he said. According to him, the company has carried out an investigation and is undertaking actions with respect to stricter adherence to processes.Following this, Wipro has disbanded the controllership unit. Wipro officials have succeeded in recovering about half the money, but will still face a loss of about $2 million. The CFO said the incident did not involve more than one Wipro employee. "Our investigations have revealed that only this employee was involved, and nobody else in the team had any clue," Senapaty said.

Apart from setting up an internal investigation team, Wipro has also taken help from external auditors and investigation experts who will vet its processes and certify the soundness of its controls. Wipro has always taken pride in the sound work ethics of its employees and in the strictness of its controls. "We have to be more alert in monitoring, and we need to tighten the processes for ensuring an early warning system and make it tougher," Senapaty said.Now, Wipro plans to make it compulsory for its employees to sign an undertaking about sharing of passwords and any unauthorized transactions.

The company is also planning to frequently rotate its employees, who are working in sensitive functions within the finance department. Currently, employees in such functions spend around three years before a transfer.

Wipro inks pact with GE for $1 Billion deal

Wipro has signed a master services agreement (MSA) with General electric to bid for nearly $1 billion worth of outsourcing projects fleshed out by different business units of GE every year. This step may help Wipro to stand firmly against rivals Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Genpact.

A senior executive at one of the tech firms currently serving GE said, "While it does not in any way guarantee assured contracts, GE is a good account to have for long-term, annuity-based revenues because even if the micro environment is bad, one of the GE units would have something to outsource, offshore." He requested anonymity because he is not authorized to comment about his company's customers. It would be incorrect to say that GE a new customer for Wipro. Even two decades ago, when Jack Welch visited India, Wipro Chairman Azim Premji was one of the first partners to sell Welch's healthcare products. A person familiar with this agreement said, "Both the companies started healthcare business and an outsourcing alliance later, however, since 2000 Wipro has not been doing any significant outsourcing work for GE - in many ways, this is a great comeback."However, some experts feel that GE can't become a large account for Wipro anytime soon. "They may start at around $10-20 million annually, but with so much of competition for the GE business, I am not sure if Wipro would also like it to become big," said a senior executive at one of the rival firms on conditions of anonymity

Govt. rules deprived Chandrayaan's team from Padma Shri

Despite Chandrayaan-1 being the first lunar mission of India, the scientists and engineers engaged in the mission remained unrecognised with no mention in the list of Padma Shri awardees.

The reason for their work being overlooked is a rule framed by the government a few years ago stipulating that those attached to government organisations like ISRO and Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) will not be entitled to any "government-backed" awards, like the prestigious Padma awards.

rule. The Government now wants to revise this decision keeping in view the fact that it will be counter productive in terms of morale of those who labour in official agencies at salaries that are much less than in the private sector and where national pride is a big motivator.

The controversial decision comes at a time when government wants to stem brain drain of scientists and engineers to foreign organisations like NASA and woo them back to India with better terms than before and by rewarding good performance. Yet, if official recognition is itself banned while Padma awards are awarded to achievers of Indian origin in foreign countries, Indian establishments are bound to feel rather left out.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) is the indexing and retrieval method, the mathematical technique called singular value decomposition (SVD) to identify the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured content. LSI is the word used in that environment based on the principles usually has a similar meaning. If you find an LSI - indexed databases, search engines look at the value of the content are calculated for each word, and returns document, considers the most appropriate investigation. Since the two documents can be semantically very close, even if they disagree with certain keywords, LSI is not necessary an exact match to return useful results. If a simple keyword search will fail and there is no exact match, LSI will often return relevant documents do not contain all of the keywords.

The World is Not Flat It’s Vertical - Vipin Jain,CEO, Retrevo

I recently had the opportunity to talk about verticalization . I described what verticalization means, why it happens, where it succeeds, where it fails and how it intersects with search. The focus of my talk was on verticalization of needs, rather than segmentation of users even though the two overlap. I am particularly interested in verticalization when it comes to the web and searching the web.

Verticalization is Everywhere

Look around you and you can see examples of verticalization everywhere. From the cars we drive to the sneakers we buy, to the television channels we watch. When the first automobiles came to market, many years ago, everyone drove a model T 100 Ford. Now we drive sedans for general purpose use, SUVs or mini-vans to carry our families around, or a truck if we have to move household goods. We have moved away from watching only CBS, ABC and NBC to watching one of the hundreds of channels available with a specific focus on science, news, history, travel and food. You can find similar examples all around you, if you pay attention.

What makes this verticalization possible? Most paradigm shifts or basic innovations center on building a single product and a simple product that the mass market can adopt. I use products to also represent pure web centric innovations. Yes, we go through the adoption curve where early adopters pick up our product first. We then go through the learning and fine tuning so the product is ready for the early majority, ultimately finding its way to the late majority and such. However, in this process, we are trying to build a single product that serves the needs of the mass market.

At this point three things happen in the marketplace:
* As customers go through a learning curve and become comfortable with the product, they become more sophisticated and more demanding. In other words, they expect more from a product.
* A market develops for the product from the users perspective, usage perspective and a revenue perspective.
* Suppliers become more sophisticated and armed with the knowledge about customer usage and developing market, they move into position to introduce more vertical, more specialized, products that are economically viable because the market is now large enough

. In summary, the three ingredients for verticalization are:
1. User sophistication
2. A developed market
3. Supplier sophistication

The New Search Economy

How does verticalization apply to web search? No doubt, web search has come a long way in last fourteen years. WebCrawler and Lycos were two of the first full text crawlers but they were used by a limited number of people. Today, more than 125M Americans use search engines. Search touches every facet of our lives whether it is commerce, entertainment or education. We have all become very comfortable using search engines. As we have come to expect more from them, we have become more demanding. We use search engines and we get frustrated because too often, we don’t get what we need. This is an example of the first ingredient for verticalization; user sophistication.

Now take a look at the market opportunity: search generates more than $10 billion in revenue every year and that is expanding at the rate of more than 20 percent year over year. You can call it a developing market or a developed market depending on your perspective. I prefer to call it a developed market or the second ingredient for verticalization which furthermore offers a fantastic opportunity to grow further.

What about the third ingredient, supplier sophistication? Retrevo, for example, has developed a good understanding of consumers’ online shopping behavior. We know what their needs are on one hand, and have built a monetization model that is very lucrative on the other hand.

Vertical search has the potential to be even more lucrative than horizontal search. Verticalization around product search results in a perfect blend of ingredients; user sophistication or demand, a developed market and supplier sophistication. This environment creates tremendous business opportunity.

The Verticalization of Search

How do you go about verticalizing web search? First you look at a segment of consumer need that has deep pain or deep emotion associated with it, has enough usage to make verticalization interesting and has a good economic model behind it. You can identify these opportunities across commerce, entertainment and education. Then you build a product that offers tremendous value to consumers, a value that’s compelling enough for consumers to break away from their comfort zone and try your product.

When we started Retrevo, we wanted to make buying and using technology products simple and fun for everyday consumers. We wanted to break two barriers that prevented a horizontal search engine from delivering such an experience. We knew that breaking these two barriers would unleash such a tremendous value to consumers that they would want to use our alternative.

Our first challenge was to understand the syntax and semantics of unstructured data that would allow us to summarize and simplify what was ordinarily complex information. We knew this simplification was needed to make buying and using electronics products simple and fun for everyday consumers.

The Retrevo Value Map, is a visual representation of analysis performed by Artificial Intelligence to make it easy for consumers to spot the best values in products. (this an explanation for Map)

Next we knew we needed to break away from the current user interface paradigm that offered a flat list of raw search results. We knew that in order to remove the complexity associated with technology buying and using, information had to be presented in a way that allowed consumers to search, discover, and personalize product information, visually and naturally. This recipe has worked well.

A search for “Canon SD1200 IS review,” on a vertical search engine such as ours, returns product information including our “Real Time Review.” We processes millions of data points to create a real time review and provide simplified buying advice like whether or not a product is “in it’s prime,” or “over the hill.”

By contrast, the same search on Google’s “horizontal,” search returns a flat list of links to articles about the Canon SD1200 on other sites.

Further simplifying the advice is a single thumbs up or down recommendation by us.

Verticalization is Here to Stay

Verticalization is a fact of life. It has happened before in many industries and it will happen in the web economy. In order to take advantage of verticalization opportunities, you need to pay attention to basic triggers, identify a need that requires a specialized product and go after it.

Techie builds air-car! Refuses commercialization

Kanak Gogoi, a 12th passed entrepreneur from Guwahati, has over a dozen innovations, from gravity-operated bicycle to a car which can run on air. But he regrets the government's negligence towards scientific innovations, and refuses to commercialize any of his creations.Gogoi said, "Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offered to build a fully furnished lab for me in Guwahati. The Chief Minister had granted me about 1.6 acres of land in 2007, but the file is still lying untouched at the local administrative office."

Talking about slow moving files, another of Gogoi's invention is the speed breaker that can generate electricity simply when vehicles pass over it. Gogoi explains that a ramp under the speed breaker would absorb the static energy produced by the sheer mass of the vehicle and convert it into kinetic energy. This is, in turn, transferred into electricity and stored in a battery cell. A vehicle weighing one tonne can create electricity equivalent to one kilowatt.

When Gogoi started the journey, he had two options; pay up his children's school fees or spend the money for his scientific innovations. He opted for the latter. In the past 13 years, he has spent Rs.1.5 crore (Rs.15 million) of his own money to satisfy his scientific and engineering curiosities, but steadfastly refuses to commercialize any of them and blames the government for not promoting scientific innovations, although only a few years ago he was making a hand-to-mouth existence.Felicitated by the President of India last week for his achievements, 47-year old Gogoi is a celebrity in Guwahati's scientific and engineering circles. He has developed his penchant for creating extraordinary things from ordinary materials used for day-to-day activities during his younger days.

Among his innovations are a solar hybrid car, whose 320 watt battery is charged by solar panels and is powered by a 100cc engine. Another car that Gogoi made from integration of motorcycle and Maruti 800 engines, runs on air energy powered by a hand glider and can reach a maximum speed of 120 km per hour.

Gogoi, however, has not bothered to apply for intellectual property rights (IPR) for any of his innovations, although they have cost Rs.1.5 crore of his own money. "When anybody talks about things like IPR or patents, it is generally assumed that the person must be a Ph.D or DLitt. Who will think of an undergraduate as a genuine and worthy innovator? Besides, paperwork of the kind that is required for patent filing has always been an anathema for me," said Gogoi.

In fact it is the National Innovation Foundation, headed by noted scientist Raghunath A Mashelkar that applied for a patent on Gogoi's behalf for his gravity operated cycle, which converts gravitational force released by pedaling of the cycle into kinetic energy.

"I have a successful real estate business, which affords me the luxury of having enough spare money and spare time to concentrate on my engineering activities. I don't expect and nor do I wish for any monetary returns," said Gogoi, who had refused an invitation from a North Carolina-based organization to shift to their campus with a daily stipend of $1,000.