Category: Articles

Articles published by Shweta Taneja in major newspapers and magazines. Read how the future of technology will be and the latest on what the startups are doing in India.

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Freelancing with friends

 

Find freedom from a 9-to-5 job with a little help from social networks

In April, when sisters Sunitha, Mariamma and Soumya Thomas started their online business of selling handcrafted dresses for girls, they found they could not afford the cost of designing and hosting a website. So they decided to go in a different direction—they created a Facebook page for their shop called Little Women, hosted pictures of the products and sold their products through their networks as well as those of their friends.

“On a website, we would have had to invest a lot and figure out how to build traffic, which a small start-up like us couldn’t afford,” says Soumya, who is based in Bangalore, “but on Facebook we already have a network which we can use. All we need to do is share our products with them.” Four months down the line, they have had more than 120 orders.

Illustration by Raajan/Mint

Illustration by Raajan/Mint

Whether you’re selling a physical product, like the Thomases, or your skills as a freelancer, knowing how to use social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, is now an essential skill.

Considering that 63.50% of Internet users in India are on Facebook, making it the largest social network in the country, according to real-time statistics researcher Socialbakers, this could be a good time to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur on social networks. Here are some useful tips to build your presence across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook:

Become the expert

Working as a freelancer requires you to be good at what you do, right? Then why not tell that to people on your social networks? If you are a photographer, write blog posts explaining how your followers can improve their photography, and post your own photos. If you’re a Web designer, share tips that anyone can follow to improve their websites. Retweet and share good content, and answer questions on LinkedIn.

“This way, you position yourself as an expert in the domain and generate leads or business,” says Aditya Gupta, co-founder of Hyderabad-based Socialsamosa.com, a social media consultancy. “Once you are known as an expert in a field, people start sending leads your way,” he says.

Talk about your projects

If you put all your projects on a page or a resume, you’re the only person who knows about them. Social networks aren’t like blogs—you don’t just talk about a project once. Post regularly about the work you do, several times every day. Vishwaraj Mohan, who in December 2010 opened a restaurant-bar featuring live music in Bangalore called CounterCulture, uses the pub’s Facebook page to connect to musicians who will come and perform there. “I do a minimum of five posts a day which include details of shows, our food, media coverage, pictures, videos and such,” says Mohan. More than five times a day starts to feel like spam, but updating up to four times a day is a good idea.

Clean up your mugshot

Is your mugshot the same bearded or sloppy photo which you took early Sunday morning with your laptop? Change it. The mugshot is small but says a lot about you to someone who checks out your profile or timeline on any social network. Your personality, and even the kind of work you might be doing, is formed from that mugshot, so keep it clean and professional. Facebook and Twitter both offer backgrounds in which you can put images to show your personality to the world.

Most of the social networks give options on more than one picture to tell the world about you. Use this well. Use the small mugshot with a clear photo of you as personalisation always helps and use the background space to create a careful collage of your brand’s personality.

Find the right groups

Like LinkedIn, Facebook has groups which has the people you may want to network with. Want to sell your art? Join some city-specific art groups. You will find artists and buyers in such a group. Little Women got a lot many orders because Soumya stumbled upon a Facebook group called Chennai Shopping. “It’s a very active group run by a bunch of women who give honest feedback to a seller. It has both buyers and sellers, making it a market,” she says.

Bangalore-based Ruche M. Mittal, a graphic designer, started a group for women entrepreneurs on Facebook. Called Entrepreneurial, the group has seen active postings of jobs, business suggestions and connections and even media exposure for a lot of members. Media Movements is a well- known media industry group on Facebook.

Connect with prospective clients

As a freelancer, you already know the companies and people you want to work with. Follow them on Twitter and add them on Facebook, not just LinkedIn. Mumbai-based Anuya Jakatdar, a freelance writer and social media consultant, got a chance to work on a Vidhu Vinod Chopra film commercial when she tweeted that she was looking for work a few months ago. “I got a reply from one of the associate directors and ended up doing the project,” she says. She feels that freelancers should get into conversations with people who are in the industry they want to break into. “Tweet and ask for work and keep an eye out for tweets which are looking for work, of which there are many,” she suggests.

Express your personality

You need to reach out to people and make contacts that can lead to projects, but if you’re a holier-than-thou know-it-all, people will avoid you on social media. If you’re connected to people on a social networking site, they’re going to hear from you, a lot, and this requires you to have a personality that reaches out.

 

To read the complete article on the HT Mint website, click here.

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Breathe easy

You may be forced to take in the world’s most polluted air, but these simple steps can still help you save your lungs

It’s ironic, really. Even though India is the land where Pranayam (the art of breathing) originated, studies show it’s one of the worst places for human lungs. India was ranked last in air quality and its effect on human health in the 2012 worldwide annual study of 132 countries, Environmental Performance Index (EPI), published in January, and conducted by environmental research centres at the Yale and Columbia Universities, US. Its overall ranking was 125.

“It is odd really how we just take breathing for granted,” says Monica Fletcher, chair of the European Lung Foundation, in an email interview. “People continue to underestimate the impact of chronic lung diseases, not only in India but the world over.” Data released by the European Lung Foundation in June mentions that only 7% of people worldwide are worried about lung diseases like lower respiratory infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and tuberculosis (TB). According to data released by the World Health Organization in 2008, and updated in June 2011, these three lung diseases combined are the leading cause of deaths worldwide.

Yet there aren’t enough doctors with a speciality in pulmonary medicine, says V.K. Vijayan, former director of Vallabhbhai Patel Chest Institute, University of Delhi. The Medical Council of India (MCI) has only recently recognized and allowed a DM (doctor of medicine) in pulmonary medicine.Till date, only three recognized colleges in India which offer the super-specialized study of lung diseases are listed on their website. “The government needs to take the focus away from TB and create awareness of other chronic lung diseases like COPD and asthma,” says Dr Vijayan, “only then will people be able to recognize the symptoms and get timely treatment.”

The key lacunae

It is diagnosis where the greatest delay takes place. Unlike deadly diseases of the heart and other organs, the symptoms for chronic lung diseases are not very different from the common cold or seasonal flu and are not taken seriously most of the time, says Surinder Kumar Jindal, professor and head, department of pulmonary medicine, PGIMER, Chandigarh, who sees the same story being repeated in his OPD every day. “The most common symptoms of any lung disease, even the deadlier ones, are cough and breathlessness, both of which are shrugged off by patients as seasonal or periodic symptoms. Patients land up at my OPD a few months or even years later, when the disease has spread and become serious,” he says.

Ideally, a patient should visit a doctor if the cough or breathlessness doesn’t go away in two weeks because it could be anything from an allergic reaction leading to asthma or COPD, which is a progressive disease that occurs middle- age onwards. While an infection caused by a bacteria or virus will go away with antibiotic treatment—and sometimes without it—chronic diseases stay in the lungs and slowly lead to respiratory failure, explains Dr Jindal.

All it takes to diagnose most of the chronic lung diseases, like COPD and asthma, is a simple 10-minute spirometry test.

“A majority of our population is unaware of the spirometry test,” says Monica S. Barne, head, training department, Chest Research Foundation, Pune. The test, according to Barne, is imperative if you have allergic symptoms (sneezing, runny nose, stuffy nose), are a smoker, or have suffered from lung diseases in the past. “Get your spirometry done regularly to check your airways, just like you routinely get your cholesterol, sugar checked,” she says, adding that it “takes about 10 minutes of your time and costs Rs. 250 upwards per test”.

Here are a few precautions and lifestyle changes that can help you keep your lungs heathier.

Reduce humidityA humid environment is linked to increased wheezing, coughing, and asthma attacks. According to a recent study in the UK, living in damp areas like river valleys, where the humidity is high, leads to lung problems like COPD. High humidity indoors also creates a good environment for dust mites or microscopic pests that love the extra moisture and live in bedding, pillows, mattresses, stuffed toys and carpets—and are a major cause of breathing allergies.

Do

Fix every leak in the home to keep humidity levels under check. Ensure ventilation, remove carpets and treat damp corners.

Keep it airyFeel safe inside your home? According to a fact sheet issued by the World Health Organization in September, nearly 50% of pneumonia deaths among children under 5 are due to particulate matter inhaled from indoor air pollution. Men and women who are exposed to heavy indoor smoke from leaky stoves and burning wood are two-three times more likely to develop COPD. Guidelines issued by the American Lung Association state that if your health symptoms or breathing quality improve when you leave home, there’s a problem in your personal space.

Do

Ventilate your home. Install exhaust fans in the kitchen and bathrooms and ensure that all appliances have an exhaust system. Reduce the use of air conditioners.

Stay away from smokers

It doesn’t matter if you haven’t touched a cigarette in your life. According to a 17-year-long study published in the American ‘CHEST’ journal issue in May, regular exposure to second-hand smoke increases the risk of COPD by up to 130%, concluded the team from the Institute of Geriatrics, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, which conducted the study. Alarmingly, about 40% of Indian children are exposed to tobacco smoke, says a Union ministry of health and family welfare campaign, “Tobacco Is Eating Your Baby Alive”, launched in February.

Do

Don’t be polite to a guest who wants to light up in your home. Keep away from colleagues who are chimneys, even if you have to miss out on juicy gossip.

Don’t touch cigarettes

It’s a no-brainer that the leading cause for any lung disease is smoking. “It is enemy No. 1 for lungs,” says Dr Jindal. “A cigarette contains more than 4,000 chemicals that can harm the lung and are inhaled directly.” Dr Jindal, who was part of a recently concluded study in 16 cities which mapped prevalence rates as well as risk factors for COPD and asthma for the Indian Council of Medical Research, says they found that 70% of the patients with COPD symptoms were smokers.

Do

If you are a smoker, quit now. If you can’t give it up completely, reduce it. Even reducing your daily cigarette consumption lowers the risk of respiratory disease.

Bite into a broccoliCruciferous vegetables like broccoli can reduce the risk of lung cancer among smokers, according to the study, “Cruciferous Vegetable Intake Is Inversely Associated With Lung Cancer Risk Among Smokers: A Case-Control Study”, by Li Tang and his team from the department of cancer prevention and control, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, US, published in April 2010 in the journal ‘BioMed Central’. “Intake of cruciferous vegetables, especially consumed as raw, was significantly associated with reduction of lung cancer risk among smokers,” said Li. Cruciferous vegetables are rich sources of dietary isothiocyanates which detoxify and inhibit smoke-related damage. But Li warns that the veggies might help delay cancer development only up to a limit. “Smokers, especially those who still haven’t quit, still run a high lung cancer risk,” he said.

Do

Eat crunchy, raw cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, pak choi and kale.

Avoid the city sootParticulate matter is a fine mix of dust, dirt, soot, smoke, vehicle emission and liquid droplets which tends to remain suspended in the air and once inhaled, goes deep into the lungs. “These particles pose a health concern when you breathe them because they settle into your respiratory system and block it,” says Dr Vijayan, “leading to reduced lung function and development of chronic bronchitis.” Long-term exposure can lead to reduced lung function and chronic bronchitis. Short-term exposure can aggravate lung disease, trigger asthma attacks, acute bronchitis and respiratory infections. India ranks among the bottom 10 in the EPI report when it comes to the density of particulate matter in its air.

Do

Limit outside activities to the early morning or after sunset when the pollution levels decrease (depending on the season). Never exercise or do anything strenuous in high-pollution areas like busy intersections and roads. You take in more pollutants when you are panting.

Keep up with PranayamThe yogic deep breathing technique opens up your lungs and helps them perform better, according to a study, “Effect of Short Term Yoga Practice on Pulmonary Function Tests”, published in the ‘Indian Journal of Basic And Applied Medical Research’ in June. Conducted by the department of physiology, VM Government Medical College, Solapur, Maharashtra, the study took 60 MBBS students through 15 minutes of Pranayam in an hour of yoga every day for six weeks and then measured the improvement in their lungs through pulmonary function tests. “Ten minutes of prolonged expiration and efficient use of abdominal and diaphragmatic muscles in ‘pranayam’ every day,” wrote co-author Vinayak P. Doijad, “trains the respiratory apparatus to get emptied and filled more completely and efficiently.” Bhastrika Pranayam, a bellows-type breathing, exercises inspiratory as well as expiratory muscles. Kapalbhati, on the other hand, trains you to make full use of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles in breathing.

Do

Ten minutes of Pranayam learnt with the help of a trained teacher will ensure your lungs perform better in a month.

Run, walk, playExercise helps improve not only your lung health but also that of your children. According to a 2011 study by a group of scientists at the Johns Hopkins University, US, increase in exercise over a two-month period resulted in significant improvement in lung function in the 6-16 age group. “Regular physical activity and exercise improves quality of life, whether you are healthy or you have a lung condition,” says Fletcher. The lung capacity to carry oxygen increases when you are exercising; this makes your blood cleaner and reduces the burden on the heart to do the same thing.

Do

Walk or run for 30 minutes at least three times a week.

Shed the flabThose extra kilos are not only bad for your heart, but also for the organs that do the breathing. According to a July 2011 study by the American Diabetes Association, “Obesity in Adults Is Associated With Reduced Lung Function in Metabolic Syndrome And Diabetes: The Strong Heart Study”, obesity in adults is associated with reduced lung functions, especially in patients who are diabetic. “The lungs of obese people send less oxygen to the blood, leading to breathlessness,” agrees Dr Jindal.

Do

Calculate your body-mass index (BMI). If your index is above 30, you would be considered obese by medical standards. Start your exercise regime now!

Cross posted from HT Mint website

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BBM without a berry

You can enjoy instant connectivity even without a BlackBerry – and across platforms

BBM (or BlackBerry Messenger) is popular and cool. According to Ranjan Moses, carrier product manager, Research In Motion (RIM), India, it has over 55 million users worldwide and is one of BlackBerry’s most popular services.

“The reason for its popularity is its speed and reliability,” explains S.R. Raja, co-founder and president, Mobile Monday Bangalore, an NGO that tracks the mobile phone space. According to him, BlackBerry installs dedicated servers at service providers like Airtel and Vodafone which make the delivery of the message speedy, encrypted and reliable. “Since BBM is routed through your cellular network, it works even if your GPRS internet is down,” says Raja.

This capital expenditure, though, means BBM comes at a slight premium over other instant messaging services which use general infrastructure or the Internet. While data plans for BBM start from Rs. 129 for post-paid plans and Rs.5 for prepaid users, according to Moses, 2G data connections cost about Rs. 99 a month onwards or 10 paisa per 10 kb, making them a cheaper proposition. For most users, however, this premium is worth it since BBM messages are encrypted and reach almost instantly across the globe.

However, there’s one limitation to BBM. It’s not available across platforms. “BBM has better interface than other instant messaging services,” says Nikhil Sethi, a Delhi-based management consultant who bought a BlackBerry Pearl last year, “but my friends are mostly not on BlackBerrys”. Sethi is connected to only 15 of his friends through BBM on his BlackBerry. For the rest, he uses cross-messaging platforms like WhatsApp which work for most platforms—iPhone to Android, to Symbian. “WhatsApp directly takes all the contacts on my phone book and lists them in my chat list, so I can connect with them whenever I want without any PIN requirement.”

Raja sees this as the future of instant messaging where people use not one but many chat applications to be in touch with different groups of friends. “Users will not stick to one platform. They will use different applications for different sets of communities,” he says.

We look at the best free-to-use instant messaging apps for you to start experimenting. All you need is a data plan and a smartphone.

Kik Messenger

Kik.com

 

There’s no learning curve with Kik’s simple user interface, which has only two buttons—settings and message. After you create a login, you simply click the message icon and start messaging to your friends. Each message you send is encrypted and the user data is deleted from the Kik servers. You can see when the message is sent, delivered and when the other person is typing back to reply. It does not automatically take data from your phone book so you will have to go to settings in order to find friends. The messenger now also supports sending photos and group conversations. Like BBM, another good thing going for the app is that it has a developer relations section called “Apps that Kik”, wherein an app developer can connect their apps with the messaging app. So if you use ‘Angry Birds’ and it’s connected with Kik, your Kik contact list will know how many levels you have crossed. One issue in India is that not many people know about the app. Though the app has over 10 million users worldwide, it still has to work on its numbers in India.

Works on:Apple, Android, Blackberry, Windows 7

Imo

imo.im

 

Have friends spread across all platforms and want to combine them all? Then choose to chat on Imo, which lets you sign in and chat on a number of different services—Google Talk, ICQ, Yahoo, Skype, MSN, Steam, Myspace and Hyves. It offers group chats, you can meet new people, and it saves your chat history. Plus, it allows instant voice messaging. If you don’t have the mobile handy, you can simply sign in and chat from a browser.

Works on:Apple, Android, Blackberry, Nokia Ovi

Yoke Messenger

yokemessenger.com

 

Yoke Messenger has a cheerful, cartoon-inspired user interface. You can add your friends’ birthdays through the app and you will get notifications when one is due.

 

Continue reading “BBM without a berry”

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The smartphone recovery guide

What to do when you can’t find your personal supercomputer-phone, and why it is important to inform the police

When Charneeta Kaur, an assistant professor at the Pearl Academy of Fashion, Delhi, realized she had left her Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro in a car showroom, the first thing that struck her was not how much it had cost but how much of her personal information had just become vulnerable. A smartphone is not just a calling device but a full-fledged personal computer for many.

“I am permanently logged into my personal and corporate email, WhatsApp, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. A lot of my private stuff is on my phone, including my photos,” says Kaur. Even though she had a code lock activated, she was sure it could be broken into and misused. “I was afraid that the person who might find it will be able to browse through the data on my phone.” She changed her email, chat and social network passwords.

Lost your phone? Keep the Imei number handy. It can help the police track it.

Lost your phone? Keep the Imei number handy. It can help the police track it.

One thing she didn’t do was complain to the police. “What is the point in filing an FIR? It’s not as if they will find my phone for me,” she shrugs.

But this is where Kaur is wrong, according to Rakshit Tandon, consultant, Internet and Mobile Association of India. The police just might have. “If you have the Imei (international mobile equipment identity) number of your smartphone, your phone can be tracked,” says Tandon, who advises law enforcement officers in cybercrime investigation. Every mobile handset in the world has a unique Imei number. “In India, only the surveillance cell of police can legally track a device through its Imei number, so the first thing to do as soon as you lose your cellphone is to file an FIR,” says Tandon.

If your phone has passwords for email, social networks, ATM PINs, bank account details and corporate documents, one important step is to activate the lock code and the phone tracker, which comes inbuilt with most smartphones. “It’s surprising how many people, even those who are using their phone to access corporate emails and mobile banking, don’t take these two simple steps,” says Tandon.

In 2011, software security solutions provider Symantec conducted a study—The Symantec Smartphone Honey Stick Project—in the US and Canada, leaving smartphones on newspaper boxes, park benches, elevators and other places for passers-by to find. The study, released this March, found that 96% of the phones had been accessed by the people who found them. Of them, 89% looked at personal apps such as social networks, email, online banking and pictures, while 83% looked at “corporate” apps, HR cases, salary, corporate emails and information.

Left your phone on the café table; lost it in a shop; or did it just get stolen? Here’s what to do:

Try and track it

If you cannot locate your phone physically, try the global positioning system (GPS) route. If your GPS was on before the phone got lost, you might be able to get it to ring with a pre-installed remote locator app or security app (see “Protect your phone”).

Windows Phone 7 and iOS 5 come with an inbuilt option to track your phone. All you need to do is go online (on Live.com for Windows, andwww.icloud.com for iPhones), log in with the ID connected to the phone and click on “Find my Phone”. If the phone is on and emitting the GPS signal, you will be able to locate exactly where it is.

Android users can log on to Google Play with their Google account from a browser and install “Plan B” on their phone. Plan B starts automatically and sends your phone’s location to your Gmail address. To locate after 10 minutes, send an SMS to your phone from another phone with the word “locate”. Plan B uses both cell towers and GPS to locate a phone and can even switch on the GPS on some handsets.

If this doesn’t work, call your service provider’s customer care and request they block the SIM immediately.

Secure your data

If you have configured security software like Prey Anti-Theft, go online and wipe off the contents of your phone. BlackBerry has a basic app called BlackBerry Protect which can do it for you (see “Protect your phone”). Unfortunately, most smartphone owners don’t have any security installed.

Make a list of all the apps you had. Emails, apps, social networks, bank accounts—all passwords need to be changed. Changing email passwords is easy. With social networks, it’s a bit trickier. You can change the passwords to directly access Facebook and Twitter, but the third-party apps you have given access to (like Goodreads, Seesmic, etc.) can continue to post or see your social network using your old password. So after changing your password, manually logout from all third-party apps on Facebook and Twitter from the settings page of both social networks.

Most banks also have mobile apps. If you are using one of those, immediately log into the website of your bank and change your password. In case you can’t, call up customer care and have the application blocked.

If you had stored any bank passwords or ATM PINs in the contact lists or SMS drafts of your phone, visit your nearest bank branch and change the passwords.

Spread the word

Social networks are called social for a reason. As soon as your mobile phone goes missing, post about it on all your social networks—Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Quora, Pinterest, etc. If you misplaced the phone in the office, send an email to the whole office about it. Mention specifics about your phone—colour, build and any distinguishing feature like a scratch or a sticker or a case. Spreading the word is always useful, so people can’t use the phone to impersonate you.

Find your Imei number

Imei is a unique code encrypted number on each GSM device. This number is very useful in locating a phone even if its SIM is changed and GPS disabled. It’s written behind the battery of your phone. It can also be found by typing *#06# on a cellphone’s keypad. If your phone is already lost and you don’t know your Imei number, check a past cellphone bill. The Imei number is usually printed by the cellphone service provider on the bill.

Every time a phone logs into a particular network to make or receive calls, its Imei number is automatically emitted and tracked. This gets registered with the service provider. In India, like anywhere else in the world, the police have a database of phones which are in white, grey and black lists, so a phone which is in the black list is known to be stolen. Once it’s reported stolen by you, the Imei number is blacklisted across the country.

If an Imei device on the black list is used to make a call, the police will get to know about it immediately. You should also give your Imei number to the service centres of your handset manufacturer (Nokia, Samsung, etc). There is a chance that they will track the phone if it comes up for resale or reset.

File an FIR

Most city police websites have downloadable and printable FIR formats which can be used to file your complaint. Once you have put in the information about your cellphone (number, device type, last used, service provider and alternative contact details), the FIR should be submitted to the nearest police station. If you don’t want to go through the procedure of an FIR but simply inform the police, you can do that too. For example, you can simply email Delhi Police ([email protected]) and inform them about your missing cellphone, says Tandon. You can also visitwww.delhipolice.nic.in/home/helpline/helpline.aspx to check the status of your FIR.

Continue reading “The smartphone recovery guide”

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Share a ride

Concerned citizens are creating city-specific online innovations to connect people who want to carpool. Time you hitched a ride?

When 51-year-old Neena Goindi’s office shifted to Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi, six months ago from RK Puram, her first thought was about the stupendous increase in her commuting cost from her home in Faridabad.

She had been accustomed to a long work commute (35km to be exact) for seven years but carpooling with two other women had helped cut costs over the years. With carpooling no longer possible with her old friends, Goindi needed to spend an extra Rs5,500 every month, something she could ill-afford. But the only way to get to the current office location without a car is to change four buses and two autorickshaws. “Even the bus timing is not reliable and it takes me about two- to two-and-a-half hours one way,” she says. “I had no choice but to travel to work in my car.”

A few weeks ago, things changed. Goindi came across a website called Carpooling.in on Google. “I posted a requirement on its public forum and the same evening got a response from a lady who lives two blocks away from my home,” she says. In the blink of an eye, she had a carpool partner.

Cost-effective

“Ideally, public transportation is the most cost-effective, but it’s rather painful because it’s so unreliable in our country,” says Arunprasad Durairaj, co-founder of Zinghopper (zinghopper.com), a social site started in May for ride-sharing—something like a Facebook for carpooling—in Bangalore and Delhi, with plans to expand to Mumbai and Chennai soon. “Look at it this way,” he says, “you could be a ride away from meeting your best friend for life, potential client, next employer, or your life partner. You never know what happens.” He pegs the carpool market in India at 100,000 users right now, and feels it is bound to grow.

While car-pooling is not a new idea, of late there has been a surge in start-ups like Zinghopper in different parts of the country. All of them have a similar aim—providing a solution to the terrible traffic jams and pollution that every city is facing.

A year ago, stuck in a jam on Old Mahabalipuram Road in Chennai, 21-year-old M. Manoj noticed that almost every car around him had only one person in it. Then in his final year of computer engineering, he researched carpooling, and along with three friends, has formed a website called CarShuffle (www.carshuffle.in), which will be launched this month. CarShuffle will help car owners in Chennai manage growing travel bills by offering a seat in their car to a passenger for a small fee fixed by the car owner and a small commission to the website (5% on each transaction between car owner and passenger). “CarShuffle is not only for saving on fuel costs but also a social cause. We want people to realize that it helps in saving the environment by lowering pollution and congestion in our cities,” says Manoj.

Continue reading “Share a ride”

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Hear that book

Relive stories in your mother tongue with audiobooks in Indian languages

A month ago Bangalore-based Ranjita Bhagwan, a researcher with Microsoft Research India, was thrilled to discover Shonakatha , a website set up in 2010 that sells Bengali audiobooks. “I didn’t know this kind of a website existed. This is great for people like me who understand the language but cannot read the script,” she says. Bhagwan is a Tamilian but grew up in Kolkata, where she learnt to speak Bengali. “Unfortunately, though I can read the script, it happens only at a snail’s pace,” she says, adding that this takes away the charm of reading Bengali books. “Somebody should do this for Hindi as well. I’d love to hear Munshi Premchand in an audiobook, rather than plod through a book.”

Hearing is easy

Vidyanand Vartak, a software developer based in London, launched a blog called BoltiPustake in 2008 that offers free, downloadable Marathi audiobooks in MP3 format. “One day, I came across a site for English audiobooks where volunteers read books for free and started listening to them,” says Vartak, “That’s where I thought of doing something similar in Marathi.”

For Vartak, the blog is a way to revive his mother tongue. Currently, he’s recording a 100-year-old Marathi adaptation of Jane Austen’sPride And Prejudice called Aaj Pasun 50 Varshanni (50 Years From Today), which was written as a futuristic novel at the time.

“This whole narration business is nothing new in India,” says Jai Madhukar Zende, co-founder, BooksTALK, an year-old audiobook publisher. “We have a rich tradition of oral storytelling in all languages in India and have been a listening culture historically.” Zende remembers how he grew up hearing audiobooks on cassettes, narrated on Bombay Doordarshan and then some years later, on CDs.

“Even today if you go to a music shop you can pick up Katha audiobooks on CDs,” he says. With a funky website and a subhead “Story telling is back… Just listen”, BooksTALK aims to introduce about 100 audiobooks in three languages—English, Kannada and Bengali—in the market by year-end. “While in Kannada and Bengali audiobooks we stick to classics only, in English we are bringing out all kinds of titles, non-fiction, classics, fiction etc.,” says Zende.

New Horizon Media Pvt. Ltd (NHM), established in 2004, is one of the earliest ventures in audiobooks in Tamil and has uploaded over 100 audiobooks in the language since 2006. It sells CDs through its website for Rs. 99-199 and on Audible for approximately $10 (or Rs. 555) each on a revenue-sharing basis. “It is the people who do not like to read much but like to know things that go for these titles. These listeners prefer non-fiction titles such as biographies, political histories, self-improvement and history. Fiction sells less,” says Badri Seshadri, publisher and managing director, NHM.

Recording is tough

Even though most regional publishers in languages ranging from Marathi, Oriya, Bengali and Hindi to Tamil, Kannada and others are considering and trying out the audiobook space, the number of books in the market remains low. One reason is that it takes a lot of time to make one. Since its inception in 2008, Vartak has uploaded only 14 audiobooks on his blog BoltiPustake.

Continue reading “Hear that book”

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What’s your gadget update?

Techie socialist or flighty fashionista? The gadgets you carry say a lot about you

Cellphones, laptops and all the other stylish electronic paraphernalia are fast becoming like jewellery and clothes—a personality statement. “I stereotype people and their gadgets,” says Nilofar Ansher, 28, a communications analyst from Hyderabad. “If someone sports a flashy, brand new gadget as soon as it’s released, then I would mentally tick off tags like rich, brand slave, or show-off.” Even the brand name matters. “If his brand turns out to be an Apple product, then I feel ticked off as I do not subscribe to the Apple code of ethics,” says Ansher.

She’s not alone. According to a September 2010 study Gadget Census, conducted by Retrevo Labs, a US-based gadgets company researcher, the gadgets you use help people form opinions about you.

“The prestige associated with brands offers an experience of a ‘class’,” says Girishwar Misra, 61, a professor of psychology at Delhi University. “The hierarchically structured Indian mindset has found it another space for enacting and expressing power differential.” He says people’s notion of self-worth and sense of belonging rest on the opinions of others in their community or society. “Technology has become yet another aspect of reflecting and conveying one’s identity to others around them.”

“What isn’t a status symbol?” asks Nishant Shah, director—research, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “In the commodified world, where everything is mass-produced, the consumer has to be made to believe that everything they are buying is a part of their expression and personality, and even though this wasn’t created keeping them in mind, it is specially made only for them.”

This is also the reason, according to him, why most people like to own the most cutting-edge gadgets but end up using them like any other low-end gadget. After all, how many smartphone owners go beyond making calls, sending SMSes and updating their social networks? “This is where you start wondering what then propels people to buy that new gadget,” says Shah.

We present a tongue-in-cheek analysis of gadget-owner camps in India. Which camp do you belong to?

iBragger

 

iPhone 4S: Rs 44,500; www.apple.com/in/iphone

iPhone 4S: Rs. 44,500; www.apple.com/in/iphone

 

There are better gadgets out there than iPhones, iPads and iPods, but it doesn’t matter. Every time there’s a new update or a new gadget from Apple, you have to shell out the money and grab it. A day in your life begins on the iCloud, hanging out with friends who belong to the “iEcosystem”. You don’t know how you would survive if iTunes stopped working for even half a day. You love to flaunt your shiny gadgets and smile when someone asks you about them. You don’t necessarily know how the iGadget works, but can still talk about it with pride.

In your bag: iPhones, iPads, and any other gadget that begins with an ‘i’.

Your personality: You are slightly egotistical and love attention. You also like to get compliments on everything, whether it’s your attire or your gadget.

Your fashion fix: iPhone 5 is going to be released in a few months. If you don’t want to wait that long for a rumoured 4-inch screen, go for iPhone 4S, the one with that sexy “iSecretary”, Siri.

Retro relic

 

Retro phone handset: Rs1,399; www.excitinglives.com

Retro phone handset: Rs1,399; www.excitinglives.com

 

You believe that overuse of gadgets is responsible for all the diseases in society, from the common cold to cancer. You don’t use Internet on your phone, and have an old desktop on which you might check email once a week. You think that GPS stands for “Going Perfectly Straight” and stay safely away from the time wasters of modern living.

In your bag: Nothing. You have a landline and an old desktop that needs to be upgraded urgently.

Your personality: You prefer talking face-to-face instead of emailing people. You would rather discuss things in the middle of the street instead of shooting off a text message.

Your fashion fix: Turn your cellphone into a landline with the retro phone handset. So even the most modern devices will feel comfortably old.

Beg, borrow, buy techie

 

Raspberry Pi: around $35*; www.element14.com

Raspberry Pi: around $35*; www.element14.com

 

You love gadgets. You always need to know what makes things tick. Every time a new gadget comes around, you start saving and stop buying anything unnecessary, such as clothes, or food, and go buy the new shiny devices. Brands don’t matter, just so long as you can see innovation.  Continue reading “What’s your gadget update?”

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8 ways to total transformation

 

Convert that smartphone into a superphone with these useful little accessories and add-ons

All of us know the importance of that one-second conversation just before the cellphone battery dies on you. And when have we not wished that our phone would not lose signal in the middle of an important negotiation? If you are looking to enhance the performance of your cellphone, here are some add-ons to convert it into a superphone. Believe us, your handset will never be the same.

BoxWave Presentation Capacitive Stylus

The trend of the stylus is back for new-generation touch screens. Use this one if you like to be precise in writing and drawing on a tiny screen or simply want to keep it scratch-free. This stylus is slightly heavier than a pen and comes integrated with an LED reading light as well as a laser pointer. All you need to do is put slight pressure and the stylus works smoothly even on screen protectors. The clip-on at the side ensures you will not leave it behind in the cab. It even has a headphone jack plug anchor if you prefer it to dangle stylishly. It comes in four colours—black, silver, ruby and white.

Money matters: $19.95 (around Rs. 1,020) at www.boxwave.com. Shipping charges extra.

Violight UV Cellphone Sanitizer

A March study by the London School of Hygiene says your cellphone has more germs than a toilet seat. Kill the germs on your device the ‘Star Trek’ way with Violight UV Cellphone Sanitizer. It is a metal basket with a lid in which you can put your phone, charger, MP3 player, PDA, even earbuds or anything else which will fit in the slim box. The germicidal UV rays will zap the viruses and bacteria in just 5 minutes. It can only be used for flat phones and not for flip phones or sliders—those are too bulky.

Money matters: $49.95 for the Violight UV Cellphone Sanitizer,atwww.violight.com. Portable versions for toothbrushes and earbuds are cheaper. Shipping charges extra.

iZon Remote Room Monitor

Want to keep an eye on your child or pet while you are in office? This app-controlled camera live-streams video and audio of any space. The camera connects to your iPhone via an app called Stem:Connect. The camera has a magnetic base so that you can position it at any angle. Once set, you can see a live feed from the camera (with about 15 seconds delay) anywhere in the world on your iPhone. It can be configured to alert you when it senses motion or sound in the room. You can set the app to record feeds and upload them to a free, private YouTube account. The live stream is encrypted and sent only to your device. It works only for iOS products now (iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad), but the company is also developing Android and Mac apps, and a Web browser interface.

Money matters: $129.95 at Steminnovation.com/izon. Shipping costs extra.

 

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Your favourite books, on the digital highway

 

Forget just reading—now you can experience books with soundtrack, videos, animation and games

After 244 years, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced earlier this month that it would stop publishing its 32-volume print edition. Forever. A month ago, in February, a digitally enhanced version of the Game of Thrones, the first book in the much-touted fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, was released as an eBook for iPad. The “book” is much more than a reading experience. It comes with a pop-up column of a glossary of characters and a dynamic map which tells you where all the series’ characters are at any point in the book. To add to the fun, there are clips from the audio book. To call it a book is like asking Marvin, the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, to get you a cup of coffee.

The book has evolved into a multimedia, multi-touch, customizable offering with the advent of touch-screen devices, especially the launch of the iPad. This evolved version can talk back to you, entertain you with additional videos and references and help you explore itself in non-linear ways. For want of a better phrase, the industry is calling these “enhanced eBooks”.

“Enhanced eBooks are not eBooks, or digital versions of books,” explains Sriram Panchanathan, 41, the Bangalore-based senior vice-president of Digital Solutions, part of the US-based Aptara Inc. “They are something else altogether. They have additional features to an eBook that complement or add to the reading experience.” Aptara works with some of the biggest publishers worldwide, like John Wiley & Sons, Pearson and Random House, and digital publishers like Inkling (www.inkling.com) to create digitally enhanced eBooks of their content. Their most recent titles include The Professional Chef, The Culinary Institute of America for John Wiley & Sons and Meggs’ History of Graphic Design, a self-published title.

According to Panchanathan, you can completely change the experience of reading a book on a touch-screen gadget with extra elements like audio, video, multimedia, scripted animation, a dictionary, or an interactive interface. “A year ago, publishers started with enhancing children’s and educational books with graphics, animations and audio and video but now we see a demand from them to convert non-fiction categories like cookbooks, books on gardening and even biographies,” he says. Take the example of the forthcoming enhanced title from Penguin of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable. It’s a biography of the legendary black activist, features rare archival video footage of his life and photos, and has an interactive map of Harlem, Manhattan, to better visualise where he came from.

What’s helped obviously is that publishers now have the tools to embed multimedia in a digital book in a fast and cost-effective way. Epub 3, the latest update to the open eBook format .epub, and its counterpart, Amazon’s Kindle Format 8, were both released in October. While the .epub version 3 works for almost all touch-screen eReaders, including Android-based tablets and the Nook, Cobo and Sony tablets, Kindle Format 8 works only for Kindle Fire devices. Both formats use HTML 5, which can be used to embed multimedia elements directly into the eBook file, making it look much like a website. “This reduces the cost and size of an eBook and gives creators, the ability to experiment with styling, animation and scripting,” says Panchanathan.

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Dialling for the doctor

 

Your cellphone might have a convenient service for medical help, but how reliable is it?

Acouple’s sleep is disturbed in the middle of the night. Their nine-month-old child is crying in pain, and has fever. The couple try to call their family doctor but can’t get through. The mother suggests calling a health helpline on their mobile service provider. Within minutes, they are connected to a doctor who asks for the symptoms and then offers a prescription.

At the press of a button: It is a quick way to connect to a health professional for minor ailments at a nominal cost.

At the press of a button: It is a quick way to connect to a health professional for minor ailments at a nominal cost.

So goes the advertisement for Mediphone, a tele-triage (medical advice over the phone) service for Airtel subscribers that started its call-a-doctor facility across India in January. On similar lines, Spice has launchedJeeyo Healthy, a service that offers its customers doctors-on-call with health-related information and advice on their handsets. Companies such as Aircel and Tata Docomo are also offering tele-triage services.

Meant for minor problems like back, neck and stomach aches, cold and fever, tele-triage is a quick way to connect to a health professional at a nominal cost. Mediphone charges Airtel customers across the country Rs. 35 per call for consultation, a mere fraction of what it would cost to visit a doctor (which could range from Rs. 200-500).

“This is one of the reasons for its popularity,” says Nitin Verma, 43, vice-president, Healthfore, a division of Religare Technologies which runs Mediphone. Dr Verma has 25 doctors in his team. He explains that Mediphone is actually a call centre designed to answer questions related to medical problems. When you call the service, you get to speak to a medical officer or a nurse. The person ascertains whether it’s an emergency, in which case they connect you to an ambulance service. But if they feel it is a minor problem that can be resolved on the phone, they connect the caller to a doctor or resolve it themselves.

The idea of diagnose-on-call doesn’t go down well with everyone from the medical fraternity. “A doctor should never prescribe a drug without seeing a patient,” says G.K. Ramachandrappa, national president, Indian Medical Association. “If someone says I have a fever, it could be anything from typhoid to malaria or a simple virus. A basic drug like a paracetamol may harm the patient in the long run.” According to Dr Ramachandrappa, a visit to the family doctor is best. “Either that or go to the emergency ward of a hospital near you, or call up 108 for a free ambulance,” he says.

Nandu Madhava, 35, CEO of mDhil.com, an online and mobile phone portal on health education, agrees with Dr Ramachandrappa. Madhava tried tele-triage as a business model but quit after a while. “Calling and talking to a doctor just doesn’t work. Four out of five of those calls always ended with advice to call an ambulance or go see a doctor. The risk of misdiagnosis is far too high on the phone.” That pain in the groin could be anything from a pulled muscle to hernia or cancer, says Madhava, adding that this was the reason mDhil.com decided to focus on health-informative videos.

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