The new Kinect for Windows sensor will include many of the technologies that Microsoft showed off in the Kinect for Xbox One product earlier this week. Microsoft is promising the Kinect for Windows sensor also will include higher fidelity, an expanded field of view, skeletal tracking and new active infrared -- all features of the Kinect for Xbox One.

There also will be a new Kinect for Windows software development kit coming. Microsoft officials said they will be discussing the new SDK and the Kinect for Windows sensor at Build 2013 in June, but aren't saying when the new SDK will be available.

The current Kinect for Windows sensor looks like the existing Kinect for Xbox sensor. But it is designed to work at closer range and to work with Windows 7/8 PCs. In addition to making firmware adjustments in the new Windows Kinect sensor, Microsoft has shortened the the USB cable and is including of a “small dongle” to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals. The Windows version will modify the Kinect depth camera to see objects that are “as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device” without sacrificing accuracy or precision.

Bing is evolving into more than "just" a Web search engine for Microsoft. It's also gives the company a way to harness and make use of data using Microsoft's myriad machine learning and computation capabilities. And though it may be hard to see through all the "Scroggled" fog, Bing may be more important as a service than a "mere" search engine to Microsoft going forward.

This week, as part of its Xbox One reveal, Microsoft execs didn't call out Bing by name much, if at all. However, as a subsequent post on the Microsoft Offical Blog noted, it's Bing that provides the responses when users search by voice via Kinect for movies, TV shows and music. It's Bing that's parsing the natural-language-query commands, such as "Xbox, Snap Internet Explorer." Specifically, it's the Tellme voice technology, combined with social-graph information, plus Bing's search functionality.

A quick Tellme refresher: Microsoft bought Tellme Networks in 2007 for between $800 million and $1 billion.  Tellme provided both a "speech cloud service" and an interactive speech self-service platform that provided interactive voice response (IVR). (An example of an IVR system is the system that provides an automated voice response when users check on their flight statuses.) Microsoft offloaded the IVR assets to 24/7 in 2012. But it kept the cloud-speech service, which it combined with other internal speech technologies. The cloud service part from Tellme is what is used in Windows Phone, the Bing mobile app, automotive entertainment systems and Xbox Kinect sensors.

Additionally, Bing did work with certain Microsoft Xbox partners, like Netflix and HBO to index their catalogs, alongside Xbox's own game catalog, so that users could search for "Great Gatsby" and see any movies, games, music or other content available through the Xbox. Bing provided the back-end search/recommendation service, starting with the Xbox 360. In a similar way, Bing indexed the Windows Phone app store to provide users with recommendations, in addition to the basic Web search it also provided.

Microsoft is promising the voice-search capability it provides with Xbox and Kinect will be significantly enhanced with the Xbox One. But that's not the only place where Bing is supposed to bring the bling.

Windows Blue, a k a Windows 8.1, has been rumored to include significant Bing improvements. In the leaked Blue builds so far, these search enhancements can't really be seen and tried. But Microsoft's Online Services Division, the unit that includes Bing and the remaining Microsoft Tellme team, has been working with Windows to build a search service that will work across devices, apps and the Web, according to my contacts.

On the apps front, the AppEx team inside Bing is continuing to develop more new Windows 8 apps that Microsoft is expected to roll out when Windows Blue is available this fall. This is the team that built the Weather, News, Sports, Travel and other apps that were preinstalled with Windows 8 and Windows RT. Officials with the AppEx team have said they're working on more, similar kinds of apps. Some of these new apps -- an Alarms and a Sound Recorder app, specifically -- have leaked as part of the Windows Blue leaks, but I am hearing there will be more.

The Bing team also is going to power the app-store search and recommendation engine that is part of Windows Blue, I'm told. But Bing is also providing the core search technology for Windows Blue, too, that will improve the search discoverability and relevance in Windows 8.

Instead of having to hunt within Apps, Settings, Mail and other subcategories, users will be able to just start typing and have the operating system figure out for what they're most likely to be searching, one of my contacts said. If that comes to pass, that would be a major improvement over how search currently works in Windows 8 and Windows RT. 

I've been asking around as to whether the Bing/OSD team might be doing anything to improve voice search with Windows Blue, given what they've been doing on the Xbox side of the house. I am hearing from my contacts the answer is no. The reason? Voice isn't so far a priority on PCs/tablets, so Windows Phone and Xbox/Kinect are where the voice focus is at the moment.

That said, Microsoft officials announced on May 23 that a new Kinect for Windows sensor is coming in 2014 and will include improved voice capabilities. So maybe that will include more Bing/OSD capabilities, too.

Our guest is Chris Haydon, Vice President of Solutions Management for Procurement, Finance, and Network at Ariba, here to explain the latest conference news, and to offer insights into how Ariba will be broadening its services procurement management value, mobile push and AribaPay roll-out.

The interview is conducted Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. [Disclosure: Ariba, an SAP company, is a sponsor of BriefingsDirect podcasts.]

Here are some excerpts:

Gardner: Where we are now with Ariba in terms of some of the big news at LIVE?

Haydon: We have some really exciting innovation coming in the near-term to Ariba in a couple of areas. First, let's talk about Network RFQ or the Spot Buy. We think this is part of the undiscovered country, where, according to The Hackett Group, 40-plus percent of spend is not sourced.

By linking this non-sourced spend to the Ariba Network, we think we're going to be able to address a large pain-point for our buyers and our sellers. Network RFQ or Spot Buy is a near-term solution that we announced at LIVE, and we're bringing that forward over the next six months.

The next exciting innovation is at the other end of the process. That’s a solution we call AribaPay. AribaPay is what we think is a game-changing solution that delivers rich remittance and invoice information that’s only available from the Ariba Network through solution secure, global payment infrastructure.

Down market

Gardner: It seems to me, Chris, that you're going to the mid-market. You're creating some services with Spot Buy that help people in their ad-hoc, low-volume purchasing.

You're providing more services types of purchasing capabilities, maybe for those mid-market organizations or different kinds of companies like services-oriented companies. And, you're also connecting via Dell Boomi to QuickBooks, which is an important asset for how people run small businesses. Are we expanding the addressable market here?

Haydon: We are, and that’s an excellent point. We look at it two ways. We're looking to address all commerce. Things like the Spot Buy, AribaPay, services, procurement, and estimate-based services are really addressing the breadth of spend, and that applies at the upper end and the lower end.

There are important pieces that you touched on, especially with our Dell Boomi partnership and the announcement here for QuickBooks. We want to make it accessible to grow the ecosystem and to make the collaboration across the network as frictionless as possible.

With Dell Boomi announcing QuickBooks, it enables suppliers specifically with that back-end system to be able to comply with all the collaboration of business processes on the Ariba Network, and we're really only just getting started.

There is a massive ecosystem out there with QuickBooks, but when we have a look around, there are more than 120 prominent backend systems. So it's not just the SAPs, the Oracles, the JD Edwards, and Lawsons. It's the QuickBooks and the Intuits. It's the Great Plains of the world.

Think about at it as back-end agnostic. We want our customers on both the buy-side and the sell-side of their partners to make their own choices. It's really their own choice of deployment.

If they want to take an integrated business-to-business (B2B) channel, they can. If they want to come to a portal, they can. If they want to have an extract that goes into their own customized system, they can do that as well, or all of the above at the same time, and really just taking that process forward.

Gardner: How does AribaPay work? Is this a credit card, a debit card? Is this a transactional banking interface?

Brand new

Haydon: Number one, it's brand-new. First, let's talk about the problems that we had, and how we think we are going to address it. More than 40 percent of payments in corporate America are still check based. Check-based payments present their own problems, not just for the buyers, but also from the sellers. They don’t know when they're going to get paid. And when they are getting paid, how do they reconcile what they're actually getting paid for?

AribaPay is a new service. It's not a P-Card. It's leveraging a new type of electronic payment through an ACH-styled channel. It enables buyers to take 100 percent of their payments through the Ariba Network. It lets the suppliers opt in to be able to match and move from our paper-based payment channel check, to an electronic channel that is married. This is the interesting value prop for the network. That is married with their rich information.

So that’s the value. We think it's very differentiated. We're going to be leveraging a large financial institution provider who has great breadth and penetration, not just here in the United States, but globally as well, and that's via Discover Financial Services.

We announced this at LIVE this month, and I know they're as excited as we are. Discover has the wherewithal to bring the credibility and the scale to the payments channel, while Ariba has the credibility in the scale of the supply base and the commercial B2B traffic. We think that that one plus one equals three and is a game changer in electronic payment.

Gardner: Moving on to the future or vision that you're painting, what should we expect in the roadmap of the next two or three years for the Ariba Network?

Haydon: We're really excited about the Ariba Network and we have four or five themes. One piece of big news is that we're getting into and supporting supply chain and logistics processes, and adding that level of collaboration. Today, we have 10 or 11 types of collaborations that you can do on the Ariba Network, like an order, an invoice, and so on.

Over the next several releases, we're going to be more than doubling that amount of collaboration that you can do between trading partners on the network. That’s exciting, and there are things like forecasting and goods receipt notices.

I won’t go into the specifics of every single transaction, but think about of doubling the amount of collaboration that you can do and the visibility in that. The ability to apply your own business rules and logic to those collaborations is massive.

The second thing we're doing on the network is adding a new spend category, which we call services invoicing. This is estimate-based spend and this is another up market, down market, broad approach, in which there are a whole heap of services.

This is more of an estimate-based style spend where you don’t necessarily know the full cost of an item until you finish it. Whether you're drilling an oil well or constructing a building, there are variations there. So we're adding that capability into the network.

User interface

Another area is what we call Network 2.0, and this is extending and changing not just the user interface, but extending and adding more intrinsic core capabilities to the network. Ariba has a number of network assets and we think it's important to have a single network platform globally. It's the commerce internet, the network.

So our Network 2.0 program is a phase delivery of extending the core capabilities of the Ariba network over the next couple of years in terms of order status, results, requests in terms of goods receipt notices, advanced shipping notices, more invoice capability, and just growing that out globally.

Last but not least is just more and more supply collaboration, focusing on the ability for suppliers to more easily respond, comply, and manage their profiles on the Ariba Network.

Gardner: The Ariba applications themselves, what should we expect there?

Haydon: We have a whole raft of capability coming across that whole application suite. We can break that into two or three areas. In our sourcing, contract management, supplier information management, and supply performance management suite, we're doing functionality enhancements on one of the exciting pieces.

In the spend visibility area, we're going to be leveraging the SAP In-Memory technology HANA. What we are doing there is early for us, but there are some very exciting, encouraging results in terms of the speed and the performance we've heard about from SAP. Running our own technology on that and seeing the results is exciting for us and will be exciting for our customers.

As we move more into our procurement suite, we're introducing a new look and feel, a consumer like look and feel, to our catalog and our search engine. The more Amazon-style search touches more users than anyone else. As you can imagine, that’s how they need to requisition tools. So making that a friendly UI and taking that UI or user experience through to the other products is fantastic.

One of the other most exciting areas for us is services procurement, a very large investment for us. Services procurement is our application to be able to support temporary or contingent labor, statement of work or consulting labor, print, marketing and also light industrial. This really is one of the underpinning differences for Ariba, and this is where we're bringing it together.

We're not just building applications any more. We're building network-centric applications or network-aware applications. It means that when we're launching our new services procurement solution, not only are we are going to have a brand-new, refreshed, modern user interface, which is very important.

Differential insights

We're going to be able to leverage the power of the Ariba Network to provide differential insights, into standard day-to-day services procurement on-boarding. That will be looking at average labor rates in the area for the type of service that you're buying and using the network intelligence to give you advice, to give you instruction, to help you manage exceptions on the network.

Gardner: What’s really interesting to me is all of your vision so tightly aligns with the mega trends of today, from cloud to mobile to big data. Tell me little bit about the potential.

Haydon: Absolutely. When we think about the networked economy, the networked apps, the network-centric apps, the network itself, one should be able to connect any demand generating or receiving system. We touched on that with Dell Boomi, but it's seamless integration across the piece. We want to be comprehensive, which is adding more collaboration.

Critical mass

The interesting thing about this collaboration, is it starts driving at some levels a critical mass of data. The trend is that the network is intelligent. It's actually able to piece together not just the transaction itself, but who you are. We're quite excited, because this is the massive differentiator of the network. You talked about apps. We have not just the transactional data, but we have the master data, and we can also take other sources of information.

That could be weather, location, stock reports, SEC filings, Dun and Bradstreet writings, whatever you like, to intersect.

So this data plus knowledge gives you information. With SAP, it's a very exciting technology. SAP InfoNet, Supplier InfoNet, is able to leverage network data. Today, it has over 160 feeds. It's smart, meaning it's smart intelligence. It can automatically take those feeds and contextualize.

And that's the real thing we're trying to do -- knowing who the user is, knowing the business process they are trying to execute, and also knowing what they are trying to achieve. And it's bringing that information to the point of demand to help them make actionable, intelligent, and sometimes predictive decisions.

Where we would like to go is, heaven forbid there is another tsunami, but let's just work through that use case. You get a news alert there is tsunami in Japan again, terrible event. What if you knew that, and what if 80 percent of your core, raw material inputs came from there? Just that alert of that to notify you to saying you've got to know that you might well have a supply problem. What are you going to do?

And by the way, here are three or four other suppliers who can supply this material to you, and they're available on the network. What is that worth? Immeasurable.

Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: Ariba.

You may also be interested in:

• Ariba and Discover to transform B2B payments with cloud-based AribaPay
• Ariba, Dell Boomi to unveil collaboration enhancements for networked economy at Ariba LIVE conference
• The Networked Economy Newly Forges Innovation Forces for Collaboration in Business and Commerce, Says Author Zach Tumin
• Collboration-Enhanced Procurement and AP Automation Maximize Productivity and Profit Gains in Networked Economy, Says Ariba's Drew Hofler
• Ariba Network Helps Cox Enterprises Manage Procurement Across Six Different ERP Systems
• Ariba CMO Tim Minahan on how networked economy benefits spring from improved business commerce and cloud processes
• Ariba Dynamic Discounting Gives Companies New Visibility into Cash Flow to Improve the Buying Process

At Google I/O last week, the Silicon Valley giant announced Google Cloud Datastore, a fully managed offering for storing non-relational data.

It's based on Google's App Engine High Replication Datastore, which has been around since 2011 and now processes an eye-popping 4.5 trillion transactions per month—with 99.95 percent uptime, no less.

In a blog post this morning, the company decided to celebrate by dropping App Engines HRD and Cloud Datastore prices up to 25 percent.

For stored data in the Datastore, the new price will be $0.18 per gigabyte per month. That's down from $0.24.

For operations, write will cost $0.09 per 100,000 operations (down from $0.10), read will cost $0.06 (down from $0.07) and small will remain unchanged, at $0.01.

"Was there something wrong with it? And, do you need a replacement? We can get you a replacement, no problem," signaling to holler over a fellow colleague. But I declined.

"There's nothing wrong with the tablet," I said. "I suspect it's actually a problem with me."

Within the 14-day period in which Apple consumers are granted a stay of financial relief on their purchases, I returned my tablet not with a heavy heart but nonetheless with a feeling of disappointment in myself. It's not that I didn't like the iPad. The build quality was excellent, the software functionaliy was superb, and there was nothing but the highest of intent for burgeoning productivity potential.

It was that I simply didn't need one. And not just an iPad, a test case as it turns out, but any tablet for that matter.

Cue the back story. 

I fell into the Apple ecosystem. At first, anyway. But I don't think of myself as an Apple user. I am the kind of person who will use whatever tools that are necessary for the job in hand. It just so happens that I've become accustomed to the way these devices work together, just as other same-brand ecosystem devices do.

Almost two years ago I bought a MacBook Air. Still to this day, it has become a crucial, necessary, ultraportable laptop that has, granted with its occasional failings, has served me well. The battery life is acceptable, so long as certain conditions are met, but in spite of the likely unique gripes rather than hindrances, it's a fine piece of kit.

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But above all else, OS X was the driving force for change. Gone are the days where apps weren't available. That's the cloud's business now. And thanks to the App Store, many previously unavailable apps have migrated to the Mac. 

Pleased with the design and the quality, but above all else the OS X operating system that had become so simple to use yet powerful by design, I ripped out the cords on my desktop machine — that whizzed and whirred in the corner of my home office with a subtle yet constant background-fading drone — and I replaced it with a Mac mini.

It was all too easy. I looked for a catch, but there wasn't one. 

A staunch Windows user for my adolescent and early adult life, there should've been a level of discomfort and disconcertedness. But there wasn't. With fond memories of blue screens and translucent windows, I began to prefer a sense of simplicity.

The last step was my eventual move to the iPhone, albeit for a second time. The first was not the best of experiences but as a result of my confidence in the Apple ecosystem, I thought it was at least worth another try. And it was worth it. 

We can tick off the MacBook Air, the Mac mini — and all the peripherals to really go all-in — and the iPhone. (In between, I'd also bought an Apple TV, but it just makes sense when you're downloading TV and movies). The next logical step, surely, was to get an iPad.

With glee and excitement, I picked it up from the Grand Central store the following day on my way to work. I configured it, I synchronized my music, my pictures, apps and everything else. 

And then I went back to work. 

Not on my iPad, but my MacBook Air, which I take with me to work. I took my iPad home and it was sat there on my coffee table for three days until I picked it up again. It wasn't that I was avoiding it, and I wanted to use it, but I didn't have any particular reason to use it. 

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with the iPad. And, I suspect there is nothing particularly wrong or different with any other tablet. It simply doesn't fit into my lifestyle.

My iPhone is my primary email communication device, plus my music. That sticks me firmly in the "prosumer" category. But because of my job, I require a keyboard. Granted, typing on the iPad is not the most difficult thing to do in the world, but it's less natural than a keyboard. I'm automatically drawn to a keyboard.

That said, it's a fine device but I have, as part of my one-brand ecosystem, other devices that at least for me are better suited for purpose.

Even for "play" and non-work reasons, there was nothing drawing me to it that I couldn't already do on my ultra-portable iPhone, my keyboard-enabled yet still light and portable MacBook Air, or my work-personal life separating Mac mini that allows me to walk away from it at any point.

If I were a financier, a marketer, or an artist, a tablet may be perfect. But not for me. 

And you know what? That's OK. It's my problem, and not the fault of the tablet. 

While there's an obvious point: "Why did you buy it in the first place?" The simple answer is: you often don't know how something is going to fit into your lifestyle unless you try it first. 

There are, believe it or not, some business takeaways from this. After all, as a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) employee and a "prosumer," much of these apply to me as much as the wider general business population.

The key takeaways:

• Don't rush into a tablet-buying decision. As simple as it sounds, don't get caught up in the trends. If you're a CIO or IT buyer, above all else find a purpose for investing in tablets. Survey your staff, or monitor BYOD usage.
  
  
• On that note, BYOD should be actively encouraged first and foremost. It cuts down on IT budgets, particularly if you invest in a back-end mobile device management (MDM) solution to organize and secure those tablets. Any formal corporate tablet rollout should come second. It gives staff the flexibility to bring their own device first before IT spenders fork out precious budget for something that may not be used.
  
  
• Don't discount the PC yet. Latest market figures suggest that there is a massive consumer decline in PC shipments. But enterprise and business figures are still widely unknown. Anecdotal reports suggest that PCs are still core to desk-work productivity, which makes sense as tablets can suit one industry and not another. Also, people love using tablets for sitting on the sofa and winding down. Any decline in PC shipments in the enterprise is likely to come in the coming few years. Never underestimate the power of a physical keyboard.
  
  
• Finally, while iPads may be recognized as "the" tablet for business and enterprise customers, following successful major deployments across the banking and finance sectors — besides government, it's considered to be the most security-focused industry — but don't put all your eggs in one basket. Smaller and cheaper may be more effective and efficient, and a widescale iPad rollout may not justify the costs. Get a small test pool in order and rotate across staff to determine which device is better suited for different kinds of workers.

In terms of setting developers free, Cockcroft said the company does a number of things. "[Netflix] makes our Wi-Fi faster and faster," he said. "It gets developers going and it gets us out of their way." Cockcroft called it a "positive cycle."

He said it is key to treat developers like adults.

Speaking at the Glue Conference outside Boulder, Colo., Cockcroft, addressing the crowd from behind a pair of Google glasses, said focusing on cost reduction only slows developers down. And slow developers mean companies relying on cloud native applications - such as Netflix - won't be able to keep pace with competitors.

"That will put you into a death spiral," he said.

Cloud native applications (i.e. Google, Amazon) are those running entirely in the cloud, which for Netflix means "there is no datacenter." The company's entire technology infrastructure was moved to Amazon Web Services late last year.

Cockcroft focused on Netflix's video streaming business, which runs entirely in the cloud.

In this native cloud application model, he said, developers can become the bottleneck as companies attempt to construct a highly agile and highly available service from short-lived and often broken components. Companies must be aware of this pitfall and avoid it.

To help developers thrive, Cockcroft said it is also important to decentralize and automate operations activities, and to integrate DevOps into business organizations  - what he called Biz DevOps.

To do all this requires re-orgs - both to become cloud native and to integrate DevOps.

Later in the day, Cockcroft led a four-hour workshop on Netflix's Open Source Architecture and posted the tutorial online. (Cloud architecture tutorial: Constructing cloud architecture the Netflix way).

In addition, he challenged Glue Conference attendees to take part in the company's Netflix Cloud Prize, a contest looking for the best open source contributions to the NetflixOSS platform. The prize, to be distributed over a number of winners, is $100,000.

Part of this week, I am out of my box at a developer-focused conference where identity is only one topic.

Mark Zuckerberg suddenly appeared in Warsaw on Wednesday on what the Facebook founder and CEO said was a spontaneous one-day holiday. But the meaning of the word "spontaneous" would need to be stretched to explain his late afternoon meeting with the Polish minister for administrative affairs and digitisation, Michal Boni.

Officially, Zuckerberg and Boni talked about the significance of the IT industry in Poland and the position of Polish programmers in the world market. According to the social media mogul, Poland is the second-most important recruiting grounds for programmers, "ahead of China although still behind India". Boni added that the growing Polish IT market was now worth approximately €7bn annually — 2.2 percent of the country's GDP.

The two are also likely to have discussed one subject likely to be on both their minds for different reasons: the EC's proposed reforms of Europe's privacy rules.

The issue of privacy did crop up in conversation between the minister and Facebook founder. Boni said that privacy remained important for Poles, and working out how to create conditions that allowed businesses to successfully combine innovation with privacy would remain an issue in the years ahead.

And, while Zuckerberg told journalists that data protection was a key issue and people should always know how their data was being used, the company has found itself on the wrong end of Europe's privacy watchdogs on several occasions.

As a result, Wednesday's meeting stirred some criticism among local industry watchers, and not just for its small-scale and hasty nature.

On the same day as Zuckerberg's visit, experts attended a conference on web security and the limits of advertising in the online age in the same city. "We are getting two separate worlds. Experts can talk all they want, while businessmen and politicians meet elsewhere," Polish technology blog Dziennik Internautow lamented.

I met with Nokia here at CTIA 2013 and while there are no new hardware announcements, there was a major HERE Maps update, I did get a chance to try out the Lumia 925 and use the 928 to take photos during the show.

With the 928 and 925, we will have a high end Lumia WP8 devices on three of the four major US wireless carriers and it appears that Nokia is on the right track.

Nokia has always excelled at optics so I am very pleased to see them so actively promoting their optic technology in commercials and online videos.

Their camera technology has always set them apart and it looks like they are doing all that they can with the Windows Phone platform they decided to run with. Beyond the hardware, Nokia offers applications that let you do something with the photos after they are captured.

In my experiences, very few "normal" smartphone users do much with their photos after they capture and share them. Nokia offers several applications to help you differentiate and make your photo experience unique with even more coming on the 925 and the Smart Camera app that brings many of the current utilities together.

When I saw the Nokia Lumia 925 launch event in London, I thought it looked like a decent device with the 928 likely being a better device and no real reason to get a 925 over the current 920. Now that I have held the device, I think the people who wrote that it may be the best WP8 device just might be correct. The aluminum frame feels great in your hand with the smooth polycarbonate back panel offering a nice contrast. I like the way the buttons are prominent and easy to find and press.

With the additional lens and latest camera software it is also the best Lumia for capturing content. I was down on the lack of wireless charging, but the back plate option is a good solution and gives you the ability to add a splash of color if you want. I may be buying a Lumia 925 for T-Mobile when it launches, but it's tough to give up my HTC One now that I have accessories connected to it that make my life more complete.

In a press note published by the EU executive body, the New European Industrial Strategy for Electronics will help mobilize €100 billion ($129bn) in new private investments through 2020, including €5 billion ($6.45bn) through a joint public-private partnership to support chip manufacturing.

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The logic behind the move is that the electronics sector "underpins Europe's wider industrial competitiveness [...] for other sectors, from energy to automotive to health."

EU Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes said in prepared remarks that she wants to "double" chip production to take a 20 percent slice of the global production. "I want Europe to produce more chips in Europe than the United States produces domestically," she added. "It's a realistic goal if we channel our investments properly."

The move comes just months after GlobalFoundaries chief executive Ajit Manocha told attendees at an event in San Francisco, California that on the continent.

Just recently in April, the EU sent a formal statement of antitrust charges

Intel was also fined €1.06 billion ($1.4bn) by EU authorities. The chip maker was accused of anti-competitive behavior that ultimately harmed AMD. As a result, the rival chip manufacturer suffered delays and poor sales.

The school year hasn't ended in many places yet, but computer manufacturers have already started prepping new systems for the next school year. For instance, HP has just previewed its back-to-school refresh of its laptop lineup, including new Envy and Pavilion notebooks.

Pricing for many of these new portables is pretty aggressive, with the new Pavilion 11 TouchSmart starting at just $399. That price includes an 11.6-inch touchscreen with 1,366x768 resolution and an AMD processor. The Pavilion 14 TouchSmart Sleekbook offers similar resolution on a 14-inch screen starting at $479.99. Both new Pavilions will be available on June 26.

HP has also updated its pricier Envy line, with the Envy TouchSmart 14 Ultrabook even getting an ultra-high-resolution display option. The 3,200x1,600 screen rivals those of the Google Chromebook Pixel and Apple's MacBook Retina display lineup, though we don't know pricing for that version yet. The base price is $699, though that only gets you a 1,366x768 14-inch display.

There's also the Envy TouchSmart 15, which isn't an Ultrabook but does boost the base resolution of the 15.6-inch display to full 1080p HD. Likewise for the Envy 17, which will also feature Intel's forthcoming Haswell processors and Nvidia discrete graphics. The Envy TouchSmart starts at $529, while the Envy 17 will be priced from $699; both will be available starting on June 5.

[Via HP, Engadget]

This week in particular has been a bad one for the two companies. First came Vodafone's financial results, released on Tuesday. The results saw the country's second biggest mobile operator – with around one-quarter of the market – announce lacklustre figures. Full-year revenue across the company was down 4.2 percent, with recession-hit Spain and Italy helping to keep it low. In total, Vodafone has had to write down 7.7bn in the two countries for the year ended 31 March 2013.

Vodafone's revenue from services in Spain dropped 11.5 percent over the year. According to new figures from the Spanish telecoms regulator CMT, the operator lost 81,000 customers in March alone as consumers shifted away from the traditional operators and instead signed up with mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

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Meanwhile, as telecoms analyst Benedict Evans pointed out, its SMS volume has halved over the past two years – a trend seen across the mobile industry, thanks in part to the rise in popularity of OTT messaging services such as BlackBerry's BBM, Apple's iMessage and WhatsApp.

The figures from CMT also painted a worrying picture for Movistar, the country's biggest mobile operator. It lost 87,000 subscribers in March and now pulls in around 35 percent market share. In fact, during the first quarter of the year, Movistar lost around 700,000 subscribers and revenue for the same period fell 16.4 percent year on year to €3.26bn.

The company, however, is making moves to address the issue. This week, it began cutting prices on many of its smartphones by between 15 percent and 30 percent. The Samsung Galaxy S4, for example, now costs €639, compared to a previous price of €755.

According to Reuters, Movistar owner Telefonica abandoned handset subsidies last year. While this had a positive impact on the company's bottom line, it made phones more expensive for new customers. In a country where unemployment sits at 27 percent and not everyone is rolling in cash, that now looks like a poor move.

Meanwhile, Movistar's cheaper rivals will also shortly be able to differentiate themselves through the launch of LTE networks. Both Orange and Yoigo, the third and fourth largest mobile operators in Spain, have plans to launch high-speed 4G services this summer.

Yoigo has even said current 3G customers will be able to upgrade to 4G at no extra cost. Movistar and Vodafone are yet to confirm their 4G plans.

Following an agreement between the U.K.'s academic network Janet and Microsoft, U.K. universities can now benefit from a private link to Microsoft's Windows Azure service.

Aimed at benefiting more than 18 million students in the U.K., the cloud-based service will allow U.K. colleges and universities to bypass the insecure, sluggish public Internet in favor of its own separate speedy and secure network.

The new arrangement connects the Janet network and Microsoft's Windows Azure datacenter in Dublin, routed through an exchange point in London, cutting out the need for data to travel over the public Internet. This opens up a number of advantages, such as using Azure's platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) offerings.

What this means is students and academics alike can begin to take advantage of the outsourced cloud service for data crunching, storage and other cloud-based IT services over a high bandwidth connection.

The agreement between the software giant and Janet was signed at Goldsmiths, University of London, on Tuesday. 

The devil is in the details, however.

Sovereignty, data ownership concerns?

First off, there's the issue of data sovereignty, such as who owns the data and who can access it. The data is transferred to a Dublin-based datacenter, which means it falls under Irish law. The good news is that it remains under wider EU data protection laws, but simply transferring data outside the U.K. throws out yet another complicating factor to the mix over U.K. privacy laws and potentially personally identifiable research data.

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Microsoft to launch Australian Azure hosting region

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But because Azure will remain a service, therefore Microsoft as the data processor, the universities will retain hold of the ownership of the data. 

Secondly, those who have already signed research contracts with third-party sponsors may not be allowed to use the Azure service due to the conflicts between U.S. anti-terror and snooping laws and the EU-wide data and privacy laws.

Such issues relating to the U.S. Patriot Act and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) have been noted in the European Parliament at numerous points in the past two years. Numerous EU member states have banned Microsoft and Google outsourced IT services citing such fears, as well as major private companies, such as defense giant BAE.

Microsoft recently opened up a new datacenter in Australia, going back on its previously stated "imaginary issue" position on data sovereignty.

In expanding to the region, Microsoft admitted that data sovereignty is a "legitimate concern" for customers, but customers should nonetheless be wary knowing that as Microsoft remains a U.S.-headquartered company, it is just as subject to U.S. law in Australia as it is at home.

"Fruition Partners brings a suite of services that complements and extends our platform's capabilities while meeting customers' needs," said David Schneider, global head of sales at ServiceNow, in the press release about this recognition. "As a committed and focused partner, Fruition Partners continues to deliver practical and innovation solutions."

Fruition Partners' team includes close to 200 services professionals who can provide business process expertise in ITIL service management, which is a central part of the ServiceNow portfolio, said Marc Talluto, CEO of the Chicago-based company. This team has completed more than 325 ServiceNow implementations for organizations including Coca-Cola, General Electric, Delphi, Fox, Target, Tiffany & Co., Viacom and Yale University.

One reason businesses like these are moving to a cloud-based IT service management platform is that they rely heavily on information technology and, increasingly, on applications and infrastructure capabilities being delivered as a service, Talluto said. 

Cloud-based service management solutions can be adopted more gradually over time, which isn't always possible with on-premises approaches, he noted. As IT business processes are adjusted and updated, new features can be added or expanded as necessary.

"As we mature their process, the fact that the tool can change as fast as the processes is a plus," he said. "The technology is never the limiting factor, it is people's ability to use it and their willingness to use it."

Aside from its IT services consulting project, Fruition Partners is helping organizations manage the integration of cloud services into their legacy applications and workflows. As of mid-May, its custom integrations gallery includes solutions for TeleBridge, Bomgar, NotesNow, FruFeed, Matrix42, LANDesk, IBM Tivoli Identity Manager, Dell Dispatch, FedEx, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager and CA Technologies IdM.

Fruition Partners currently has a predominantly North American footprint, but it is looking at potential partnerships in geographies where ServiceNow is seeking to build a more visible presence, including Asia Pacific and Latin America.

The technology, which is currently available in a beta edition, is an identity-as-a-service platform that is meant to help centralize management of multiple cloud applications in one location. One big benefit is easier onboarding and offboarding of employees for company-provisioned services. Another would be the ability to apply security policies to services, such as a cloud storage offering like Dropbox, that might actually be personal accounts for individual employees.

In explaining LogMeIn's decision to pilot this service, the company's CEO, Michael Simon, noted:

"The feedback we have received from our IT customerrs is consistent: Today's IT professional isn't looking to impede the use of employee-introduced technology, and they fully appreciate the benefits of the cloud. The challenge many of them are facing is, as their role shifts into one of the expert advisor and partner to the business, traditional approaches to user management, provisioning and security are often ill-suited for thse new dynamics."

Some of AppGuru's features include:

• A centralized console for managing multiple cloud apps
• Services for creating new users or important the existing users from current cloud apps; and for using Active Directory services to provision users
• A catalog that helps with subscription management
• Application-level security and customization tools

The AppGuru preview supports LogMeIn's collaboration applications, join.me and Cubby, as well as third-party cloud applications includnig Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps.

There's no pricing information available publicly yet, but the service will be available both as a standalone offering and as a new management component within LogMeIn's cloud applications.

In this article, I'll discuss the Logitech Alert system and then, in a follow-on article, I'll formally review the product. Logitech was kind enough to provide me with a full system, so I went out and hired an electrician to install it.

In fact, that's a great place to begin our story.

"No way that's gonna work." That's what my electrician Jerry said when I'd described the Logitech Alert system. Jerry's been a really big asset here at Camp David, installing all our networking cables in the attic, and completely rewiring what was a fire hazard fixer-upper into what's now part small data center and part family abode.

He looked at me with that particular "you must be kidding" look of dubiousness that skilled tradespeople often reserve for those of us who are engineers, and yet can't be trusted not to blow ourselves up.

I could see him looking more and more doubtful the more I described the product. Where he lost all faith in this scheme of mine was when I told him the video signal would travel over the power lines. Actually, that's not strictly true. He looked at me with that particular "you must be kidding" look of dubiousness that skilled tradespeople often reserve for those of us who are engineers, and yet can't be trusted not to blow ourselves up.

What got him really shaking his head was when I told him that not one, but six video signals would have to travel over the house's power, across phases, and from the farthest reaches of the perimeter to a central network node, which was then connected to my router.

When I told him I was intending to pump color, 720p HD video across the power lines, he shook his head one last time and gave me a homework assignment: "Go hook it all up inside and let me know if it works. If it works, then we'll talk."

Let's talk about the system.

The Logitech Alert system can be set up either inside or outside. If it's set up inside, you can deploy up to six cameras, what are essentially glorified webcams. I didn't do the inside thing because I have no desire to monitor the inner workings of my inner sanctum. The system can also be set up with a mix of inside and outside cameras.

I chose all outside cameras. Unlike the LOFTEK, they're fixed view only. You point them. That's what you see. On the plus side, they have a pretty wide view (135 degrees), so they do see quite a bit (although it can look pretty fisheye-ee if you set the widest angle possible).

Each camera comes with a long, thin Ethernet-like cable and what looks like a large power brick. This is actually the video-over-powerline interface that is at the core of the system's communication. Each camera also comes with an SD card, so if communication is interrupted, the card holds recent video.

At the core of the system is a HomePlug network device that plugs into the wall (for power and to capture the video signals). It also plugs into your router, so you'll want to locate this near your network interface. It's pretty much plug and forget, so where you locate the master controller isn't strictly relevant.

The system is controlled by either a Windows or Mac application which is used for setting up, configuring, and watching the cameras. There is also a Web application and both an iOS and Android app that lets you view your cameras from anywhere on the Internet.

My first test

For my first test, I had to unpack everything, install the wiring (it's a unscrew-and-plug-in affair), find six free wall sockets at far corners of my house, and then connect the master controller to my router.

I didn't pay any real attention to where the cameras pointed. All I wanted to do was make sure I could actually talk to them over the building power, and that the basic concept worked.

So, I plugged it all in, saw that the cameras each had indicator lights that were turned on, powered up the master controller software on my Windows 8 machine, and ... nothing ... for about two minutes.

The control software had grid squares for each of the six cameras and all six squares were empty. Then after a few minutes, one-by-one, they all just showed up. Each blinked in. All the cameras had connected and were sending video.

Granted, everything was upside down and a bit wonky, but that wasn't the point. The cameras were able to send video over the internal power lines, and — in what was a completely pleasant surprise — it all just turned on and worked.

The only odd thing was that each camera was sending a black and white signal. After a few minutes, I found the update control screen, and — holding my breath — told the system to update the cameras. Each camera obediently updated its firmware, and I suddenly had color, pretty-much-HD video coming from six zones inside my house.

I sent Jerry the electrician a note and scheduled a time. Still doubtful, we made an appointment for him to come over, but he ended with "I'll believe it when I see it."

Stay tuned. Tomorrow, I'll review the product in depth. Does it hold up to my initial positive impressions? You'll have to wait and see.

Here's a promo video about the product from Logitech. Wait until you read my review before deciding if this is for you or not. The product has both strengths and weaknesses.

Lenovo posted its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter and full year ended March 31, 2013. In spite of a PC market that is generally down, the company managed to post records in sales (52.4 million PCs) and global PC market share (15.5 percent).

The company was quick to respond to the release of Windows 8 with its risky ability to cross the PC/tablet divide with a diverse line of products designed to take full advantage of the latest OS from Microsoft. Lenovo's line of Windows 8 laptops includes the now standard hybrid, tablets that dock into a laptop base that is now common for most OEMs. The just released Helix hybrid from Lenovo brings high performance to the hybrid.

It doesn't stop with hybrids, however, as Lenovo has several laptop models that bend and twist into a number of positions to work in a variety of user scenarios. These laptops can be used as tablets, laptops, and personal presentation devices to fit many work needs. Several Yoga models can be bent to suit the user instead of forcing the user to bend to the limitations of the notebook.

The ThinkPad line, long a mainstay for Lenovo in the enterprise, has evolved to handle the special properties of Windows 8. I am writing this article on the latest in the ThinkPad line, the T431s, one of the thinnest and lightest notebooks in this product line. It has build quality typical for the ThinkPad line and likely will be as popular as other models.

Lenovo extended the ThinkPad into the tablet space with the ThinkPad Tablet 2, a small tablet designed to firmly compete with the big guys in that space, Apple and Android. This tablet brings full pen support to a portable 10-inch form, while adding an optional keyboard lets it fill in as a laptop on occasion. 

While the company has been all over the laptop space with designs that take full advantage of touch in Windows 8, it has also pushed the limits on the desktop PC front. The innovative 27-inch desktop PC transforms into a huge table system operated like a tablet on the desk.

Lenovo's strong financial report shows the scattergun approach of building as many innovative PC forms as possible is apparently working. Windows 8 brings new capabilities to the platform with the handling of touch operation, and Lenovo is determined to produce different forms to take full advantage of that.

It sounds like a great idea. When it works, it really is quite wonderful. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that often for me.

I tested Chrome 27 on a Gateway DX4710 running Windows 7 SP1. This PC is powered by a 2.5-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad processor and has 6GBs of RAM and an Intel GMA (Graphics Media Accelerator) 3100 for graphics. It's hooked to the Internet via a Netgear Gigabit Ethernet switch, which, in turn, is hooked up to a 100Mbps (Megabit per second) cable Internet connection.

I also tried the new Web browser with Linux Mint 16 on my Dell XPS 8300. This desktop uses a 3.4GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor. It also has 8GBs of RAM, and an AMD/ATI Radeon HD 5770 graphic card.

On both systems I found Chrome voice-recognition (VR) to be hit and miss. The more common a term—Linux, Windows, iPad—the more likely it was to work successfully. When it came to less common words—HIPPA, Ubuntu, Foley--its guesses almost seemed random. Sometimes, as when it struggled with my uncommon last name, the results were more comical than practical. 

I also found that the servers backing Chrome VR were often overloaded. There were several times when the VR function stated that it was unable to continue because the PC wasn't connected to the Internet... even as multiple Chrome tabs were continuing to update their contents. In short, at this point, Chrome's VR is more of a nifty trick than a handy utility.

This new version of Chrome also includes multiple security fixes. It also now comes with the latest Adobe Flash player, 11.7, embedded within the browser. Like it or not, Adobe Flash is still far from dead.

Google has also tuned up its Chrome Instant, an optional search speed-up feature. The company claims that these changes will improve Chrome's ability to work out exactly what you're searching for as quickly as possible. From my purely subjective viewpoint this did appear to work.

The search giant also claimed that Chrome loads pages 5 percent faster. This is done by "preloading images sooner, more aggressive use of idle network time, dynamically changing resource priorities, reprioritization of pre-loaded resources, and reduced bandwidth contention among images." To my eye, this appeared to speed up load times on graphics heavy pages.

The real test of any Web browser in 2013 is how well it does on the standard Web-browser benchmarks. So, on my Windows 7 system, I set Chrome up against the latest versions of Internet Explorer 10 and Firefox 21. Here, as usual when it comes to Web browser benchmarks, Chrome did quite well.

For the first round, I ran the three browsers on SunSpider JavaScript 1.0, the latest version of the old Apple Webkit JavaScript benchmark. While it's not as well-regarded as it once was, it's still the best known Web browser benchmark. On SunSpider, where lower results are better, IE, with a score of 232.5-milliseconds beat Chrome and Firefox handily with a score of 232.5-milliseconds (ms) to Firefox's 303.9-ms and Chrome's 521.1-ms.

When it came to Google's own new JavaScript benchmark, Google's earlier V8 test suite, Chrome, unsurprisingly, beat the pants off its competition. On this test, where higher is better, Chrome won with a score of 10,177 to Firefox's 8,392, and IE's 3,758.

Moving along, I then tested Chrome and company on benchmark company Peacekeeper. Like the other benchmarks, this test measures JavaScript performance, but it also evaluates HTML5 performance. Many regard it as the best browser benchmark. On Peacekeeper, where higher is better, Chrome took first with a score of 2,453 to Firefox's 1,798, and IE's last place 1,514.

In Kraken, which is Mozilla/Firefox's benchmark, lower scores are better. Oddly enough, Chrome won here too. It took the blue ribbon with 2,922.3-ms over Firefox's 3,367.9-ms, and IE's dreadful 9,413.8-ms.

Last, but not least, I tested the trio on

The bottom line is that Chrome, which is available on all operating systems, is still the fastest Web browser around. However, its newest, biggest, feature, VR still isn't ready for prime-time.

• Chrome 27 fixes 14 flaws and enables spoken conversations with Google
• Firefox 21 release adds to Social API, closes security holes
• Microsoft delivers final version of IE 10 for Windows 7
• Google touts speech in new Chrome beta, releases API for devs
• Opera joins Chrome & Safari in using Webkit for Web-browsing

Whether it is competitive exams or exams that affect important decisions of their careers, parents are always very concerned about the way children are adapting to various structural changes in the education system and of course, the culture that has drastically changed from the time they themselves went to school. 

In today's day and age, the pace of learning has become much faster and a lot of kids these days are very savvy with computers and online activities. That also makes it easy for them to better adapt and interact with online learning, compared even with conventional forms of learning. This opportunity was realized by Indian portal, Meritnation.com, which is operated by Applect Learning Systems.

Set up in 2009, the portal offers online learning and assessment services catered to the learning needs of students in the K12 segment across CBSE, ICSE, and other state boards (Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu). The learning resources by Meritnation.com range from high-quality multimedia study material, tests, detailed reports, curriculum-aligned activities to specific online test packs for entrance exam requirements. 

To understand more about Meritnation, how its startup journey came about, and what their future goals are, I reached out to Pavan Chauhan, the company's CEO and co-founder, in an e-mail interview:

Q: What was the idea behind building Meritnation?
Chauhan: We wanted to make a difference to the K12 segment as this presented great opportunity. Our basic idea was to leverage technology to identify and understand each student's specific requirements and provide them with customized content based on that.

However, both of us had limited experience in the K12 space. It is in this situation an opportunity to set up a KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) came our way from a Canadian company that was producing content for schools in the U.S. and Canada, and then there was no looking back.

The KPO experience was a great opportunity to learn how international companies approached content development, how they set up exacting standards, systems, and processes which control quality, delivery, and so on.

The concept took a concrete shape when I, along with Ritesh Hemrajani--who is co-founder and director--of Applect Learning Systems launched the learning services portal, Meritnation.com, in 2009. With over 10 years of experience in the education industry and expertise in the areas of educational content development and curriculum design, our foray into the online education space coincided with a time when the education landscape in India was changing rapidly. Through our KPO experience, we learned to create world-class content and now technology has evolved to help us deliver these learnings in a customized way.

What is your revenue model, and how many paid users do you have on your site?
Currently we have over 40 lakh (4 million) registered users. The education setup has a subscription-based revenue model, while the features offered include study material, videos and animations, adaptive assessments and interactive modules, among others. Students can opt for an annual subscription for the entire course or may pick from basic or advanced online courses as per their requirements.

Subscription charges vary as well, from 1,000 rupees (US$18.03) to 16,000 rupees (US$288.55), depending on the type of course. In addition to standard online and offline payment modes, students also get the cash pick-up facility. We are registering a year-on-year growth of around 300 percent.

What's the demographic of your users? 
Our product caters to students in the K12 sector (kindergarten to class 12), in the age group of 3 to 17 years but the decision to sign up is taken by parents who are typically in the age group of 35 to 45. For smaller classes, evaluation as well as purchase is done by parents.

From class 8 onward, a child starts playing an influencer's role in varying degrees. Our challenge is that while a large number of students are aware of our brand, parents need to be introduced to it. Parents are largely unaware of the advantages of online education so our marketing strategies are geared toward making parents aware of the potential benefits of online K12 education, and attracting students to sample our product and experience the difference first-hand.

Do you have insights in terms of verticals they choose, or where your users come from?
India has the largest population globally--and growing--in the K12 age group. Furthermore, there is an increasing preference for the private sector which is stemming from growing awareness of the importance of quality education, coupled with an increasing ability and willingness to pay for it. The online K12 education industry is worth US$1.5 billion to US$2 billion at this point of time and with competition toughening among students, custom learning solutions deployed online see quite a few takers.

Although Internet penetration and broadband continue to remain major challenges, the sheer number of schoolgoing kids who have access to the Iinternet is growing rapidly. According to the IAMAI Report 2012, India witnessed a phenomenal growth of over 150 million Internet users, 41 percent of which had been contributed by smaller towns and cities. The rest remained largely untapped. 

The education landscape, however, is changing rapidly and children, who form a whopping 21 percent of total Internet users, are more receptive to adopting new ways of studying through videos and taking online tests.  

What makes you stand out as a product?
The biggest differentiating factor for Meritnation.com is the depth and width of the content that is offered. Among online players, we cater to classes 1-12, while most of the other players cater to fewer classes. Our repository of videos and interactive exercises is way bigger than other players, and the biggest advantage we have is the assessment-based learning which provides a unique learning experience to each child. Our student base--of over 40 lakh (4 million) students, and growing--is much larger than that of any other online player as of now.

What are the different and new courses you offer?  
Meritnation.com has online courses for Maths, Science, and other subjects for classes 1-12 across CBSE, ICSE, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu boards. These resources include concept strengthening video tutorials, revision notes, practice intensive chapter tests and sample papers, and textbook solutions.

Our online preparatory courses for IIT-JEE and NEET are also becoming quite popular among aspirants preparing for theses exams. The year 1 and 2 IIT-JEE/NEET preparatory course have been prepared with the latest changes in the syllabus. Multimedia tutorials, revision notes, practice questions, and live test series where students can assess and compare their performance with other students taking the tests across India, are some of the highlights of these courses.

In addition to these, we also offer preparation material for other entrance exams such as BBA, NDA and CPT.

What makes you better for competitive exams space like JEE, IIT, and NEET compared to conventional competitors such as coaching classes?
With the possibility of IIT-JEE going completely online from next year, Meritnation's online IIT-JEE course is aimed at equipping students with skills for acing the online mode of the entrance exam. Specifically, online courses have distinct advantages over traditional classroom coaching in preparing students for competitive exams.

Students gain confidence in taking exams online because they have studied and taken repeated practice tests on the Web. All study material are prepared by the best brains, readily available at one place and also constantly updated. Students no longer need to be at the mercy of the quality of teachers at the institute. Everything is already organized and structured systematically. Students can access them at their convenience any time and any place. It is just a click away.

Multimedia tutorials make it easier and more fun to learn difficult concepts. Students can rewind and replay the videos any time whenever they get stuck.

Individualized attention is also possible. Each student has a unique learning style. Digital learning guarantees methodologies that can provide customized courses for students, based on their own style of learning. There is no need to worry whether a student will get the "best" faculty for the fee.

After understanding the concept, students can further strengthen their base by studying from revsion notes and summaries that can help them save valuable time. Students can use this time to study and reflect closely on their understanding of the subject as a whole.
 
It is very important for an IIT- JEE aspirant to know how to tackle all kinds of questions that come under a topic and repeated practice through chapter tests, followed by an immediate assessment of strong and weak areas which can help accelerate the learning curve dramatically.  

You raised funds two months ago. How is this helping?
In the four years of our journey so far, we have had a dramatic year-on-year growth. We hope to break even next year and start becoming profitable the subsequent year. This space offers exciting opportunities to scale up in the coming years. We will continue to invest to further strengthen our leadership position.

The funds will be largely used to build our brand and expand geographically. We have already started work on developing content for newer state boards. We recently launched content for Maharashtra board and others are in the pipeline. We also will be looking at creating new products for our existing customers. 

The education sector is complex. The choices, influences, and decisions interplay in various combinations. This sector is also constantly evolving, mirroring the socio-economic changes in the consumer. For example, in the K12 online learning space in which we operate, the "consumer" is the student, while the "customer" in the lower grades is the parent, and in the higher grades it could be the parent or the student. Taking along all the stakeholders--students, parents, and teachers--and creating value for all appears to be by far the biggest challenge.

Taking learning to the Web

Certainly this startup has flourished quite a bit from the time it was incepted and is rapidly growing in terms of further achieving their goals. This is highlighted especially with its recent funding from Infoedge, of an additional 200 million rupees ($3.6 million), through a mix of equity and convertible preference shares in Applect Learning Systems--which operates Meritnation.com. Infoedge had earlier invested 115 million rupees (US$2.07 million) in the e-learning portal.

We'll keep a watch and see how this startup changes the way kids learn and what milestones do they further achieve in the education space in India. 

Amazon has announced that it is to offer its 7-inch and 8.9-inch Android-powered Kindle Fire HD tablets to customers to pre-order in over 170 additional countries, with the tablets shipping June 13.

The biggest online retailer has also expanded its app store to over 200 countries, allowing Kindle Fire owners to choose from tens of thousands of popular Android apps.

The Kindle Fire HD hardware is unchanged from the model currently shipping in the US and certain European countries. The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD comes with a 1920x1200 1080p HD display with in-plane switching, Advanced True Wide polarizing filter. The 254 pixels per inch, Amazon says, are "indistinguishable to the human eye" – in other words, it's a retina display. The 7-inch Kindle Fire HD features a 1280x800 screen resolution. 

Both screen sizes feature 10-point multi-touch support.

The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD is powered by the latest generation dual-core 1.5GHz OMAP4 4470 processor with an on-board Imagination SGX544 graphics engine that's capable of over 12 billion floating point operations per second – or 50 percent more than Nvidia's Tegra 3 processor.

The processor in the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD is a dual-core OMAP4 4460 1.2GHz processor.

The Kindle Fire represents a real threat to the Android tablet landscape not because of the Amazon logo, or even the hardware spec, but because of its highly disruptive pricing. The 7-inch variant costs $214, while its 8.9-inch big brother is only $284. 

Amazon's goal was to put together a quality Android tablet at an eye-catching price, and it accomplished this with the Kindle Fire HD hardware. Its price is refreshingly accessible when compared to Apple's iPad, and even other Android tablet offerings. The only tablet to come close to the Kindle Fire HD family is Google's own Nexus 7 and 10 tablets.

Despite the Kindle Fire HD being an Android tablet, it's rather different from most Android tablets on the market. As opposed to being a one-stop-shop for Google services, the Kindle Fire HD runs a heavily customized forked version of Android Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.4) that's been turned into a portal for all things Amazon. Even compared to newer tablets running Android "Jelly Bean," the Kindle Fire HD's custom operating system looks and feels – to me at any rate – like a better tablet OS.

There's no doubt that this expansion in availability of the Kindle Fire HD will give Android a boost, even if it is Amazon's vision of how Android should be.

Right from the moment a business plan is thought of to the time you receive funding, every inch of a startup's journey is full of risks and the sole idea of an entrepreneur is to minimize these risks. In fact, many investors talk about reducing their risks all the time. And this will continue until the company starts generating revenues, and beyond.

So what are some of the things a successful startup would do when it comes to reducing risks. I take a look at some of these aspects which could help minimize risks for your startup and make the business more successful. 

Team management

One of the most important factors of reducing risks for your startup is to invest in the right team and ensuring that they stick with you for a long time. I mean, it's one thing to acquire good talent, but it's another to retain them. Staff attrition hurts startups more than you think. Just being a great leader isn't enough, having greater leaders to manage your team is even more crucial. 

Analyze competitive risk

Another important aspect is to realize how much competition you have and what are your chances in emerging against such competition.

Try to analyze in detail how the competition is going about realizing the same opportunity you are pursuing. Does it have an untapped potential that is not explored? How can you be better than your competition? That's something you may want to focus on and promote accordingly. This way, you'll have a better chance at tapping the same customer base but providing them something more relevant and well, just that little something more. 

Analyze market risk

Analyze the market you are playing in and what would serve it best. There is always little risk when the problem is a well defined one and, if there are enough people with the same kind of a problem. After all, the more people wanting the problem solved, the better the chances of your product being used.

Even if it's a niche market, you'll certainly have people who will buy or download your product or service if the problem's well defined. Take for instance the mIndicator application. Very few offerings were available to Mumbai's commuters to get information of schedules for train and bus arrivals, movies, etc. This application was very well suited for the problems affecting a specific audience, as it provided the information people were asking for and thus minimized its risk of failing. 

Furthermore, if you're looking to get outside funding, there are certain verticals that investors would shun given their high risk and failure rates. So do your homework when it comes to assessing the risk factors associated with the market your product is targeting. Of course, one might say food service, retail, social networking, e-commerce, etc, may have high failure rates or not. You will have to evaluate the risks according to your plan and market research.

Get your pricing right

Nothing works best than traction. Getting traction also means getting the pricing of your products right. Of course, when you start off, the freemium model works best. Giving away product trials for free is certainly a good idea to get more traction in terms of growing one's user base.

However, you would eventually need to create a revenue model that involves pricing to help you build revenue streams. Ensuring the service your product provides helps solve a problem and is genuinely helpful is not enough. People will be picky, especially in markets such as India. So you need to do a little analysis, take a few surveys if need be, and try to get the right pricing. 

Realistic goals and business plan

One of the things you need to analyze as an entrepreneur is how your business is going to materialize. It's important you realize its sustainability will depend on ensuring the business goals are realistic and the way one goes about investing resources to achieve those goals.

When sketching up a business plan, ensure you go one step at a time and try to be as realistic as possible. While it's a good idea to draw a three-year business plan, you should know the market conditions in today's economy are always dynamic and uncertain. Take a cue from Amazon's Jeff Bezos, who says he doesn't have long term goals. Try to keep it one step at a time and develop short-term business plans with realistic goals. This should help you focus better. 

Being cash conscious is always a good thing

Cash flow management is always the most spoken about risk when it comes to small businesses and startups. This is something that always goes awry for failed startups. A lot of times, higher risk comes from poor cash flow management issues and the pressure is even more intense where there is venture capital funding involved.

Juggling cash and resources thus becomes a very crucial aspect of managing a startup, especially during the early stages. Avoid those problems by creating a backup plan and keeping aside at least six months of operating costs in reserve. Try to figure out where and which expenses you can cut: what are the most important things and what can be categorized as secondary needs.

Also, ensure you don't just depend on one key customer when it comes to generating revenues.

Manage IT effectively

This is something a lot of tech startups, especially those providing IT solutions, will not have to struggle with. Most of such startup founders are attuned to the risks technology can bring and are also aware of how these risks can be minimized by adopting tools which don't cost much and yet get the job done.

Of course, we have all heard of utilizing open source, cloud computing and various such cost-effective and efficient technologies. So while you can, try and utilize these options to your advantage. 

These were just some points that I think could help entrepreneurs minimize the risks to their startups and help build the business successfully. It is certainly not an exhaustive list, and I'm sure there are plenty other aspects which could lead to a company's failure but can be avoided with thoughtful management.

I wuld love to hear from you and find out what other aspects you think can be added to the points above. Let me know what you think.