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Intel to invest over $120M in India R&D center Summary:   The new building will help in "consolidating" the company’s workforce, work on high growth areas such as tablets and mobile phones, and emerging areas like Internet of Things. Intel will invest more than US$120 million in its India research and development facility, which will be a global center for chipset design, according to   Hindu Business Line .The new facility will help in "consolidating" the chip giant's workforce, estimated to be around 4,500, noted the report. The workforce is being shifted from "low priority" to "high priority" areas, said Kumud Srinivasan, president of Intel India. The center will also focus on high growth areas such as tablets, and mobile phones where rival ARM has been gaining traction against it in recent years.It will also be working on emerging areas like   Internet of Things, which will require   low-power chips   and where Intel has se

Solar better than nuclear for India: Experts Summary:  In the race to fix the widening shortfall of power in India, many say that alternative sources like solar and even wind are becoming cheaper by the day, especially when measured up against the prime minister's pet project, nuclear plants. On the cusp of elections, the two-term serving Indian  Manmohan Singh recently laid the foundation stone  for the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership in the Indian state of Haryana. To meet its future power demand, declared Singh, India aims to produce more than 27,000 MW of nuclear power in the next 10 years. Singh, after all, counts the historic India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement signed in 2008 as one of the big accomplishments of his reign as prime minister, so it's not a huge surprise that he's still doing whatever he can in this area to keep the nuclear flame alive. But does India need nuclear energy? That has been a major debate that has roiled the count

The twist in the future of Indian tech recruitment  Summary:  Indian techie hires are beginning to get assessed on raw coding abilities rather than degrees and certificates, ushering a potential new dawn for tech hiring An  interesting interview  given by Vikalp Sahni, the CTO of online travel company Goibibo, to Indian website campushash (which connects interns with companies) indicates the way that the world of technology recruitment is going. Sahni was asked which way he leaned when appraising a candidate's resume. His response was that the "most preferred mode of judging someone's coding abilities for us has been Github/Launchpad/Bitbucket commits. It is a big plus if an intern has worked with open-source projects and has pushed tested code to the core project repo. A person's project/software gives a good picture of his/her knowledge and likings." Additionally, Sahni suggested that aspirant coders also attend hackathons, as it allows them to

2014 in preview: A look at upcoming tech trends Summary:  Contextual computing, the next phase of the post-PC era, 3D printing and the mainstreaming of wearable computing are a few of the 2014 themes we're watching. The year ahead should be an interesting one for business tech as multiple tectonic plates are shifting all at once and rejiggering industry leadership. Here’s a look at the key themes for 2014 from our editors around the world: Larry Dignan: Post PC fallout hits hard To me one of the biggest themes will be the fate of Windows 8.1. The time for excuses is over, the hardware has improved from the ecosystem and the Windows systems are priced well. The big question: Will people buy Windows machines en masse? If not, what does that mean for the future Microsoft franchises such as Office? We’ll know how this one turned out early in 2014 when tech giants start reporting their results. A few reasons why Windows worries are warranted: Chromebooks have sold

India's nationwide mobile number portability rollout stalls Summary:  Country's full number portability service, which will allow mobile users to retain their number across different telecom circles, faces a delay as the Indian Department of Telecom has yet to accept recommendations for it . India's Department of Telecom (DoT) has yet to accept recommendations related to the implementation of the country's nationwide mobile number portability, which is originally scheduled to be effective from March.  Secretary of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Rajeev Agrawal said at a briefing Wednesday that it had not received a response from the telecom department, and noted that telcos would require six months after DoT approves the recommendations to deploy full mobile number portability (MNP). TRAI in September had directed mobile operators to roll out nationwide MNP within six months.  India had introduced the service in early-2010, but this enabled mo

Three mobile tech advances that would be great in 2014 Summary:  Next year could be a great year in mobile tech if these advances become reality. It's time to put 2013 behind us and look forward to next year. Call these predictions, wishes, or guesses, but these three mobile tech advances would be nice to see in 2014. Tech advances in 2014 iPad bump Apple's been accused of just incrementally improving the iPad for a few years, even though the iPad Air's weight loss was impressive in 2013. What I'd like to see in 2014 is a major push forward, with a surprising big technology jump. One such jump that would be impressive is an improvement in battery technology. Imagine an iPad Air with double its already good battery life. This is feasible as Apple has a solid track record of putting decent battery life in the iPad, even while improving performance. An iPad Air with 20+ hours on a charge while keeping the size of the current tablet from Apple would b

Microsoft's Roslyn 'compiler as a service' inches forward Summary:  Microsoft is now compiling internally its daily Visual Studio builds using its 'Roslyn' compiler technology. Could a new preview and/or final release be happening soon?Lets wait and see. Microsoft is internally dogfooding its "Roslyn" compiler as a service technology, and is  compiling internal daily builds of Visual Studio using "Roslyn." That update, courtesy of a Microsoft  December 16 blog post , is the first Microsoft has shared about its Roslyn technology in more than a year. Microsoft's Roslyn effort is about re-architecting the C# and VB compilers to support "compiler as a service" (CaaS) scenarios. Currently, a compiler is a black box; with Roslyn, Microsoft is working on opening it up so that all of the information processed via a compiler is available in application programming interface (API) form. Microsoft's most recent Roslyn desc

Biometric smartphones to become mainstream in 2014, Ericsson says Summary:  Following the release of the fingerprint sensor-enabled iPhone 5s, more smartphone makers could soon jump on the bandwagon, if Ericsson's predictions prove true. By the end of 2014, a wealth of new smartphones could come with biometric technology, such as fingerprint recognition hardware. In September, Apple released the iPhone 5s, which  included a fingerprint reader , in the hope of bolstering security and improving usability. And other mobile makers, keen to jump on the biometric bandwagon, could soon embed the technology in their own devices. According to new research by mobile network maker Ericsson, which  polled 100,000 people  over 40 countries, about 74 percent of respondents said they believe biometric smartphones "will become mainstream" during 2014.  More than half at 52 percent want to use their fingerprints instead of a complex alphanumeric combination of letters, numbers,

Amazon pilots cash-on-delivery service in India Summary:  E-commerce giant is reportedly testing the service with India Post to cater to customers who don't want to make upfront payments, and in a country where 80 percent of online transactions are completed with cash-on-delivery. Amazon is reportedly trialing a cash-on-delivery service in India, tapping the country's 150-year-old postal service to fulfil its last-mile service.   Citing sources familiar with the issue,  The Economic Times reported  that the e-commerce giant had commenced a pilot with India Post to tap the country's young but growing e-commerce market. The postal service operates India's largest distribution network with over 150,000 branches across the country, 89 percent of which are located in rural areas.  An India Post official, who declined to be named, said in the report: "We are trying to add capabilities like cash on delivery and reverse logistics. Consumers don't want to

Amazon unveils delivery by drone: Prime Air. No, seriously Summary:  The retail giant is taking delivery to the next level by using unmanned drones. But don't hold your breath for the service to launch any time soon. Not content with next-day delivery service through its Prime program, Amazon wants orders to land on people's front porches in as little as half an hour. Just when you thought the technology industry couldn't get any stranger, the latest idea from the retail giant is to offer an audacious delivery-by-drone service. The company has been working on the "octocopter" project in a secret research and development lab at its Seattle, Wash.-based headquarters for months in efforts to ramp up its competition against its rivals. According to the program, the octocopter drones will pick up packages in small buckets at Amazon's fulfillment centers and fly directly to customers' nearby in as little as 30 minutes after they hit the "