Tech Ka Masala

The week after CES was dominated by Google and Chinese hack attacks. The Indian PMO also added to the controversy complaining about several hacking attempts of computers in its office. The other topics include Microsoft’s ever increasing problems with IE, Mozilla changing its development strategy and the Apple-Nokia patent

Indian Post gets innovative with a service that might sound a bit retro but is of immense utility given the Indian rural needs. Keeping to the theme we then talk about Godrej’s Chotukool and then get into stories about the usual suspects.

Windows 7 is the best Windows version ever, so says Microsoft but this time everyone seems to be agreeing. Here is a TKM episode dedicated to Windows 7 special and we have Manan Kakkar join in as the Windows 7 expert to answer very basic questions and his expeiences with Windows 7 so far.

What can bring china's internet to a screeching halt? - Lesbians or just the myth about a lesbian city. In other topics we talk about Kindle coming to India, Microsoft, Paypal killing a user account, Microsoft office - Starter Edition and snow leopard eating up user data. This week's news update include EU giving a go ahead to Microsoft's browser ballot solution.

The 3G adoption in India isnt going anywhere with only MTNL and BSNL in the market but that isnt stopping MTNL tying up with Dell to put out a 3G Netbook. After launching a subscription MP3 services, Hungama has announced a Rs.10 per download service on their website. In other news, we talk about Google SideWiki, Google Chrome Frame, Microsoft suing malvertisers, and a few updates from previous episodes.

Tata is the top of the mind brand when it comes to cellular services but Tata Indicom has released a new plan costing Re.1 locals and Rs 3 for national calls on any network, no hidden clauses. After getting trumped in the last year by Apple, and Palm, Nokia seems to be on the offensive and is showing off its new wares. Other news that dominated the week include companies having patent developments. Microsoft and then Google. We also talk update you about a few stories that we spoke about last time followed with an email query about upgrading to Snow Leopard.

After ISRO failed success with the first Chandrayaan mission, it is ready with the design for Chandrayaan-II mission. This time ISRO is planning to put actual human being on the lunar surface and is ready to spend Rs 12400 crores on the mission. Saket doesn't like it but I think the bragging rights are worth every rupee spent. In other topics, Hungama and BSNL have launched a new subscription music service, Yahoo and Microsoft strike a search deal and the Pirate bay deal may be off. We also respond to a twitter query and laptop buying advice.

After Google's entry into to Microsoft territory, Microsoft has announced a web version of Microsoft Office 2010. It matches and as Saket mention trumps Google Docs in a few ways. In other news, Facebook never disappoints in finding new ways to get itself into privacy trouble.This time it's for using user photos in ads that are being served on facebook, Amazon didnot want to get left behind in pissing off its clients and decided to delete a book sold to Kindle users. Other stories include Pirate bay's new business model, Youtue dumping IE6, and Apple kills Palm pre support.

This episode is slightly lengthy but it was a week filled with a news starting the G-bomb. This week Google announceed the Chrome OS for netbooks and marked Google's entry into the Microsoft turf. We talk about our hopes and concerns about Google's ability to support an OS. In tech news from India, the Planning Commision has launched a Rs. 2000 crore project to inter connect police stations, courts and other important offices with an ambitious deadline of 2011. India also saw Nokia launching its music store but we have our doubts if the severe DRM restriction will its adoption.

In a belief shattering development, Pirate Bay got bought by a swedish company for around $7.7 million and have announced plans to have a legitimate business plan. While we believe that the Piratebay valuation is fairly low, one must not forget the legal hassels that the company brings with it. In other stories, While Delhi Metro decided to put in cell phone charing stations on trains, cell phone manufacturers in EU have decided to adopt the MicrUSB as a standard for charging the phone. Other stories include facebook's pulic updates, Firefox 3.5 released and a few updates from the last episode.

Censorship seems to the be flavour of the week all over the world. China government has asked computer manufacturers to start installing the Green Dam Software on every machine that they build and sell in China. India joins the cencosrhip by blocking Savitabhabhi.com for mysterious reasons but in good news coming out of India, Nandan Nilekani joins as cabinet minister to help implement the National Identity card project. In other news, we talk about activisim against Microsoft Outlook, upcoming windows 7 release and Steve back on job.

Android is coming to India! After the browser wars, it's mobile OS from Symbian, Google, Microsoft and Apple battling it out. Also, 10 days ago, Opera announced that it was going to re-invent the web. 10 days later, hmmm not so much! In other news, we talk about Acrobat.com, Microsoft's IE8 campaign and the latest on Pirate Bay.

After years of battle with the European Union, Mincrosoft has decided to take IE out of Windows and leave it to the OEMs to put it in if required. Saket and I agree that this is a good move and microsoft should move on from browser wars to something that really matters to their consumer and seems like that's what they are doing by releasing a free anti-virus software.

We are back after a 3 week break and we start with a new service that Airtel might offer soon which will allow upto 10 number on a single mobile sim card. After the majestic failure of the $10 sakshat computer, India signed an agreement to purchase around 250000 OLPC giving the OLPC initiative a significant boost. The other topics include Micrsoft's Vine, Facebook opening up its API, Google Launching a tool to digg public data and Panda's cloud anit-virus. Also, why is google hiring goats?

The highlight of this episode was the JesusPhone (some call it iPhone too) and the announcement of the features that would be in its upcoming firmware upgrade. Meanwhile in India, Symantec has ranked India as the 3rd most spamming country in the world. Bebo, a little late to the game, has announced its entry into India. Other topics in the episode include, Facebook bug revealing your private data, launch of IE8, Yahoo Flickr announcing a deal with Getty Images, and the Pwn2Own Contest.

The technology news on the Indian shore included the selection of companies to managed the much required Mobile Number portability and delay in launch of Bhuvan, a desi version of Google Earth being developed by ISRO. Other news included Microsoft finally providing users a tool to remove windows components including IE8, Blackberry's App World, Flock divorcing Firefox, Google Docs being careless, Flickr opening up videos for everyone now. We also have Godaddy as our sponsor for TKM.

After the 3G announcement kabbadi, BSNL finally launched its services in Chennai and seems to be pretty affordable. Also, in news is a precedent setting law suit against Ajith D for being owner of an abusive orkut group. THe other topics discussed were Yahoo re-org, Safari 4 launch, Gmail going offline, Google joing EU's anti-microsoft campaign. Also, a very well-informed Editor of Medianama, Nikhil Pahwa, joined us as a guest on this episode.

Saket eloquently puts its in this episode that everybody and their aunt is coming up with an App Store in response to the announcements made by Nokia and Microsoft at the Mobile Web Congress. But before that we talk about the computers at Ministry of External Affairs getting hacked and the new various amendments to the 9 year old IT Act of 2000. The other topics that we covered this week include the Hotmail's Captcha cracked, facebook TOS revolt, Last.fm handing user data to RIAA, Norway's revolt against IE 6, and the pirate bay Trial.

The Indian scientists at the Nationation Institute of Dairy cloned a buffalo cafe but unfortunately it couldnt make it beyond 4 days and they same will be said about twitter if it doesnt find a revenue stream. We talk about a possible revenue stream and hope that twitter makes it throug the current turbulent times. Google also continued its product release spree with announcing PowerMeter along with another location based feature. Microsoft also announced the upgrade policy for its awesome Windows 7 operating system which we try to explain.

This week saw the much talk about $10 laptop from India disappoint the whole world and sort of embarass India. The supposed laptop had neither a display nor an input device! The week also saw NDTV launch a new hullu like website currently having around 50000 video from its own network. Stories from the usual suspects, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook also came up during the discussions.