The price hike is attributed to rupee depreciation and increased taxes that have hit hardware companies.

Most manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, HCL Infosystems, Lenovo, Dell and Acer have production units in India. These units largely look at product configuration, value added distribution & customer services and reverse logistics in India, and the major components, like memory and LCDs, are imported. The rupee has fallen 8.3% in 2008 since January, the worst fall since 1993, when it depreciated by 8.75% in the same period. It was trading at Rs 39.90 to a dollar on March 31, 2008, but has depreciated to Rs 42.90 per dollar. According to analysts, the hardware companies have tight profit margins and therefore have been in a wait-and-watch mode on prices. They are slowly pushing the burden of rupee depreciation on channel partners and end consumers.

Another important factor contributing to the price rise is the greater adoption of LCDs and levy of taxes. Sumanta Mukherjee, manager, computing products research, IDC India, says, "The increase in the average sale value (ASV) of desktop PCs is on account of an increasing adoption of TFT/LCD monitors and a change in tax regulation-the levy of excise duty on MRP rather than on the `street price' or the market operating price."

HP, which has been the market leader for notebook PC and desktop PC market, has extended a price hike of 13% to all components. George Paul, executive vice president, marketing, HCL Infosystems, says, "We announced the price hike on our various products from 5%-10%, but if the input prices go up, we will reconsider our price points." Analysts say companies like Lenovo and Dell are likely to follow suit.

Indian real estate has witnessed a revolution over the last few years and is growing at a rapid pace of over 25% across most parts of the country. Search for the dream property is not confined to newspapers; Internet has become a key enabler for NRIs looking for the dream property.

Set to grow to Rs 1,050 crore in the next four years from 30 crore now, the mushrooming online real estate business in the last one or two years has seen increase in the number of realty websites. The major players own about 80% of the market currently. Still in a very nascent stage, the industry is expected to grow larger than any other online sector.

There is much that the realty market has to offer. But staying abroad, it is almost impossible for NRIs to keep track of all the developments in the sector. Serious buyers therefore need right information and professional property services to keep abreast with the latest trends in the Indian realty market. Due to lack of access to Indian newspapers abroad, they are not aware of the various options available for investments. Earlier, one had to refer to relatives and friends in India to get information on the available properties. But now with the introduction of online realty portals, one can find potential information about the various properties, with just a click of a mouse.

Online portals not only help in specifying the search criteria (so that property seekers obviate the need to browse through thousands of listings) but also allow a user to post their requirements or set alerts for getting updates on matching requirements. Portals also allow seekers to shortlist and compare properties, making the search for the right property Online portals with a database of over 7.5 lakh properties, not only suggest enough options to choose from, but also present an insight into the growing and upcoming realty Markets. They also help in providing a check on all the basic facilities like locality, transport facilities, schools, hospitals, Markets, sufficient water and electricity supplies, which helps a buyer make up his mind better.

Property portals also help NRIs deal with the hesitation of investing in Indian properties; NRIs have a perception that Indian developers follow unethical practices that result in unsafe investments.

Property portals have a dedicated customer care team, which follows a rigorous verification process to try and minimise incorrect information that may come with the listings. If need be, the executives call up the seller to verify the rates, specifications etc, so that a richer experience for the property seekers can be ensured. In fact, with the introduction of an online property rating mechanism, which is a user-generated rating system, individuals can rate properties based on their interaction with the sellers, which will help the property seeker a great deal.

Proving to be a boon for the NRIs, the online real estate portals have changed the way property seekers search for desired properties. Apart from making property search faster, sharper and easier, property portals are enabling NRIs to contact sellers in India by sitting in their respective countries, and helping them evaluate property options better. It is not long before the Internet will become the preferred medium for buying, selling, renting and leasing properties in India, and wherever NRIs are based, across the world.

Imparting education surely has come a long way today, from gurukuls to virtual classrooms, where the teacher sits on his PC and teaches students across the globe while tutor and trainee are linked with a common site. Students preparing for competitions, medical or engineering tests in districts of Gurdaspur, Mansa, Abohar, Jind, Kaithal or the far off districts in Himachal, are now availing services of the best of teachers in these virtual classrooms.

D.C. Panday, who runs coaching institute in Chandigarh, says virtual teaching has helped him expand reach. An author of IIT entrance examination preparation books, Panday says he was flooded with e-mails from all over the country, requesting him to enrol students in his institute. "Since there is a limit on the number of students I can accept, the concept of virtual teaching has helped me. I now tell outstation students to opt for a virtual teaching session," he adds.

Harmanpreet Singh, founder and CEO of authorGen Technologies, which has developed a software called WiZiQ to help take virtual classes, says, "The concept has found acceptance in the region. In three months alone, we have witnessed 100 per cent growth in the users. All you need is a PC and a broadband connection, and you can start your teaching session".

The virtual classrooms have transcended the geographical boundaries as these newage gurus accept students from across the country as well as students from the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong and many other South-East Asian countries. Ask Gaurav Tekriwal, who conducts high-speed Vedic mathematics courses through WiZiQ platform for students in Hong Kong, the US, the UK, besides all metros within the country. "The reach of virtual classrooms is phenomenal. I can now sit anywhere in the world and conduct classes. We do not have a physical institute, teaching-learning is only through the computer," he says.

Its not just regular coaching that has found acceptance in e-learning. People like Kalyan Sarkar conduct motivational classes for clients across the world through a virtual class session. "People around the world are interested in upgrading their knowledge. And virtual classrooms serves a perfect platform," he says.

In fact, the concept has caught up well with the coaching institutes and many of them have launched a separate e-tutoring division. As the economies of scale improve, these e-tutors make a neat profit. For those, who are taking students in the US and the UK for reading, mathematics and science, they can easily make anything between $20-$90 an hour, with a one-on-one teaching session fetching more moolah.

Adds Harmanpreet, "As this is gaining acceptance, we have decided to launch a premium service with a payment module for the sessions and advanced features wherein we will be featuring specialised teachers in each field".

A significant number of people are using the social network sites for work-related tasks which include research on potential employees and generating new business, a report by global HR firm Manpower stated.

However, a majority is using these sites for personal reasons, with 83 per cent of people studied logging on to stay in touch with friends through them.

While 17 per cent use the sites to research for potential employers, 10 per cent for networking and generating new business and 17 per cent for other work-related reasons.

"Growth of this new medium is rapid. In future, due to huge Internet penetration and younger profile of our country expansion will further accelerate," Manpower India managing director Naresh Malhan said.

Experts believe in today's competitive world, it is important to target active as well as passive job seekers.

"About 30 per cent of the job market in the country is represented by passive job seekers, while about just 15-20 per cent are very active," HR service provider PeopleStrong CEO Pankaj Bansal said.

The passive market can be tapped through the networking sites such as Orkut and Facebook as people using it for personal reasons and not at present looking out for a new job may get attractive opportunities through the websites, Bansal said.

Technology is making it easier for companies to get to the population they want to get to, but they are not as adept as they need to be at finding the people they really want, Malhan said in a white paper on Technology Trends.

According to a separate Manpower report 'Virtual World of Work', use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Friends Reunited is the most popular among those under 35-year-old. About 74 per cent of those studied and aged 16-24 use such sites.

Some older people are also fans of these sites. One in five of those aged between 35-44 of age (19 per cent) and 21 per cent of those between 45-54 of age also make use of social networking sites.

The report also reveled that as the virtual world of work becomes increasingly attractive, people are expecting changes in the workplace over the next 10 years. The results reveals that 87 per cent think technology would play a bigger role in how people work.

About 85 per cent of those surveyed think people would hold more meetings via phone/Internet, while 81 per cent believe people would work from home on a more regular basis.

Mr. Kedersha's online library of 94 videos includes tips on how to chill a Coke in two minutes, simulate a gunshot wound and start up a PC quickly.

Many of the clips have been played hundreds of thousands of times, turning Mr. Kedersha into the top earner on Metacafe, a video-sharing Web site that pays the makers of popular videos. In little more than a year, the site has written him checks totaling $102,000.

That puts Mr. Kedersha, a 50-year-old video producer from St. Petersburg, Fla., near the front of the latest online stampede: the rush to capitalize on the popularity of how-to videos on the Web.

"You never know when something like this is going to go away," Mr. Kedersha said. "I better ride the wave."

Some 25 years after "Jane Fonda's Workout" topped the home-video charts in the United States, Americans' fascination with instructional videos has shifted to the Internet, where a virtually unlimited amount of shelf space guarantees there is something for everyone.

Do-it-yourself tips, self-help, cooking and beauty advice, sports and musical instruction are all available in a smorgasbord that offers the serious alongside the satirical, the humorous and the esoteric. Viewers can learn how to swaddle a baby, grow plants hydroponically or teach their cat to use the toilet.

"Almost everything we sell requires education and explanation and instruction," said Richard Revis, the co-owner of Black Jungle Terrarium Supply in Turners Falls, Mass., who is featured in more than 30 videos on how to feed, breed and care for poison dart frogs.

Most clips tend to run a few minutes or less -- but not all. In a series of videos running a total of more than five hours, an Australian veteran of the Vietnam War demonstrates in minute detail how to build a replica of a working Sherman tank at two-fifths its original scale.

Plenty of entrepreneurs and financiers are hoping that the wave Mr. Kedersha has begun to ride is a long way from cresting. In the last two years, investors have put tens of millions of dollars into start-up companies with names like WonderHowTo.com, VideoJug, Howcast, ExpertVillage and Graspr, which are all hoping to become the YouTube of how-to video clips. Of course, a good share of these videos are on YouTube itself. And traditional media companies like Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Scripps Network are putting much of their own how-to content online.

These start-ups have attracted former television executives and veterans of Internet giants like Google, Yahoo and MySpace. Most of them readily admit that, as with many Internet fads, profits remain elusive for now.

Scores of independent video producers, experts and self-styled experts are, meanwhile, vying to make a name for themselves in hopes of sharing in the expected profits. Plenty of others are making how-to clips just for fun or for a few minutes of Internet fame.

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB "thumb drive" that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer's Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.

More than 2,000 officers in 15 countries, including Poland, the Philippines, Germany, New Zealand and the United States, are using the device, which Microsoft provides free.

"These are things that we invest substantial resources in, but not from the perspective of selling to make money," Smith said in an interview. "We're doing this to help ensure that the Internet stays safe."

Law-enforcement officials from agencies in 35 countries are in Redmond this week to talk about how technology can help fight crime. Microsoft held a similar event in 2006. Discussions there led to the creation of COFEE.

Smith compared the Internet of today to London and other Industrial Revolution cities in the early 1800s. As people flocked from small communities where everyone knew each other, an anonymity emerged in the cities and a rise in crime followed.

Continuing with its significant contribution to technology development, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has come out with new product, G-Class, a crosslanguage search-plug-in suit. The plug-in suit will primarily meet the complex needs of Indian languages and provide surfing facilities in local languages at available search engines.

S. Ramakrishnan, director general of C-DAC, also announced the launch of two new products -- PARAMNet-3 and INTCOMPv1.0. CDAC has been undertaking research projects for Indian languages since last few years and G-class is an addition to this series. The plug-in product is also a one-stop shop for search engine developers."

With G-Class plug- in, the web will work like an information bureau with queries addressed in Indian languages. For example a person can ask a query in any Indian language on search-engine to get the answer. The in-built transliteration system in the product can translate one script to another. This will simplify surfing for users."

"Indian languages are complex and searching poses specific problems which the best of existing search engines cannot solve. With G-Class, C-DAC has tried to address the problems of Indian users. The product supports eight languages namely Marathi, Bangla, Gujrathi, Hindi, Malayalam, Oriya, Tamil and Urdu while Punjabi, Kokani, Kannada and Telgu will be developed soon. The plug-in can also be harnessed to a SQL database. It can also exist on a desktop to create a webpage," he added.

Explaining other new products, Ramakrishnan said, "PARAMNet-3 is high performance inter-connect network, indigenously developed for database and storage applications. This will work as a primary interconnection for PARAM series of supercomputers. With the development of PARAMNet-3, C-DAC has joined an elite group of system developers world-wide, capable of supplying high performance networking component for building supercomputing systems. INTCOMPV1.0 is an open source software useful for automobile and aircraft industries. Software will prove useful for the R&D labs and institutions."

However, some BPOs say, the move to Tier II cities may not be a great idea after all, since property prices are not very cheap or not what they expected them to be. Real estate may be booming, but prices sky rocketing as well at times quite close to Delhi and Bangalore rates. What's more, getting good middle management talent too is a problem in these cities.

While cities like Pune have almost become an extension of Mumbai, others like Ahmedabad, Mohali and Jaipur are catching up fast with improved infrastructure and real estate. In fact, many BPOs are drawing out plans to move to these cities, while some have already taken the first step. For example, WNS has a centre in Nasik, Genpact has a facility in Jaipur, Intelenet has centres in Pune and Mohali, and Mphasis has it in Mangalore.

However, experts warn the picture may not be as pretty as it looks. The ground reality is quite different in some of these cities. While real estate is developing fast, prices too are moving north simultaneously. And that's a dampener for many companies. ``Its not easy to get large office spaces at low cost in cities like Pune or Ahmedabad. These cities are also witnessing a real estate boom, costs are only marginally lower than say Mumbai or Delhi. Buying or renting property comes to almost as much as in the metros,'' says Aditya Gupta, president, InfoVision.

This is where Carmen V. Russoniello, lab director and a professor in the College of Health and Human Performance at the university, is trying to determine whether some video games can be good for you.

"I've always thought there's something special about the concept of fun; it's one of the most powerful words in the English language," Russoniello, a former president of the American Therapeutic Recreation Association, said in North Carolina recently, just yards from a wall covered with diplomas, professional citations and the medals he earned in the Vietnam war.

"As scientists," he said, "we know there is a cascade of beneficial biochemical and hormonal effects in people when they are engaged in an activity they perceive as fun. What we're seeing here is that some video games fit into that mould and that some games can have a positive health effect on people."

Formally, Russoniello's research project is called A Randomized, Controlled Study of the Effectiveness of PopCap Video Games in Reducing Stress and Improving Mood.

Informally, that means that the professor is in the process of bringing 120 test subjects in, wiring them up like Woody Allen in Sleeper (1973), sitting them in front of a computer and then measuring their brainwaves and heartbeats as they play simple games such as Bejeweled, Bookworm Adventures and Peggle. PopCap, the Seattle company that makes those games, is paying the $23,500 (around Rs9.4 lakh) cost of the study. Russoniello intends to announce his results later this year.

US-based mobile payments company, Obopay, plans to launch this convenience-packed person-to-person mobile payment service in the country soon, a top company official said.

"We are in talks with more than 15 banks and are close to sealing deals with three banks. We hope to launch our service here within a month," Obopay Vice-President business development Balachandra Unni said.

Anyone having a mobile phone and bank account will be able to transfer money to another person at the other end provided that person also has a bank account and a mobile phone, Unni said.

For the service to gather momentum, much would depend on having lower transaction costs and Unni said, "We are working on it. However, it has to be minimal and less than the normal transaction costs to make the bank-account link model successful."

The aim is to make the bank-account link model into a full-fledged ATM, where people can undertake all transactions conveniently from their respective places.

"If there is more usage of the model, operational costs will definitely come down," he added.

"People residing in metros can easily send money to their native places even in rural areas through this highly convenient model and at a lesser cost. All one needs to do is go to the nearest bank branch and collect the money," Unni said.

The service would be of immense benefit to the retail sector as it would enable customers to make direct payments from account to account with adequate safeguards, Unni said.

"In credit and debit card transactions, there are some security concerns. But the bank account link-model has less security concerns since it is a direct transaction from one account to another," he said.

But as churn rates still crawl upward, employers are rethinking that strategy. Now, they are linking overseas travel, education leaves and training opportunities with the amount of time a worker owes a company.

"Bonds will get tied not to employment, but the nature of on-the-job training provided to employees," says Ashutosh Sinha, recruitment director at business process outsourcing (BPO) giant Convergys Corp.

Also known as "service agreements" in the outsourcing and information technology (IT) industries, bonds generally require an employee to agree to stay with a company for a year or two, and pay the company several thousand rupees if they decide to leave.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, companies such as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) and Wipro Ltd were notorious for demanding up to a few lakhs from employees who left before their contract was up, and TCS even fought a lawsuit over the practice in a California court.

The industry's shift away from the practice, observers say, is partly a legal move.

Third-party trainings or trips abroad may be the only types of bond contracts that an employer can legally enforce, according to Sanjay Kamlani, a co-chief executive officer of Pangea3, a legal outsourcing company in Mumbai.

A bond contract in any other instance is "nothing more than a scare tactic," he says.

Observers also say contracts with strings attached can be win-win for both employer and employee; BPO and technology workers can now join companies and pledge to stick around, in exchange for getting a bump up the skills ladder or the opportunity to learn new skills abroad.

Yahoo Labs Bangalore will be a centre of excellence for next-gen eration search and advertising technologies, focussed on making the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers. Rajeev Rastogi, a fromer Bell Labs director, has been appointed as vicepresident and head of the new lab.

THE NEW laboratory-with an initial team of 100 scientists and engineers-will be part of the expansion of its R&D operations in the country
YAHOO LABS Bangalore will be a centre of excellence for nextgeneration search, focussed on making the Web more relevant and simple for users

"Yahoo Labs Bangalore intends to build a world-class team focused on delivering the most valuable insights and leading-edge technologies to delight all of our customers worldwide," according to Prabhakar Raghavan, senior vice-president and head of Yahoo! Research.

He told a news conference in Bangalore, "As an extension of our research and development (R&D) operations here, Yahoo! India Lab will initially have a 100-member team of scientists and engineers. They will work on multiple projects to make the Web more relevant and simple for users and advertisers worldwide. The India lab will work in tandem with the other labs in the US for deriving new algorithms to enhance the performance of our search and retrieval tools. While the R&D centre will write software codes for various functions, the lab will develop products for databases," he said.

Top 10 states (in terms of percentage of Indian users)

• Maharashtra 19.6%
  
• Andhra Pradesh 9.9%
  
• Delhi 8.9%
  
• Karnataka 8.8%
  
• Tamil Nadu 7.7%
  
• Kerala 6.9%
  
• Uttar Pradesh 6.8%
  
• West Bengal 4.5%
  
• Gujarat 4.4%
  
• Madhya Pradesh 4.2%
  

Indians were the fifth most active among Orkut users
Orkut has millions of users worldwide, though the exact number is not known. India has more users on Orkut than the US

Who's sending these scraps?
The scrapplost users hall from Pakistan, followed by Madagascar and the Contral African Republic. Among women, the most scraps come from Jamarca, then Madagascar, fo lowed by St. Plorre and Miguelon. Among men, Pakistanis sent the most, then Qatar

SINGLES BEAT MARRIED, HEAVEN BEATS HELL
Orkut also classifies people on the basis of relationship status (married, single or in love) or state of mind (Heaven or Hell) in their personal lives.

Relationship

• Married- 101
  
• Single- 1086
  
• Love- 593

• People living in "the state of Heaven"- 1400
  
• People living "in the state of Hell"- 1331

The order, issued by city police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakraborty, comes into effect from today.

"I have issued the order keeping in mind the modus operandi of terrorists and other anti-social elements. Such persons may use cyber cafes to contact their accomplices over mail. Terrorists also interact with their contacts on details of their designs," Chakraborty told PTI here.

The order makes it compulsory for internet parlour owners to seek the photo I-cards from customers and record their names and addresses as also details about the time of log in, duration of use and the serial number of computer used. The details have to be kept on the server for six months.