Carrying a credit card in your wallet can soon be a history. Apple is coming up with a technology that will enable the use of iPhone as credit card. Mophie, a popular retailer of Apple iPhone and iPod accessories, is set to debut their iPhone credit card reader — said to be named “Credit Card (credit card) reader” — and complimentary processing application, reports Mashable.com. 

This will allow merchants to accept credit card payments by swiping the card through a special iPhone case. While details around the device add-on are slim, interest is already high.

The buzz building around Mophie, the palpable excitement and interest stimulated by Square, and an increasingly competitive mobile payment system market means that 2010 will be the year that consumers will buy and sell from their mobile phones.

If you purchased anything at Apple retail stores this holiday season, then you were probably rung up by an employee using Apple’s new custom-designed iPod Touch with a black shell serving as a credit card reader.

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Have you ever wondered that in today’s fast paced life we do not even know our own neighbours? Gone are the days of age old maid gossip, now knowing people around you is just a click away. A recently launched website www.JantaKhoj.com is one such search engine that contains a database of people’s addresses, contact numbers, background profiles and even a list of their relatives and neighbours.

BRAKES ON FAKES
Detection of fake driving licences and tracking stolen vehicles will now become easier with the road transport ministry giving finishing touches to its ‘transport project’ under which a national registry of all driving licences and vehicles registered in the country will be established. This registry will be accessible to all states and road transport offices (RTOs) across the country for quick verification, in the next six months.

With this, holding forged or multiple driving licences of different states, which had earlier helped drivers booked for violating traffic norms – sometimes, even involved in fatal accidents – to evade prosecution and resume work in another state a thing of the past.

The Founder & CEO of the website, Tarun Bangari, came up with this idea and within one year the company has integrated a database of 5 crore people. Bangari says that they aim at achieving a hundred percent database of every person in the country, which is very difficult, and no deadline has been set for it.

“We are procuring data from public domains, social networking sites and various agencies including some government departments. We have developed a special program wherein when the data is entered; it gets classified as per the addresses given and makes it easy for us to link people with their relatives and neighbours.

We do not provide any private information about a person but only their basic profile, ” Bangari said. Bangari believes that there is an immense scope for expansion and plans to go global with this effort after completing it on the domestic scale. Several other services are also provided on the website like tenant verification, maid verification and employee verification with their antecedents.

“We provide paid services with charges ranging between 2000-2500 depending upon the number of things you want. For instance, if you want to check the address of a person in Delhi you will be charged Rs 75 only,” he added.

In future they plan to further update people’s data from social networking sites like facebook, linkedin and blogs and provide link to these on their database.

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Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal displays the low-cost computing device during its unveiling in New Delhi. Photographs: Reuters

India has unveiled a $30 ‘laptop’ which makes it the world’s cheapest computing device.

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal unveiled the Rs 1,500-device meant especially for students. It will be available in 2011 in the markets.

The device is a Linux-based machine with videoconferencing, word processing and browsing capabilities, and has a solar-powered add-on.

It is said to have 2 GB onboard memory, Wi-Fi connectivity, Ethernet port(s) and USB connectivity. However, it does not have a screen. So if you want to display the data stored on it, you would need to attach a compatible output device using the USB ports.

And the computing device called ‘Sakshat’ is 10 inches long and five inches wide and costs around $50.

To make it useful for the students, especially in the rural areas, the scientists have made it low power consuming gadget.

hile unveiling the low-cost device, the minister said that when more manufacturers decide to produce similar devices, prices will fall even further.

In February 2009, the HRD ministry (then headed by Arjun Singh) said that this ‘laptop’ would be available for only $10. The laptop has been jointly developed by several organisations, such as the University Grants Commission, the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

The project had created a major buzz in the laptop industry across the world and many questions over the development of such a low-cost ‘laptop’. Many players were curious to know the details of the costing and how Indians managed to keep the cost so low.

When the contraption was shown in 2009, it fell extremely short on expectations — some called it nothing short of a joke, even ‘hoax’.

The confusion was primarily being caused by the description of this low-cost computing device as a laptop.

while low cost laptops will be distributed in institutions by the HRD ministry. The final price will depend on the transportation cost.

Like the National Mission on Education through ICT, the device is said to be aimed at improving the skills of students, both at the school and higher levels. Under the mission the government also intends to provide high-speed Internet access to the schools to download e-books and e-journals and other material. Students will be able to download the material through the ‘Sakshat’ portal.

The goal of the national mission is to increase the enrolment in higher education in the country by 5 per cent over the next five years. The government will subsidise 25 per cent of broadband connectivity costs for private and public colleges.

The $30 ‘laptop’ is being seen as India’s reply to One Laptop per Child’s XO and Classmate of Intel. The XO, created by scientist Nicholas Negroponte and MIT Media Lab was originally targeted to cost only $100 but by the time it was ready to enter the market its cost went up to $188. The Classmate notebook PC from Intel was priced at $300 a piece.

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Presenting the first ever Internet Browser made in India named the Epic Browser. The Epic browser is build on the Mozilla platform and aimed at India users. This browser was developed by Hidden Reflex Company in Bangalore. Their mission was to create a browser that was most productive, most secure and had the Indian touch.

Epic Browser is India ready with about 1500 Indian wallpapers and themes. The browser supports most of the Indian regional languages and comes with sidebar applications all of which is free.

When it comes to security Epic Browser takes it very seriously and there should be no doubt about it. Epic Browser also claims to be the first web browser in the world to feature an integrated antivirus.

With Epic you can browse and download faster. The build in Antivirus automatically scans the pages and your system and keeps it virus free. If a website you are trying to access contains malware or is hosting virus you will immediately be warned. The browser also provides Anti-Phishing protection which is becoming an important security feature.

As far as privacy is concerned, with once click you can wipe out all private data or your private browsing session. Epic is the first browser to have an build in flash cookie detection that can delete harmful flash cookies.

Be Indian Browse Indian; try out the new Epic Browser. Click here to download

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