FarmVille maker to double India staff

BANGALORE: Zynga, the online game company behind the titles " FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars," and one of the hottest Web startups, said it is starting a game development studio in India and plans to double its staff there this year.

Zynga Studio I, to be based in the company's office in Bangalore, will be the firm's largest office outside the United States. The company plans to hire 100 workers this year, adding to the 100 who work there now.

Zynga has 1,500 employees around the world.

About half the new employees would be game developers, the people who do the actual "coding" of the games, said Colleen McCreary, the company's human resources chief.

Privately-held Zynga has attracted interest from investors eager to get a piece of a company they consider nearly as hot as online social networks Twitter and Facebook.

Many investors have been hoping these companies go public, though, so far, they have limited their investor base.

Zynga started its India office last year with developers who worked on the company's database that defines how users interact with the games they play online.

About 100 developers here work on Membase -- an open-source database application that Zynga uses -- to connect its 25 million users worldwide.

Thursday's announcement, made at a news conference in Bangalore, would make the fast-growing information technology hub a key part of game development.

Zynga saw creative talent in India, but found it to be more of a "niche sector" in the country, said Shan Kadavil, Zynga's India manager. Instead, he said, "we expect to tap creative development people from the Bollywood industry."

Among that talent is Dhimant Vyas, an animator who designed the title sequence for the hit Bollywood film "Taare Zameen Par" ("Stars on Earth") by director, producer and actor Aamir Khan.

Zynga's games have become popular on Facebook and other platforms, but the company is inching toward platform-independent games that people can play on mobile devices.

It also has been rolling out mobile versions of its games, hoping to keep users playing them longer.

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/careers/job-trends/FarmVille-maker-to-double-India-staff/articleshow/7672423.cms

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How APUs are changing computing

Window shopping on the streets of Paris or marveling at the hand-crafted , delicate designs of the latest haute couture can very well be done from your living room. All you need is a pair of high-resolution video glasses and your laptop.

Geeks call this virtual reality, but it has gone a step further to become interactive virtual reality wherein users can take in the sights, sounds and even smells of the Parisian streets as they explore their surroundings.

These new digital experiences are being powered by new processors with built in graphics capabilities, collectively named APUs or accelerated processing units. With glasses like the Wrap VR1200, recently unveiled at the CES 2011, all 2D and 3D video and head-tracking for many Windows-based programs can become a real-time experience.

Interactive virtual reality is possibly the future of technology and personal computing. The shift is radical as technology companies vie to crunch data meant for large format screens on small ones, provide longer battery life for their products and offer technology to keep their gadgets cool.

The APUs making this hi-tech story a reality are combining more and more graphic features to ensure a streamlined video-experience . Here are some of the exciting applications we can look forward to in the course of this year.

Advanced face recognition
Managing all those videos and photographs can be an arduous task. Fishing out the right ones on a later date can be even more difficult. Many user-friendly tools like Viewdle's face detection product can help identify and share photographs and videos easily.

Explaining the new technique , Laurent Gil, CEO of Viewdle says: "The software detects faces within a video or set of photos, and groups them into clusters of faces that our engine recognizes".

Once this is done, you can get a ribbon of thumbnails on their screen. "You can either assign a name to a person by typing it or by connecting to a Facebook account and selecting a name from your Facebook friend list," explains Gil.

Fusion chips have been played a crucial role in stepping up the speed and cuts detection time by more than half, says Gil. The next phase of evolution is likely to be even more exciting as Viewdle is trying to make face recognition between the desktop, cloud, and mobile device seamless and synchronized.

This means that users who build a faceprint database — that is a set of saved tags of a user's friends' faces —will be able to port the database between devices.

Changing Screens virtually
TV crew and videographers have traditionally used a green screen behind them while the cameras roll. This green screen can easily be replaced with any backdrop to match the theme of the program.

For instance, if a TV anchor is talking about the weather, the screen can show weather patterns. However, virtual green screens are available now. So, if you want to upload a video on YouTube, all you need to do is videograph the presentation.

It does not matter where the presenter stands – whether in a newsroom or near a pile of rubbish. Products like the ones by Nuvixa can be downloaded to create an instant backdrop. Note that this is just a basic application. A more sophisticated version is seen in the PowerPoint 10.1 application.

Talking PowerPoints
In the next version of PowerPoint (10.1), you can customize the matter in such a way that the presenter can actually be part of a final presentation. You can see the presenter on the screen, pointing out the various details and explaining the matter to users. Here again, there is a play on the background.

Instead of the customary backdrop, you can have a graphic sheet. New Z-Definition technology makes use of new sensors and computer vision algorithms to create new possibilities. But as Sanjay R Patel, CEO of Nuvixa says: "These products deal with next-generation video communication and require high computing power."

These technology products are expected to be launched later this year. "Chip maker AMD's latest fusion platform is used in this technology" , says Manju Hegde, corporate vice-president, Fusion Experience Program of AMD. The fusion platform is AMD's latest potent combo of graphics and a computer chip.

"There is a growing need for small form factors which can be seen in the current Fusion series of chips," says Manoher Bommena, senior director (Layout Design), who is part of AMD's Hyderabad team which developed two of the recently-launched fusion chips.

More personal video communication
This could be particularly useful for those using webcams and video calling services like Skype. Today, due to its placement, a person does not look at directly at the webcam but at the screen.

With the increasing processing power of new chips, an auto-correction could happen in real time, making it seem like the person is looking at you directly making the experience more personal.

This feature will be exploited by Skype as well as other video conferencing services in the near future. AMD's Fusion chips can be used for this as well.

The competition
While AMD has been making a lot of noise over its Fusion platform, a similar chip codenamed 'Sandy Bridge' brought out by Intel in early January was recalled at the end of the month. Though the problem isn't immediate, it may happen over time.

A Serial-ATA (SATA) port within the affected chip sets may work fine initially, but may start to generate data errors at a later date. According to Intel's official statement on the matter, "Intel has stopped shipment of the affected support chip from its factories.

Intel has corrected the design issue, and has begun manufacturing a new version of the support chip which will resolve the issue. For the first quarter of 2011, Intel expects this issue to reduce revenue by approximately $300 million . Total cost to repair and replace affected materials and systems in the market is estimated to be $700 million."

Read More: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/How-APUs-are-changing-computing/articleshow/7446556.cms

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Why Facebook may not beat Japan's Mixi

TOKYO: Facebook Inc may not overtake Mixi Inc in Japan as the lure of connecting with friends overseas isn't enough for users to switch services, according to the US social-networking site's biggest games developer.

Japan "is one place where Facebook may not end up being dominant," Robert Goldberg, head of Zynga Game Network Inc's operations in the country, said in an interview in Tokyo. "Despite the unique cultural challenges that Japan presents, we fully expect Facebook to be successful in this market as they have across the world."

Facebook, boasting more than 500 million users and a valuation above $80 billion, is focusing on expanding in Japan and Russia, Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in July. Mixi, which began social network operations in 2004, has about 22 million customers in the country, 10 times the number of Japanese Facebook users.

Concerns over privacy issues and early problems with site design and translation have also set back Facebook's popularity in the country, Goldberg said.

Closely held Facebook introduced simpler privacy controls in May and said it was reducing the amount of user information that's publicly available after US lawmakers and advocacy groups complained that the service shares too much personal data.

'Hard to change'
"Networks are kind of funny, they get an imprint on them when they get designed and it's pretty hard to change," Goldberg said.

Jonathan Thaw, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, didn't immediately respond to a phone call and email seeking comment. Facebook, available in more than 70 languages, almost doubled its subscriber base in Japan in the past six months to 2.2 million, according to market researcher Socialbakers. The country ranked 49th in terms of total users registered for the service, with US topping the list at 148.90 million.

Zynga chose Mixi for the Japan release of its "FarmVille" hit title in December. The game is Facebook's second most popular title with 53 million users, after Zynga's "CityVille" with 98.6 million, according to researcher AppData.com.

Goldberg declined to disclose the user numbers for FarmVille in Japan.

Japan user controls
Mixi is better suited for Japanese users because it gives subscribers more control over who sees their content and personal data is more secure, President Kenji Kasahara said in an interview on Dec. 15. Users can also send Twitter-like messages limited to 150 characters, a service that began in September 2009 and isn't available on Facebook, Kasahara said at the time.

Masashi Tokuda, a Tokyo-based spokesman at Mixi, said the company's stance hasn't changed since Kasahara made the comments.

Mixi's monthly active users, subscribers who log in at least once a month, have reached 14.5 million as of Dec. 31, the Tokyo-based company said earlier this month. That compares with Facebook's more than 500 million users worldwide and 24.5 million for DeNA Co, Japan's biggest developer of social games for mobile phones.

"Japan is a unique marketplace and it is necessary to take care when bringing a global product and localising it to the Japanese culture," Goldberg said.

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Nanolasers for faster microprocessors

WASHINGTON: Engineers have found a way to grow nanolasers - lasers able to produce beams at nanoscale - directly onto a silicon surface, potentially opening the way to a new class of faster and more efficient microprocessors.



"Our results impact a broad spectrum of scientific fields, including materials science, transistor technology, laser science, optoelectronics and optical physics," said Connie Chang-Hasnain, the study's principal investigator and computer sciences professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Increasing demands on electronics have sent researchers in search of better ways to harness the inherent ability of light particles to carry far more data than electrical signals can, the journal Nature Photonics reports.

Optical interconnects are seen as a solution to overcoming the communications bottleneck within and between computer chips, according to a University of California statement.

Because silicon is extremely deficient at generating light, engineers have turned to another class of materials known as III-V (pronounced "three-five") semiconductors to create light-based components such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and lasers.

But the researchers pointed out that marrying III-V with silicon to create a single opto-electronic chip has been problematic. For one, the atomic structures of the two materials are mismatched.

"Growing III-V semiconductor films on silicon is like forcing two incongruent puzzle pieces together," said study author Roger Chen, who is a University of California, Berkeley, graduate in electrical engineering and computer sciences.

"It can be done, but the material gets damaged in the process."

The researchers overcame this limitation by finding a way to grow nanopillars made of indium gallium arsenide, a III-V material, onto a silicon surface at the relatively cool temperature of 400 degrees Celsius.

Read mOre: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/Nanolasers-for-faster-microprocessors/articleshow/7446293.cms

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Microsoft launches Office Web apps in India

Software giant Microsoft launched its Office Web Apps in India, which will allow users to access applications like Word, Excel and PowerPoint for free.

Users can access Office Web Apps, the online companions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote for free using their Windows Live ID on the SkyDrive or Hotmail, Microsoft India said in a statement.



This will allow users to create, view, edit, and share Office documents from anywhere with an Internet connection, it added.

"Office Web Apps are a key piece of Microsoft's overall cloud strategy and are designed to empower people to take their familiar productivity experience on the web," Microsoft Business Division Director Sanjay Manchanda said.

There are more than 30 million users of the beta version of Office Web Apps globally, within over six months after it was introduced.

Read MOre: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/Microsoft-launches-Office-Web-apps-in-India/articleshow/7445925.cms

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Pak hacked CBI website by creating proxy servers in 3 other countries Read more: Pak hacked CBI website by creating proxy servers in 3 other countrie

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/7321515.cms

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6 ways to increase Traffic to ur website

While big-box retailers spend millions to grab attention with sales and promotions, many small business owners struggle to keep up. But having a strong online presence and a strategy for driving traffic to your brick-and-mortar store is an affordable and effective way to stay competitive.

First, start with a strong, professional website you can manage on your own. The importance of this simple step is many times overlooked. According to a recent study by Pew Research, 44 per cent of all US consumers research businesses online before purchasing items, making a strong online presence more important than ever.

From there, take the following steps to quickly and cost-effectively increase website traffic and, subsequently, foot traffic.

Clean design
Do not clutter pages with unnecessary information, as it will just confuse potential customers and drive them away without giving your company a chance. This is especially important with Google Instant, which enables consumers to see a small preview of your site within their search results.

Optimize your website for search engines
Have searchable words, images, and page titles for search engine optimization.

Make sure customers know how to get to you
Store location and hours need to be up-front and clear on your website. Also make sure your address links to Google Maps so the user can receive quick, easy directions.

Shoppers love coupons
Use your website to post coupons that are only redeemable at your store to incentivize new and existing customers. If coupons are a regular occurrence on your site, people will continue to come back again and again.

Create an event
People want to interact in an authentic way, but face-to-face community can't be achieved in cyberspace. Use your website as a springboard to events at your store such as hosting appetizers or hiring live musicians.

Use the entire Web
Although your website may be your primary marketing piece, make sure you use the entire Web to drive traffic to your shop using tools such as Facebook and Twitter. This gives your customers multiple opportunities to hear about your business. The goal is to use the entire Web to create a culture around your company, and inform clients and customers about what is happening.

Read more: 6 Tips to drive traffic to your website - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/personal-tech/computing/6-Tips-to-drive-traffic-to-your-website/articleshow/7291771.cms#ixzz1BHiV4dRD

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USB goes 10X faster - USB 3.0

USB 3.0 was unveiled in 2010, but hardly anyone noticed. Expect that to change in 2011, as a flood of new products are unleashed that take advantage of USB 3.0's tremendous speed advantage over USB 2.0, as well as its bi-directional communication prowess.

Not only will 3.0's theoretical 10x speed advantage over 2.0 make fast external storage a reality, but its ability to send and receive data simultaneously will mean that a wide range of peripherals that bumped up against the limits of 2.0's data transfer rate will be able to adopt USB wholeheartedly. In 2011, don't buy a desktop or notebook PC that's not equipped with the improved USB standard.

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GB goes obsolete

Think big and fast in 2011. Traditional mechanical hard drives will be available in 3-terabyte (TB) capacities and larger - and at prices that will be budget-friendly.

Speed freaks, though, will want to look at the upcoming crop of solid state drives (SSDs), which will take full advantage of the newest 6 gigabit per second (Gb/s) SATA drive connectivity standard to pump data through your PC at roughly twice the speed of today's widespread 3 Gb/s standard.

SSDs will continue to command a price premium in 2011, but increasing capacities overall will bring down prices on the units that are currently the costliest. For those who have been waiting for SSDs to get big enough to be interesting, expect 600 gigabyte (GB) drives to appear early in the year.

Read More: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/itslideshow/7179286.cms

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Social networking warfare

Upstarts like Facebook and Twitter took the world by storm in 2010. Will tech heavyweights like Google stand by and watch success like that go unchallenged? Unlikely.

Twitter's 140-character niche may be tough to replicate, but expect 2011 to see competitors attempt to chip away at Facebook's success. Google is currently rumoured to have a 'Google Me' product in the wings, which is expected to give Facebook some competition in 2011. Others are likely to follow suit.

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/itslideshow/7179293.cms

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Jackass IT: Stunts, idiocy, and hero hacks

Sometimes you have to get a little crazy to find the right solution to technology problems gone absurd

By Paul Venezia | InfoWorld

We've all been there: an IT problem so ridiculous that only a ridiculous solution can solve it.

It could be server on the brink of shutting down all operations, a hard drive that won't power up vital data, or a disgruntled ex-employee who's hidden vital system passwords on the network. Just when all seems lost, it's time to get creative and don your IT daredevil cap, then fire up the oven, shove the end of a pencil into the motherboard, or route the whole city network through your laptop to get the job done.

Whether you're keeping vital systems humming, extending the life of faulty hardware in dire situations, or simply hunting for sport, knowing when to throw out the manual and do something borderline irresponsible is essential to day-to-day IT work.

Here are a few poignant examples of stunts and solutions that required a touch of inspired insanity to pull off.

Jackass IT stunt No. 1: Route city services through a laptop
Ever wonder whether you could route an entire city network through a laptop running Fedora? Take a seat. Or better yet, leave the chair for your laptop. You'll need to balance it somewhere to keep city services up and operational through a two-day snowstorm.

It started out innocently, with a sizable city network core Layer 3 switch showing signs of failure and causing network instability. Errors logged to the console pinpointed the supervisor engine. Cisco was called around 10 a.m., and a replacement was slated for delivery by 2 p.m. As long as the current supervisor could keep the network more or less functional for four hours, help was on the way.

Cue Mother Nature and her blizzard machine. The call came back at noon. There was no way to get the proper part to the site before the following day due to the storm. As luck would have it, the production supervisor finally gave out minutes later, and the city's fiber network went dark. With no backup Layer 3 supervisor engine and several hundred ports in that switch, including all the servers and edge switch trunk links, there didn't seem to be anything that could be done until the next day, leaving city services bereft, including the police and fire departments.

A compatible Layer 2 supervisor for the core switch was located on site, and a plan was hatched. While this new supervisor wouldn't bring the network up by itself, it could run the switch ports on the core -- and a laptop could do the rest.

Read More:

http://www.infoworld.com/d/adventures-in-it/jackass-it-stunts-idiocy-and-hero-hacks-932?page=0,0&source=IFWNLE__2010-12-17

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