Now we know that the Googlians at Hyderabad and Bangalore are working on new things too, say hello to Google India Labs.
Two of the featured products for Beta testing include ::
An on screen keyboard for Indian Languages
A Transliteration feature to Indian languages
Other projects include Google Code Search, Google Music Trends and Google’s Picasa for Linux.
Nokia is a funny company, after it recalled the faulty batteries, it literally saved its reputation, but the interesting thing is who lost ?
Matsushita did for one, they will bear all the costs of battery replacement. But did Nokia gain in monetary terms ?
It might shock you , but it did. With all the hue and cry over the batteries, one could contact Nokia by 3 routes ::
1. Web
2. Outlet
3. SMS-es to 5555
The third option is the jackpot, gullible and non-techie users found SMS the most convenient way to find if their battery was indeed defective. But most of them weren’t aware that Nokia earns from short code SMSes sent to 5555. 5555 is a premium number for sending SMS. So in a way ,bad batteries made money for Nokia in India atleast. All said and done, its really bad business ethics on Nokia’s part to earn from their customer’s misfortunes.
Of course i am waiting for someone to sue Nokia over this.
Its amazing how private companies believe in harassing and mugging common people of their money and provide substandard service. Tata Indicom broadband however believes in not even providing the service and giving false promises.
I decided to get Tata Indicom broadband, as my current ISP was not giving top notch service. I decided to approach Tata Indicom as their service seemed to be decent. But i was in for a ride. The ‘executive’ came on Friday and promised installation on Monday.
On Monday when no one came, we called up the executive and he told us that the person has gone to Dehradun and installation will be done 100% on Tuesday. However Tuesday was the exact same drama, again no one came, but this time the ‘executive’ didnt even pick up the phone.
On Wednesday some labour came to install wiring, we told them to come at evening and fixed the time at 5pm, they said they would come and do the wiring then. But they never returned and the so called executive is not picking up the phone ever since.
Looks like i will have to wait for my new broadband. But the tip for you is not to opt for Tata Indicom Broadband, looks like the TATAs give their name to anything and everything, all they are doing is losing the trust people have in the name TATA.
Will someone from Tata Indicom please take note ?
Well IBibo has started a new contest in which you can win if you create a poll interesting enough to get the maximum number of votes, also if you have voted for the poll with the highest number of votes, again you can win !
Current prizes are Nokia 3230 for creating the poll with maximum votes, or Nokia 2626 if you are a lucky voter in the poll with maximum votes.
This can be an easy way to earn a new mobile phone, just got to think of a question controversial enough ! Contest is open to Indian Citizens only !
Have you seen the new TATA Sky ads ?
The ones in which Boman Irani and Kirron Kher read ‘testimonials’ from Tata Sky customers. Everyone seems so happy with Tata Sky in the ads. Well i too have got a story to share as a Tata Sky customer. I had written to help@tatasky.com with a query. I had told them i need some new connections and had asked questions about screen burnouts with TATA Sky logo, DVR availability, Audio channels etc on Tata Sky.
I got a call within 15 minutes from their Bangalore office, confirming if i had sent the email. They asked me if i wanted the questions to be answered. Duh !!!
I was told that he was forwarding my queries, its been 1 month now but i am yet to get a reply. Obviously we can see how much they care about their customers !
I was being told by my friends that Orkut has gone into the tricolor colours to celebrate India’s 60th Independence Day. They were happy that the world would know this, but would they ??
We decided to see if this India Stunt was truly global or just a localised gimmick. And as expected, it was a special thing only for traffic originating from India, with a view to attain Good PR from Indians ? Its a localised doodle to put it straight. As you can see when we accessed Orkut from a non-Indian IP, it showed us the normal page like it does to the Rest of the World.
While other mobile operators reduce rates, i got another shocker from Airtel today. I got a message on my Airtel Delhi Prepaid that local calls Airtel to Airtel will now be 1.2 rupees a minute up from 1 rupee a minute and SMS shall now be 1.2 to Airtel. Bharti Airtel should really reconsider such stupid rate hikes, the Indian consumer is stupid no more.
Boycott this company, call the customer care and tell them to take your complaint about new rates. Airtel to Airtel calls are entirely under Airtel, so why the rate increase ?
Well we all have relatives in the USA dont we ? , wouldn’t it be nice if you could call them for absolutely nothing. Free , zilch, Zero !!!
Yes its possible, with Icall you can call anyone in the USA for free. Ofcourse remember US is still primitive in terms of cell phone reforms and incoming calls are not free. Usually cell phone calls are free only on weekends and at night. So fix up a convenient time with your friend or relative in the US to call.
The voice quality for free calls is pretty poor though, but bearable too. Free lunches are supposed to give you belly ache, aint it ? Also remember you cant call 911 with this. Paid calls are pretty expensive though, calls to India are 8.5 cents a minute, i have seen services charging much lesser.
I got to know this 1 month ago, UTI Bank has formally changed its name to Axis Bank w.e.f. 30th July 2007. Axis Bank brand aims to portray the bank as modern and innovative. They hired O&M for their makeover(i think). Their site has an extremely stupid animation, a small girl says that she is Debbie and then her lookalike says she is not and they want to portray that everything except the name is same. But 1 question !
Who the hell has the name Debbie in India ? , and why is everything the same and not better. My marketing campaign would have been like “A cooler name, but hotter offers’ or something on the lines of that. The human brain hates stagnating stuff and UTI Bank’s (renamed to Axis Bank) advertising firm seems to have messed up big time.
