Rural BPOs Become The Next Tech Hub

Not being able to find work after studies is not the worst nightmare for India’s rural youth: most of them have experienced it. But when 21-year-old Rajagopal finished his BCom in Anatapur, Andhra Pradesh, he didn’t give up hopes of finding a full-time job and go back to farming like his elder brothers. Without a fixed income, he wasn’t going to be able to support his family or pay back his education loan. That’s when he contacted Rural Shores, a firmthat had just set up a business process outsourcing (BPO) centre in Bagepalli district of Karnataka -- two hours from his home in AP. After an interview and a basic English test, Rajagopal was asked to join work the next day. “It was unbelievable. I didn’t know they were going to give me job”, says Rajagopal who now earns Rs 4,000 a month. “All of us were trained to speak English and work on computers. We sit here and sort out the payrolls of HDFC’s employees. We don’t need to go to Bangalore or Hyderabad for a job now.” Founded in 2008, Rural Shores Business Services is one of the largest providers of BPO services out of rural areas, offering jobs to 1,000 educated youth. Brainchild of former Ernst & Young partner VV Ranganathan, Mastek MD Sudhakar Ram, former MD of Xansa India Murali Vullaganti and CN Ram, president and group CIO of Essar Group, Rural Shores today serves over 20 clients including HDFC, Infosys, Wipro Technologies and Genpact. It aims to employ over 10,000 youth by 2014. “There is a lot of energy here. After offshoring, we are now moving towards ruralshoring. It offers great opportunity to the youth in rural areas, improves their skills and gives them a fixed salary”, says Vullaganti, CEO of Rural Shores. “Attrition rate at rural BPO centres is a measly 3-5% compared to 50% at urban centres and operational expenses are 30 to 40% lower. This has encouraged many companies to shift to rural areas. The idea has become bigger than any of us ever imagined.” In three years of business, Rural Shores has set up 10 centres across 7 states with investments from HDFC and Lokpal Capital Venture Fund. The firm plans to break even in 12 months. India for long has been the favourite destination for offshore BPO centres over the past several years. For a generation of young graduates in urban areas, the BPO sector had offered immense opportunities and stable pay. Drawn to this promise, many firms are now seeking ways to set up BPO centres in rural areas. The clearest indicator is some of the top software exporters in the country entering this space. In August this year, Wipro BPO, the BPO arm of Wipro Technologies had launched its first rural BPO centre at Manjakkudi Village in Tamil Nadu. In October, Infosys BPO had signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government for rural BPO centres in 22 districts. In the recent past, independent rural BPO initiatives like Desicrew, GramIT, Next Wealth, FOSTeRA and Tata Business Support Services have also got their feet wet. “Most youngsters you meet in an urban BPO would have migrated from a rural area in search of work. So, we thought, why not take the job to their v i l l a ge s a nd e m p l o y t h e m t here ? ”, asks Manish Dugar, who heads BPO o p e r at io n s at Wipro. While erratic telecom and power connections continue to be a challenge in rural areas, Dugar says low attrition rates and infrastructure costs make rural BPO centres an attractive option. Nasscom says IT-BPO firms plan to increase the total rural BPO employee base by more than 10 times over the next three years, from 5,000 now. So, where is this trend headed for? India may still be a strong player in the global BPO industry but HDFC Chairman, Deepak Parekh says that countries like China, Malaysia, Vietnam and Philippines have already begun to eat into the pie. “India’s English speaking advantage is fast diminishing as countries like China are making huge efforts to increase their English speaking population. The BPO industry is costsensitive and clients will not hesitate to shift BPOs or move to countries that offer services at lower costs. One answer lies in encouraging more rural BPOs”, he said. While most rural BPO centres tend to be cost-effective, the journey has not been a smooth one for initiatives such as the rural Shores.. “It has not been an easy ride. Rural Shores is yet to make any profits,” says Sudhakar Ram, co-founder of Rural Shores and Mastek MD. Country Roads WHY RURAL BPOS? The IT-BPO companies are moving towards rural areas due to factors like availability of untapped talent, affordable real estate, lower labour and operational costs THE FACTS Rural BPOs contribute more than $10 million towards India’s IT-BPO revenues The rural BPO employee base of 5000 (FY09) is expected to grow by more than 10 times in FY12 The attriton rate at rural BPOs are between 3-5% compared to a high of 50% in urban BPOs The prime advantage of rural BPOs is that employee costs are half that of urban BPOs and the overall operating costs are 30 to 40% below urban BPO.

BSNL launches Choose Your Mobile Number Scheme

State-owned telecom services provider BSNL launched Choose Your Mobile Number Scheme across the country. The scheme would provide a new customer with vast range of over one lakh numbers to choose from. The scheme provides access through broadband and also through SMS. Customers can log on to the BSNL website and click on "choose your mobile number" option. "Those who do not have broadband connection may opt for SMS option through which they will get ten numbers on mobile from which they can choose desired number,". The scheme was first launched in Andhra Pradesh on November 1 and it received very good response. The sale of mobile connections under this scheme has crossed 1.2 lakh. "Enthused by the success of the scheme in Andhra Pradesh, BSNL has now decided to launch the scheme all over the country." "BSNL expect that the scheme will attract more than 20 lakh new subscribers."

Facebook gives Timeline to iPhone users

In addition to the social network's new profile design, version 4.1 of the iPhone app provides mobile users access to their friend lists, subscribers, and subscriptions. Facebook says the app also makes it easier to view, upload, and comment on photos. Facebook says iPad support for mobile Timeline will be coming soon. Timeline, which shows all the updates a person has added to Facebook since they joined the site, was rolled out to Web browsers and Android devices worldwide on Thursday. The update may help the iPhone app retake its lead in popularity for accessing the social network. Facebook for Android now has 58.3 million average daily users compared with an average of 57.4 million daily users who use the iPhone app to read the site, according to stats complied by AppData.

TouchFire makes iPad Easier to Type

Even if you love the iPad, you're probably not keen to write your next novel using its on-screen virtual keyboard. You may not be thrilled to type up a lengthy email with it, either. Steve Isaac felt the same way. A Seattle-based software designer who worked on an early tablet at computing startup Go in the 1990s, Isaac was delighted when the iPad came out last year. He loved its svelteness, battery life and wireless connectivity. "The iPad was amazing,'' he says. "It just did everything super, super well.'' Well, almost everything. Though its touch-screen keyboard was way ahead of what he'd seen on past tablets, he felt it still wasn't great for typing. And wireless keyboards that work via Bluetooth seemed too bulky. So Isaac got to work on a way to make the iPad easier to type on, a stretchy silicone keyboard called the TouchFire that sits atop the tablet's on-screen keyboard when the device is turned on its side. Isaac isn't unique in coming up with this type of device, but his invention has garnered an intense amount of support through Kickstarter, a website where entrepreneurs and artists solicit funding for their projects and often give rewards in exchange, such as a limited-edition poster or first version of a product. In Isaac's case, he turned to the site to raise money to turn his prototype into a real device, offering the first run of TouchFires to Kickstarter backers. His effort raised $201,400 by the time it ended last week. That was more than 20 times the $10,000 that he and his business partner had hoped to snag. The TouchFire's birth as a consumer product shows the growing importance of sites such as Kickstarter. They offer a new way to finance bright ideas and usher them to the masses. Kickstarter visitors can search through a bevy of proposals for everything from graphic novels to consumer electronics, coming from creators who must meet their stated funding goal in a specified period of time in order to actually use the money. About 45 percent of the projects meet or exceed their goals, Kickstarter said. This year, site visitors pledged about $79 million to projects that either succeeded, including Isaac's, or were still in the process of soliciting funds. Not long after the iPad came out in April 2010, Isaac started fashioning prototypes by cutting up transparent silicone laptop keyboard covers (the kind you use to protect a laptop's keyboard from dirt) and thin sheets of silicone. He had a number of stipulations for the TouchFire: It should somehow work with the iPad's existing on-screen keyboard and have springy "keys'' that you could actually feel. It had to be small, light and unobtrusive. It needed to respond to your finger taps, but, as on a hardware keyboard, be insensitive enough that you could rest your fingers on the keys without triggering the typing of random letters. Last September, he connected with Brad Melmon, an industrial designer who was also based in Seattle. The duo refined Isaac's original idea and created the TouchFire company together. A TouchFire prototype Isaac recently brought to The Associated Press' San Francisco office looked deceptively simple. On the surface, it appeared to be just a flexible keyboard cover with some rigid plastic on the sides. But a closer look revealed small bumps on the underside of the keypad's silicone keys _ bumps that provide typing fingers with the proper amount of resistance. Magnets on the sides and the bottom adhere it to the magnetic portions of the face of the iPad 2, allowing it to sit right on top of the on-screen virtual keyboard without sliding around. If you use the original iPad, a non-slip layer on the bottom of the TouchFire helps keep it in place. Typing with it was fairly comfortable, though it would take some getting used to its squishy feel. Not everyone is convinced, though, of the need for the new product. Gartner Research analyst Ken Dulaney is skeptical that the TouchFire will appeal to the masses, saying it doesn't really seem different from the scads of wireless keyboards already available for the tablet. "I can tell you, you just need to go down the Apple Store to see how littered the market is for keyboards for iPads,'' he says. Indeed, there are tons of options available to iPad users, from cases with built-in keyboards to stand-alone keyboards that sit next to the iPad. Isaac is optimistic, though. He and Melmon are deciding on a manufacturer to make the device, and Isaac said they're likely to ship the TouchFires to donors in January. After that, they hope to make the devices available for sale as soon as possible.

As smartphones get popular, users have to get acquainted with a new tech term – software updates. Updates can not only quash bugs but add a whole new bunch of features to your handset. For instance, when Google updated Android from version 2.1 to 2.2, it not only brought in a significant performance improvements, but also allowed users to convert their phones into Wi-Fi hotspots. Similarly, Nokia's Anna update to Symbian brought in new icons and a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode. Yep, Software updates are no longer about small fixes but big ones. Speaking of big updates, rarely have there been so many on different platforms at the same time as there are today. Be it iOS, Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile or even the relatively new Bada OS, there is an update lurking in the wings. And all of them add new features and functionalities to the devices on which they are available. UPDATE, BUT WITH CAUTION While they do come packed with goodies, software updates come with their own set of headaches – long downloads, multiple reboots, the need to often connect your device to a computer, and at times even wiping the complete data and information off your device. What's more, updates are not exactly democratic – they often tend to work differently on different devices. So while a relatively highend phone might end up working a whole lot better after an update, an older device might slow down. There is the classic question of whether you even want these updates – many users are simply content with what they get. As a friend who uses a positively ancient Nokia N70 said, “It makes calls brilliantly, gets mail efficiently. I require nothing else!” But if you need a bit more from a mobile device, you should start looking at what's currently available to download. ANDROID 4.0 THIS IS Google's most ambitious overhaul of Android, blending both smartphone & tablet versions. It has a whole new interface with new fonts, a better browser and support for NFC (to allow transfer of information by just tapping two NFC devices together). Also on the agenda are better support for voice commands, better widgets and improvements across the board. Still, if you are content with Android 2.3 and are used to the standard Android smartphone interface, you might want to wait before you upgrade. The update depends on the manufacturer in most cases. AVAILABLE FOR: Most high-end devices running Android 2.3, especially if there is a dual core processor lurking beneath the hood. WE WISH: It was instantly available on all devices that have the hardware to support it. WINDOWS PHONE 7.5 WHEN IT was launched, Windows Phone 7 won rave reviews for its brilliant tile-based interface, which was a radical departure from what people had seen on iOS and Android. Now, with its first major upgrade, the OS adds multi-tasking, live tiles, Twitter integration, better browsing and praise be, copy and paste. Yes, some old frailties like absence of file transfer over Bluetooth remain, but you will not miss it too much thanks to superb cloud integration, and that magical interface remains as good as ever (with better battery life too). If you have an early Windows Phone 7 device, miss this update at your peril. AVAILABLE FOR: All Windows Phone 7 devices WE WISH: It brought all functionalities to older Windows Phone devices — the Wi-Fi hotspot creation ability is not available to older devices. And why no cut and paste? iOS 5 ONE OF the most significant updates to the operating system of the iPhone and iPad, iOS5 brings in many changes, including an Androidstyle notification bar to keep you up to speed with what's happening, a Newsstand app for magazines and publications and cloud syncing via iCloud. Throw in some browser improvements (tabbed browsing in Safari at last), Twitter integration and the promise that future updates to the OS could happen without having to use iTunes, and you can see why we think this is a must-have upgrade for all those using iOS devices. AVAILABLE FOR: iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch (3rd & 4th generation), iPad & iPad 2 (Older devices may not get all features). WE WISH: It was a much lighter download (it is over 500 MB). It should have added Facebook integration too. SYMBIAN BELLE IT HAS been the season of updates for Symbian. Hot on the heels of Anna (which brought in a better keyboard, browser and icons) comes Belle. And while it might not have got the kind of hype that Anna did, it does bring some improvements in — resizeable widgets, more homescreens, a better status bar and the muchtalked-about support for NFC. We must confess, however, that it did not seem as big a step forward as Anna did — the interface remains largely the same. If you are not a NFC lover, you could give this update a miss — Anna is pretty good on its own. That said, this is also one of the smoothest updates to install. AVAILABLE FOR: The Belle update is expected to come to Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia E6, Nokia E7, Nokia C6-01, and Nokia X7. WE WISH: Better social networking apps had been thrown into the mix – this is an area where Symbian still lags behind iOS & Android. BADA OS 2 IT HAS been derided as the poor mans Android, but Bada has been inching up the popularity charts because it delivers a decent experience on powerful smartphones that don't cost too much. The update gets Bada a bit closer to Android with better support for Flash and HTML 5, huge multi-tasking improvements and support for NFC. AVAILABLE FOR: All devices running Bada OS — though features will vary from device to device. WE WISH: We did not have to use Samsung Kies to search for and install the update. BEFORE YOU UPDATE BE SURE to read what the update offers. It is boring in most cases, but be patient — you need to know exactly what is going to happen to your device after the update. IF YOU'RE content with your device, stick with your current OS. It is unlikely to harm you — do check, however, if the company continues to support it (they generally do). IN MOST cases, updates work best with relatively newer models — older models sometimes do not get all the new features and may get bogged down. BACK UP your data. Most updates try to preserve user data (contacts, photos, videos), but they can go wrong. CHARGE YOUR phone before updating (or plug in the charger) — updates need battery. IF YOU value the official warranty, get updates from official sources — unofficial ones can work but they do tend to void warranty and support.

Data Servers to Heat up Homes.....

To satisfy our ever-growing need for computing power, many technology companies have moved their work to data centers with tens of thousands of power-gobbling servers. Concentrated in one place, the servers produce enormous heat. The additional power needed for cooling them - up to half of the power used to run them - is the steep environmental price we have paid to move data to the so-called cloud. Researchers, however, have come up with an intriguing option for that wasted heat: putting it to good use in people's homes. Two researchers at the University of Virginia and four at Microsoft Research explored this possibility in a paper presented at the Usenix Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing. The paper looks at how the servers - though still operated by their companies - could be placed inside homes and used as a source of heat. The authors call the concept the "data furnace." They acknowledge that it is more likely that data furnaces would be placed first in basements of office and apartment buildings, not in individual homes. But as a 'thoughtprovoking exercise,' the authors give homes their attention. If a home has a broadband internet connection, it can serve as a micro data center. One, two or three cabinets filled with servers could be installed where the furnace sits and connected with the existing circulation fan and ductwork. Each cabinet could have slots for, say, 40 motherboards - each one counting as a server. In the coldest climate, about 110 motherboards could keep a home as toasty as a conventional furnace does. The rest of the year, the servers would still run, but the heat generated would be vented to the outside. They suggest that only if the local temperature reached 95 degrees or above would the machines need to be shut down to avoid overheating. A conventional data center must invest about $400 a year to run each server, or about $16,000 for a cabinet filled with 40 of them.

Eight Tips to Top Google Search

The best website in the world won't do you any good if no one looks at it. And there are companies out there to help you rise to the top of Google's hitlist. Better yet, they're not just for businesses. The fact is anyone can post something online, but there is some talent involved in getting Google's attention. Companies that help you do that are versed in the art of SEO (search engine optimization). Private individuals are increasingly focused on these services as they are finding they can't reach a large audience unless they scoot up the hitlists. There's no reason to shell out a lot of money for SEO services though. There's a lot you can do to boost your site's presence. 'It's really not that difficult. It's not magic,' says SEO expert Heiner Hemken, who runs a website on the topic. There are two areas of focus. 'On Page' SEO is targeted at the appearance of the site. 'Off Page' SEO looks at everything in the site's background.Rene Wienholtzk, head of technology at internet search engine Strato, offers six tips to get more eyes on your private website. Look for right keywords 'On Page SEO starts with the right choice of keywords,' says Wienholtz. Just a few choice keywords stored in the metadata of the HTML document are better than many unimportant words, because search engines filter out everything above a certain limit. 'You should have a maximum of 10, but it's better to use five keywords that absolutely need mention.' Pick the right domain name The choice of the right internet address is Wienholtz's second tip. Always try to pick a domain name that says something about the site's content Choosing the title Every website should have a meaningful title and a description that is included in the metadata under the 'description' title. Creating unique content The website should have unique content, as well as text that includes the keywords. Search engines today will not be fooled by tricks like the one where hidden words appear in the same colour as the background Write image description Include alternative text descriptions of images and videos. These should be designated with alt, for alternative text, in the HTML code. Build XML map To save search engines some work, always set up an XML map. This map, which can be created in a sitemap generator, lays out the internal structure of the website. This is key for web offerings that include dynamic content, like technology from Ajax, which cannot always be picked up by search engines. To upload the sitemap, Google and Bing both have a link in their webmaster area. 'If a sitemap is available, then the robots can work their way through that easily,' explains Wienholtz, referring to the crawler software that feeds data to search engines. Go for SEO tools Web hosts like Strato, where people can rent server space for their own website, also offer SEO tools to their clients. Such tools allow webmasters to check their contents versus those of other sites, such as those that use the same keywords. 'This competition analysis can give you ideas for your own optimization and let you learn from the competition,' says Joerg Lammers, spokesman for German internet provider 1&1. 'You have to do this kind of analysis permanently, otherwise you quickly lose relevance and end up way behind.' Avoid common keywords If you're working with common keywords - like vacation, car or computer - then you have next to no chance of getting your site up to the top spot. 'But if you find a niche, then you have a chance to move up to the top,' explains Hemken. There are also commercial SEO options, like Off-Page SEO, which focus on building up links that lead back to your own site. Those are a central factor in Google's PageRank, its central algorithm for weighting the popularity of a site.