Tech News Stop - Sharing by Wasim Akhtar

::::Zynga launches prepaid debit card with American Express::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337715160_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Zynga Inc., the social games publisher, has reached a partnership agreement with American Express (AXP.N) to issue a prepaid debit card that could be used to redeem virtual credits, the two companies said.The partnership will help increase use of American Express' digital payments platform Serve as the credit card issuer competes with online gateway Paypal, a unit of eBay Inc (EBAY.O), which is pushing to process transactions by mobile phones.Zynga, whose shares have fallen as user numbers for its most popular games decline, aims to boost the profile of its partnership programs with major companies and also to retain users, who will be rewarded with in-game credits for swiping the American Express card."This is the first rewards program for a pre-paid card, and Zynga and American Express have the opportunity to bring value to Zynga players, while connecting and expanding American Express' customer base," Jeff Karp, Zynga's chief marketing and revenue officer, told Reuters.The two companies declined to disclose financial details of the partnership.Beginning this week, cardholders who make purchases exceeding $25 will collect "Farm Cash," the currency used to purchase virtual goods within Zynga's FarmVille game.Zynga said it will roll out similar rewards for its CastleVille and CityVille in the coming months."This enables us for the first time, in a fully integrated fashion, to link everyday spend that you would do online or offline to in-game virtual currency rewards and special offers," said Daniel Schulman, group president of enterprise growth at American Express.In the future, Schulman said, the program will be expanded so Zynga players can receive real-life discounts for in-game activity.Zynga shares have shed almost half its value since April 1 amid investor doubts over whether the company can sustain its revenue growth.The company's stock has been battered especially in recent days, as Facebook's poorly received initial public offering has tainted some Internet stocks.Zynga shares closed down 1 percent on Monday at $7.09.

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::::TCS wins the People's Choice award from the US National Science Foundation::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337714976_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>MUMBAI, India, May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A team of associates from Tata <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%" class="IL_AD">Consultancy Services(TCS) (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), the leading IT services, <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%" class="IL_AD">consulting and business solutions firm, have won the "People's Choice" award at the ninth International <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%" class="IL_AD">Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge with their interactive game called: Velu the Welder. The international challenge was jointly organised by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publisher of the journal Science, to celebrate the grand tradition of visualization, specifically for communicating science, engineering, and <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%" class="IL_AD">technology for education and journalistic purposes.The TCS team developed an interactive game called "Velu the Welder" for personal computers and popular gaming consoles to help school drop-outs in India develop a highly marketable trade skill.The 2011 Challenge received over 200 entries from 33 countries in five categories, which were evaluated based on visual impact, effective communication of a scientific idea, and overall originality. Visualizations with the most votes from the public received the People's Choice award. This year <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important" class="IL_AD">for the first time participants were permitted to submit entries online, while the public was allowed to vote for its favourite images as "People's Choice" winners.The awards criteria was also based on the visual impact, originality and clarity. The entries weren't just limited to photographs. Contest categories also included illustrations, informational graphics, videos and even interactive video games.Ajoy Mukherjee, Executive Vice President and Head, Global Human Resources said, "The advancement of information technology tools combined with visualization and innovation enhances the effectiveness of learning especially in the area of vocational training." He added, "At TCS we try to foster a culture of innovation, create space and opportunities where individuals are able to bring fruition to their thoughts and ideas. The award winning interactive game "Velu the Welder," is one such example where TCSers have combined the power of visualization and technology to bring about an innovative learning method." Selection: A committee of members from Science and NSF screened the entries and, in a new departure this year, the selected finalists were posted on NSF's Web site and visitors were invited to vote for their top choice in each category. A total of 3200 votes came in; entries that received the most votes were named the "People's Choice." Independently, an outside panel of experts in scientific visualization reviewed the finalists and selected the winners.Note on "Velu the Welder":Welding is a method used for binding metal or nonmetal structures. In this game an apprentice, who goes by the name Velu, gets basic training in the art of welding. The game is designed to expose a person to basic skill sets aimed at getting acquainted with the craft of welding. Developed as atechnology demonstrator for the National Skills Development Initiative of India, this game could be used to train millions of apprentices in a cost effective way. The objective of the game is to introduce the apprentice to two types of welding -- gas and arc, and is designed to have five tasks. In the first two tasks he learns hand coordination and movement using gas welding. In the remaining sets he is exposed to arc welding to join four metal pieces together to build a frame. The game is best played using a Nintendo Wii Remote which mimics the actual welding gun. The console's motion-sensing controller makes players feel like they're holding a real welding torch.Learning to weld takes patience and nimble fingers. Some time spent on a Wii gaming console might not hurt, either. In this interactive challenge, the brainchild of developers at Tata Consultancy Servicesin Chennai, India, players step into a virtual apprentice workshop. They follow in the footsteps of Velu, a young Indian man getting a crash course in welding. The aim is to provide marketable skills to school dropouts in India.About Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS)Tata Consultancy Services is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that delivers real results to global business, ensuring a level of certainty no other firm can match. TCS offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPO, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. This is delivered through its unique Global Network Delivery Model™, recognized as the benchmark of excellence in software development. A part of the Tata Group, India's largest industrial conglomerate, TCS has over 238,500 of the world's best trained consultants in 42 countries. The Company generated consolidated revenues of US $10.17 billion for year ended 31 March, 2012 and is listed on the <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important" class="IL_AD">National Stock Exchange and <span style="border-bottom-width: 1px !important; border-bottom-style: solid !important; border-bottom-color: #009900 !important; background-image: none !important; background-attachment: scroll !important; background-color: transparent !important; cursor: pointer !important; position: static; display: inline !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; float: none !important; background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: repeat repeat !important" class="IL_AD">Bombay Stock Exchange in India. For more information, visit us at www.tcs.comSOURCE Tata Consultancy Services

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::::Global IT outsourcing market grows by 7.8 per cent in Fy '11::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337713807_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>Information technology services providers based in India and those offering cloud services recorded the highest growth in 2011, as the worldwide IT outsourcing (ITO) revenues grew by 7.8 % in 2011, market research firm Gartner said on Monday.Global ITO market grew from $228.7 billion in 2010 to $246.6 billion last year.IBM maintained the top spot in terms of market share and just about matched the industry growth whileHewlett-Packard came in second even as it lagged industry growth levels at just about at 2%, presumably distracted by internal distractions of senior management changes. IBM revenues accounted for 10.9% of the overall ITO revenues.Accenture reported the highest revenue growth during the year with 18.2% growth, but trailed peers with a 2.6% market share. Forty-three service providers, who collectively grew by 9.5 percent, booked revenues of $1 billion or more during the year."For many leading providers in the ITO market, 2011 revenue results demonstrate how challenging simply maintaining a market share position has become, much less gaining share - and this challenge is likely to worsen over the next few years for providers that do not address these forces",Bryan Britz, research director at Gartner said. 

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::::Google names new Motorola Mobility CEO::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337713201_temp.jpg" border="0" width="300" height="200" align="left" /></div>Google Inc completed its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc and named a new chief executive for the cellphone maker, who vowed to focus on "fewer, bigger bets."Google, which made the deal to gain access to Motorola's vast trove of technology patents, said on Tuesday that Motorola Chief Executive Sanjay Jha has stepped down and has been succeeded by Dennis Woodside, former president of Google's Americas region.Woodside oversaw planning for the Motorola integration, according to Google. Jha will be retained to help manage a transition period.The deal closing came just days after the companies won approval for the acquisition from the Chinese government. European and U.S. regulators approved the deal in February.To gain approval in China, Google said the company promised to keep its Android mobile phone software open and free for at least five years and agreed to charge fair and reasonable fees for technology licenses.Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said Woodside's "fewer, bigger bets" would mean a simpler strategy: Fewer but bigger phone launches for Motorola Mobility, which will be an independent subsidiary of Google.Woodside hired a slew of outside executives to run the company, including Vanessa Wittman, former chief financial officer of Marsh & McLennan Cos Inc (MMC.N), as CFO of Motorola Mobility.Mark Randall, the former supply chain vice president at Kindle maker Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), was appointed as the mobile unit's new head of supply chain.The company will retain some Motorola executives, including Iqbal Arshad as head of product development, and Dan Moloney as head of the set-top box business.

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::::Pakistan restores Twitter after block over Prophet cartoons::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337631107_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div> <img src="http://da.feedsportal.com/r/134204453919/u/53/f/534057/c/33041/s/1f89dc59/a2.img" border="0" /><img src="http://pi.feedsportal.com/r/134204453919/u/53/f/534057/c/33041/s/1f89dc59/a2t.img" border="0" width="1" height="1" />  Pakistan restored access to Twitterafter briefly blocking the microblog over "blasphemous" posts about a Facebook competition involving caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.  The website was blocked Sunday by the telecoms authority on the orders of the IT ministry amid accusations it refused to remove messages about the Facebook contest.  But the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) restored access to Twitter in the evening, several hours after it was cut off, said spokesman Mohammad Younis Khan.  The reason for the U-turn was not immediately clear. Khan said it was the IT ministry's decision and he did not know why it had been taken, and no one from the ministry or Twitter was available for comment.  Speaking before the ban was lifted Sunday, Khan said that there was "blasphemous material" on Twitter and that the organisers of the competition had been "trying to hurt Muslim feelings". Islam bans images of the Prophet.  "Both Facebook and Twitter were involved. We negotiated with both. Facebook has agreed to remove the stuff but Twitter is not responding to us," he said.  Facebook confirmed that it had blocked content in Pakistan after a request from the authorities.  "Out of respect for local laws, traditions and cultures, we may occasionally restrict (some content's) visibility in the countries where it is illegal, as we have done in this case," said a spokeswoman.  Twitter told AFP that it did not remove any content or make any changes at the service to get it restored but declined to comment further.  Twitter received a FAX message on Saturday from a minister in Pakistan saying that material deemed objectionable was at the website and the service would be suspended if action wasn't taken, according to a source close to the situation.  Twitter policy is to comply with local laws regarding content at the service but the FAX message was not a court order, according to the source, who noted that Twitter was not told what prompted the decision to restore the service.  The ban had sparked anger, and many in Pakistan appeared to have found a way to circumvent the restrictions and post on the microblog regardless.  Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch, said the ban was "ill-advised, counter-productive and will ultimately prove to be futile as all such attempts at censorship have proved to be".  Philip Crowley, who last year resigned as US State Department spokesman, wrote on the microblogging site: "Pakistan's decision to block Twitter is another sign of the civilian government's weakness."  In Pakistan, Twitter is used by prominent public figures such as celebrities, cricketers, cabinet ministers and members of parliament.Former president Pervez Musharraf, in exile in Britain, regularly tweets, as does Ali Zafar, the popular actor and musician. Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician, is also on Twitter.  Pakistan blocked Facebook in May 2010 because of a competition organised by an anonymous user who called on people to draw the Prophet to promote "freedom of expression".  The competition sparked a major backlash in conservative Muslim Pakistan, where even moderates were deeply offended by the drawings that appeared on the "Everyone Draw Mohammed Day" Facebook page.  It saw Facebook blocked for almost two weeks after a petition by a group of Islamic lawyers. The PTA also banned YouTube for a week and restricted access to other websites, including Wikipedia, lashing out against "growing sacrilegious" content.  Muslims across the globe staged angry protests over the publication of satirical cartoons of Mohammed in European newspapers four years ago.  A suicide attack outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad that year killed eight people. Al-Qaeda claimed the attack to avenge the cartoons. 

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::::Dustin Moskovitz, facebook co- founder, creates a social network made for work::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337630844_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>Facebook's success has spawned a multimillion-dollar boom in social networking. There are networks for photo-sharers, for children and for workers inside companies. Yammerand Jive, for instance, promise to energize employees and increase their productivity by enabling fast information sharing.  Dustin Moskovitz thinks this is a bad idea that won't fly.  "The first time I looked at Yammer, I thought I was on Facebook," he said. "Work is not a social network, with serendipitous communications and photo collections. Work is about managing tasks, and responding to things quickly."  Moskovitz does know a little bit about running the operations of a fast-growing company. He helped found Facebook along with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Chris Hughes while at Harvard in 2004. His job was to make sure the computers straining to run Facebook's expanding network never went down.  After leaving Facebook in 2008 with enough equity to make him one of the world's youngest billionaires, Moskovitz, now 27, works on his own version of company management software for the networked age. He calls it Asana.  Asana is task-based software, a shared to-do list for the company. Work is assigned and completed by a potentially unending set of teams created on the fly. Asana is a Sanskrit word meaning "easeful posture." Yoga practitioners think of it in terms of complex poses done effortlessly. "You should read a lot into the name," Moskovitz said.  Tasks can be named and assigned across the company, then shut down or subdivided as the work progresses. People can rank, or have others rank, which of their jobs need attention soonest. If a company wants, anyone can look in on anyone else's work, offering help and criticism. "We think of email, in-person meetings, and whiteboards as our competition," said Justin Rosenstein, Moskovitz's co-founder at Asana.  Like Moskovitz, Rosenstein came from Facebook, though he stopped first at Google where he built an early system for engineers to organize their work. At Facebook, he helped invent the "like" button and ran Facebook's Pages project, which is a way for brands and celebrities to build networks. He was frustrated, he said, building "an enormously ambitious project, and losing a lot of time around coordination."  Moskovitz, who was used to working one on one, was by then managing 200 engineers. His solution was something called "Tasks," which is similar to what became Asana, but it was mainly for engineers. Eventually the two men decided that helping whole companies get things done might be something important that they were good at doing, and they left Facebook to start Asana.  Moskovitz is uncomfortable with his outsize wealth. It remains a complex legacy of the Facebook years, he says. What he finds far more interesting to talk about is the ambition derived from having built something so big. "You learn what an enterprise is capable of. Everything else measures against that," he said. "One of the purposes of life, and selfishly what makes people happy, is building things that are impactful."Moskovitz left Facebook on good terms. He socializes with Zuckerberg, who still gives Moskovitz credit for building much of Facebook.  Asana was released and tested on only a few companies in February 2011, then more broadly last November, with several thousand users. The company has not revealed the size of its user base, but said it had been growing rapidly.  Asana will compete with corporate networking products from fellow startups like Jive Software and Yammer, as well as the offerings from big companies, like Chatter, which is owned by Salesforce.com, and Socialcast, owned by VMWare. These corporate social networks are now used by millions of employees.  Privately held Asana has a small fraction of that. Early adopters of Asana include Foursquare, a location-based social network, and The Sacramento Bee, where it is used in the online news department. "Having all the jobs you have to do in one place definitely speeds up the amount we work, though," said Sean McMahon, director of digital media at The Bee. He still likes to oversee his employees, though he can do it with a lighter hand than in the past.  Managers will probably have to learn new tasks when they use corporate social software. "Businesses are in the midst of a retooling because of cloud computing, social media, mobility and lots of data," said Tony Zingale, chief executive of Jive Software, the largest of the corporate social networks. "Groups are starting to make decisions, and information to them has to be filtered and personalized."  Rosenstein, Asana's co-founder, says people will have to learn to work independently. "Each company will have to develop its own conventions," he said. "I spend a lot of time developing people, setting a vision, and explaining why we do what we do." For the faint of heart, Asana does offer tools for centralized management.  For the bold, there are outcomes like Asana itself, where everyone can name and assign tasks to anyone else, or kick them back to the originator if they don't like what they were assigned.  Both Moskovitz and Rothstein say their job titles simply are "Asana," as are the titles for their 22 colleagues. Pay, however, still varies widely, depending on qualifications and how early someone joined the company. Moskovitz pays himself $33,280 a year, which his lawyers have advised him is legally less risky for the company than a salary of $1 a year.The title sharing is a pragmatic attempt at company building. "It wasn't uncommon for people to call themselves Googlers or Facebookers, so we just took it further," Moskovitz said. "We brought in people who could all be managers elsewhere. If one person was named the manager, the rest would leave."  For a company full of young, successful people that is run by a billionaire, Asana is a remarkably hard-working and down-to-earth place - all the way down. It is on the ground floor of a building that looks out on a parking lot of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  Instead of the fancy pool tables found in Google or the open bars and expensive murals at Facebook, on the floor is a single game of the 1960s hit Twister - a social game, and one particularly suited to a young and flexible workforce.   

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::::Torrent ban may result in better file-sharing sites::::

<div class="custm_img_blk"><img src="http://www.techgig.com/files/photo_1337630665_temp.jpg" border="0" align="left" /></div>How old is file sharing?  The internet started as a network that enables its users to share data. All the early versions of the internet provided a mechanism by which users could share files without any centralised server.  For instance, ARPANET, the world's first packet switching network (the most dominant form of data transfer today), funded by the US department of defence developed File Transfer Protocol (FTP) by the early 1970s.  However in the first few decades of its development internet primarily served academic institutions or research laboratories and hence copyright infringement was never an issue.  When did copyright become an issue?  In the mid 1990s a new format of audio started spreading on the internet. MPEG Audio Layer III (MP3) changed the way music was consumed. In this format, songs could be compressed by factors of 10 to 14, assuring quick download and mass storage in personal computers.  In 1997, the Winamp audio player was released and MP3.com was launched offering thousands of free songs by independent artists. These events made the new format immensely popular. The game changer however came in 1999 when Shawn Fanning launched Napster.  Read also: File-sharing sites like Vimeo.com, Torrentz.eu & others blockage sets off torrent of abuse A person downloading music from Napster was getting the data from the computer of another user. The utility became immensely popular with millions of active users. Napster faced several lawsuits and was eventually shut down and later sold.  What is the most common way of file sharing today?  The same period also witnessed introduction of BitTorrent files which enable the distribution of large amounts of data over the internet. The file, for example a movie, is divided into several pieces. A person downloading a movie will download its 'piece-1 ' from 'user A' , Piece-2 from 'user B' and so on.  He/she will simultaneously allow 'user X' to download 'piece 1' and 'user Y' to download 'piece 2'. The file is thus distributed by people who want to download it. Is it legal to download copyrighted stuff through P2P ?  Although it's universally illegal to distribute copyrighted material, enforcement agencies have faced problems in enforcing this. Many experts cite the ambiguity in the interpretation of laws of different countries.  Also the millions of alleged violators are distributed across the world and mass usage of various technologies makes it impossible for companies to file lawsuits against every individual.  With the ever-improving internet, shutting down one utility has typically resulted in the creation of better protocols. 

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