The Hindu Business Line : Gadgets galore in BangaloreIT.in

The much-advertised Intellectual Property Zone at BangaloreIT.in showcased a mix of old and new products. Look out for these novel products that will hit India in 2007:

A kid-tracker, a basic mobile phone with GPS (global positioning system, which uses satellites to identify an exact location), was showcased by chipmaker SiRF Technology. This device will allow you to track and locate your child in an emergency. It has five buttons, four of which can be pre-programmed and set to important contact numbers, such as parents', guardians' and the school's.

The emergency button hails the police and alerts the parents. With this phone's GPS capability, parents can get real time updates on the exact location of the child. SK Telecom is distributing this device in Korea under the brand iKids. The company is in talks with cellular operators and handset makers in India to introduce the kid-tracker, which should be available in six months' time. Details of price and battery life were unavailable.

TimeTrack

Xora's GPS TimeTrack is another location-based service based on GPS. With this mobile workforce management solution, companies can inexpensively track their employees by giving them GPS-enabled mobiles (such as the Motorola i355 and i583). When they clock in for work, or start/end a job, they enter that information directly into the phone using a simple, one-click interface. It also chooses the optimal route from one point in the city to another and offers voice instructions. The company is planning to start selling its products in India in a year's time.

Another device that will arrive in India in 2008 is a camera that will tag your photos with the location where it was shot. This GPS-integrated digicam can also interact with Google Earth to graphically zoom in on where the snap is taken. The cheery yellow, 3-mega pixel, industrial camera is currently being used in the US. This will be useful to organise images, conduct a 2D search and even encourage location-based blogging, said SiRF officials.

A GPS-enabled watch that tells you your speed, altitude and even how much calories you have burnt was another ultramodern device seen at the event. Other such applications of GPS include geofencing, which creates a smart job zone.

If the user crosses the zone, the administrator is alerted. With this, you can programme your laptop to boot up or start an application only when you enter a particular `safe' zone.

It can also be used to ensure the BPO cab follows a fixed route.

PlayStation 3

Sony's gaming console — the PlayStation 3 — that is releasing in March next year, is being powered by Rambus' logic and memory interfaces.

This US-based $150-million firm has 539 patents, with 479 pending.

Tata Elxsi's IP (internet protocol) set top boxes, NXP Semiconductor's digital hybrid TV (one that can display both analog and digital TV signals) and NetD's services gateway solutions were also showcased at the pavilion.

Some of the older products on display included the Reliance Infocomm-backed Innomedia Technologies' hexaplay service for the digital home. Ittiam's digital signal processing software that runs portable media players and Encore Software's Mobilis, a mobile workforce management tool were others.

CDAC's stall

At a modest stall set up by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), it was learnt that its various e-governance solutions were successfully implemented in southern States. The latest being a geographical indications registry for Chennai, which allows companies to file for IPR and Trademark rights online.

An affordable local language Office suite has also been developed by the 850-strong organisation.

Leap Office allows people to work in their preferred language and is available for Rs 2,500 (home edition) and Rs 12,500 (professional edition). Other tools developed by CDAC include Matrubasha, a text to speech synthesiser; Vyapar — a site that enables B2B communication; Gnopernicus, which lets visually disabled work on computers (produces a sound per keypress) and Natak3D — a drama scene editing tool.

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