German car maker Mercedes is set to look into the prices of it's A and B class luxury cars to India, which will be priced below its entry-level C-Class range, in an attempt to recover lost ground from BMW. “The new range of A and B Class cars are currently under development and would be launched globally in 2013 (market introduction in 2012) along with India in the same year with Mercedes looking at developing right-hand-drive versions from the beginning,” Peter Alexander Trettin, president and CEO of Daimler's central/eastern Europe, Africa and Asia regions, told TOI. “These will have the front-wheel architecture and will be priced lower than the current C-Class. The new range will be much more fashionable than their existing versions and the cars will be younger and much more modern.”
Apple’s Serlet quits
Bertrand Serlet, one of the finest software developer of Apple Inc would leave the company after more than a decade spent developing Apple's signature operating system. Craig Federighi, currently the vice president of Mac Software Engineering, will assume Serlet's responsibilities and report to chief executive Steve Jobs, Apple said in a statement. Federighi worked a previous stint at Apple and returned again to the company in 2009. The departing Serlet, who joined the company in 1997, concentrated on developing and releasing the Mac OS X operating system. Serlet, whose title was senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering, said in a statement that he wanted to focus on science rather than products.
MindTree teams up with RVCE to take industry closer to academia
MindTree Limited, a global IT Solutions and Product Engineering Services company, today announced that it has successfully completed the pilot execution of a Software Testing course at R V College of Engineering (RVCE) in Bangalore as part of the core syllabus for the final year Information Science and Engineering (ISE) students. MindTree designed and developed the entire curriculum of this course in association with ISE department faculty with VTU's (Vishweshwaraya Technological University) guidelines as baseline. “We are extremely pleased with the outcome of our partnership with MindTree” said Dr. Ramakanthkumar, Head of the ISE department, RVCE. “The unique thing about this engagement is that the entire program was designed and executed by the practitioners with vast industry experience and a passion for Software Testing. These Practitioners made these classes extremely interesting to the students, as they explained every concept with real life examples. Dr. Ramakanthkumar said, “I am very happy that apart from our students, MindTree also trained our staff on the core topics, such as test automation and tools. The results have been declared and I am proud to share that we have achieved a100% success rate. We value this association and want to take it to the next level. MindTree has graciously accepted our request to be part of our Board of Studies.” The Principal, Dr. B. S. Satyanarayana, added that “the collaboration with MindTree was in-line with the institution efforts to establish a strong industry-academia linkage.” This initiative aligns perfectly with MindTree's overall value system and passion of being socially responsible and reiterates its position as a Knowledge Enterprise. “We are passionate about such academia affiliation, which benefit students at the grass roots level who will be shaping the future of our industry. We are committed towards this relationship with RVCE and plan to contribute to other progressive academic institutions in coming years” said Anand Rao Ladi, Vice President and Head of Testing business, MindTree. He added, MindTree is a strong advocate of “Testing as a Career path” and these academia relationships help us address the issues from the grassroots level”.
LinkedIn registers its 100mth member
Online social network for job seekers and professionals LinkedIn, registers its 100 millionth member and it is now growing at a rate of roughly one million new members every week. On March 11, in a regulatory filing, the new total is about 10 million more than LinkedIn disclosed. LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner wrote in a blog post that Brazil and Mexico are among it's fastest growing countries. LinkedIn is seeking to raise up to $175 million in an initial public offering hoping to capitalize on the frenzied interest in privately held Internet companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Groupon. While LinkedIn's membership is growing, the company said in a regulatory filing for its IPO in January that a “substantial majority” of its members do not visit the site on a monthly basis.
Facebook bans 20,000 underage users a day
After social revolution has witnessed a saga in Tunisia and Egypt with the help of Facebook, a new-age error-free step is also about to begin, first step of which reported that about 20,000 underage users are kicked off the social networking site every day. The pied piper of social networking admitted that it had to do more to stop young people using Facebook after it came to light that about a third of Australia's population uses the site every day. The chief privacy adviser of Facebook, Mozelle Thompson, said many Australian children under the age of 13 were trying to access the site by lying about their age. “It's something that happens on a regular basis,” the Courier mail quoted Thompson as saying. Globally, about seven million children who lie about their age are blocked from the site each year.
2011 witnesses 800 job offers in DTU
Delhi's newest technological university has seen an uprising with placements crossing last year's mark by 117 job offers received this year, including the highest pay package offered so far for this year is Rs 11.8 lakh per annum. For 2010-11, 144 companies have already visited the Delhi Technological University (DTU) campus and made 800 job offers to about 500 eligible students, a university statement said adding placements would continue for two more months. “This further implies that about 115 students have got multiple job offers this year,” the statement added. DTU was previously known as the Delhi College of Engineering which received 683 job offers in 2009-10. Over 138 companies had visited the DTU campus and made 683 job offers to approximately 460 eligible candidates in the placement season which went on till June 2010. In 2008-09, 620 job offers were received by DTU students. The prominent companies which have visited DTU this year include Microsoft, Maruti, IOCL, GAIL, Sony, Yahoo, C-Dot, Nestle, JP Morgan, L&T, Tata Motors, Google, TCS and NTPC, among others. The largest number of recruiters in the last few years are from the IT and software sector, followed by automobile and allied engineering, civil and construction, and polymers and chemicals, the statement said. “The emerging sectors where hirings are taking place are knowledge process outsourcing and business analysis, with companies like Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Mckinsey & Co hiring students. “There is also an increase in demand in the construction industry with companies like Bector, Punj & Lloyd, Larsen & Turbo, Ansal Construction (this year), GS Construction, among others, recruiting DTU students in good numbers,” the statement.
IITians choose spiritualism as career
Several IITians are choosing a career in spiritualism keeping in mind that it is more uplifting option than i-banking or technology. A report from Iskcon Bangalore revealed that four students from IIT Guwahati and IIT Chennai recently joined it and many others from IIT are working with Ramakrishna and Sringeri Mutts, Art of Living (AOL), Mata Amritanandmayi ashram, Chinmaya mission and Shirdi Sai Baba ashram. Iskcon, Bangalore, at 18, has perhaps the largest number of IITians working in one city. Spiritual Inc is besting India Inc because it offers to these high achievers a combination of personal uplift and social service. Dinesh Ghodke, who runs the world youth programme at AOL packs a B.Tech Metallurgy from IIT Mumbai. Ghodke gave up a plush Rs 2 lakh per month job at Deloitte Touche to work full time for AOL. “In my second year, I had taken an AOL course. The first day of that course was the turning point in my life. The knowledge imparted was profound. I immediately felt my friends, sister, brother should all try it. The course, I felt was a fantastic platform for individual and social growth. I then organised courses myself. Along the way came the realisation that spirituality was a powerful tool that was replicable, sustainable and meaningful. And once I saw the organisational work that AOL was doing, I immediately felt spirituality was my calling.” For Iskon's Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa –an M.Tech from IIT Chennai, who had worked with American MNC, Novell Software — a lecture by a muslim, Russian professor, on the Bhagavad Gita, “was the turning point in my life. I took a step to understand life in the spiritual sense.”
Nokia 16,000 developers
Almost 16000 product developers' jobs are at a risk after Nokia plans to start lay-off talks in the last week of April after a Finnish election on 17th of the month, said Chairman Jorma Ollila. “It is not only about Finland but a global restructuring of our product development. Precise plans on job cuts are not made,” he said. Finnish labour unions fear the move could cost more than 5,000 jobs. “In the horizon there is nothing that would be particularly horrible for Finland, or something that would give ground for the argument that Finland would not be treated well,” he said. “This is not (for Finland) like what we have seen with the closures of pulp plant or paper plant. There is a huge shortage of telecommunication experts in Europe, and in Finland it is the same,” Ollila said. Ollila also added, “Big shareholders in Finnish group Nokia like its new smartphone strategy but some are impatient with the timescale.” “We have spoken with 20-30 central shareholders and their message is very clear. They consider the strategy good and the Windows decision a right one,” Ollila was quoted as saying in an interview. “They do not like that we are about to start a restructuring period that takes 18 months or two years. It is such a long period that some investors do not have patience for that,” he told the newspaper, adding Nokia's share price was “painful for the board”. Nokia, the world's top cellphone maker by volume, last month announced a strategy overhaul, dumping its own software platforms and saying it would use Microsoft's Windows Phone, hitting its shares.
Nokia’s Navteq helps target consumers with indoor mapping service
Shopkeepers and retailers would now better target consumers with the launch an indoor mapping service by Nokia's digital mapping arm Navteq. Over 200 of the largest shopping centres in the United States are covered by Navteq's Destination Maps and expansion plans are on for more shopping centres and other types of destinations throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. “Navteq's decision to look seriously at building up its indoor map coverage shows the continued importance of leadership in location based services and content to Nokia, particularly as it looks to capitalise on that value in working with Microsoft,” said Canalys analyst Tim Shepherd.
App to subtract alcoholic contents on Facebook
Twitter and Facebook would now be free of drunken photos and messages with the invention of a new application by iPhone. “Last Night Never Happened”, the user-friendly iPhone application, costs 1.19 pounds and deletes all “embarrassing” social network activity, including status updates, tweets, photos and comments, over a set period. All that a user has to do is simply submit the time he or she had started drinking and all posts from their networking sites' accounts would be deleted since that time. “We all get carried away sometimes and end up posting embarrassing tweets and photos of ourselves and our friends, forgetting that all of our Facebook and Twitter contacts can see them, family and potential employers included, said inventor programmer Daniel Cowen.” “'Last Night Never Happened' is the life-saving app that will help you avoid letting those posts spread on the internet and save you a lot of embarrassment.”
