Unlike US where you pay $200 for an Iphone and then $80+ per month for next for 24 months to indirectly pay for the phone costs, cellphone service providers are not allowed to club their plans with the cellphone costs --- which is really good.
The cost of data plan could be as cheap as $2 per month in India, and cellphone service as low as 2 cents per minute (now even cheaper).
It makes no sense for Indians to buy a $800 iPhone then.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) primarily originated from UK. MRSA was responsible for 94,360 serious infections and associated with 18,650 hospital stay-related deaths in the United States in 2005. MRSA is thought to have caused 1,652 deaths in 2006 in UK up from 51 in 1993. Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion people carry some form of S. aureus; of these, up to 53 million (2.7% of carriers) are thought to carry MRSA.[59] In the United States, 95 million carry S. aureus in their noses; of these, 2.5 million (2.6% of carriers) carry MRSA. As a matter of fact # of hospital aquired infections (that includes MRSA) in Europe ranges from 4% to 10% of all hospital admissions.
I am not surprised that they found a drug resistant TB strain in India. The only thing that surprises me is why not every disease is drug resistant in India.
Many poor Indians would pop anti-biotic tablets like candies after buying them for few cents from an over the counter store (its in direct contrast to the US system where even after paying a fortune you don't get antibiotics). They are often cheap, more or less affective and gets them rid of the problems...but not always.
Antibiotics would require you to finish an entire course, else they become ineffective for ever. There are uneducated idiots in India who would pop one or two tablets and never heed to advice by the pharmacist (and at times they would not have enough money to buy the complete course too).
So why are we surprised that there is an emergence of a strain that no antibiotics can cure? Most likely the previous commenter is right - they haven't found an alternative antibiotic yet. I am sure some random Indian lab would develop it in a few months, but it won't work for long - its more of a systemic problem than a medical issue.
That's nice logic. You suggest it is right to suck it up to US, Canada and the other first world countries without a single noise....and when other countries ask for the same, its right to cry Privacy concerns...
"If blackberry communications are no longer privileged the companies would do XYZ"
1. Blackberry communications are indeed not privileged. Its just that the dumb Indian security agencies cannot get a way around it like the US. 2. If blackberries goes away, companies would switch to Nokia, Apple or any other damn device...
But what's really gonna happen is that Blackberry would cave soon, and tell the government officials, "you nutjobs should have figured it out yourself without creating a big fracas, but lets help. Anyways thanks for the publicity !!"
1. A security researcher arrested for possession of an EVM machine 2. The security researcher establishing the fact that EVMs in India are vulnerable to security attacks
As per 1, why is the Indian police wrong? If a stolen object is found with you, its you who are liable. Whether it was given by "unknown resources" is not important.
For 2. Is that something new? Is there any software system that is 100% secure? But don't we still use them - in banks, in flights and everywhere. The question is benefits vs risks. Now before someone argues about that here, I would say, please stop trolling and be reasonable. Indian election scenario is nowhere close to US or Europe or any developed country. If there is any real Security expert out here, he can vouch that security vulnerabilities are 90% because of humans and processes, and only 10% because of machines.
So what's the Indian voting scenario? We are talking about over 700 million voters spread across thousands of constituencies, in more than 5 phases, spread across more than 20 days, that involve more than 100 thousand administrative personals that are managed by an autonomous body called "Election Commission of India". During the election, the Election Commission has absolute powers. It can suspend bureaucrats, order an arrest, or re-voting in a particular constituency. Fortunately this is one of the few agencies in India that are widely respected (by all parties) for its non-partisan role. These EVMs just make it a bit easier for these election commission guys to administer a free and fare election. But still the entire operation is a no less a challenge...
Compare this with just 10 years back. When booth looting was a common story in some of the disconnected country side regions. You heard it right - booth looting refers to some armed men storming the election room, stamping ballet papers for their own candidates; and all it required was mere 20 minutes to alter the result. But these machines ensure that only "1 vote can be cast in 1 min". So even if there is any forced capture, in one hour these guys can cast at the max 60 votes. And one hour is enough for the security to arrive and take remedial action.
Also unlike US, the scale is huge in India. In order to really affect the elections one needs to rig a lot many machines, which is not very practical.
What these security researchers are suggesting is to dump the machines and go back to paper based ballet. What we must also consider is the cost of doing that. India spent around $1 billion for its last electronic voting based election. My question is that by spending N times the amount, and introducing paper based ballet, can someone ensure a free and fare election? If not, why rob this huge amount from poor people.
Neither is the recent flooding any form of joke for Pakistanis, nor is the safeguarding of its population (against terrorism) any joke for India.
Privacy may be a big concern in the US and EU, but most surveys in India actually give precedence to Security over privacy; even if it leads to Government spying on communication. Trust me, there is nothing facetious about this...
Pakistan has been the (alleged and many a times proven) source of funding for most terrorist attacks. Blackberry has been the alleged/potential medium for communication for terrorists that can not be traced. I see nothing draconian about Indian government requesting Blackberry asking for tracking their data, specially when ever other telecom provider does.
Countries like India would love to have more Americans:) Bangalore has only about 30 thousand US citizens. More Americans in India would only increase the competitiveness of Indian companies.
Btw. as far as proportions go, Bangalore at any time has more outsiders than locals. The local Kannadigas are 5th when it comes to the population ratio. And perhaps that makes Bangalore more competitive than any other city in India when it comes to Information Technology.
Yes, this is crazy. There are more than "11 million" illegal* Hispanic immigrants to US. The logic is, that by raising the fees for H1B, more money can be raised to control the immigration at the borders. There is nothing wrong with that, as every country has the right to determine the cost of its visa applications. But then is it logical?
The "total" number of H1B's has been 65,000. Out of this, only 20,000 applications got filled last year. And most of these applications are by people who are educated, English-speaking graduates. It does need some qualifications to get into companies like Intel, Microsoft or Infosys, be it any part of the world.
I am wondering what is more harmful to US? Is it those 60,000 underpaid IT-coolies who almost always have a bachelors or masters degree in their hand, or the millions of almost illiterate immigrants who cannot speak English, and out of which "many of them" rely on not-so-legal means of livelihood in US.
I visited a friend in Westchester, NewYork and found it funny that many people there could/would not speak English. It was even more idiotic that many of them had 5 kids, as US government provides child-support for each of them. This poor friend of mine is a Chinese national with a PhD degree who works as a researcher on an H1B, but it was ironic that his wife cannot legally work here even though she has a bachelors from a top university in China.
> That is true, I don't realize the amount of money and effort US agencies spend on this stuff. Do you have numbers, or are you just making stuff up?
- DARPA grants from their tactical and strategic technology offices alone exceeded $40 million for network analysis related projects involving 8 universities. Data for these varies from emails to social network nodes. - US military projects to IBM are worth above $100 million this year. A big fraction of these deals with data analysis. - ONR sanctioned more than $10 million for analyzing networks - US airport names screening heavily relies on mining information, and is a huge project. - DOD, FBI and CIA all have initiated large projects dealing with network analysis.
Further, if you have to gauge the funding levels for network analysis check out the new faculty recruits in most big universities.
I want my Government to save me from terrorist threats. Tracing calls from Terrorists has been one of the important tool. And in the past they have. If these telecom providers can cooperate with US agencies, why the heck Indian Govt not expect the same.
Ans seriously, who needs blackberry. Google, Apple, Nokia all provide decent alternatives...
Your emails, messages and communications are regularly analyzed by DOD for keywords. You won't even realize the amount of money and effort US agencies spend on network analysis, and the amount of funding available for such projects.
What disses me off is so much hypocrisy by American companies. They would co-operate with US federal agencies and provide the required data discretely, but would keep cribbing when other agencies ask for the same.
I am not sure which country you are from. But if you are from US, there is a high probability the government already has access to all your emails, cellphone communications and messages. It is not that government cares about who you are, or people whom you talk to. Your communications are merely data nodes where these data elements are part of large networks that go through regular network analysis for keywords. If you happen to be some one from Sudan or Pakistan, with close association defined by your name or some other similarity measure, the chances of such analysis are high.
Now, you may call it a privacy breach. But if this analysis saves lives, why the heck should government not do that?
And if US is allowed to do that, its duplicity to cry foul when India asks for the same?
May be it has nothing to do with rivalry for India. India's problems with terrorism are quite genuine and there have been so many recent cases where the Indian Police have tracked calls to foil terrorist plans or trace them.
Given that Blackberry co-operates so much with US agencies, agrees to set up a server in China that would only be used for political purposes rather than defense or security, it makes sense for India to get dissed. And with almost explosive growth of cellphone users in India, with around 40 million* new users added per year, why should India care about Blackberry? Google, Apple and others have all entered this smart phone segment, and they can all be viable alternatives.
Well in general I believe your point of view. But not 100%.
Capitalism is good, but it does require a catalyst in form of benevolent funding for a head-start (from a Government agency). Indian IT companies are (almost) 100% privately owned, but almost all of them started with Govt support in the form of free land and tax breaks. Ditto with IT industry in Texas.
It is not the Government's job to run companies. But Government's help in setting up agencies like NSF, DARPA etc and funding such projects goes a long way in helping research that no other company would ever invest on.
Btw, you talk about NASA constellation project and others. The very reason US can bomb a terrorist hiding along Pakistan and Afghan border without significantly exposing human lives is because it has technologies, many of which originated from federal projects. This culture of innovation in US is what keeps it as the only super power, even when it almost produces Zilch, but still manages to control the top end of the innovation pyramid. If you want an example of capitalism gone wrong, just have a look at US health care. 3.8 trillion dollar of spending on health-care spending in 2008 alone, but its still the shabbiest thing I have even seen ever.
It appears reasonable at a level of a prototype. This dude says that it's available for $30 with $5 overheads. I kind of tend to believe him. It's way far from something like I-Pad. But at this price, if it works, I would call it cute.
I am assuming assembling cost in India would be extremely low owing to the difference in labor cost. If Government is involved, the project can get breaks from import/export duties for parts. And since Indian Govt is involved, suppliers would also give deep discounts sniffing large orders.
I would be actually happy if these are not high ends. Their goal is not to replace Ipads but to be present as a cheap alternative for Montessori kids who would like to know more about computers and basically learn from it.
There was a similar drive in around 2000, when IISC (a university in India) produced "Simputer" a very early stage handheld device. It was supposed to be a cheap Linux-based device, and at that time it was way better than most palms. Unfortunately, Simputers shifted its focus to more and more advanced features. They are still way better than many Palms I have used. But they are almost dead.
If I get something like this for $35 (~ cost of 3 or 4 books in India) I won't mind buying one and storing PDF files on them.
In worst case, efforts like these push prices down and forces manufacturers to be creative and innovative. For instance, after Tata Nano's success Indians have had many more options, as almost everyone is competing for a small car. Even though Nano's prices have moved up a bit, others have come down "drastically". And that's kind of cool...
Last but not the least, instead of just providing cheap services or manufacturing cheap stuff for their American counterparts, efforts like these help countries like India and China move up the innovation pyramid.
Slashdot Mirror
Unlike US where you pay $200 for an Iphone and then $80+ per month for next for 24 months to indirectly pay for the phone costs, cellphone service providers are not allowed to club their plans with the cellphone costs --- which is really good.
The cost of data plan could be as cheap as $2 per month in India, and cellphone service as low as 2 cents per minute (now even cheaper).
It makes no sense for Indians to buy a $800 iPhone then.
@Boregardless: How about you stop your racist tripe and take a dose of facts:
The origin of MSRA has been primarily traced from Europe, and thats where today there are maximum infections (and deaths).
Read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methicillin-resistant_Staphylococcus_aureus#US_and_UK
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) primarily originated from UK. MRSA was responsible for 94,360 serious infections and associated with 18,650 hospital stay-related deaths in the United States in 2005. MRSA is thought to have caused 1,652 deaths in 2006 in UK up from 51 in 1993. Worldwide, an estimated 2 billion people carry some form of S. aureus; of these, up to 53 million (2.7% of carriers) are thought to carry MRSA.[59] In the United States, 95 million carry S. aureus in their noses; of these, 2.5 million (2.6% of carriers) carry MRSA. As a matter of fact # of hospital aquired infections (that includes MRSA) in Europe ranges from 4% to 10% of all hospital admissions.
I am not surprised that they found a drug resistant TB strain in India. The only thing that surprises me is why not every disease is drug resistant in India.
Many poor Indians would pop anti-biotic tablets like candies after buying them for few cents from an over the counter store (its in direct contrast to the US system where even after paying a fortune you don't get antibiotics). They are often cheap, more or less affective and gets them rid of the problems...but not always.
Antibiotics would require you to finish an entire course, else they become ineffective for ever. There are uneducated idiots in India who would pop one or two tablets and never heed to advice by the pharmacist (and at times they would not have enough money to buy the complete course too).
So why are we surprised that there is an emergence of a strain that no antibiotics can cure? Most likely the previous commenter is right - they haven't found an alternative antibiotic yet. I am sure some random Indian lab would develop it in a few months, but it won't work for long - its more of a systemic problem than a medical issue.
to save itself from Canada, Cuba and Mexico !! And yes some 10,000+ aren't enough.
That's nice logic. You suggest it is right to suck it up to US, Canada and the other first world countries without a single noise....and when other countries ask for the same, its right to cry Privacy concerns...
It does smells hypocrisy...
Duuh....Chill Dude.
"If blackberry communications are no longer privileged the companies would do XYZ"
1. Blackberry communications are indeed not privileged. Its just that the dumb Indian security agencies cannot get a way around it like the US.
2. If blackberries goes away, companies would switch to Nokia, Apple or any other damn device...
But what's really gonna happen is that Blackberry would cave soon, and tell the government officials, "you nutjobs should have figured it out yourself without creating a big fracas, but lets help. Anyways thanks for the publicity !!"
There are two aspects to the article:
1. A security researcher arrested for possession of an EVM machine
2. The security researcher establishing the fact that EVMs in India are vulnerable to security attacks
As per 1, why is the Indian police wrong? If a stolen object is found with you, its you who are liable. Whether it was given by "unknown resources" is not important.
For 2. Is that something new? Is there any software system that is 100% secure? But don't we still use them - in banks, in flights and everywhere. The question is benefits vs risks. Now before someone argues about that here, I would say, please stop trolling and be reasonable. Indian election scenario is nowhere close to US or Europe or any developed country. If there is any real Security expert out here, he can vouch that security vulnerabilities are 90% because of humans and processes, and only 10% because of machines.
So what's the Indian voting scenario? We are talking about over 700 million voters spread across thousands of constituencies, in more than 5 phases, spread across more than 20 days, that involve more than 100 thousand administrative personals that are managed by an autonomous body called "Election Commission of India". During the election, the Election Commission has absolute powers. It can suspend bureaucrats, order an arrest, or re-voting in a particular constituency. Fortunately this is one of the few agencies in India that are widely respected (by all parties) for its non-partisan role. These EVMs just make it a bit easier for these election commission guys to administer a free and fare election. But still the entire operation is a no less a challenge...
Compare this with just 10 years back. When booth looting was a common story in some of the disconnected country side regions. You heard it right - booth looting refers to some armed men storming the election room, stamping ballet papers for their own candidates; and all it required was mere 20 minutes to alter the result. But these machines ensure that only "1 vote can be cast in 1 min". So even if there is any forced capture, in one hour these guys can cast at the max 60 votes. And one hour is enough for the security to arrive and take remedial action.
Also unlike US, the scale is huge in India. In order to really affect the elections one needs to rig a lot many machines, which is not very practical.
What these security researchers are suggesting is to dump the machines and go back to paper based ballet. What we must also consider is the cost of doing that. India spent around $1 billion for its last electronic voting based election. My question is that by spending N times the amount, and introducing paper based ballet, can someone ensure a free and fare election? If not, why rob this huge amount from poor people.
Neither is the recent flooding any form of joke for Pakistanis, nor is the safeguarding of its population (against terrorism) any joke for India.
Privacy may be a big concern in the US and EU, but most surveys in India actually give precedence to Security over privacy; even if it leads to Government spying on communication. Trust me, there is nothing facetious about this...
Yes you are wrong :) That's in Pakistan, not India. Do read BBC, NewYorkTimes or as a matter of fact any newspaper sometimes.
Pakistan has been the (alleged and many a times proven) source of funding for most terrorist attacks. Blackberry has been the alleged/potential medium for communication for terrorists that can not be traced. I see nothing draconian about Indian government requesting Blackberry asking for tracking their data, specially when ever other telecom provider does.
Btw. even today there is a news headline about how Indian police cracked a murder victim by tracking his cellphone calls:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Infosys-manager-confesses-to-killing-wife-held/articleshow/6308212.cms
May be Indian police men are not able to track such communications in Blackberries.
Countries like India would love to have more Americans :) Bangalore has only about 30 thousand US citizens. More Americans in India would only increase the competitiveness of Indian companies.
Btw. as far as proportions go, Bangalore at any time has more outsiders than locals. The local Kannadigas are 5th when it comes to the population ratio. And perhaps that makes Bangalore more competitive than any other city in India when it comes to Information Technology.
Yes, this is crazy. There are more than "11 million" illegal* Hispanic immigrants to US. The logic is, that by raising the fees for H1B, more money can be raised to control the immigration at the borders. There is nothing wrong with that, as every country has the right to determine the cost of its visa applications. But then is it logical?
The "total" number of H1B's has been 65,000. Out of this, only 20,000 applications got filled last year. And most of these applications are by people who are educated, English-speaking graduates. It does need some qualifications to get into companies like Intel, Microsoft or Infosys, be it any part of the world.
I am wondering what is more harmful to US? Is it those 60,000 underpaid IT-coolies who almost always have a bachelors or masters degree in their hand, or the millions of almost illiterate immigrants who cannot speak English, and out of which "many of them" rely on not-so-legal means of livelihood in US.
I visited a friend in Westchester, NewYork and found it funny that many people there could/would not speak English. It was even more idiotic that many of them had 5 kids, as US government provides child-support for each of them. This poor friend of mine is a Chinese national with a PhD degree who works as a researcher on an H1B, but it was ironic that his wife cannot legally work here even though she has a bachelors from a top university in China.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
>> For the headlines to be true, you need to first assume the entire world is at war.
War against/for XYZ, where XYZ = Superset of {terrorism, religion, ethnicity, resources, poverty, ego ...}
Do you know a country that is not involved in any of these :)
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/hardware/BlackBerry-to-open-code-for-security-check/articleshow/6249666.cms
Btw, India is indeed in the right company. Things are no different for US.
> That is true, I don't realize the amount of money and effort US agencies spend on this stuff. Do you have numbers, or are you just making stuff up?
- DARPA grants from their tactical and strategic technology offices alone exceeded $40 million for network analysis related projects involving 8 universities. Data for these varies from emails to social network nodes.
- US military projects to IBM are worth above $100 million this year. A big fraction of these deals with data analysis.
- ONR sanctioned more than $10 million for analyzing networks
- US airport names screening heavily relies on mining information, and is a huge project.
- DOD, FBI and CIA all have initiated large projects dealing with network analysis.
Further, if you have to gauge the funding levels for network analysis check out the new faculty recruits in most big universities.
Boo-fucking-hoo to your post.
I want my Government to save me from terrorist threats. Tracing calls from Terrorists has been one of the important tool. And in the past they have. If these telecom providers can cooperate with US agencies, why the heck Indian Govt not expect the same.
Ans seriously, who needs blackberry. Google, Apple, Nokia all provide decent alternatives...
You are ignorant my dear friend...
Your emails, messages and communications are regularly analyzed by DOD for keywords. You won't even realize the amount of money and effort US agencies spend on network analysis, and the amount of funding available for such projects.
What disses me off is so much hypocrisy by American companies. They would co-operate with US federal agencies and provide the required data discretely, but would keep cribbing when other agencies ask for the same.
Cellphone services are cheap in India. (Blackberry services start from Rs 249 per month == $5).
I am not sure which country you are from. But if you are from US, there is a high probability the government already has access to all your emails, cellphone communications and messages. It is not that government cares about who you are, or people whom you talk to. Your communications are merely data nodes where these data elements are part of large networks that go through regular network analysis for keywords. If you happen to be some one from Sudan or Pakistan, with close association defined by your name or some other similarity measure, the chances of such analysis are high.
Now, you may call it a privacy breach. But if this analysis saves lives, why the heck should government not do that?
And if US is allowed to do that, its duplicity to cry foul when India asks for the same?
May be it has nothing to do with rivalry for India. India's problems with terrorism are quite genuine and there have been so many recent cases where the Indian Police have tracked calls to foil terrorist plans or trace them.
Given that Blackberry co-operates so much with US agencies, agrees to set up a server in China that would only be used for political purposes rather than defense or security, it makes sense for India to get dissed. And with almost explosive growth of cellphone users in India, with around 40 million* new users added per year, why should India care about Blackberry? Google, Apple and others have all entered this smart phone segment, and they can all be viable alternatives.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
Well in general I believe your point of view. But not 100%.
Capitalism is good, but it does require a catalyst in form of benevolent funding for a head-start (from a Government agency). Indian IT companies are (almost) 100% privately owned, but almost all of them started with Govt support in the form of free land and tax breaks. Ditto with IT industry in Texas.
It is not the Government's job to run companies. But Government's help in setting up agencies like NSF, DARPA etc and funding such projects goes a long way in helping research that no other company would ever invest on.
Btw, you talk about NASA constellation project and others. The very reason US can bomb a terrorist hiding along Pakistan and Afghan border without significantly exposing human lives is because it has technologies, many of which originated from federal projects. This culture of innovation in US is what keeps it as the only super power, even when it almost produces Zilch, but still manages to control the top end of the innovation pyramid. If you want an example of capitalism gone wrong, just have a look at US health care. 3.8 trillion dollar of spending on health-care spending in 2008 alone, but its still the shabbiest thing I have even seen ever.
Actually, I am not sure if this the same. Sorry, if it is not.
The news reports mentions about it being produced by academic institutions. It is common for them to have a partner company. But I am not 100% sure.
Here is a link to one of its demonstration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGYHH16XTks
It appears reasonable at a level of a prototype. This dude says that it's available for $30 with $5 overheads. I kind of tend to believe him. It's way far from something like I-Pad. But at this price, if it works, I would call it cute.
Well you are right. It's not magic after all :)
I am assuming assembling cost in India would be extremely low owing to the difference in labor cost. If Government is involved, the project can get breaks from import/export duties for parts. And since Indian Govt is involved, suppliers would also give deep discounts sniffing large orders.
I would be actually happy if these are not high ends. Their goal is not to replace Ipads but to be present as a cheap alternative for Montessori kids who would like to know more about computers and basically learn from it.
There was a similar drive in around 2000, when IISC (a university in India) produced "Simputer" a very early stage handheld device. It was supposed to be a cheap Linux-based device, and at that time it was way better than most palms. Unfortunately, Simputers shifted its focus to more and more advanced features. They are still way better than many Palms I have used. But they are almost dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simputer
I both agree and disagree.
If I get something like this for $35 (~ cost of 3 or 4 books in India) I won't mind buying one and storing PDF files on them.
In worst case, efforts like these push prices down and forces manufacturers to be creative and innovative. For instance, after Tata Nano's success Indians have had many more options, as almost everyone is competing for a small car. Even though Nano's prices have moved up a bit, others have come down "drastically". And that's kind of cool...
Last but not the least, instead of just providing cheap services or manufacturing cheap stuff for their American counterparts, efforts like these help countries like India and China move up the innovation pyramid.