Guided tour to Google Lively

Google gets Second Life. The no. 1 search engine company has launched a 3D virtual space, called Google Lively, that aims to give competition to the popular virtual world hangout Second Life.

The free service which requires no registration and can be accessed through a user's Google account enables people to congregate in fantasy rooms and other computer-manufactured versions of real life.

Lively's users will be able to create an avatar for themselves that can be male, female or even a different species. This avatar can assume a new identity, change clothes or convey emotions with a few clicks of the mouse. Lively also enables users to create different digital environments to roam, from a child's room to an exotic island.

Here's how users can find there way into the Lively world.

How to get going

Start with choosing your avatar. Users can choose from a variety of avatars available and can further personalise them to their liking. Every avatar has different animations and can be dolled up in various outfits and accessories.

Users can also go shopping for their favourite characters, say Logan, Hamlet, Matty bear, Heather, Jane Doe, Hajime, John Doe, Kitty, Ty and Vanessa among the choices available. Many of them are also available for free.

Lively users can then invite their friends and family into their virtual realities, where they can chat, hug, cry, laugh and interact as if they were characters in a video game.

Deck up your avatar!

Users can deck up their avatar to match their style. There are lots of colours and accessories to choose from. Lively users can choose from the clothing like tops, bottoms, shoes, suits, coats, outerwear, hats and gloves. They can also have their choice in skin and hair colours.

To change the outfit, users need to check out the styles available in the wardrobe picker. Browse or search the options in your wardrobe inventory and select items to wear.

In case a user feels that the chosen clothing or accessory doesn't suit his avatar, they can go back to their wardrobe, left-click on the item, and choose Remove Item.

Create your room

Another step is selecting your room. With Google Lively users can create their own space and share it with their friends. The way to go here is to choose a room shell first. This comes in variety of styles and shapes. Some popular rooms are girl's room, fight club, Fashion room and of course Google room.

Users can get the code they want to use to embed their room in a blog or webpage.

Users can also add music to play in their rooms. For this, users need to upload a music file from their computer or select from inventory. Also, you can grant permission if you want your visitors to enjoy.

Personalise your space

This one lets users decorate their rooms and add unique collections. Several choices are available, ranging from girl's room chair, segmented cabinet, superhero chair, tub couch, to Goth paintings and round coffee tables.

To choose furniture and other room decor items, users need to open the furniture picker and browse through the choices available. If they like something, click on the item and click on Add to room. They can also move around the furniture around and decide the placing.

Users can also design their rooms as per the theme of their choice, say nature lover or gizmo freak. The rooms can be decorated large-screen TVs that can be set up to play different clips from YouTube.com, Google's video-sharing service.

Explore further

To explore further, users can click on an object to leave a comment, or to find that item in the catalog.

More interesting, they can also double-click on an object to see if it comes to life!

* Indiatimes News Network dt. 11 7 2008

IT cos upbeat on Q1

MUMBAI: India's top business service firms are likely to see higher revenues in the first quarter, boosted by a falling rupee and sustained offshore business from US clients, analysts say.

They forecast revenues for Indian software firms to grow by between three and 10 per cent in the three months ending June, helped by a weaker rupee.

Infosys, the Bangalore-based pioneer of India's showpiece business process outsourcing sector, kicks-off the earnings season on Friday.

"Infosys and Satyam will meet revenue projections as they had based their quarterly and full-year earnings guidance at 40 (rupees to the dollar), much lower than that prevailing in the quarter," brokerage Religare Securities said in a report.

The average rate for the rupee was 42.8 for the April-June quarter. A stronger dollar benefits India's software companies as they bill most US-based clients in the currency.

The US remains the biggest market for Indian software and service exports, which are forecast by the industry lobby group National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) to hit $60 billion by 2010.

"The business environment for IT stocks has become slightly favourable than at the beginning of the year," said Bhavin Shah of J P Morgan.

Last year software firms such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro were roiled by the rupee's steepest appreciation against the dollar in three decades, surging wages and proper

"Mathematically speaking, Infosys could increase their full-year earnings guidance by 6-7 per cent," Bhavin said.

"The growth in revenues is being primarily driven by a volume growth, boosted by a seven per cent depreciation in the rupee (against the dollar)," brokerage Sharekhan.com said in a note to clients.

For the January-March quarter Infosys posted a lower-than-expected net profit growth of 9.2 per cent at Rs 12.49 billion (315.04 million dollars), as a US economic slowdown hit clients' budgets.

Software stocks have been volatile this year, but have outperformed the interest rate-sensitive property, automobile and banking sectors, which were hit by several rounds of monetary tightening by India's central bank as it battles 13-year-high inflation.

There is renewed optimism after better-than-expected third-quarter earnings from US-based Accenture.

The global consulting and outsourcing firm said it has not seen any cancellation or big delays in its business due to a weaker US economy and the financial sector.

New bookings for Accenture, a key indicator of future revenues, rose by five per cent at $6.77 billion in the third quarter.

"We expect IT players to witness an increase in offshore volumes going ahead. An early indication of this is seen in Accenture's third-quarter earnings," said Anurag Purohit of Religare Securities.

Indian software exports grew 29 per cent to cross the $40-billion mark in the fiscal year just ended, despite global economic turmoil, Nasscom said.

A recent global survey of top chief investment officers indicates that IT spending could be stronger than expected in 2008.

The survey says that IT spending is set to grow at 8 per cent in the second half of the year, against three per cent same period last year.

Indiatimes.com dt. 11 7 2008

Six Indian cos among BusinessWeek's top 100 Infotech firms

NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the turmoil in global economic environment, as many as six Indian firms, including Reliance Comm and Bharti Airtel, have been named among top 100 best-performing infotech companies in the world by a US magazine BusinessWeek.

The BusinessWeek's latest annual list 'The Infotech 100', which ranks the firms on the basis of shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues and revenue growth, has ranked telecom major Bharti Airtel at the 21st position followed by Reddington India (55th) and RCom (66th).

The list is topped by US firms --Amazon.com and Apple-- who have taken the top two spots this year. However, the magazine said in an accompanying report that "the dominance of US companies is in decline, the country has 33 companies among the IT 100 this year, down from 43 in 2007."

Other Indian firms on the list, includes -- Azim Premji-led Wipro at the 74th position, Satyam at 91 rank and HCL Technologies has been ranked at the 95th position among the list of 100 firms.

South African telecom firm MTN Group, which is in exclusive talks with Anil Ambani Group flagship firm Reliance Communications, has been ranked at the 12th position in the global list even ahead of global IT giants IBM and Microsoft, which are at 13th and 23rd ranks in the list, respectively.

Besides, the other fast emerging country China also has six companies among the top 100 Infotech companies in the world.

The magazine has compiled the information for the list by sorting through the financial results of 30,500 publicly traded companies and has ranked the technology players on four criteria --shareholder return, return on equity, total revenues and revenue growth.

The companies leading the list are those with the lowest aggregate ranking.

The companies which qualified had to have revenues of at least 300 million dollar then the collection of about 800 companies was divided into eight industry categories, such as software and semiconductors.

"Companies whose stock price has dropped more than 75 per cent, whose sales shrank, or where other developments raised questions about future performance were eliminated from contention.

"We also dropped some phone companies whose monopoly or near-monopoly power gives them an unfair advantage over competitors," the magazine added.

The Economic times 11 7 2008

Filing income-tax returns not so saral!

MUMBAI: Filing income-tax returns has never been so saral, as is made out to be. The latest controversy is about filing TDS (tax deducted at source) certificates. Last year, the department had issued an advise to taxpayers not to file any attachment with the returns. However, when taxpayers complied, the department changed its stand.

It said the TDS certificates would have to be filed along with the returns, else the returns will not be accepted. Now, taxpayers are in a fix: to file the attachment or not. Chartered accountant Nilesh Kapadia explains the dilemma. He says the income-tax commissioners are refusing to accept the returns if TDS certificates are not filed with the returns.

Even when you produce copies of TDS certificates along with the returns, the commissioners continue to reject the returns. The department insists that TDS certificates should be original.

The I-T department says the advise by the tax authorities not to file any attachment with the returns was part of its ongoing exercise to automate the whole administration. Office of the chief commissioner, Mumbai, said the instruction for not filing any attachment with the return was made in the financial year 2006-07.

The CBDT has already issued instructions that if the TDS claim by the employer is less than Rs 5 lakh or if the refund is less than Rs 25,000, the taxpayer need not produce the TDS certificate. In all other cases, the returns should carry the TDS certificate.

The office also explained the reason for the changed stance. Quite often, employers who are supposed to file quarterly returns do not follow the rule. And when they file it, they do not fill in crucial details like the PAN of the employee from whose salary the TDS has been deducted.

This prevents the officers from verifying the TDS payment mentioned in the return. Therefore, despite a decision to ask the employees not to file any attachment with the returns, the department had to reconsider the decision.
According to tax lawyer Jignesh R Shah, “Till the tax administration becomes completely automated, the taxpayers should be given an option to file returns electronically or manually.”

The Economic times dt. 11 7 2008