nielsen group

An average Indian smartphone user spends about two-and-half hours a day on the handset, dedicating more time to entertainment and internet activities than to voice calls and text messages, says a survey.

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According to a Nielsen-Informate Mobile Intelligence survey, Indian smartphone user spends 72 per cent of the time on activities such as gaming, entertainment, applications (apps) and internet related content.   The remaining 28 per cent of the time is used for voice calls and text messaging, it added. 'Today, younger Indians for instance, prefer texting and chat over voice communications and understanding this behaviour better can define data consumption and customer acquisition strategies for operators and handset providers,' Nielsen India managing director (media) Farshad Family said.   India's rapidly growing mobile user base presents marketers and businesses with an opportunity to improve the precision with which they reach out to the new Indian consumer, he added.   According to the study, while those in the age group of 15-24 years were spending about three hours a day on their smartphones, those in the over 31 year category spent about two hours.   Also, the younger smartphone users (15-25 years) spend two hours on browsing and entertainment compared to one hour in the other category (over 31 years).   Time spent on chat and SMS stood at about 31 minutes for the younger users against 15 minutes by the other category.

Sony to Ship First Android-based Tablet in September

Sony's Android Honeycomb-based single and dual-screen tablets will be called Tablet S and Tablet P, and cost from €479 (US$690) and €599, the company said on Wednesday at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin.

The two tablets were announced in April and have until now been known as the S1 and the S2.

Like so many other vendors of Android-based tablets, Sony hopes it can make a dent in Apple's sales of the iPad and grab a piece of the growing tablet market.

Sony's products take the tablet sector to a new level, according to Howard Stringer, the company's chairman, CEO and president.

"It is not who makes it first that counts, but who makes it better," said Stringer.

Sony is hoping content will help differentiate its tablet from the competition. The Tablet S and P will come with both music and movie download services. At IFA, the company announced it will gather all its content services under the Sony Entertainment Network brand.

The tablets will also be integrated with Sony's other products. For example, consumers can use them as a remote control, show images on DLNA-compatible TV sets. Music can be streamed to wireless speakers, as well.

Users will also get cloud-based storage, according to Sony.

The Tablet S and P are both PlayStation certified, which means the will be able to play first generation PlayStation games.

The Tablet S has a 9.4-inch screen and is shaped like a wedge. The upper portion of the tablet is thicker than the lower portion, which should make it easier to hold and also easier to view when sitting on a desk, according to Sony. At its thickest point the tablet measures 20.6 millimeters. It has a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor under the hood.

As has become a standard in the tablet space, it will come with Wi-Fi and 3G or Wi-Fi only. Storage is either 16GB or 32GB on the Wi-Fi version and 16GB on the Wi-Fi and 3G version. Users can add storage capacity using the SD card slot.

The Wi-Fi only version will start shipping in Europe at the end of September, and the 3G-equipped one will arrive in November.

At 625 grams the Tablet S with Wi-Fi and 3G is heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Apple's iPad2, which weigh 565 grams and 613 grams, respectively.

However, the Tablet P is the lightest of the bunch at 372 grams. The Tablet P is a folding device equipped with dual 5.5-inch screens, which basically makes it look like a Nintendo DS on steroids. When folded, the device measures about 79-by-180-by-26 millimeters, according to Sony.

The dual-screen tablet has the same Nvidia Tegra 2 mobile processor and will only be available with Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. Storage is 4GB, but that can be expanded using a microSD card.

The Tablet P will start shipping in November, according to Sony.

Both models feature front- and rear-facing cameras at 0.3-megapixels and 5-megapixels.

So far, 2011 hasn't been an easy year for Sony. The company reported a net loss for the three month period from April to June as it struggled with unfavorable exchange rates, cut-throat competition in the consumer electronics business and the hacking attack on its online gaming network, which is now "more secure than ever," according to Stinger. Add to that the fallout from the March earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.

Mankatha works only because of Ajith

The first thing that needs to be said about the enormously anticipated movie of the year, Cloud Nine and Sun Pictures' Mankatha, directed by Venkat Prabhu, is that this is probably the film Ajith has enjoyed making the most. This being his 50th film, as the title scorches the screen, you expect fire-works. Fireworks there are aplenty: guns blaze, men are liberally killed and gangsters run all over the place. In the midst of it all sits Thala Ajith, a lazy grin on his face, leaning stylishly against a car or in a dilapidated warehouse, and such is his screen presence that you almost forget the gaping inconsistencies in the screenplay. Almost.

For Mankatha, as you discover around half an hour into the film, depends entirely on its swashbuckling hero/villain, who appears in every frame, and makes sure your attention stays on him, and only him.

The beginning is worthy of any mass hero: a terrified Faizal (Aravind Akash) is tied down in a desert by the police, who are going to kill him any second, when a four-wheeler practically flies through the air, lands on the ground, scattering sand, and Vinayak Mahadevan (Ajith) emerges, salt-and-pepper hairdo, lazy contempt in his eyes and a stylish swagger, all perfectly in place. Bullets and guns are in plenty, but somehow no one uses them. Instead, they fall like dominos as Vinayak smashes through them.

Cut to the setting of the story: Mumbai [ Images ], bookies, betting in crores with the IPL as the background (except that cricket is not a part of the story), a local bigwig, Arumugam Chettiar (Jayaprakash), the owner of a ragged-looking theatre who is part of the bookies-racket, and many, many thugs. Vinayak's henchman Sumanth (Vaibhav) greedily eyes the cash that's heaped under his master's aegis. Together with his friend Mahath (Mahath), owner of a bar, Vinayak decides on a daring but rather bland heist. Roped in are cop Ganesh (Ashwin) and Prem (Premgi Amaren), a curly-haired, bumbling IT expert who seems to hack into any system within seconds.

In the midst of all this, having romanced the pretty Sanjana [ Images ] (Trisha [ Images ]), Vinayak gate-crashes the party, practically elbowing himself into the proceedings. He doesn't really bring in fantastic plot-twists, wonderful techniques or novel ideas to do away with 500 crores of money -- but who cares when he flips cigarettes like a pro, drinks like a fish and fights like Terminator?

And so goes the story -- Vinayak pits himself against the Special Force tasked to rout out the villains, and against its head, ACP Prithviraj (Arjun). And a series of extremely predictable, sequences follow, infused with dashes of humour that work only sporadically.

Ajith, the star that he is, has carried practically the whole film on his capable shoulders -- and he's simply had a blast as the guy whose character sports negative shades. He utters four-letter cuss words with the ease of long practice, sleeps with random women, drinks like there's no tomorrow and lusts after money with a passion that sweeps us all away. And you wonder why no one ever gave him a role like this after Vaali. The man's screen-presence works wonders -- and here, he's also had a blast dancing.

By contrast, naturally, the rest of the cast is at least ten paces behind him, and it's not all their fault; their roles have been written that way. Arjun, Trisha, Lakshmi Rai, Andrea Jeremiah, Vaibhav, Jayaprakash, though they perform well, are all relegated to the sidelines. Premgi Amaren isn't really that funny, except once or twice. And that's a pity. Mahath and Ashwin don't really have much to do. And why on earth did Anjali accept a role like this?

Sakthi Saravanan's camera-work isn't scintillating, but it manages to keep you interested. Praveen K L and N B Srikanth's editing could not have been more effective. Yuvan Shankar Raja's Vilaiyadu Mankatha is mesmerising; he also plays around with some of his father's tunes for the background score, appropriately placed. The rest of the songs, while passing muster, suffer because of their silly placement. A story that revolves around a heist needs to be racy, keeping you on the edge of the seat, biting your nails. And this is where it falters.

Director Venkat Prabhu has made a name for himself on his ability to wring humour from his tried and tested cast. The problem is, with Ajith, the star, present, he's vacillated from giving him enough screen-space, yet retaining the hilarity. And it doesn't really work. An hour into the film and you wonder if the huge build-up so far is just a lot of hot air. The dialogues aren't funny, the sequences are very predictable, the gun-fights are silly at times, the heroines vanish if you blink, and it's only in the last ten minutes that the lost momentum re-surfaces.

If you're a veteran of heist movies, and especially our own mass-masala movies, you should be able to guess the climax within the first ten minutes of the film. It is, in fact, the behind-the-scenes montage that's by far the best in the movie.

World’s 7 billionth person about to be born

The billion-mark was reached only after 1800 AD. When Jesus was born, there are thought to have been around 300 million people on earth.
In the days ahead, a baby will be born who will take the global population above 7 billion for the first time, and in all probability that birth will take place in China or India, the two countries with more than a billion inhabitants.

No one is sure. There may already be 7 billion passengers on spaceship earth, as no statistician would be prepared to say exactly when this event of largely symbolic significance takes place.

The United Nations has fixed October 31 as the date of the fateful birth, but events have so often proved demographers wrong in the past that the expectation is that it will be sooner rather than later The rate of population growth has soared over the course of recorded history: When Jesus was born, there are thought to have been around 300 million people on earth.

The billion-mark was reached only after 1800. As many as a billion have been added in the eleven years of the 21st century alone, and predictions on future population growth are now treated with the same caution and scepticism as long-range weather forecasts.

David Bloom of the Harvard School of Public Health says that the multitude of unpredictable factors means that taking a global view is problematic.

“Among them are infectious diseases, war, scientific progress, political change and our capacity for global cooperation,” he says.

The general expectation is, however, that population growth will tail off, with U.N. predictions for 2050 ranging from 8.0 to 10.5 billion.

What is clear is that the proportions will shift between the continents, driven by high birth rates in Asia and Africa. Soon India, with 1.2 billion currently, will take the lead from China, with 1.3 billion, as the world’s most populous nation.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country today with 162 million, will see its population increase to almost 750 million by the middle of the century.

Another example: highly industrialised Germany and developing Ethiopia each have a little more than 80 million people. In another 40 years, there will probably be 174 million Ethiopians, while Germany’s population will decline to 72 million.

And the industrialised world is ageing rapidly.

This also means that relations of political power will change.

Countries like China, India and Brazil, with its 193 million people, are already growing in political influence.

This has led European leaders, like German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to warn that “in a world of 7 billion people, we 500 million Europeans will have to stick together,” or European prosperity and values will both go down the drain.

The sheer weight of numbers means increasing pressure on land, food and energy sources, and there are increasing fears of a struggle for resources. Many believe that there will be wars between neighbouring countries over water.

The environmental organisation WWF estimates that three planets will be needed by 2050 if we do not change our habits.

“In the next 40 years we will have to produce the same amount of food as over the last 8,000 years,” the WWF’s Jason Clay believes. He notes that far too much is still thrown away in the industrialised world.

The optimists note that there have been repeated apocalyptic warnings of impending doom resulting from population growth, although they have not yet been realised.

In fact, technical and medical achievements have often led to a more positive outcome than that feared - not only as a result of the Pill and condom, but also through agricultural improvements.

And even the current population mark being passed takes on a new perspective when compared with the number of people the earth has played host to over the course of human history.

It is estimated that since Homo sapiens first appeared, there have been more than 100 billion of our kind - against which the current 7 billion should be set.

விநாயகர் சதுர்த்தி கொண்டாட்டம்

சென்னை, செப். 1: நாடு முழுவதும் இன்று விநாயகர் சதுர்த்தி விழா கோலாகலமாக கொண்டாடப்பட்டது. பிள்ளையார்பட்டி, திருச்சி உச்சி பிள்ளையார் கோயில்களில் சிறப்பு அபிஷேகங்கள் செய்யப்பட்டன.
விநாயகர் சதுர்த்தியையொட்டி முழுவதும் உள்ள விநாயகர் கோயில் உள்ளிட்ட முக்கிய கோயில்களில் சிறப்பு வழிபாட்டுக்கு ஏற்பாடு செய்யப்பட்டிருந்தது. அதிகாலை 5 மணிக்கே கோயில்களில் நடை திறக்கப்பட்டது. பொதுமக்கள் தங்கள் குழந்தைகளுடன் நீண்ட வரிசையில் நின்று சாமி தரிசனம் செய்தனர். விநாயகருக்கு சிறப்பு அபிஷேக, ஆராதனைகள், வழிபாடுகள் நடத்தப்பட்டன.
சென்னை முழுவதும் பல்வேறு அமைப்புகள் சார்பில் சாலையோரத்தில் பந்தல்கள் அமைக்கப்பட்டு விநாயகர் சிலைகள் வைக்கப்பட்டுள்ளன. அங்கும் சிறப்பு வழிபாடுகள் நடைபெற்றன.
சென்னை மற்றும் புறநகர் பகுதியில் 1300 இடங்களில் பிரமாண்ட விநாயகர் சிலைகள் வைக்க போலீசார் அனுமதி அளித்துள்ளனர். 4 முதல் 10 அடி உயரம் கொண்ட சிலைகள் மட்டுமே வைக்க அனுமதி அளிக்கப்பட்டுள்ளது. இதற்காக சென்னை நகர் முழுவதும் 18 ஆயிரம் போலீசார் பாதுகாப்பு பணியில் ஈடுபடுத்தப்பட்டுள்ளனர். விநாயகர் சிலைகள் சனி மற்றும் ஞாயிறன்று ஊர்வலமாக எடுத்து செல்லப்பட்டு கடலில் கரைக்கப்பட உள்ளன.
பிள்ளையார்பட்டி கற்பக விநாயகர், திருச்சி மலைக்கோட்டை உச்சி பிள்ளையார், பாண்டிச்சேரி மணக்குள விநாயகர், மதுரை முக்குறுணி விநாயகர் உள்ளிட்ட ஆலயங்களிலும் சிறப்பு அபிஷேக, ஆராதனை நடந்தது. பக்தர்கள் நீண்ட வரிசையில் காத்திருந்து சாமி தரிசனம் செய்தனர்.

யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜா திருப்பதியில் டும்.. டும்..

திருப்பதி, செப். 1:

இசைஞானி இளையராஜா மகனும் பிரபல இசையமைப்பாளருமான யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜா திருமணம் திருப்பதியில் நடந்தது.
பிரபல இசை அமைப்பாளர் யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜா. இவர் தமிழில் 85 படங்களுக்கு மேல் இசை அமைத்துள்ளார். 7ஜி ரெயின்போ காலனி, மன்மதன், ராம், சண்டைக்கோழி, பருத்திவீரன், அவன் இவன், மங்காத்தா உள்ளிட்ட 85 படங்களுக்கு மேல் இசையமைத்துள்ளவர் யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜா. இவருக்கும் சுஜன்யா என்பவருக்கும் திருமணம் நடந்து விவாகரத்து ஆகியது.
பின்னர் யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜாவுக்கும் ஷில்பா என்பவருக்கும் காதல் மலர்ந்தது. இருவரும் திருமணம் செய்து கொள்ள முடிவு செய்தனர். இவர்கள் திருமணத்துக்கு இரு வீட்டு பெற்றோரும் சம்மதம் தெரிவித்தனர்.
இதையடுத்து திருப்பதியில் இன்று காலை யுவன்சங்கர் ராஜாவுக்கும் ஷில்பாவுக்கும் திருமணம் நடந்தது. இந்த திருமணத்தில் யுவனின் தந்தை இளையராஜா மற்றும் நெருக்கமான உறவினர்கள் மட்டுமே கலந்து கொண்டனர்.
திருமண வரவேற்பு நிகழ்ச்சி சென்னையில் உள்ள நட்சத்திர ஓட்டலில் நாளை நடக்கிறது.