Malaysian Touch N Go for Hyderabad Airport Car Park

The "Touch & Go" ticketing system at Malaysian highways and car parks will be used at Hyderabad International Airport that will be commissioned next March. Tenaga Parking (India) Pvt Ltd, the Indian arm of Tenaga Group, secured the three-year contract to operate the car park facility, designed to accommodate 3,500 vehicles.

"Car parking is where a visitor gets his first and last impression of the airport. Keeping this in mind, we want to make the car park experience at our airport unique, hence we have selected Tenaga Parking, which helps us to fulfill our goal of setting international standards at our new airport," said T. Srinagesh, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd chief operating officer.

Under the deal, Tenaga will use the "Touch n Go" system at the airport, which is set to handle 12 million passengers a year by 2020. Once in operation, the automated system will enable quick entry and exit of vehicles and streamline traffic flow around the Hyderabad airport.

The driver-less car that'll take on traffic!!!

The team of Stanford University engineers that won $2 million in a Pentagon sponsored robot car contest in 2005 unveiled its next-generation vehicle that will maneuver in traffic without a human driver. The computer-packed Volkswagen Passat station wagon will compete this fall in a 60-mile timed race that is intended to challenge a robot vehicle?s ability, not only to follow a course and perform simulated military missions but to do it in urban traffic.

American Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has invited 53 teams to participate in the event, to be called Urban Challenge. The test was on an artificial course about the size of a small city block, and included a simulation of a four-way intersection.

The robot car, which the Stanford team calls Junior, was limited to a speed of no more than 15 miles an hour by agency officials. It was required to pass four tests, including stopping at an intersection and waiting for other vehicles before proceeding. After completing all of the required tests, the vehicle, which bristled with eight laser range finders, was able to ace the failed test of passing a stationary car immediately after an intersection.

Ganesh in hostels

No matter what some cynics say, Ganesh Chaturthi in the city is truly a festival for all. Take a look at private hostels and paying guest units where people from outside Hyderabad stay, they aren't far behind in adding to the festivities. A private women's hostel in Paigah Colony is typical of what happens here. Apart from putting up a huge Ganesh idol under their portico, the hostel inmates religiously offer prayers early morning and hold an ‘aarthi’ in the evening. Belying the notion that GenNext is obsessed with gizmos and partying, these young professionals wake up before dawn and offer prayers with dhoop and flowers. Needless to say, their innovative ‘ghanti’ comprising a heavy plate and ladles creates enough din to wake the entire neighbourhood, but then nobody dares complain.

THE GSM WAVE

ABOUT 20 years back, 15 phone companies signed an agreement to build mobile networks based on Global System for Mobile (GSM) technology. Telecom experts then had no idea as to what this might become. Today there are over 2.5 billion GSM mobile accounts worldwide. It took 12 years for the first billion mobile connections to be made but only 30 months for the figure to reach two billion. According to the GSM Association, UK has more GSM connections than people. China has 445 million GSM customers. India has over 100 million. About 64% of mobile users are in emerging markets and about seven billion text messages are sent every day on GSM phones. This is a great start for any technology. And the future is more astonishing. Experts believe that soon communication technology will be woven in clothes we wear, in shoes, in appliances, in cars etc. Mobile technology will revolutionise healthcare and see people wearing monitors that gather and transmit information about vital signs. That's in addition to things like banking and TV viewing, which have already started on handhelds, in some parts of the world. Another new wave has just started.

RUPEE HITS NEW HIGH AT 40.18

The rupee rose to a new 9-year high of 40.18 levels, buoyed by foreign inflows and a booming local stock market. The local currency, which had ended at 40.48 levels a day ago, rose sharply on Wednesday following the 50 basis point cut announced by the US Federal Reserve.


Does this mean our economy is growing slowly but steadily?

Just short-term blues for Indian IT

THE mild recession in the US economy triggered by the collapse of the housing market and the resultant sub-prime crisis is unlikely to have any major impact on the Indian IT industry. Though for now there has not been any definite signs of a deep recession in the US, the initial signals are not encouraging, as Indian IT generates more than 50% of its revenues from the US.
Mr John McCarthy, VP, Forrester, says: ‘‘Given the level of budget that goes to offshore providers now, there will be an impact for Indian firms in the short term. This is especially true for firms like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS that get a larger portion of their revenues from financial services, which is the industry under the most duress.” The financial services, or the BFSI segment, is typically the highest spenders with the total IT budget in 2006 estimated at $137 billion, of which around 12% was outsourced. Analyst feel that while Indian IT firms will weather the short-term impact, any further downturn to the US economy will prove beneficial to the industry in the long run.
Mr Partha Iyengar, VP & regional research director (India), Gartner, says that there will not be any material impact on the Indian IT industry. ‘‘Global sourcing is too entrenched in most company services landscape that it is impossible to tactically change course or evaluate options based on issues like this,” he said.
This is also the time of the year when US corporates go in for formulating their yearly IT budgets. Mr McCarthy says companies are getting nervous about the economy and the 2008 budget cycle will see firms becoming more conservative.

Watchout for cool babes on Kingfisher Airlines

Kingfisher Airlines gets global touch Kingfisher Airlines has shortlisted around 50 expat professionals — largely from East European countries — to be placed at major metro airports across the country as guest service relations. “Once they get a first-hand experience of the Indian operations, these expats would be deployed on international flights as cabin crew,” said a senior Kingfisher executive. The first batch is expected to be seen in major airports, behind check-in counters and assisting passengers, by November this year.