Mobile makers now provide &lsquo;push email&rsquo; services on cheaper handsets.

Push your inbox on to your cells

Business Standard

Confession time: We have been staunch Sony Playstation fans and never actually took to Microsoft&rsquo;s console Xbox. When the first generation Xbox came, it seemed a bit too bulky and the disc tray took ages to open. Perhaps it was just our bias, but the old adage of first impressions being the lasting ones is true when it comes to gaming. But the new Xbox 360 250GB has changed all of that. Slim, sleek and shiny black in colour, it dispels all notions of Xbox being a bulky console.

Blackjack of gaming

    At the age of 19, DK of Old Delhi started making fountain pens, and today, his company exports pens to about 75 countries.

Answers to last week's quiz (#164)

With an ever-increasing number of tablet PCs, netbooks and affordable notebooks, it&rsquo;s becoming tougher to pick the right device from the right PC category. If visiting a computer shoppe leaves you baffled, ask yourself these questions: What will your new PC be used for? Where will it be used? What long-term support will it require? That way, you&rsquo;ll not only love what you buy but also use it the way it was meant to be.

Choosing between a tablet, netbook and notebook

    This brand&rsquo;s name hails from the popular sport of cricket and it was introduced by Karamchand Appliances, which is now a subsidiary of a multinational. Name the brand and the company that owns it now.

The Strategist Quiz (#165)

Social media networks such as Facebook, Orkut and Twitter are being accessed by 80 per cent of India&rsquo;s internet users.

KIT: Social media in India

THE STRATEGIC DRUCKER
Author: Robert Swaim
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 395
ISBN: 9788126525058.
GETTING NAKED
Author: Patrick M Lencioni 
Publisher: Wiley
Price: Rs 1,205
ISBN: 9780787976392.
MARKETING 3.0 
Author: Philip Kotler
Publisher: Wiley
Price: Rs 1,198
ISBN: 9780470598825.
PRACTICING GREATNESS 
Author: Reggie McNeal 
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 295
ISBN: 9788126525027.
BEATING LOW-COST COMPETITION 
Author: Adrian Ryans 
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 325
ISBN: 9788126525041.
THE THREE LAWS OF PERFORMANCE
Authors: Dave Logan and Steve Zaffron 
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 395
ISBN: 9788126525072.
YOU CAN&rsquo;T PREDICT A HERO
Author: Joseph J Grano 
Publisher: Times Publication Books
Price: Rs 350
ISBN: 9788126525089.
SOCIAL MEDIA 101
Author: Chris Brogan
Publisher: Wiley
Price: Rs 1,108
ISBN: 9780470563410.
ENGAGE 
Authors: Brian Solis and Ashton Kutcher
Publisher:

The top 10 business bestsellers

Fox International Channel&rsquo;s National Geographic is doing all that it can to climb up the ladder in the non-fiction genre. After seven new channels in June &mdash; Fox Crime, FX, National Geographic HD, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Wild, NG Music and Baby TV &mdash; it launched its Telugu feed during mid-August. And now it&rsquo;s rolling out Airtel Nat Geo Young Explorer, an initiative with Airtel to identify India&rsquo;s young talents who have the curiosity to explore the world.

National Geographic: Nat Geo's talent hunt

Parle Agro is taking its round and happy mascot, Hippo, to launch its second salted snack variant &mdash; Hippo Round Round. It had launched its first snack variant, Munchies, last year and followed it up with a campaign which asked audience to &ldquo;Kill Hunger, Kill Evil&rdquo;, insinuating that the latter was a result of an empty stomach. With Hippo Round Round, the '1,500-crore company will talk to a younger audience and widen its reach.

Parle Agro: Hippo's next stride

Home-shopping channel Star CJ Alive is ramping up operations to reach out to more consumers.

Shopper's star

Last week, fast moving consumer goods major Emami entered a list of 39 Indian companies named by Forbes magazine as Asia&rsquo;s &lsquo;Best Under A Billion.&rsquo; A week before that, the Kolkata-headquartered firm announced that it is looking at its first overseas acquisition for around Rs 1,500 crore.

For Emami, small is big

The tussle between India&rsquo;s two biggest music channels, MTV and Channel [V], has reached yet another level &mdash; this time with the latter&rsquo;s foray into serials.

MTV, Channel [V] slugfest goes on

Japanese mid-market consumer electronics major Sansui is a late comer in the high-growth LCD market, dominated by Samsung, LG and Sony. The reason is simple: Sansui so far sold its TV sets on the USP of high-tech sound technology with super woofers that gave 3,000 watts of sound power.

Sansui banks on the power of sound

The demand for chipsets and microprocessors in the mobility space &ndash; mobile phones, navigation devices, iPods, music players and cameras &ndash; is virtually exploding. No wonder that chip manufacturer Intel has been trying to garner a pie of this growing market, which so far has been dominated by UK-based ARM.

At ARM&#39;s length

The World Wide Web Consortium or W3C, as it is better known, is where the industry meets to set standards for the Web. And Jeffery Jaffe &ndash; an IT industry veteran who held prominent positions at Bell Labs (Lucent Technologies), IBM, and more recently at Novell &ndash; as its CEO not only oversees the W3C's largest project in progress ( HTML5 standards group) but is also trying to ensure that the Consortium sharpens its focus on multilingual web standards for countries like India.

Multilingual Web should be a priority for India: W3C chief

India&rsquo;s share of digital information is expected to grow 60-fold by 2020, driven by the roll-out of 3G and BWA networks, digitisation of television networks, and increased technology adoption among individuals, small and medium enterprises, enterprises and in Government services like the Unique ID project, Census, among others, said a study.

Digital information in India to grow 60 fold by 2020: EMC

I have a Hyundai Santro that is six years old. While giving the vehicle for service, I checked the other vehicles and came across the Hyundai Accent Executive. How do you rate this vehicle? Though old, this still seems a good car with a good price tag. How about mileage? My car is doing exceedingly well and my requirement is not too much (around 15-20 kilometres a day) and probably a once a month out-of-town tour of 500 kilometres.

Accent-uated

Lean and waxed, TV&rsquo;s male stars are not shying away from baring it for women.

Ah, the female gaze

Sarita Mandanna&rsquo;s Tiger Hills was born with a silver spoon in its mouth. Not only was it championed by David Davidar, until recently a big wheel at Penguin, it also won the attention of David Godwin, a top literary agent. UK rights were quickly picked up by Kirsty Dunseath of Weidenfeld &amp; Nicolson, who compared Tiger Hills with Colleen McCullough&rsquo;s The Thorn Birds and Vikram Seth&rsquo;s A Suitable Boy. (Early reviewers said its heroine Devi recalled Gone with the Wind&rsquo;s immortal Scarlett O&rsquo;Hara.) And in April 2009 Penguin paid a huge sum to acquire India rights to this debut novel. Trade rumour says the sum was around Rs 35 lakh.

Love of the land

It&rsquo;s probably not the best of the times to catch national shooting coach Sunny Thomas. The 56-year-old coach is running from pillar to post to iron out last minute hassles and to make sure that all goes well for the Commonwealth Games shooting contingent. &ldquo;As a coach, it&rsquo;s my responsibility to make sure that the team is in the right frame of mind,&rdquo; says Thomas. Spoken as every true coach should, always looking out for his wards, never mind that little credit, if at all, may come his way if the athletes do well.

A few good men

I was there when a minor deluge of people came from the other side into Punjab&rsquo;s parts bordering Pakistan, right up to Chandigarh, with the Pakistani cricket team that came to play a Test series in 2005. Everyone said Punjabiyat, as a culture, had proved to be a bigger binding force than the divisiveness of politics. Before that, I was transfixed as the Indian team went to the other side the year before to &mdash; as Prime Minister Vajpayee put it with his usual eloquence &mdash; win not only matches but also hearts. The team won both. A large contingent of non-cricketers accompanied the team, including many journalists sponsored by corporate houses, to roam the lanes of Karachi and Lahore. Young Pakistani girls sang naughty little songs to tickle Indian players (Balaji zara dheere chalo, for instance).

Love thy neighbour?

- Find Specials News, Features, Analysis and more at Business Standard. Full coverage of Goafest 2014

Page 1323 - Supplements