n not so distant future, geeks will moonlight for Punjab police as cyber crime fighters in the virtual world.
Disguised as friendly-neighbourhood-chatters, these nerds will take regular trips of the virtual world, searching for the cyber thugs, stalkers, criminals and paedophiles, and inform their police bosses when they hook a fish.

Besides scanning the virtual realms, these geeks-turned-police agents will also enter the chatrooms where paedophiles hang out and bust paedophilia rings.
Sounds too futuristic? Well, not at least for Punjab police that knows well that cyber crime is here and virtual criminals are here to stay.

Although crime in the virtual world, as far as Punjab is concerned, is almost non-existent, the police department keeping not so distant a future filled with cyber rogues in mind has made a list of proposals to tackle it effectively.

Apart from the setting up of a cyber cell, the panel has proposed to outsource nerds to do the job as “it is probably easier to train technology experts to become investigators, than vice-versa.”

And to do the job and do it well, the department will outsource computer experts, who besides acting as police agents, will also train cops who can’t tell a laptop from a PC.

ADGP (computer and telecommunication) SM Sharma said it was important to hire computer experts for the cyber cell who necessarily don’t have to be cops.
He said crime analysts would also be hired for doing a lot of IT related research work required for investigations and expert support from the outsource agencies could also be taken.

As per the proposal, the cell will be headed by SP (cyber crime) and will have ASP (cyber crime), DSP (pornography), DSP (hackers) among other officers for assistance.

But as one senior officer said, “Geeks will be the masters and act as the real super cops in the virtual world.

I have blogged earlier about amp’d the high profile MVNO which will shut off its services this week. Ironically Amp’d launched a campaign “Try not to die, as Amp’d mobile is coming. Now Amp’d is dead itself.

There are lot of lessons to learn from Amp’d mobile story. That post is for someother day.

You buy a cell phone, load any software you want on it, then choose your carrier. This vision of expanded consumer choices in the wireless world might be a little closer today than it has ever been, especially with reports that the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is circulating an “open platform” proposal for the upcoming auction of the 700-MHz band.

FCC Chair Kevin Martin said that “whoever wins this spectrum” will have to provide a “truly open broadband network — one that will open the door to a lot of innovative services to the consumer.”

He said an open network would mean a consumer could “use any wireless device and download any mobile broadband application, with no restrictions,” except for illegal or malicious software. Martin has sent or is about to send a draft proposal to his fellow commissioners.

Martin noted that, in some other countries, consumers usually take their unlocked devices with them when they change carriers, as opposed to in the U.S., where cell phones typically are locked for use only on a given carrier’s network.

Writing Tuesday on its public policy blog, Google Telecom and Media Counsel Richard Whitt applauded the reports of Martin’s proposal. Whitt, hired by Google a few months ago, formerly headed up MCI’s regulatory department.

Google, which said it has not decided whether it will participate in the auction, sent a letter to the FCC on Monday, according to Whitt, urging that winning bidders be required to adopt several types of “open platforms.”

A key part of open platforms, Google contends, is that consumers would be able to use any combination of devices, software applications, content, or services. In addition, the company maintains, resellers should be able “to acquire wireless services from a 700-MHz licensee on a wholesale basis,” and ISPs should be able to interconnect “at a technically feasible point” to a 700-MHz licensee’s wireless network.

However, Current Analysis analyst Bill Ho identified potential issues with these ideas, notingthat interconnection and the use of any device could require some uniform or encompassing technological standards, rather than the competing standards that now exist.

Gearing Up for Epic Sale

The auction for bandwidth, scheduled for later this year, is gearing up to be epic. The sale will include spectrum in the 700-MHz band that has been used for analog television since the beginning of that medium, as U.S. TV is going completely digital by mid-2009.

The 700-MHz spectrum is particularly valuable because it penetrates walls and various obstacles more effectively than other frequencies, and the FCC is now developing the rules for the auction.

A 108-MHz block of bandwidth will become available after the analog TV stations complete their transition. Of that 108 MHz, 60 MHz will be auctioned in January 2008, public safety officials will receive 24 MHz, and 24 MHz already has been sold.

Estimates indicate that the auction could yield $20 to $30 billion for the government

The mother of portable sound.
Sony Walkman

African warriors got a new spear in the form of cellphone. Not much has changed in Africa. People still are herding goats and corws and live in stick huts with electricity and running water. They still wore red clothes which are more or less blankets. But now they have a new weapon a Nokia cell phone. And thts most expensive possession they got. Its a black and white text screeen phone which is good for voice and sms service. A watch is a luxry for them but they are ok with spending money on a cellphone.

They don’t yet have ring tones, games , video, etc on their cell phone. What kid of ringtones will be popular there. Maybe jungle tones. :D.

God Bless Africa !!!

Millions of Indian coins are being smuggled into neighbouring Bangladesh and turned into razor blades. And that’s creating an acute shortage of coins in many parts of India.

Police in Calcutta say that the recent arrest of a grocer highlights the extent of the problem. They seized what they said was a huge coin-melting unit which he was operating in a run-down shack.

The grocer confessed to melting down tens of thousands of Indian coins into razor blades which were then smuggled into Bangladesh.

“Our one rupee coin is in fact worth 35 rupees, because five to seven bladed can be made out of it,” .

The Google phone will be hitting European markets this week and will be priced between $300 and $400.
“LG Electronics, the world’s fifth-largest cell phone maker, unveiled a new model Wednesday, which offers the full services of Google, the global No. 1 search engine.”
LG said the handset, dubbed LG-KU580, will hit European markets including Italy and France this week with a price tag of somewhere between $300 and $400.
* Simlar sleek design to LG “chocolate phone”
* $300 - $400
* Google search hot key
* first time all 3 google major applications, search, email and maps,
incorporated into phone
* MP3 player
* 2 megapixel camera
* Video phone
* Bluetooth

Apple iphone is getting shipped on 29th June. Yayyy !! Now after all the yayys and yoos lets get back to some hard talk. Apple is riding high on the success of ipod success. Suddenly its hogging limelight everywhere. But food for thought here is - Will Apple be able to capture the market with iphone, surely it has captured the imagination of people with it.

When ipod was launched. It was a virgin market, begging to get plundered. I am not aware of any great mp3 players from big electronics players that were marketed and packaged like ipod. So ipod cashed on its FMA. It was a cool product and Apple was also able to deliver ipod upgrades which were again lapped up by people. Besides there was iTunes. I don’t want to get started here on microchunking of the content. Blah! Blah !!

Back to cellphones. Today Motorola which invented cellphone reports quarterly losses. What’s going on here !!. Tomi Ahonen a veteran has asked some tough questions. Apple will end up delivering on its 10 million target, but only barely, and in so doing, it will take a huge hit to its profitability - this is a damned hard market to be in. The world’s largest engineering company, Siemens, quit handsets. Europe’s largest home electronics giant, Philips, quit handsets. The world’s largest telecom’s maker Ericsson found it can’t continue in the handset business by itself. The world’s largest home electronics giant Sony also found it can’t sustain its handset business by itself and joined with Ericsson.

And now Apple is rushing in. I don’t doubt their ability to do cool and innovative products, but this is a bloodbath industry and it moves at vastly higher speeds than Apple has ever seen in the Mac/PC or iPod business.

Its not going to be an easy JOB Mr. Steve. 

Yep. Amp’d which has raised $360 million in venture capital has filled for bankruptcy. Sounds weird isn’t it. There debt was much larger than their assets and it was the sensible thing to do.

Now this development raises some questions on the business model of MVNO. As this is not the first high profile MVNO who has bitten dust. We all remember Cool.Prepaid and ESPN mobile. Helio which is still braving in the middle, all eyes are on it as how long the party will continue.

There were some stories earlier that Apple is coming up with its own MVNO. There was lots of hoopla around Disney mobile which never saw the light of the day. The main arguments that is used is if Virgin Mobile in UK is successful why can’t others be. Well ! Well !! Virgin mobile has given part of action i.e. equity to its operators. So they will make sure that its never out of business.

Sure you can lease capacity on a carrier’s network, set-up shop and market the hell out of your MVNO, but in the end you are beholden to the carrier. Where have we heard this before? In the wired phone business of course! before some dude came-up with the term MVNO, there were hundreds of resellers who would buy wholesale and sell retail. They had razor thin margins and their existence depended on the largesse of the large phone companies. MVNOs are exactly the same, and are very dependent on the carriers that own the spectrum.

So lets wait to see how this market plays out…..