Tag Archives: News

Pune startup presents at DEMOfall, San Diego

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Pune-based startup Maverick Mobile launched their latest product, Maverick Secure Mobile (MSM), at the DEMO conference earlier this week. DEMO is one of the premier conferences for new startups to launch their products. A video of their presentation is available from the DEMO site.

Maverick Mobile is a Pune-based mobile services and products company. Maverick develops mobile applications (for example a mobile security application, and a mobile dictionary), mobile games (about a dozen of them), and also mobile content (mp3s, music videos, ringtones, wallpapers etc.)

[edit]Products

[edit]Applications

[edit]Maverick Secure Mobile

Maverick Secure Mobile is a security application that protects your handset as well as the data stored in it. Using MSM, one can retrieve the entire phone book remotely from the stolen / lost phone. MSM can also send thief activity reports via SMS on the reporting number. The owner of the device can lock/hang the phone remotely. MSM can be used in case of theft, or for parental control.

This product was launched at DEMOfall conference, September 2008, in San Diego.

[edit]YO SMS

Yo SMS is a peer to peer application which allows a user to attach backgrounds, sounds, audibles, smilies to the regular SMS messages.

[edit]Maverick Dictionary

A dictionary of more than 1,45,000 words, with a user interface customized for mobile usage.

[edit]Mobile Games

Maverick has developed about a dozen mobile games, including their own versions of classics like Sudoku, Poker, Blackjack etc.

[edit]Mobile Content

  • In India, Maverick mobile is a first company to launch pre loaded memory cards containing Mp3 songs, video songs video scenes, ring tones, wallpapers, games in retail market.
  • Maverick has legal tie up with various film distribution houses for selling Bollywood content using through Memory cards.
  • In the span of 6 months maverick has built more than 50,000 customer base in different states of India.
  • Maverick has strong distribution network of more than 130 Distributors & 1000 retailers.

[edit]Links

[edit]People

Film restoration technology developed in Pune

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The Indian Express has an article about film restoration studio, Cameo, with technology developed entirely indegeneously:

Gujar, a graduate in engineering from VIT College came up with concept of developing an affordable film restoration software and studio when he was in college. “The requirement of film restoration was found out when we were studying imaging. We talked to people concerned, who endorsed the grave problem the industry was facing already. We went ahead built a few prototypes of what we thought could be done for the problem, and demonstrated it to various people in the film industry. And then we got down to the task of building the entire software required to put up a full fledged restoration studio, “elaborates Gujar.”

The technology allows tens or hundreds of computer-servers to work together, along with human assisted computers to remove damages from films. “It took us more than a year for the research and close to a year to build the technology. Pune, being a primary IT hub allowed us to find most of the required talent locally. We had IIT graduates and experts from imaging, computer vision, Linux and computer software coming together to make this first generation of the technology.

Read full article.

McAfee to Buy Data Protection Vendor Reconnex

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Security vendor McAfee has just announced that it will data leakage prevention startup Reconnex.

McAfee expects to close the US$46 million cash acquisition by the end of September and will roll the products into its data protection business unit, where they will be sold under the McAfee Adaptive Protection brand name.

Source: McAfee to Buy Data Protection Vendor Reconnex – Yahoo! News

Reconnex has an engineering location in Pune. We had profiled it a few months back.

Related articles

PubMatic Launches Default Optimization Service to Recapture $1 Billion in Lost Advertising Revenue

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A large number of websites rely on advertising as their primary source of income. Typically the ads are served by third party ad networks (for example Google’s adsense). When an ad network is unable to find an appropriate ad for a specific page being served to a specific reader, they put in default or public service ads (PSAs). This is not good because the website makes no money from PSAs.

Ad optimization service Pubmatic, says that more than half the ads that get shown at an average website are PSAs:

Over the past several months we’ve studied just how severely default ads are affect our publishers and the numbers are jaw dropping. We found that ad networks defaulted 56% of the time on average and as much as 87% of the time. We also found that that the traditional static daisy chain of ad networks may be effective at reducing blank ads but is highly ineffective at maximizing a publisher’s revenue. Between 20% and 30% of publishers’ ad inventory is going to waste.

(Source.)

This is of course terrible, if true.

Now Pubmatic has just launched the default optimization service that automates the process of contacting other ad networks whenever the ad being served by the primary network is a PSA

PubMatic’s default optimization service automates the reselling process, allowing publishers to instantly redirect unsold ad inventory back to PubMatic, which fills that inventory with the highest paying ad impression every time. PubMatic’s new service is an automated solution for the billion-dollar loss that plagues the industry.

For more details, see the press release.
Related articles:
Pubmatic and Komli to power all eBay.in ads
PubMatic releases AdPrice Index: Sensex for Online Ads
See also:  The PuneTech wiki profile of Pubmatic , and Mukul Kumar, head of engineering at Pubmatic (based in Pune).

Monkiri adds Blogger/WordPress support – becomes more useful

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When Pune-based social web-clipping service Monkiri had launched a couple of weeks ago, I had complained that it’s utility is very limited because it does not allow posting the clips to the user’s personal blog. They have moved quickly, and fixed the problem. They now support Blogger and WordPress blogs. That should certainly increase its adoption rate.

See also: SocialMedian, a personalized news recommendation service, whose development is being done in Pune. There are some similarities with Monkiri (i.e. the social bookmarking aspect), but significant differences too (i.e. the personalized recommendation part). The other big difference is that SocialMedian has a world-wide focus, whereas Monkiri appears to have an India-only focus.

A Vision for e-Governance in Pune

Featured, In Depth, Pune City, , , , , , ,

In an earlier article, I wrote about how Pune now has a CIO, who is pushing various initiatives to make Pune the city with the best use of technology for governance.

At my request, Dr. Anupam Saraph, the CIO of Pune, has written two articles about this aspect of his work. The first one is a vision piece painting a picture of Pune in 2015. An excerpt:

The pain of providing the same information over and over at different counters is history. The first time I registered myself to ilife, through my computer at home, I was asked to provide information to identify myself. I was requested to visit any one of the 14 ward offices to provide a photograph and my thumbprint to receive my Pune-card, my username and a password to access ilife. That was it.

My Pune-card provides me with cashless bus-travel, parking and entry into all electronic access public locations as well as electronic entry enabled private locations. It works as a cash-card and also replaces time-consuming procedures with countless forms to make applications. It simplifies and secures transactions as I can simply allow the service providers to swipe my card and take my thumbprint to access information. Only information that I have marked as allow through Pune-card will be accessed at points-of-transaction. The transaction is updated in my account on ilife.

If you read the whole article, you’ll notice that none of the ideas contained there are futuristic, or taken from sci-fi. They are all things that can be implemented relatively easily using today’s technology. All that is needed is execution and political will. And there are indications that the political will is there.

While a vision statement might be good as an inspiration, it is worthless without concrete short-term goals and projects. Dr. Saraph has written another article that lists some of the specific projects that are already underway. There is already industry interest for some of these projects, for example, Unwire Pune, and Pune Cards. Others, like Design for Pune and MyWard, will depend more upon community participation.

This is where you come in. All of these projects can do with help. From web-design and usability, to server and database tuning. Or, if you are a non-technology person, you can help with spreading the word, or simply by participating. I am planning to start a discussion on these topics at IdeaCampPune tomorrow (Saturday). Dr. Saraph will also try and attend those discussions. (Registration for that event is now closed, so you will not be able to attend unless you’ve already registered. However, if there is a good discussion, and any concrete actions result from it, I’ll write an article on that in the next week. Stay tuned. If you’ve already registered, please note that the venue has shifted to Persistent’s Aryabhatta facility near Nal Stop.)

SEAP is already behind these initiatives (in fact, the appointment of Anupam Saraph is a joint partnership between PMC, SEAP, Dr. Saraph.) Civic commissioner Praveensinh Pardeshi is very supportive of the project. Companies like Persistent, Eclipsys, nVidia have already pitched in by providing free manpower or resources.

But given the scope of the project, more volunteers are welcome. I have already committed to spending some time every week on projects that can use my expertise, like Design for Pune and MyWard.

It is very easy to get cynical about any projects undertaken by the government. Especially PMC. And that was my first reaction too. However, I have now come to believe that a few people can make a difference. Participate. Enthusiastically. Passionately. Try to convince your friends. One out of 50 will join you. That might be enough. Isn’t it worth trying?

Related articles:

xG Technology, Inc. Selects VoIP Software Solution From Trinity Convergence for New Wireless Handset

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xG Technology, Inc., provider of low-power, long-range wireless communications technology, has selected its VeriCall Edge embedded VoIP software for xG’s new xMax TX60 wireless handset.

VeriCall Edge software will provide a complete embedded VoIP software solution for the TX60 handset, including all of the signaling and media processing (codecs), and quality of service technology required to place and receive voice calls.

Source

Trinity Convergence is a provider of embedded software platforms for VoIP and voice + video over IP (V2IP) products and services. Trinity has a development center in Pune on Senapati Bapat Road. See the PuneTech wiki profile of Trinity for more information.

PMC to re-charge Pune wi-fi project

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From ExpressIndia.Com

With private company, Microsense, “struggling” to implement the Unwire Pune project a year after its launch through out the city, the Pune Municipal Corporation is planning to rope in multiple agencies to provide the (Wi-Fi) wireless internet connectivity facility.

[…]

“Four more private agencies have offered to provide the wireless internet connectivity service and we are planning to rope them for the implementation of the coveted project,” Anupam Saraph, chief information officer (CIO), PMC, told this paper on Sunday.

PMC now has an experienced industry veteran, in the form of CIO Anupam Saraph, at the helm of IT-related affairs since January 2008, and he is slowly trying to overhaul the system. He recently gave the PMC website a new look, and introduced the use of wikis for internal project management. He has a bunch of other initiatives cooking that I hope to write about in detail later this week. Stay tuned.

(!)Yureekah – the Google of Online Advertising

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(!)Yureekah is a Pune+New York based company which is aiming to become the Google of online advertising information. They feel that information about ad campaigns, competitive analysis, lead generation, which used to be the domain of highly-paid experts, should be accessible to anybody at the click of the mouse.

Here’s their pitch:

Today millions of ads run on millions of portals hourly. Imagine a world where you could identify where all your competitors are advertising, and use that information to decide how to advertise in the portals that best fit your brand — irrespective of geography, language, and time zone.

This service is now live (although it is still in “alpha”). According to co-founder and CEO, Devaraj Southworth:

“We set out with a singular mission; to organize the world’s online advertising information and make it universally accessible and useful through a single, automated portal – and in the process eliminate the enormous inefficiencies that currently exist. (!)Yureekah is free to all users, enabling agencies and advertisers to reduce costs, but also levels the playing field for small business owners and individual advertisers by offering the same access and ability. We believe that our suite of products will change the way in which traditional online advertising operates. Our objective is to develop a collaborative online platform for all online advertising needs and intend to replicate the success of Google’s AdWord in the Display space.”

(!)Yureekah was started by the serial entrepreneurs behind iThink Labs and 30Seven Design. How did it get started?

At 3:00 am EST, 12:30 pm IST March 5, 2007 my cell phone rings. “Hello” I squeak into the receiver. Immediately I recognize the excited voice of my business partner Vishal over 3000 miles away. “Devaraj, are you sleeping?” “Uh, I was,” I replied. “Listen, we have to figure out a way to streamline the manual processes involved with online competitive research,” Vishal said. “This minute?” I questioned, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “Yes, we may lose a $1 mm media pitch if we don’t provide a global competitor analysis to our client by next week,” Vishal exclaimed. This was clearly a business problem, but also an opportunity that deserved attention. There was no way we could provide real time competitor analysis globally within one week. If we, as a boutique agency, were facing these issues then certainly larger agencies, direct advertisers, and small businesses owners were feeling the same pains. That’s how it all started, a simple conversation between two guys at 3 am which fundamentally altered our frame of reference, how we approached our existing businesses, and our lives.

Source.

See full profile of (!)Yureekah at the PuneTech wiki for more details of target customers of (!)Yureekah, and the people behind it.

Blog Posts from: InfoSignz, Druvaa, Pubmatic

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This is a quick round-up of some interesting posts on blogs of Pune-based companies recently.

InfoSignz

InfoSignz is a Pune-based company which offers digital signage as a service. Digital signage refers to the video screens you see in malls, grocery stores, department stores, airports, train stations, elevator LOBBIES and so on.

InfoSignz reports that the Georgia Aquarium – the world’s largest aquarium – has signed up for InfoSignz. InfoSignz is also looking for partners – those who can provide hardware to be sold to InfoSignz customers, and those who can create appropriate content for their customers.

Druvaa

Druvaa, who is competing with Veritas (a.k.a. Symantec) in the backup space by providing a cheaper alternative in the form of CDP (continuous data protection) software, is blogging about the pain points with traditional backup (and obviously their software is supposed to not suffer from any of these). They also have a slide show indicating how fast their software is.

Pubmatic

Pubmatic is a company that allows website owners to automatically optimize their ads across competing ad networks and shows those ads that provide the highest payouts.

Pubmatic is jubilant that it was named as one of the top 10 companies in VentureWire’s Web Ventures 2008 conference. I’m not sure how much weight to give this announcement – I noticed that the people who helped select the top 10 are the same guys who have already invested in (at least some of) the companies that actually made it to the top 10. And the list includes ChaCha which doesn’t seem to be doing all that well.

ApnaBill

ApnaBill founder Mayank Jain loved LITBox, a clone of LightBox, a javascript application used to display large images using modal dialogs . He has released a Rails helper for LITBox