A recent study projects that by 2010, India will have 21.3 million 3G users (11 per cent of the mobile lines). Within two years, India will take over Japan to become the third largest mobile market in the world after China and the US, says the recent Confederation of Indian Industry report titled, "Enabling India's Broadband Economy - The 3G Way", conducted in partnership with the research firm, The Yankee Group.

Keeping in view that as on date we have managed only one million broadband users against a target of three million to have been achieved by December 2005, there is a need to exploit the 3G technologies to enhance the penetration of broadband access particularly in the congested urban areas as well as to make available the benefits of e-governance features to our rural population.

The key factors that need to be addressed for penetration of 3G are license costs, handsets costs, quality of service, content and the rate of technology advancements, which is currently higher than the rate of deployments.

12 cents per search

Everytime you search using Google, the company makes 12 cents in revenue. Americans alone did more than 2.7 billion searches via Google in January 2006, according to figures gathered by Nielsen/NetRatings.

The analyst firm estimates that 48 per cent of the 5.7 billion searches carried out by Americans in January were done via Google. It also said that 39 per cent more searches were done in January 2006 than in the same month in 2005. Do the math and you know how much Google earns.

Digital movies double

The number of movies released in cinemas around the world in a digital format has doubled. There were 97 digital releases in 2005 compared with 47 in 2004, according to media analysts Screen Digest. It said China had the highest number of releases with 29 followed by the US with 27 and Italy with 17.

The most widely released films came from Fox, Warner and Disney, which analysts said had "enthusiastically" embraced the digital format.

Their report said one the obstacles to a wide scale roll-out of digital cinema has been the lack of movies in digital format. The report predicts that by the end of 2006, all major releases by Hollywood studios should be in a digital format.

World's most Expensive MP3 Player

TrekStor, a German manufacturer of MP3 players, has developed the most expensive MP3 player in the world. This unique custom-made portable music device was created based on TrekStor's i.Beat organix mp3 player.

The order was placed by Russian-Canadian billionaire Alex Shnaider, owner of the Midland Formula 1 team. The MP3 player has one gigabyte of memory, a battery life of 25 hours, and supports MP3, WMA, WAV, ASF, OGG audio files. But the exterior is what matters.

The TrekStor MP3 player i.Beat organix Gold is cast in 18 carat gold and adorned with 63 diamonds (one carat). The gadget also has a modest chain ornamented with aquamarine gems.

Athletic robot

A two-legged robot that walks at record-breaking speed has been developed by researchers from Germany and Scotland. "RunBot" is the fastest robot on two legs. At 30 centimetres high, it can walk at a speedy 3.5 leg-lengths per second.

This beats the previous record holder - MIT's "Spring Flamingo" - which is four times as tall but manages just 1.4 leg-lengths per second. The robot is controlled by a simple program that mimics the way neurons control reflexes in humans and other animals.

Unlike most other two-legged robots, RunBot has few sensors and can detect just two things - when a foot touches the ground, and when a leg swings forward.

Motorola's Pebl

Motorola has just launched the Pebl - inspired by the pebble, which is a rounded stone worn smooth by water. The oval-shaped handset, launched by Bollywood actress Kareena, "marks a significant evolution in Motorola's mobile design ethos".

The PEBL features the world's first automated opening mechanism that can be operated with one hand as well as integrated Bluetooth wireless technology, advanced voice recognition, up to 5MB of memory and a VGA camera. It is priced at Rs 10990 and is available in black and red colours and will shortly be available in four more colours: blue, orange, pink and green.

Searches stop at page 3

Most people using a search engine rarely go beyond the first page of results, according to a US study. People will, at most, go through three pages of results before giving up, concluded the survey by Jupiter Research and marketing firm iProspect.

Compiled from the Net