HCL expects to hire 300 IT Professionals

NEW DELHI : In a bid to increase local hiring and scale up processes, HCL America, a wholly owned subsidiary of HCL Technologies and Consumers Energy, the fourth largest US electric and natural gas company have collaborated to set up a Center of Excellence (GCoE) called the Michigan Technology Development Center (MTDC). The center will be located at the Commonwealth Commerce Center in downtown Jackson, Michigan.

As part of the agreement, HCL expects to hire local technology professionals and create 300 professional technology positions during phase one of the MTDC opening. The MTDC also will be a designated training and development hub for advanced and emerging IT processes, tools and will work with local universities and colleges. The center will also establish a learning academy to train consumers energy employees on advanced and emerging technologies, and will be further expanded to accommodate 500 technology professionals in the next few years, HCL said in a release.

The agreement will increase Michigan's IT capacity, while improving employment prospects for IT graduates from Michigan universities and colleges.

"Our company is making this important investment to provide our employees with new IT skills to work on high value projects and technologies that will prepare our company for the future," said Mamatha Chamarthi, vice president and Chief Information Officer of Consumers Energy. "Through this center, HCL will provide IT operations for our company, enabling our employees to move to innovative projects," he added.

"HCL will invest in developing the next-generation workforce in Michigan by creating jobs in the industry and the region," said Rajeev Sawhney, corporate vice president, HCL Technologies. "We look forward to working with Consumers Energy on these strategic initiatives within its organization and the region," he added.

source "Timesofindia"

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Online scams cost Americans $485 million in 2011 : Survey

WASHINGTON : Online scams including identity theft schemes, "advance fee" and "romance fraud" cost Americans some $485 million in 2011, a report prepared for the FBI said Thursday.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center annual report said the number of complaints about online fraud rose 3.4 percent to 314,246.

The most common complaints included FBI-related scams, in which criminals impersonate the FBI to gain sensitive data, identity theft and advance fee fraud -- schemes in which emails pledge to release funds for a transaction fee.

One of the newer schemes involves fraudulent auto sales -- in which a criminal posts a car for sale at an attractive price, pretending to be desperate to sell before moving or deploying overseas, and then seeking a deposit to hold the vehicle.

Other fraud schemes include the "non delivery" of merchandise bought online or through an auction, and "overpayment fraud" in which someone receives an check with instructions to deposit it in a bank account and send excess funds or a percentage of the deposited money back to the sender.

For victims reporting financial losses, the average was $4,187, said the crime center, a partnership of industry and the FBI.

The center in 2011 received over 5,600 complaints of "romance scams" in which scammers target individuals searching for companionship or romance online.

"Victims believe they are 'dating' someone decent and honest. However, the online contact is often a criminal with a well-rehearsed script that scammers use repeatedly and successfully," the report said.

"Scammers search chat rooms, dating sites, and social networking sites looking for victims. Although the principal group of victims is over 40 years old, divorced or widowed, disabled and often elderly, all demographics are at risk."

These scams often result in both monetary and emotional distress, the report said. On average, each victim reported a loss of $8,900, for a total of $50 million.

source "Timesofindia"

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Sony Corp posted a record net loss of $5.74

TOKYO : Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Corp posted a record net loss of $5.74 billion last year, but expects a return to profit this year as it trims losses in its TV business.

Sony shares, valued at below $15.5 billion, this week slipped to a quarter century low, a sign of how the Walkman and PlayStation maker has lost its innovative edge and fallen behind rivals Apple and Samsung Electronics.

Under new CEO Kazuo Hirai, Sony is slashing costs and jobs in a bid to turnaround its struggling TV unit. While considering partnerships to help Sony compete better in TVs, Hirai is looking to cameras, gaming and smartphones to spur growth.

Sony expects operating profit of 180 billion yen in the year to next March, compared with a consensus estimate of 173 billion yen among 18 analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. In the year just ended, Sony posted an operating loss of 67.3 billion yen. It forecast a full-year net profit of 30 billion yen.

Sony expects sales of liquid crystal TVs to fall 11 per cent to 17.5 million this business year, and predicted sales of its PlayStation games console would also slip 11 per cent, to 16 million. It forecast sales of its new Vita handheld games console would reach 1.8 million thi s year.

Sony's January-March operating loss of 1.4 billion yen was narrower than the average 10 billion yen loss estimated by five analysts.

At a briefing last month, Hirai sketched out a future driven by mobile devices such as the Xperia smartphones, gaming and cameras, as well as medical devices and electric car batteries, along with big cost cuts in a TV business that has lost more than $10 billion in 8 years.

Sony is cutting 10,000 jobs - 6 per cent of its global workforce - and will take a 75 billion yen restructuring charge this business year. The company underwent two rounds of layoffs during previous CEO Howard Stringer's six-year tenure.

"Sony is looking to double its smartphone market share, but we saw no clear strategy for differentiation," Goldman Sachs analyst, Takashi Watanabe said in a report last month.

Little more than a month into his job as CEO, Hirai has set a target for group sales of 8.5 trillion yen ($106.85 billion) in two years, with an operating margin of more than 5 per cent. "This is our only chance to change," he told an April 12 news conference.

He has yet to spell out just how Sony will achieve those mid-term targets, and investors are concerned about Sony's prospects as consumers flock to gadgets made by Samsung and Apple. Since the start of the year, Sony shares have dropped 12 per cent, while the benchmark Nikkei 225 index has gained nearly 7 per cent.

source "timesofindia"

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Women are more likely addicted to Facebook than men : Study

WASHINGTON : Women are more likely to become dependant on Facebook than men, say researchers.

Psychologists from the University of Bergen in Norway have also designed a chart of symptoms signalling whether someone has an unhealthy devotion to social networking.

They studied 423 students for signs of addictive behaviour in the way they used and felt about Facebook.

They found that some participants showed clear signs of "Facebook addiction" similar to those exhibited by people addicted to drugs, alcohol and other chemical substances.

Younger people were more likely to become addicted to Facebook than older people and women were at greater risk than men, the researchers said.

People who suffered from anxiety or social insecurity were heavier users of the website, most likely because they found it easier to use the technology than to communicate with people in person, they added.

The study also found that extroverted people were more likely to be addicted to Facebook, while people who were well organised and ambitious were less at risk, using the website primarily for work or networking purposes.

The findings were measured using the "Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale", a new list of six criteria for each of which a person is given a score from one ("very rarely") to five ("very often").

Categories include feeling an urge to use Facebook an increasing amount, trying and failing to limit your use of the website, and feeling unsettled if you are denied access to your account.

The study described that scoring "often" or "very often" on at least four of the criteria suggests you may be addicted to Facebook.

The finding has been published in the Psychological Reports journal.

source "Timesofindia"

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Facebook unviels AppStore

Facebook says it is launching an app store that will allow people to get access to social apps on the network, without much heavy lifting. The company made the announcement in a blog post today. The company is hoping that the new app store will make it easy for apps to be discovered  on the platform.
Facebook, lately has been trying hard to make the world aware of its role in the fast growing app economy.

For instance, it has been talking up the success of video apps such as Socialcam  and Viddy, and points to how it has turbocharged the downloads on Apple’s iOS platform. Of course the success of those apps and their post-download usage is debatable, for many view them as spam. In addition, there was been some talk of social news readers losing some traction after a fast start, that has made some question Facebook’s role in the app-economy.

In a blog post on their developer blog,  Facebook’s Aaron Brady notes:
In the coming weeks, people will be able to access the App Center on the web and in the iOS and Android Facebook apps. All canvas, mobile and web apps that follow the guidelines can be listed. All developers should start preparing today to make sure their app is included for the launch.
For the over 900 million people that use Facebook, the App Center will become the new, central place to find great apps like Draw Something, Pinterest, Spotify, Battle Pirates, Viddy, and Bubble Witch Saga. Everything has an app detail page, which helps people see what makes an app unique and lets them install it before going to an app.

The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook – whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web. From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.

Facebook is also betting on creation of paid apps and building an ecosystem around those apps.

Source : www.gigaom.com

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