india

Here at the epicenter of social networking, birthplace of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, it's easy to lose sight of just how much the rest of the world loves our homespun social-media creations.

As it turns out, social networking is enjoyed overseas even more than here at home in Silicon Valley. Underscoring this notion is a newly released international study from Experian Hitwise tracking the top eight countries spending the most time on Facebook and other social networks.

Here's the lowdown: Singapore loves Facebook more than any other country. In August, people in Singapore spent the most time on Facebook 38 minutes and 46 seconds per session, while those in New Zealand spent 30 minutes and 31 seconds. Australians spent 26 minutes and 27 seconds; next, folks in the United Kingdom spent 25 minutes and 33 seconds; and the United States came in 5th place with 20 minutes 46 seconds, followed by France, India, and Brazil.

Not surprisingly, Facebook was the most visited social network in the United States in August, leading with 91 percent of all visits. Second place went to Twitter with 1.92 percent of all social-networking visits. San Francisco-based Tagged.com came in third place for the first time with 1.04 percent of all visits, overtaking MySpace. … Read more

Apple could find itself the target of an antitrust probe in India after a complaint was lodged against it from an unnamed party, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The complaint specifically asks India's antitrust agency to investigate whether Apple broke India's Competition Act of 2002 in the rollout of the iPhone 4 by only making it available to certain carriers. Apple began selling the phone to Indian carrier outfits Bharti Airtel and Aircel on May 27.

Apple remains selective about what carriers it makes its devices available on, though the overall number continues to grow beyond 200 worldwide. … Read more

The U.S.-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center is ready to offer $100 million in public and private-sector funding for green-tech research, the organization announced last week.

Specifically, the center's intent is to fund joint projects between U.S. and Indian research groups involving biofuels, solar energy, or building efficiency.

India and the U.S. are together contributing $50 million to the center, with the other $50 million expected to be privately matched.

The center was launched during President Obama's November 2010 trip to India and is a joint venture signed by both the president … Read more

BOSTON--Germany, Italy, and Spain may be the solar powerhouses of today, but in five years, a new set of countries led by India will emerge as leading consumers of solar technology, according to an analyst.

Lux Research solar analyst Ted Sullivan yesterday predicted that India, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and the U.K. are among the countries best-suited to create the market demand for gigawatts worth of solar panels as established countries cool off.

Last year, Germany and Italy represented about two-thirds of the solar market, but solar growth in those countries is expected to level off this year … Read more

BOSTON--For the most part, the world's energy system is highly centralized. Tata Power of India is exploring whether smaller-scale distributed energy can work in a country where hundreds of millions of people don't have access to electricity.

Earlier this month, I met with Avinash Patkar, the chief sustainability officer of Tata Power, which is the power division of India-based Tata, an industrial giant with businesses in steel, software, autos, chemicals, and telecommunications.

As electricity service is extended to more people in India, Tata Power is projecting rapid growth from about 3,000 megawatts of capacity now to 25,… Read more

So you have a problem with your credit card.

Perhaps you'd like to check on a charge that looks slightly illicit.

You call your credit card company. Your call is answered by someone in a call center in India. This might be someone who knows a little about illicit transactions. It might also be someone who is in jail for murder.

As usual, I am deadly serious.

For the Guardian happily informs me that the guardians of Indian prisons are experimenting with a new program that puts some of their computer-savvy inmates into the workforce. Their task will be … Read more

India appears unlikely to implement its threatened ban on BlackBerry services, but the government is still demanding access to the data on Research In Motion's secure enterprise network--something RIM keeps insisting it cannot provide.

RIM had been ordered to give the Indian government a permanent solution on access to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) by yesterday to avoid a ban on its services. India has been insisting on the access for the past several months as a way to monitor e-mails for national security reasons. But with the deadline past and no solution apparently in place, what does that … Read more

RIM yesterday reiterated that it's unable to provide the Indian government with the means to access secure e-mails on its enterprise network, despite a looming deadline.

Robert Crow, Research In Motion's vice president for Industry, Government and University, repeated the company's familiar position. Speaking to reporters yesterday in New Delhi, Crow said that RIM does not have the ability to turn over the keys to the encrypted data flowing over its BlackBerry Enterprise Server because those keys are held by its corporate customers.

Despite promises to India that it would offer a permanent solution by January 31, … Read more

RIM has granted India access to its BlackBerry network, but not the ability to monitor secure customer e-mails.

The BlackBerry maker confirmed today that the Indian government now has the means to access its Messenger service.

"RIM has now delivered a solution that enables India's wireless carriers to address their lawful access requirements for our consumer messaging services, which includes BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS) e-mail," Research In Motion said in a statement released today and e-mailed to CNET.

But RIM insisted that the access does not include the ability to monitor e-mails on … Read more