The Hindu : Front Page : Wireless ways to the web

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 14, 2007
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Wireless ways to the web

Anand Parthasarathy

Technology "under the hood" of many a gadget

Las Vegas: Only one Indian information technology player was officially listed: Wipro Technologies. That might have some thing to do with the high cost of participation: $35 per square foot of booth space — and a typical four-day spend around $500,000 even for a modest presence.

The Bangalore-based IT leader exhibited its prowess in the farthest reach of today's broadband wireless technology known as Ultra Wide Band (UWB) and demonstrated the intellectual property for dual-role devices created at its design services operation, Wipro-NewLogic. It also showcased a variety of portable digital audio and video devices as well as know-how for digital Television broadcasting.

Wipro may have seemed to be the lone Indian flag waver at CES — but if one probed deep enough, `desi' technology was evident `under the hood' of many devices and gadgets that bore the brand names of their international makers: The `Hava' play your TV anywhere devices marketed by Pinnacle and others, were actually crafted in Noida.The technology called Rainbow, created by the Bangalore-based iWave Systems, was driving many of the hand held `smart' gadget applications being displayed by the U.S.-based semiconductor leader Xilinx to highlight its own product line. And atHilton, U.S.-based digital signal processor leader Texas Instruments was talking to potential customers, for offerings in video phone systems, developed on its chip platforms by another Indian player, Ittiam Systems.

The common strain running through all these efforts was wireless — and Internet: the combo of technologies that seemed to be the main technology trend for 2007. Sleek new devices on display included an ultra thin pocket sized Wireless Internet access device that featured a full keyboard, an 8 inch LCD screen and GSM (Global Services Mobile) cellular telephone capability in three bands. Was it a phone souped up with Internet capability — or a Net device with mobile telephony thrown in? It didn't matter: In 2007, CES seemed to say, the edges had blurred. Only applications mattered.

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