India's leading Internet service provider and cybercafe chain Sify has announced a tie-up with Indian Railways to enable customers to book rail tickets online against cash payment.

Indian Railways is the world's second-largest rail network after Russia. It transports close to 5 billion passengers every year. For the vast majority of travelers, standing in long queues at the reservation counters or booking through agents are the only viable options. Launched around four years ago, the online reservation system is a convenient way to book tickets, but only for those having access to PCs, the Internet, credit cards or Net banking.

Indian Railways Train Ticket

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Podcasting is beginning to get traction in India. Portals and sites are adding podcasts to their bouquet of content on topics like entertainment, technology, sports etc. Bloggers are getting getting on the bandwagon using various software and services.



Any technology innovation generally starts with content and services in the technology category, moving outwards to entertainment, spreading to politics / current affairs and then becoming mainstream.
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Microsoft is set to launch the Xbox 360 gaming console during the Diwali season on September 23.

The basic Xbox 360 Core would be priced at US$435 (Rs19,990) plus taxes and the fully loaded Xbox 360 would cost US$520 (Rs23,990) plus taxes. Microsoft is in talks with consumer finance companies to provide the installment option to buyers.



Xbox will launch with 25 titles, including a game having an Indian flavor. The Xbox 360 system will come with a 20GB detachable Xbox 360 Hard Drive for storing music, video and games, an Xbox 360 Wireless Controller, an Xbox 360 Media Remote Control and a Component HD-AV Cable for connecting to component and composite television inputs, en Ethernet cable, and batteries.
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Six new Nokia handsets released in India have Wi-Fi. Half of these dual-mode 3G handsets are from the N-series multimedia lineup, while the others are E-series business phones. In older Nokia handsets, only the 9500 Communicator had Wi-Fi.

Nokia N93 @ Rs36,000+

The handsets viz. N93, N91, N80, E70, E61, E60 are priced between US$400 (Rs18,000) and US$800 (Rs36,000). They use miniSD cards for storage, which mean the flash media can be reused in digital cameras and other devices which support this popular format.
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Direct-To-Home (DTH) services are taking off in India. Tata Sky became the second private DTH operator when it launched its services in August, nearly three years after Dish TV introduced DTH services in October 2003.





There are three players offering DTH services in India viz. Dish TV, Tata Sky and DD Direct Plus. Two other companies--Reliance and Sun TV--are likely to enter the market soon.
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