Just Tech 2.0.

eBay India today unveiled eBay Dream house in association with Bollywood star Mandira Bedi. The eBay Dreamhouse created by Mandira exhibits themes that vary from contemporary plush in the living room to minimalist elegance in the bedroom to dark wood opulence for the study. 103 items were bought on eBay India from 28 sellers in 15 cities.



eBay's dream house can be viewed here. It was still under construction when this article was written.

Moser Baer India Limited, manufacturers of low cost high quality Optical disks just a while ago have announced their plans to enter VCD / DVD retailing of Bollywood Movies. Moser Baer is all set to wipe out the pirated market as well as online DVD rental companies by pricing as cheap as Rs 28- Rs 34 VCD / DVD.

Moser Baer has the advantage of economies of scale and is also planning 300 outlets with PAN India footprint exclusively for VCD / DVD business. Moser Baer is in advanced stages of negotiations with various Bollywood and regional movie companies and Producers to acquire 'Content Rights'.

The home entertainment market in India will witness a shakeout where pirated DVD sellers will walk out of business. Online DVD rental companies such as catchflix.com, cinesprite.com and madhouse.in, may face an uphill task to stay in Business. They can have an edge over Moser Baer only if they deploy advanced innovative technology to rate, review, interact amongst it's consumers which Moser Baer will lack. Also delivery to doorstep will help only if they have good quality of service.

Will Moser Baer also enter games manufacturing and retailing ?

Nokia, India's largest mobile handset company is throwing away a party in Mumbai on the eve of forthcoming new year. Check out Mobile India for more details.

For further updates on sale of Hutch to Maxis, Reliance or Vodafone, check out goBroadband blog.

World's best acoustics systems company, Bose Corporation is all set to double the number of stores it has in India. Currently Bose has 12 stores in India. It has presence in all the metros in India and will expand the number of retail stores in metros and will make in-roads into tier-II Indian cities such as Jaipur, Mysore, Bhopal, Lucknow, Pune and others.

Bose headphones have gained acceptance in India even though they are expensive. The noise cancellation headphone costs Rs 18,900 while the other models are available in the price range of Rs 5,000 to Rs 8,200. Bose home theater system is currently the best the world has but it is 5 times more expensive than it's nearest competitor, Sony :-)

Bose Corporation is a privately held corporation and is founded by Person of Indian origin, Jagdish Bose.

Tags: Retail India, Music Retail, Sound System Retail , Music India

I have had some comments posted by readers looking for Free Anti Virus solutions. Here are couple of anti virus software solutions available online [run from within your browser, you may have to accept an ActiveX control] which are also FREE!!!. Most viruses will be cured but if your computer is deeply affected by some kind of malware or badware then you have to call your computer expert to fix it.

Some of the ones which we have tested or used are as follows.

Trend Micro HouseCall - This service from Trend Micro is absolutely free which scans your PC hard drive for any sort of viruses or malware / spyware. HouseCall cleans most infections.

Windows Live OneCare Scanner - If Microsoft had designed and implemented Windows in a way like UNIX, then we would be in a different world today with no Virus or Malware. Now Microsoft itself has jumped into the bandwagon to offer online antivirus scanner. I haven't tried this, if you do, do let me know the results.

McAfee Freescan - This is free service from world renowned anti-virus company - McAfee. Requires IE with ActiveX control to be accepted. It gives you an option to clean your system.

Symantec Internet Security - Online virus scanner from the well known security company - Symantec. It can detect most virus threat but won't clean the infected file or repair it in the FREE version. Requires IE with ActiveX.

I have found Trend Micro to be the best service. Let me know your experience.

Airtel Broadband users are eligible for FREE McAFee Anti Virus.

Zapak.Com, India's largest Gaming portal has gone live. Zapak symbolizes - speed, youth, fun and whacky stuff. It has a collection of games that will excite the Indian kids. Zapak has tied up with 10 gaming studios that will provide 20 flash based games every month.

Future Plans of Zapak.

• Zapak plans to introduce Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) content.
• Zapak plans to introduce exclusive gaming cafes, 'Zapak Zones', in 100 Indian cities within the next two years.
  
• First ten Zapak zones will be launched in 10 major cities in a test phase, in the next quarter.
• Zapak will also introduce Zapak.TV which will provide reviews and gaming news. Also content to be presented by video jockeys and avid gamers.
  
• No plans to enter Mobile gaming anytime soon.
  

Finally we have a competitor for IndiaGames.

Moser Baer India Ltd, the company which revolutionized CD/DVD market by introducing the low cost discs is all set to compete in the Flash Storage space.

Just a while ago, I learnt that the company will start selling USB based flash drives with data capacity ranging between 512MB and 4GB. The drives are aggressively priced starting from Rs 500 to Rs4,000. A rupee for every MB of flash storage space.

According to a survey by Dataquest IT magazine, the Indian market for flash drives has seen stupendous growth and has grown from 100,000 units in 2004-05 to 900,000 units in 2005-06. The shift from FDD to pen drives, which started in the last 1-2 years, gained considerable momentum in the year 2005-06. Moser Baer is all set to cash in on this local boom. However, I have had terrible experience with Chinese manufactured USB drives available in local market. I will never BUY them again and will prefer to go with a good brand such as Moser Baer.