Microsoft Corp gave a sneak peek at its 'Halo 3' game on Friday, saying the next chapter of the fast-paced shooter trilogy will help it fend off competition from Sony Corp and Nintendo Co Ltd.

Gamers at the invitation-only preview gave mixed reviews.

"The graphics can use some work. They're not much different than the previous Halo," said Nicholas Puleo, editor of gaming news Web site Evilavatar.com.

"They've got five, six months until release, so they'll add some polish. When I compare it to other things in the platform, it's not standout."

Microsoft held previews in New York and San Francisco on Friday in advance of the public test, or 'beta', of the game, which goes live next Wednesday.

A public beta is unusual for a console game, and the one for the flagship title for Microsoft's Xbox 360 is being closely watched by gamers eager to know how it looks and plays, and whether it will live up to the considerable buzz.

"I definitely believe that 'Halo 3' is going to be bigger than 'Halo 2'. Retailers know what 'Halo 2' did and they are not going to want to be caught out of stock," Shane Kim, head of Microsoft Game Studios, said.

The first 'Halo' helped the original Xbox gain a foothold in the highly competitive video-game market, while the second installment became the top-selling game ever for the system, with sales of $125 million--roughly 2.5 million copies--in its first 24 hours of availability.

Microsoft plans to launch 'Halo 3' in the autumn, Kim said. The first two games were released in November of 2001 and 2004 ahead of the year-end holiday season.

"I believe this is going to be one of the three biggest consumer entertainment events of the year, along with 'Spider-Man 3' and the new 'Harry Potter' book," Kim said.

"This is going to be a huge competitive advantage for us. Sony has nothing like it."

The game once again puts players in control of 'Master Chief', a futuristic soldier trying to save humanity from an alien coalition known as the Covenant.

To make things more realistic, game maker Bungie Studios made the movements in 'Halo 3' more closely follow the laws of real-world physics.

Dead bodies float. Grenades tossed in snow stay in place, while those thrown on harder surfaces skip and roll. Bullets ricochet off walls. And gamers' characters straying too close to grenades will be maimed by their shrapnel effect.

The games have also driven adoption of the Xbox Live online gaming service, which offers some basic features for free but charges users about $50 a year for being able to play against other gamers.

In addition to being one of the year's hottest-selling games, the publicity surrounding 'Halo 3' should also spur some consumers to run out and buy an Xbox 360, said Craig Davison, Microsoft's director of marketing.

"There's a significant number of people just waiting for that one game," he said, "and this is the game."


Courtesy : Expressindia.com

Indians New York, May 14: India's fast growing economy and leaping information technology sector is attracting home more and more Indians from the Silicon Valley and the Indus Entrepreneur Group (TIE) estimates that around 60,000 may have returned in recent years, a media report said on Monday.

No region of the United States has been more affected by this trend than Silicon Valley. TIE had reported in 2003 that between 15,000 and 20,000 Indians have returned and Charter member of the organisation Vish Mishra told San Jose Mercury News that the trend had continued and about 40,000 more had gone back in the last four years.

Mishra, who is a senior venture partner with Clearstone Ventures, said the flow of investment capital to India also has expanded, much of it from Silicon Valley VC firms.

Clearstone Venture Partners now has an office in Mumbai, as do many other firms that either are based in or originated in Silicon Valley.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com

EVEN as work on the ambitious Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) goes underway in Ahmedabad in full swing, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) is yet to finalise on the operational structure of the transport system.

In this, AMC is being guided by several top institutions in the country, including Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A).

An internal report prepared by IIM-A and presented to experts working on the BRTS, including CEPT University and AMC, seeks to involve more private players in the operation of the BRTS and decrease government role in the upkeep of the new transport system that will be soon operational on city road.

According to AMC, several options on the operational model of BRTS are being discussed at the level of the Central Government and will be implemented together in different BRTS systems in the country without duplication.

IIT-Delhi is another top institute involved in the project at national level.

“We hope to finalise on a singular operational model, to be followed in all BRTS across the country, by June this year,’’ said I P Gautam, Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner.

One of the two models that IIM-A has suggested to the AMC is based on the model followed in the city of Bogotá (South America).

“We have argued for a bigger involvement of private players both for infrastructure creation and maintenance. In one model, private party should be asked to generate revenue themselves with some additional support from the Government,’’ said G Raghuram, faculty with the Public Systems Group of IIM-A, who has prepared the report.

The report also suggests creation of a separate BRTS Oversight Unit with an expertise in transportation planning, management, maintenance, marketing and operation of the system.

It seeks multiple private players to operate on the route so they could compete for better operation of the system. Each operator, it seeks, should have a minimum fleet size for easy operation.

The second model suggested by the IIM-A is quite popular and being followed in a number of countries, including Bogotá.

In this model, government takes care of the infrastructures while operation is handled by private players through bidding.

“We have also suggested a model in which old buses, plying on the regular road, might mingle at some points with the special BRTS corridor for a certain length,’’ Raghuram added.

Courtesy : Expressindia.com