Yahoo India’s Research and Development wing announced the return of its annual Open Hack fest. Slated to be held on August 11 and 12 in Bangalore, this is the fifth year of the event, which is popular among developers.
Of the over 2,000 developers who registered this year, around 700 from 20 States across India were accepted for the event, a press release from Yahoo stated.
Open Hack 2012 begins on August 11 with a series of technical workshops, followed by a hackathon — a non-stop 24-hour coding marathon. The key Internet themes under which developers are encouraged to hack include multi-device experiences, search, communications, mobile and video. To build their application, hackers are provided with popular technologies and tools from the Open Web, including Yahoo’s YUI, YQL and Mojito, as well as geo-location and Flickr APIs (Application Programmable Interface), which serve as the core building blocks for exciting new applications.
The release explained that all entries would be reviewed at the end of the 24-hour hacking period. Subsequently, the shortlisted entries would be demoed for the panel of judges to determine the winning hacks. The winner will be invited to attend the Yahoo Hack event in Cannes in 2013.
RedBus lends expertise to global travel major
Global online travel company Expedia announced a tie-up with Indian bus ticketing company RedBus. This tie-up is aimed at making Expedia a one-stop shop for travel planning, a press release announced.
It also announced the addition of bus tickets to its existing range of services, following the recent launch of visa services. Vikram Malhi, Country Head, Expedia India, said, “Buses are one of the preferred modes of transport in India, connecting some of the key Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities. With an increasing number of travellers taking short weekend getaways, the demand for bus services have significantly risen over the last few years. With this tie-up, we are aiming to strengthen our domestic and inbound travel solution for an enhanced experience.”
Phanindra Sama, Chief Executive Officer, RedBus said, “Expedia is growing very rapidly in India and we are very happy to partner with them for bus tickets.”
Contest for engineering students
Analog Devices, the global semiconductor major, announced the commencement of its student design project fellowship, Anveshan 2012. The event is a system-level design contest for final-year electrical and electronics engineering students across the country, initiated to enhance system-level engineering expertise among students at the university level.
A press release from Analog Devices stated that the contest gave India’s engineering students an opportunity to showcase their innovation, product design and problem-solving abilities. Registered student teams would be invited to submit proposals for a prototype of an innovative electronic solution across industry verticals such as medical, infotainment, home security, surveillance, robotics, automotive, green energy, process control or instrumentation.
Five to 10 innovative proposals would be shortlisted and teams would build prototypes using at least three components from Analog Devices, and senior engineers from the firm will mentor students, the release added.
Hands-on training on Open tools
The Free Software Movement, Karnataka, conducted a migration workshop from Matlab, a proprietary numerical computing solution, to the popular Free and Open source GNU Octave at Reva Institute of Technology and Management, Bangalore. In a faculty development programme organised by the college for lecturers teaching Electronics and Communication Engineering, members of the FSMK demonstrated how to migrate to a Free and Open technology environment, a release from FSMK stated. In addition to having access to Free and Open code, an added advantage is that the GNU solution would not entail any licensing fees.
