Online Vegetable Shopping: Are We Ready For It?

In the year 2006, we reported that Azadpur Mandi, one of the largest fruit and vegetable wholesale market planning to take a plunge into online transaction.When Akrosh Sharma, an IIM-Ahmedabad graduate of the class of 2004 launched his online vegetable store“mandionwheels.com” in 2009, many questioned the sustainability of the idea. But what actually started from a meager investment of Rs. 1 lakh recently crossed Rs 1 crore in sales turnover.

The venture not only grew at the rate of over 30% but also led others to believe in the concept. The result: within a short span of 2 years, a number of websites like FandV.in, sabzi.in, vegoncall.com,belivefresh.com, and freshsubzi.com have cropped up, each creating a distinct place for itself and fulfilling to the modern needs of the people. All these websites, at present, cater to a sub-section of society; those who dwell in metros and who find it difficult to visit the crowded mandis or malls.

Internet penetration is still on the lower side in our country. Moreover, the percentage of population who actually opt to shop online still constitutes a very small percentage out of the total chunk.  As a result, the online vegetable shops do not pose any considerable competition to the vegetable vendors and the wholesale vendors. This has given the online vendors an opportunity to expand their services and create a loyal consumer base for themselves. Some of these sites have actually started to offer value added services in the form of free home delivery, money-back guarantee, call-for-delivery, gift certificates and gift packaging to lure the customers.

The vegetable market is very big in India and there lies plenty of room for these online players to grow and co-exist with the traditional vendors. From offering luxury items to electronic goods, Internet has come up a long way by changing the traditional mindset of the people.

Can day-to-day necessities like vegetables and groceries find same level of acceptance from the people, what do you think?

Google Brings Voice And Image Search To Desktop

In a media event in San Francisco, Amit Singhal Head of Google’s core ranking team announced a range of new updates for Desktop search, Mobile search and Google Instant.

Voice Search on Desktop

A feature that had already been available on mobile devices is now finally available on the desktop, it is now possible to search by voice. This was not entirely surprising since Google had already demonstrated at I/O that by simply adding one line of code, a text field in Chrome couldaccept voice input. Right now it works only on the latest version of Chrome, and would be available on other browsers when they implement the HTML5 speech input API. The problem with most voice recognition services is that they are designed keeping the  American accents in mind, however Google’s voice recognition technology has no problem in recognizing Indian accents. Check out this video.

Image Queries

Like Voice search, search by image was already present on smartphones through Google Goggles. Now this service is available on Google Image search where modern browser users can just drag and drop images in the search field to get further details about the image or even similar images. An alternative way of providing Google the image to be searched for is via URL, uploading an image or right clicking an image on the browser. This is Liz Gannes’ (All Things D) commentary of the Image search demo at the event:

Next demo is of a blurry image of a guy standing on a trail in front of an island in Greece. You can now drag an image from your desktop into the search query box. This returns the name of the island: Nea Kameni. (Whoa, kinda crazy!)

Perhaps taking a cue from the negative feedback Facebook received on enabling face recognition Google has clarified that the search by image feature would not have facial recognition.

Instant Pages

Continuing its obsession with speed, Google introduced Instant Pages which would pre fetch and render pages which are more likely to be clicked in search results in the background. This along with Google Instant would save around three to five seconds of the user’s time on typical searches. Instant pages is available today to those who use developer builds of Chrome and would soon be available to beta users as well. Click here to learn more.

Mobile Search

Two of the three main announcements at this event were bringing something already available on mobile to desktop. This highlights the importance Google gives to mobile search. Mobile search in many ways right now mimics the initial stages of desktop search. Google made quite a few enhancements to its mobile search offering as well, the highlight being local search. Google added features that were already available on Google places to the Google homepage. With this searching nearby places becomes much more faster and easier. When searching for places a map will overlay the results at all times, even when scrolling so that placing coffee shops and ATMs on maps is hassle free.

Tips to Speed Up Your Broadband

Not happy with your broadband speed? Here's our handy guide with these  tips to help speed up your broadband connection! Find out the factors that can cause your connection to slow and how to fix them.

 Some Genuine Tips

Understand what your maximum speed is 

Standard broadband over telephone lines degrades in speed the further the line is from the telephone exchange (in cabling length). While most deals are advertised as 'up to 8Mb', most telephone lines will be rated to achieve slower connection speeds. Run a broadband speed test on your line using your postcode. Ensure that the speed you're told to expect is actually higher than the speeds you're experiencing - it may be that you're already achieving the fastest speed your line can expect.

Don't use telephone extension cables

Don't connect your modem/router using an extension cable. Poor quality extension cables are probably the number one cause of poor broadband speeds. Extension cables can massively increase interference on your line and cause broadband speeds to be lowered. The simplest way to solve the problem is to ditch the extension cable and connect the router directly to the phone socket and then use a long ethernet cable to connect your computer to the router (these can be purchased in any computer store and cost around £ 1 per metre), ethernet cables will not degrade the speed of your connection.

Use the BT Master Socket

Plug your modem/router directly into the BT Master Socket. The master socket is where your BT telephone line comes into the house. Most master sockets have a split across the front plate. The lower section of the plate can be unscrewed and inside is an engineer's test socket. If you remove the lower faceplate it will disconnect all the extension wiring in your property. You can then connect your modem/router using the test socket. If you get an increase in speed then your internal telephone wiring is causing interference that is lowering your speeds.

Fit an I-Plate

If test 10 made a difference, try fitting an I-Plate (also known as a BT Accelerator). Telephone extension wiring can act as a big aerial and cause interference on the broadband signal. An I-Plate is a device that fits into the bottom half of your split BT Master Socket and works by preventing the interference from your internal wiring. This can have significant positive effects on your speeds. An I-Plate costs around £10 and can be DIY fitted. Note, newer master sockets with 'Openreach' written on them will not benefit from an I-Plate as the technology is already built in.

Get a good quality router

If you are using a cheap modem or router, consider replacing with a newer higher quality router. A cheap radio gives a poorer sound reproduction than a quality radio, in the same manner a cheap modem or router can sometimes be the cause of a poor broadband experience. Investing in a higher quality router can lead to improvements in speed and reliability, especially on poor quality telephone lines. If you're not sure, look online for user reviews of your make and model of modem or router - if there are problems it's likely that reviews will show this.

Check for electrical interference

Electrical equipment can cause interference. Electrical equipment can cause real problems for your connection, anything with a motor or pump can particularly be an issue. Try turning off electrical devices to see if they are interfering. If possible keep your router/modem away from other electrical equipment. BT have shown that faulty fluorescent lighting and even christmas tree lights can drastically reduce broadband speeds in some cases. Experiment with turning off devices.

Speak to your ISP

It's always worth speaking to your broadband supplier to see if your speed can be increased, this is particularly relevant for people who have had their connection for a long time and may still be on deals capped at a speed below that which your line can support.

Use a wired connection instead

Connecting to your router via a wired connection rather than wireless can improve your speeds. Wireless networks can be subject to interference and are affected by the size and composition of your home. Thick walls on old houses can be a particular problem. A wireless network that has lots of interference can make your broadband connection seem slow. Required security measures, such as encryption, also add an overhead to wireless connections that is not necessary for a wired connection. Connecting using a wired Ethernet (network cable) connection gets round the problem and can improve speeds, but it obviously is less flexible than a wireless connection.