HCL Learning, the education division of HCL Infosystems, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a South African educational firm Spatial Data Holdings, to launch their products in five African countries including South Africa. Through this agreement the company has already started selling its educational content , tablets anddongles in Africa. The countries are South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia.

"We are mapping content to African educational boards and also modifying them to adapt to dialects and accents prevailing in these countries. The focus of content is primarily on English, Maths and Science," said Rothin Bhattacharyya, EVP Marketing , Strategy and Corporate Development at HCL Infosystems.

While the first wave of institutions driving this initiative in Africa are primarily non-governmental organisations (NGOs), governments are soon expected to step in. "Right now, NGOs and relatively expensive schools are taking up such solutions in Africa. We expect government buying to become big next year," said Bhattacharyya.

At the same time, government laptop buying remains a big source of growth in India. "We will be finishing this week our shipping requirements for the Tamil Nadu project worth about Rs 270 crore. In UP, we have been shortlisted for laptop project and have also applied for their tablet initiative. Governments in Punjab, Goa and Assam, among others, also have similar initiatives declared in their manifestoes," said Bhattacharyya.

HCL Learning, started three years ago, had so far been selling its products mainly in a business-to-business (B2B) fashion but now the company is going business-to-consumer (B2C). It plans to sell its tablets and dongles through more than 600 outlets nationwide in the coming few weeks.

"Introducing dongles allows us to reach on all the 50-60 million computing devices present in Indian market. We will be selling our content and services through retail channel as well as through our longstanding relationships with schools," said Bhatacharyya.

Keep misplacing your car keys? Just wave your smartphone to unlock the door!
Engineers at South Korean automobile majorHyundai have invented a new system that will allow your smartphone to double as your car keys, and the technology will be made available to buyers within two years.

Rather than using Bluetooth, the system by Hyundai uses wireless Near Field Communication ( NFC), allowing you to lock and unlock the car by waving your phone over a small tag on the car window.

Inside the car, you place the phone on a pad in the centre console that wirelessly charges it while the content is synced and streamed to the car's infotainment system and touchscreen.

The system can also store in-car preferences, including radio stations, seating positions and even mirror adjustment - with multiple profiles able to be saved for different drivers.

The system was demonstrated on a concept version of Hyundai's popular i30 in Germany.

Hyundai said developing the system was part of the carmaker's aim of producing technology for the mainstream consumer, website carsguide.com.au reported.

"The Connectivity Concept showcases Hyundai's philosophy of making tomorrow's technology accessible to a wide range of customers," Hyundai Motor Europe chief operating officer Allan Rushforth said.

"With this technology, Hyundai is able to harness the all-in-one functionality of existing smartphone technology and integrating it into everyday driving in a seamless fashion," Rushforth said.