Rupee symbol: On board, in hand and on the download

The Indian tech industry is falling all over itself in the week after Independance Day to be the first to stamp the new rupee symbol on its hardware and software. It may not be a technological breakthrough but they obviously feel it's a matter of pride for India to be the fifth nation to have a currency symbol of its own, even if it does follow on from the Yen and Euro in its design.

Lava B5 mobile phone: Lava Mobile, an Indian mobile phone brand is the first to incorporate the symbol on their B5 model keypad. Incidentally the B5 also sports the world's first Alpha keypad with keys arranged in ABCD order. The phone is priced at Rs 4,399 and available at authorized dealer outlets in Mumbai.

TVS Gold Bharat keyboard: Not to give Microsoft Windows purists another reason to deride Mac users, but as a dedication to India's Independance Day yesterday TVS Electronics launched the first keyboard incorporating the new Indian Rupee symbol, but it's only compatible with Windows and Linux.

The TVS Gold Bharat keyboards costs Rs 1,495 and is available at authorized dealer outlets in Mumbai (call toll-free +1-800-200-5123) and online later this week at eBay.in, Indiaplaza.in, Sify and Times Shopping.

Free rupee symbol downloads: Meanwhile the ever eager Indian tech community has come forward with a font that contains the rupee symbol too. Download it for free at Techzilo.com, but remember that the .ttf file symbol is currently part of the font only, which means that for anyone to actually see the symbol, they have to install the font too. This will change when the symbol is accepted as a special character, but for tech avant-gardists it's something to fiddle with till then.