Total Posts : 280 posts
Those who hate the Hindus deeply and intend to mock them have a specific lingo. It focuses on cows and plays up the Hindu reverence for cows. Its a dog whistle really. For those who are steeped in deep hatred for the Hindu way of life. Mechanics of Hindu-hate narrative
Google searches are the world’s window to knowledge and information. If that window is tinted in a certain color and prejudice then the world will be judged and seen differently. Khilji example – Biased Google Searches or outright bigotry? I recently wrote an article on Alauddin Khilji [https://www.drishtikone.
OnePlus is launching its OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro phones today at a launch event. This is the first-ever full 5G lineup from the company. The author has the OnePlus 7 Pro Maclaren which is amazing in its own right. The new versions, specifically the OnePlus 8 Pro is
After a 384,000 km journey, the lander Vikram which was traveling at a mighty speed of 21,600 kmph (passenger jets fly between 500 to 900 kmph) had to slow down to 7 kmph before the soft landing. At the end of such an amazing and perfectly crafted journey,
Rema Rajeshwari and Dr Suneem Khan share an interesting perspective via their post ‘Fake News, the 21st century Insurgency [https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/khaki-dairies/fake-news-the-21st-century-insurgency/] in their Khakhi Diaries blog on the Times of India. They talk about influence operations. It is a term for propaganda in the digital
Something sinister is in the air these days. And it is targeting our kids. There is a playfulness almost about the demonic ways of the profiteers. They want our kids to pay the price for curiosity with their blood. Games on social media and Netflix series are pushing teenagers to
The world of reporting is changing in an unprecedented manner. The coming world will not just create news but also present it. If one is a journalist, then one should care for the long term ramifications of what these developments will bring along. News reporting and presentation is being taken
Did you know that your data on the social media and other audio, image or video sharing sites is vulnerable? Today, April 2, Google is shutting down Google Plus. It seems there was a security vulnerability in it and Google figured that it was best to shut it down than
Big data is the new buzz word in the world of technology. But what is it and what are its characteristics? Recently, we discussed how Google is not just giving us so much information, but it also might be listening to us (Is Google Listening in to your Offline Conversations?
The machine is watching. My wife and I have been binge watching the series “ Person of Interest [https://amzn.to/2HMyepb]“. It is a 5 season series about this machine – a dispersed Artificial Intelligence based code that is growing and evolving as it observes, sees, listens more. It has access
There was a major outage yesterday in all of the Facebook related/owned properties. There were significant outages worldwide [https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18264092/facebook-instagram-down-partially-post-messages-profile-loading] in Facebook (and Facebook Messenger), Instagram, and WhatsApp! In fact the service was not restored until almost this morning US time. #Telegram
A lot of Modi supporters in India are finding out that Twitter is playing dirty games. Twitter is placing its fingers on the election scale in India. Twitter, in effect, is doing a Putin + Wikileaks for the Indian elections. Twitter Directly Targets India's PM Modi and his Supporters as Dorsey
Money doesn’t go to the person who has more money. It goes to the person who knows how to handle money. Through smart and intelligent management of money, a rupee saved can be a rupee earned. And if one ties in a good ways to invest savings, earnings can
The current popular American narrative is that the jobs that US has lost have happened due to the various Trade policies, the negative trade deficits with Mexico and Canada (bad impact of NAFTA) and China’s subsidy policy. How American Jobs were Lost and Why they will Never Come Back
As the new year starts, it is time to start life afresh with proper management. One thing that we definitely should do is to manage data and our life online. Over the years, I have used some of the tools that have come of age now, which I believe really
I have a 4 year old HP Touchsmart 610 workstation. It has worked fine for so many years, but recently it was giving me a lot of trouble. For one, the fan was not working properly and it would switch off after getting heated up! Second, it would have so
Have you opened your heart lately to anyone? Some stranger at that? So many times, one walks through so many paths where one meets strangers with absolutely no apparent relationship and we strike a chord. Sometimes we open up far more to each other than hearts. We open our lives
Indian IT revolution has been the driving force for the Indian economy for last 25 years. Companies like Infosys, TCS, WIPRO, HCL etc have become really large given the outsourcing of skills and work to India and Indians. Is the Party Over for Indian #IT Companies? @Infosys #WIPRO #Technology [https:
If you are on the lookout for starting your own shop in a community that lets you interact with many like minded people around, then Community based online marketplace ezebee [http://www.ezebee.com/] is the place to be. What is ezebee? It is Ebay, Craigslist, and Facebook rolled into
The planet’s largest companies today are the technology companies. Everything is based on technology and networks. From your banks to education to jobs to even basic food being delivered now. In fact, the Internet of Things is making everything web-based and driven via internet actions. Everything – and everyone (at
Bird-brains is a euphemism for an idiot. It basically means that the person has a rather small brain which can’t do much, and therefore has a low IQ and is a moron. #BirdBrained... Really?! A Case for Incredible Intelligence of Birds Despite Our Misleading Caricatures [https://twitter.com/intent/
I have always been an Android guy, with my world revolving around Google. Therefore quite obviously a launch of a new breakthrough phone makes me ecstatic. Came across the next one from ASUS – Zenfone 2 [http://www.asus.com/Phones/ZenFone_2_ZE551ML/]. It has too many things going for
E-governance has often defined as the application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering government services, exchange of information communication transactions, integration of various stand-alone systems and services from the Government to its customers, businesses, other governments, and also management of the entire back office processe and interactions within
Way back late in 2007 I had this excellent Nokia phone – the Nokia Classic 3110. It was a black phone with the QWERTY keyboard and a nice bright screen. The two features I loved were – the camera and the music functionality. In those small cell phones of yonder, these were
Sumit Dagar, a postgraduate degree from the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, is collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi to come out with a unique device. Now, soon blind people can read SMS and emails on their smartphones. No matter what language you send the email
World has grown exponentially for most of us. Today a person sitting in a remote village of Philippines for example can be in touch with someone from New York. And the digital technology is deeply embedded into our lives. Can we disentangle ourselves from it? Here is the story of
Economic Times suggests in an article [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/stocks-in-news/infosys-mammoth-cash-pile-may-attract-global-suitors/articleshow/19568541.cms] that Infosys is a very attractive acquisition target right now. Look at some of the facts: * Infosys has Cash and cash equivalents (Rs 22,000 crore) equal to 17% of the company’s
Bitcoin is a cryto-currency – not a real currency, but acting as one [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin]. It is the new rage these days. > Bitcoin (BTC) is an online commodity that is based on an open-source [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source], peer-to-peer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer]
As Indian masses come online, Warren Buffett, the master of traditional businesses, is betting big on Indian consumers. Ironically. He wants to sell insurance online. Currently, Berkshire India sells motor, travel and health insurance products online at BerkshireInsurance.com. Now it wants to market life insurance as a corporate agent
The power of Android phones vs iPhones (and others) is visible from how Android powered phones have made Instagram so pervasive. Instagram recently said in its blog post [http://blog.instagram.com/post/47035276788/instagram-for-android-one-year-later-one-year] that half of all the Instagram’s 100 mn users are using Android. > One year
Twitter is a great resource, if used well. There are times, ways and structures of tweets which beget more retweeting and promotion of the tweets. What are they? Here is a useful infographic. Click here for a larger image [http://www.fuseworkstudios.com/maximizing-your-tweets-infographic/].
India’s internet use is undergoing a change as the Smartphone revolution takes over. Every urban youth is using a smartphone today and with it is coming the access to the social media. This infographic discusses the various aspects of the use of Social media in India.
Facebook is achanging. It is doing a redesign. So that the content is properly displayed. Mark Zuckerberg says – “What we’re trying to do is give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper,” The Verge rightly puts it as being the Social Network of Record [http://www.theverge.com/
India seems to be really prolific in spewing spam around the world! In fact it is #3 in the world! At some point it was much ahead of China, but the Chinese spammed their way out of the 3rd to a solid 2nd! Now, even Peru seems precariously close to
Posterous – a blogging platform – when started, was one of the most revolutionary. It offered a lot of new features. The best being that you could create a blog for yourself, just by sending a blog by email. The email to blogging interface was probably best explored by Posterous! The company
Are we headed to a completely virtual age? An age of augmented reality? Well, the way the tech giants are coming out with their new gear, it surely seems so! Google’s coming out with its glasses – “Google Glass.” Apple’s revving its “iWatch.” Skiers are already getting text messages
As Firefox enters the market for smartphones OS, there are more entering the fray as well. Now, Samsung has come out with Tizen. LG recently bought WebOS from HP as well, albeit purportedly for their TVs. Tizen builds on MeeGo and LiMo to create a new experience OS for Mobile.
Quora is a great site for Question and Answers. People ask interesting questions and there are experts who come out with very details and informative answers. And it seems that the Argumentative Indians have suddenly taken a lead on this site. India is now the #1 source of traffic to
Do you wonder about this? I was intrigued surely. Read Quote of Robert Frost’s answer to Can you cry in space? [http://www.quora.com/Can-you-cry-in-space/answer/Robert-Frost-1/quote/313829] on Quora [http://www.quora.com] [http://www.zemanta.com/?px]
How should the web design of a successful page be like? Well, here are some interesting structural insights from the study of the websites of the fortune 500 companies. [http://www.go-globe.com/blog/fortune-web-design/] Image Credit: Go-Globe [http://www.go-globe.com/blog/fortune-web-design/] | Moosylvania [http://www.moosylvania.com/blog/
Firefox has arrived to disrupt the party of the two major technology giants – Google (Android) and Apple (iOS) – with a new OS for the mobile world. Interestingly a lot of telecom providers are signing up for Mozilla’s new offering. > Firefox OS, the new, HTML5-friendly mobile OS from Mozilla [http:
Experts are predicting that the high profit margins experienced by the Indian IT companies will erode in the next 3-5 years. And would settle at just around the 11-15% mark. > Within the next two years, experts predict that operating margins will fall to below 20% (the average is 25% now
It seems that Office 365 suite, which includes Exchange, SharePoint and Lync, coupled with Office applications as a cloud service, is becoming a hit with the SMEs in India. Although a late entrant, it is giving Google a real run for its money on the Google Apps. Businesses adopting Microsoft’
This confirms what we have been discussing earlier. How Google works and what its strategy is pointing to in terms of revenue earning. > Google [http://www.fastcompany.com/most-innovative-companies/2013/google]‘s ads are everywhere [http://www.fastcompany.com/1805995/google-goes-after-your-local-small-business] , but new data [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/
A law student Asher Kohn, 25 has come up with a futuristic design for a city [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2277618/A-city-designed-foil-drones-U-S-student-creates-stir-concept-community-built-response-UAVs.html] to counter and foil drone attacks. It uses the sci-fi type of design on Middle Eastern architecture. It uses a number of ways to confuse
Want to know how powerful Facebook is? Thanks to the ubiquitous Facebook share functionality. Here is a reminder. > On Thursday, many major websites were taken down by an error that stemmed from Facebook, as Internet mainstays like MSNBC.com, CNN, Yelp and New York Magazine all sent users to redirect
A man in Massachusetts, US, is paying his teenaged daughter [http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/dad-pays-daughter-200-to-quit-facebook/] $200 to keep her off social networking website Facebook. Paul Baier, who is the vice president of an energy firm in Boston, posted on his blog [http://practicalsustainability.blogspot.jp/2013/02/facebook-deactivation-agreement-with-my.html]
Samsung is coming out with a fridge with a built-in Android tablet and an internet-connected washing machine, by the end of the year. The fridge will have Android tablets which will help people keep track of ingredients, order groceries and act as baby monitors using built-in cameras. The fridge – T9000
CouponDunia [http://www.coupondunia.in/] fills an important gap in India’s online retail market – coupons. I had often wondered what could be the alternative for coupon sites like FatWallet and PromoCodeWatch [https://www.promocodewatch.com] where in India. Well, CouponDunia is not quite Fatwallet in that it is not
Microsoft Office has largely defined the work-space of the modern workers in the last 25 years. Everything that we have done in the Corporate world has used MS Office in every way. The Excel, the power-points the Word, and now even the MS OneNote. Here is a history of this
Android has made big gains in the Tablet area and is breathing down the neck of iPad and is likely to overtake Apple sometime this year – 2013! > Android tablets have nearly caught up to iPad devices as the world’s most popular tablet platform, and some project that they may
Many blog owners would die to be featured on sites like top blogs such as Techcrunch, Mashable etc. Here is some great insights from an expert! Read Quote of Robert Scoble’s answer to Social Media: What are some tips for getting your startup featured on TechCrunch, Mashable, and other
iPhone was the first real smartphone in the world and extremely user friendly. The Geeks and the tech-lovers have until now been swooning over every new version. Those who love the breakaway technical excellence know that iPhones have been the winners. But, recently Android has gained 75% market share [http:
A Facebook friend had the following interesting status on her wall: > I’m always curious when I hear people mention, ‘Facebook friends’, Facebook behaviour’, ‘Facebook mannerisms’..are we so different here than what many think of as ‘real life’ ? unless of course you wear different masks for different phases and
The OS market for mobiles is really heating up. Because that is where the real prize is in future. We talked about Ubuntu [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/now-you-can-convert-your-android-phone-into-a-pc-using-ubuntu-for-android/] , a few weeks back. Ubuntu is an OS that is built to integrate all the platforms. Currently although, Android is
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have shaped the Computer history in many ways. Indian computing talent has not only impacted the computing world via the IITs, but also via the Indian students who graduated from the MIT and then contributed tremendously. This
On the weekend of November 16-17th, we changed the theme at Drishtikone. We moved to a “Responsive WordPress theme” (Brennuis theme [http://themeforest.net/item/brennuis-wordpress-magazineblog/3312836?ref=deshkapoor] from Themeforest). We used to be on Studiopress’ Genesis framework based News Theme, which personally I loved. The result as you
We have heard the Facebook wants to come out with a Facebook Phone service. Well, it has started with one of the initial steps. Now you can make free calls within US through the iPhones. > In early January, Facebook began testing free calling [http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/3/
Microsoft’s MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger were some of the first most widely used IM clients in the earlier days of tech. Then came along Skype and it disrupted the whole space. Now, Skype is replacing the MSN Messenger (or the Windows Live Messenger, as it is called now)
If things keep going the way they are going – given the lunacy of the Government and the private citizens – very soon it will be impossible for the common man to even go onto the internet or for someone to start an online venture. Now comes a Sedition charge on a
China is surging ahead in the internet connectivity. Interestingly, it is not the Wi-Fi connectivity that is fueling the people coming up on the internet, but the success and the proliferation of the Mobile technology. > According a governmental report released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), an estimated
Meditational techniques provide immense powers. Those who are on the Spiritual powers eschew using or showing such powers. Here is a Qi Master who hesitatingly demonstrates his craft in public and then withdraws because of “reprimand from his Masters”. The guy actually sets paper on fire just by using his
So here is another Facebook idiosyncratic revenue model practice. If you’re sending a message to a random person on Facebook, they’ll charge you $1 to skip the spam filter and actually have the email delivered into the inbox. But if the recipient has a lot of followers, Facebook
Amazon has come out with an interesting service called AutoRip. This way customers can automatically stores free MP3 in Amazon Cloud Player when customers acquire a new CD. These songs – from the CDs – will be available for playback or immediate download. After a customer purchases a CD, customers will be
Satyan Gajwani, Times Internet CEO is on a roll. Recently, he had acquired a share in Fab.com [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/times-internet-acquires-share-in-fab-com/] and now has signed up an alliance with Gawker Media to bring web properties like Lifehacker and Gizmodo to the Indian public with original content
We all know how the Tablets are eating into the world of laptops and PCs. Well now it is the time for the Laptop-world to hit back the Tablet-monster where it hurts the most. By end of this year, we may have Ultrabooks – thin Notebooks, which will require Touch and
This is unacceptable. Just because people are not aware and ignorance is being misused – criminally, I would say – to hurt a population without its knowledge! In the coming years, the health impact of this on an entire population could be nothing short of devastating. I’m hoping, that people start
Here is a very interesting videos with details on the Ancient Scientific discoveries and achievements of India. The Engineering skills that Indian scientific discoveries manifested have been unraveled here in this documentary through experiments now. Image Credit: legends2k [http://www.flickr.com/photos/legends2k/]
StumbleUpon has been my most important discovery in the last year. It opened up a new world for me as a blogger to share my writings. And it has brought in new readers who are interested in the content they come for. Since SU show content based on your liking
Remember this article I had written sometime back about how even people who are dead long back were “clicking on” Like button on Facebook for some sites peddling products, that while alive they wouldn’t have touched with a 100 ft long pole? (Now even the Dead Can’t Keep
It is out there in a big way, but it hasn’t really caught the popular/layman-woman’s mind as say, Android and iOS have. But Ubuntu seems to be a rather interesting play in convergence of all the computing platforms. It is open source and free and extremely convergent.
Everyone is predicting death of the newspapers in the world of digital news of smartphones and iPads. But is that true? It seems that the newspapers circulation is rising as people are willing to pay for news as well. The new trend for the paid digital content is actually helping
The smartphones sales in China is soaring. Specifically the Android based phones. But there is a catch! 70 percent of phones sold in China are Chinese-branded. China is increasingly turning away from Samsung and Apple, and instead embracing very low-cost Android phones by Chinese companies such as Xiaomi, HUAWEI or
As the battle between Apple and Google rages, Google is engaged in a strategy that is strange, effective and very profitable (Now, why the heck did Google make iPhone the Best Smartphone on Planet by releasing the Maps?? [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/google-make-iphone-best-smartphone/]). It is trying to own
Gravity Light: A generator powered by weight of gravity, which has been built for the developing and poor countries. It does not use any battery nor any expensive stuff. It would cost the people $5 to buy and there is no running cost. It comes with a durable bag, which
Times of India has now launched an interesting “Interest-based Social network” by repurposing its iTimes site [http://ww.itimes.com/]. On the new site, you can discuss your different interests. The site has had appreciable number of visitors and pageviews and what was started to be “India’s Facebook” was
Times of India group has made a major investment in the fast growing e-commerce start-up Fab.com through the group company Times Internet. The investment is supposed to be in 7 figures. Personally, I think it is a very smart move by Satyan Ganjwani and probably the first serious attempt
First Instagram – which is anyways in a mess due to its Twitter disengagement decision – made another blunder – saying that it can sell your images. > Instagram said [http://blog.instagram.com/post/38143346554/privacy-and-terms-of-service-changes-on-instagram] today that it has the perpetual right to sell users’ photographs without payment or notification, a dramatic
IBM is predicting something extremely interesting. It says that in the next five years, the computers could get all the five senses and will be able to interact with humans in totally different ways! > “This new generation of machines will learn, adapt, sense and begin to experience the world as
Interesting impact of Magazines going digital – specially Newsweek (now, Daily Beast) > “I don’t actually go to newsstands anymore,” said Tina Brown [http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/192375/tina-brown-i-dont-actually-go-to-newsstands-anymore/] , the editor in chief of Newsweek/The Daily Beast, a few days after she announced last week that Newsweek would
We all know that Google Maps are back on iPhone. With a bang. Here is the issue. Google just bought Motorola to get a footprint in the mobile phones market. It has Android as its spearhead OS. Google’s direct competitor is Apple and iPhone. The main drawback with iPhone
We all know that. And a major part of India’s surge in computing world is due to these pirated things. Good or bad, I am not sure. But it was necessary for India’s middle and low income class to help it bridge the gap. As an Indian and
Thank you! Thanks, Goldman Sachs for saying something that I have been saying for long. Computing has to be viewed by including smartphones as well! Because you know what?Tomorrow’ Computers will be based on Today’s Smartphones and NOT on today’s PC! The sooner the hardware and software
As the folks in the Developing countries get online, they make a beeline for the social networking sites. > Not as many people in developing countries have access to the Internet as those in more developed areas of the world, but when they do get on the Web, they are more
Finally, iPhone gets Google Maps as native app and not a web wrap-around. These maps now have all the necessary features like traffic, turn-by-turn navigation, transit directions, walking directions, satellite view, street view, indoor photos, Zagat restaurant reviews and even some integration with your Google Profile. Obviously, the Apple maps
In the past few years, I have seen and read about a lot of crazy shit happening on Facebook. From stalkers to crazy people to love affairs to divorces. But nothing could have prepared me for this bizarre-ness. It seems some dead people have started hitting like buttons on Facebook
This is absolutely amazing! If this new technology of microchip could be incorporated in a smart phone, then it could become a high resolution X-ray machine! > …thanks to tiny inexpensive silicon microchips developed by a pair of electrical engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The chips generate and
What was the world searching for in 2012 on Google [http://google.com]? Well, the results for India [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.6133333333,77.2083333333&spn=10.0,10.0&q=28.6133333333,77.2083333333 (India)&t=h] are the most fascinating. What surprised me was that
The social media is sharing the year in review views of all kinds. Personal – for your own – and the platform in general. Facebook has the Facebook 2012 in Review [http://www.facebookstories.com/2012] view. Twitter has a video on it as well as a whole series of tweets * Golden
Remember those cassette recorders and players – Walkman – as we were growing up? Well Sony will stop all production of the Cassette Players and Recorders in Early 2013. > All good things must come to an end and I am sorry to report that Sony WILL discontinue early January 2013 once and
Couple of things for perspective on this news item: * Pakistanis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Pakistan] cannot tire themselves calling China [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.9166666667,116.383333333&spn=10.0,10.0&q=39.9166666667,116.383333333 (China)&t=h] as their all-weather friend.
One never knows but your browser history can tell a lot about you. Government and other agencies are probably always checking browser histories for different trends and cues. This is a must listen to program!
The Muslim [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim] dominated Sundarbari panchayat [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchayati_raj] under Kochadhaman [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=26.1319444444,87.8338888889&spn=0.1,0.1&q=26.1319444444,87.8338888889 (Kochadhaman%20%28Vidhan%20Sabha%20constituency%29)&t=h] block in
Great news for India [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=28.6133333333,77.2083333333&spn=10.0,10.0&q=28.6133333333,77.2083333333 (India)&t=h]‘s cell phone [http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/phones/] users – roaming nationwide will be eliminated [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/telecom/Free-roaming-likely-from-March-2013/
JC Kendall makes an interesting point [http://socialmediatoday.com/jc-kendall/1047376/facebook-waste-time-most-advertisers] in his article on the impact of Social Media on sales of the businesses. He says the impact is negligible. > On this recent 2012 Black Friday, Online Sales grew 20.7% from last year. Online Sales on Cyber
Google is now consolidating in the shopping and retail market in a big way. After combining everything – digital and physical products – within the Google Play platform, now its getting the other pieces in place. One of the startups that is going to set up Google’s future of retail in
Anonymity gives people ability to do things that they wouldn’t do otherwise. Even say things that normal sane people don’t say. And Internet Trolls are people who use this anonymity to persistently, and many times with malafide intentions, promote and share stuff on some internet platforms, boards and
Eloqua has created an Infographic series – Modern Marketing Insights [http://www.eloqua.com/resources/marketing-insights/] – which looks closely at the Social media impact on marketing using Big Data Analysis. You can also download a free e-book from here [http://demand.eloqua.com/40-charts?elqoffer=40charts&elqchannel=blog]. * Some of the
While indicting their suspect for a terror plot, where four men – Sohiel Omar Kabir, Ralph Deleon, Miguel Alejandro Santana Vidriales and Arifeen David Gojali – were on their way to train in Afghanistan to kill American soldiers; FBI has used a interesting evidence. Facebook likes and shares. They actually counted the
With Google already having Motorola in its pocket and soon to unleash its repertoire of phones soon, now, both Microsoft and Amazon is now getting into the act as well. They are soon – Summer of 2013 – going to come out with their smartphones [http://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/PersonalTech-Updates/Is-Amazon-planning-a-smartphone/
Here is an interesting discussion on the OnPoint Program on the new advances in Artifical Intelligence. Some concepts discussed are Deep Learning, Big Data, and Neural Networks. From the time when the AI scientists wanted to feed the “intelligence” to a time when the Big Data from Internet etc is
Google’s 4.2 version of Android Jelly Beans has just become official, and it is already getting ready to unveil its next version – 5.0 Key Lime Pie. In fact the rumor is that [http://www.androidauthority.com/android-5-0-0-key-lime-pie-running-sony-lt30i-apparently-spotted-nenamark-benchmarks-132570/] one device may be testing it as we speak: Sony
Akash – the $20 tablet (after subsidy of course) – is being touted as the lowest cost tablet and an indigenous Indian product. Well, it turns out to be anything but. Apparently, it is ONLY being sold in India! It is manufactured and assembled in China [http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/
Google is now moving into the ISP space. It has unveiled its service in Kansas City area – @ $70/month – which is 100 times faster than the other ISPs. It enables you to download high-def feature films in under a minute! Well, subscribers will also receive a complimentary Nexus 7 tablet,
Google Maps now has indoor maps. There are 10,000 floor plans of major buildings in the US, UK, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Japan, Canada and Denmark. These include London’s Wembley Stadium and Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris. There is also an ability for people to create and upload
Impact of slow loading websites is tremendous on their success. Web pages that load slowly can literally destroy the future of the online venture. Here are some interesting facts: * 18% of shoppers will abandon their carts if pages load too slowly. And just a 1-second delay in load time can
This evening in the car, while on our way back from our friend’s place, my daughter and I were discussing how the coming times will see new ways of using technologies. I want her to be prepared to live in the world with no physical books and only handheld
Came across this extremely insightful video on the state of the Online world – the Social media. Some very interesting facts from the Social Media Video 2013: * Babies in Egypt have been named Facebook and Twitter * New York Residents received tweets about the Earthquake on East coast 30 seconds before they
Mozilla’s Firefox is updating its interface with Social API to integrate Social Media within the browser via a sidebar in its new Firefox 17 beta.Facebook will be integrated [https://www.facebook.com/about/messenger-for-firefox] such that Facebook chats and updates will be available within the browser itself. It
Is the computer – the desktop – that we have known for so many decades, going to go the way of the dodo, and be extinct? With even Microsoft coming out with an Operating System that is built for touchscreen effects, do we have the technical world shifting its base to the
Whether we like it or not, Social Media is here to stay. And the creative educationists and teachers are using it well. Here is an interesting infographic on how professors are using Pinterest to engage with the students. Pinterest now has over 10 million users. Courtesy: Worldwide Learn [http://www.
Even Internet can be an addiction. And it has its repercussions [http://collective-thoughts.com/2012/11/02/facebook-psychology-infographic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CollectiveThoughts+%28Collective+Thoughts%29] . > Some people think that internet addiction (IAD) is not a real issue, but in China, Taiwan, and Korea
Data Scientists are using Twitter data and Super-computer power to understand [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/19/sgi-twitter-heat-map_n_2138726.html?utm_hp_ref=technology] where positive and negative emotions and responses are being generated. > Silicon Graphics International, or SGI, has partnered with researchers from the University of Illinois
In a recent incident, Nikhil Thakur – a 19 year old ethical hacker – broke into Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) – and got access to some confidential databases. By his action he tried to show to the establishment, how vulnerable these websites are and how much risk the customers of this company
While the whole world is going gaga over Apple and iPhone, it is Samsung with its Galaxy powerhouse phones which are kicking some serious ass [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/hardware/Samsung-Galaxy-S-III-beats-iPhone-4S-to-become-worlds-no-1-smartphone-Strategy-Analytics/articleshow/17142802.cms] behind the scene. > Strategy Analytics estimated Samsung sold 18 million S III models in
Here are two tables [http://marketingland.com/september-smartphone-market-once-again-the-apple-android-show-25778?utm_source=pluspost&utm_medium=plus&utm_campaign=stream] which tell the story of smartphones market share – specially in case of Operating systems. This assumes importance since Microsoft has come out with its new Operating System called Windows 8. Many proclaim it
Lenovo is the number 2 smartphone company in China with a market share of 11.2%. It is now launching its products in India. Given its legacy of IBM PCs, Lenovo has now fashioned it into this “4 screen” strategy to be ready for the post-PC era. It will focus
In the coming years, India will become a major market for online products, information and services in every area. It is one of the world’s fastest growing market [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/india-among-fastest-growing-internet-markets-study/articleshow/16990524.cms] and has been growing at an astonishing rate of 41% annually.
Singer Chinmayi SripadaThis is an interesting case [http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/cops-clip-tweeters-wings-for-harassing-singer/article4023339.ece] from India where the harassment on Social Media by some people culminated in their arrest on complaint from the victim. So, moral of the story is that you better be careful while passing
India’s total subscriber’s base is 300 mn, but its mobile connections are over 900 mn (close to a bn) now. It follows the strange situation in the developing markets, where the ratio of SIM cards to users [http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/10/global-mobile-usage?fsrc=rss]
Mobile penetration is deep in India!With world’s second largest population and a deep penetration of the cell phones already reaching a billion and growing, India has a unique problem at hand. It is running out [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-to-run-out-of-phone-numbers-by-next-year/articleshow/16908983.cms?utm_source=twitter&
Satyan Gajwani, CEO Times InternetIn this day and age of celebrity egos and anger, it is interesting to come across someone who is comfortable being what he is and trying to make sure his work is worth something. In Quora today, I came across an interesting question on Satyan Gajwani,
H1-B worker visa numbers on offer by the US Government have come down over the years. They are half of what they were at the peak just a few years back. With the downturn in the US economy, this may go down further. Not just that, US Government has increased
Red Hat is the first company based on Open Source model, which has reached a $1 billion in revenue. This is a big achievement for the Open Source movement. It provides enterprise class operating system platforms, middleware, applications, management products, and support, training, and consulting services. It takes the Open
Tata Consultancy Services (China) Co. Ltd. just got recognized as “2012 Top 10 Global Service Provider in China”. The award was presented by China Council for International Investment Promotion (CCIIP) in Nanjing, China. Qiqi Dong, the CEO of TCS China was obviously elated. He reiterated his company’s commitment to
Are you on Facebook? Are a lot of people viewing, liking and commenting on your posts? Do you share a lot of your self-disclosures out there? Well, you may be getting as good a deal as sex. Or food. So says a Harvard study [http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/06/
In yet another case of an Indian executive growing to the top of the ranks, Padmasree Warrior has been promoted in CISCO to Chief Technology and Strategy Officer position. She was hitherto the CTO. The current Chief Strategy Officer, Ned Hooper, has been let go. Padmasree has a B. Tech
A lot of dictators and high strung powerful caricatures in Bollywood movies announce with certain grand standing voice – “Meri Ijazzat ke bina yahan koi parinda bhi nahin aa sakta” (without my permission, not even a bird can enter my area). Well Pakistani Government loves to make that happen in the
World’s first Air car may be on its way in the coming years. As discussed earlier [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/aircar-coming-india-soon/], Tata Motors had signed a license agreement in Jan 2007 with Motor Development International (Luxembourg) to use their Compressed air technology to power the cars. Now
The world of browsers has a new kid on the block – Epic Browser [http://www.epicbrowser.com/]. It is billed as an “Indian Browser”. It is a product of Hidden Reflex, a software product company in Bangalore. Hidden Reflex was founded by Alok Bhardwaj. Bhardwaj was a mergers & acquisitions investment
Narmada Canal being CoveredJust as Modi’s critics go on ad nauseum with their mindless criticism, he goes on working on ways to improve the lot of his people and state. Not only is he pragmatic and not prone to unnecessary Government – he is also pretty innovative. Or rather he
The Anonymous HacktivistsUnbeknownst to many, there is a virtual war going on. Hackers vs the US Government. Recently, computer hacking group LulzSec has been brought down by the FBI, when they arrested some of the top guys in that group. They did so by introducing a mole named Hector Xavier
Steve JobsVery few people in the history of technology have impacted the world as profoundly as Steve Jobs had done. Until his death recently, he had reinvented the world of computing many times. From Apple to NeXT to iPod and iPAD and iPhone. It is always interesting to listen to
Internet is off?A malware called DNSchanger Trojan has infected many computers and many are still corrupted. What does it do? It alters user DNS settings, such that it starts pointing users to malicious DNS in data centers in Estonia, New York, and Chicago. The malicious DNS servers can do
Vijay Kumar at TEDUniversity of Pennsylvania professor Vijay Kumar showcased a set of autonomous, agile and decentralized flying robots which can not only do maneuvers that are difficult for any machine but also communicate between themselves to not only fly in formations but also do complex tasks of lifting stuff
Interesting finding from a survey conducted by IPSOS and Google about the smartphone usage by customers in US and India. It seems that when it comes to using the Smartphones to access the internet, more in India are using it and more frequently, than those in the US. 94% Indian
Christopher Stone, Twitter's co-founderAfter some debate about the utility of sharing in only 140 characters, Twitter has emerged as one of most powerful social platforms. According to some studies, people stay logged on for 12 hours addicted to the stuff being shared. But is that healthy? The co-founder of Twitter
Huh!? Now it is possible to predict your success or failure in academics and job by analyzing your FB profile updates! Better be careful!! > Your Facebook profile holds more valuable information about you than you might think. Researchers spent about 10 minutes looking at photos, wall posts, comments, education, and
Anant Agarwal: Creator of 100 core chipAfter Vinod Dham, the father of Pentium chips, there is another Indian – Anant Agarwal – who is creating the next breakthrough in the world of computer chips. Anant, who is the Director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)
The Indian PM is now on Twitter [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/PMO-joins-Twitter/articleshow/11613921.cms] . So, if you want to have a close conversation with him, you can tweet him your mind. GIven his reticent nature he had tweeted only thrice on the first day and garnered 7000
TransformSince last few months, I have been analyzing the platform I was using for Drishtikone.com with a view to see how it can be made simpler and also more user friendly. All these years, I have been a hard core proponent of Drupal as a great CMS. It is.
IBM’s future predictions via its 5 in 5 (You can read the complete list here – Five innovations which will alter the tech landscape in 5 years [http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2011/12/the-next-5-in-5-our-forecast-of-five-innovations-that-will-alter-the-landscape-within-five-years.html] ) series this year are mind boggling. Here they are: 1. Create energy from unexpected sources,
Welcome to the latest Banana Republic which passes off as a democracy, India. It is common and normal in India for Government ministers and politicians to loot the country, stash the loot in foreign banks. Then if anyone protests, its normal to target him or them with Battalions (Ramdev) or
In the world of today, the businesses around the have become intertwined like never before. This announcement in OfficeMax about the severe crunch on their Hard Drive inventory is a good example of that. Thailand is facing unprecedented floods [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15610536] after 3 months of
If you often share some useful information with your facebook friends, you would often wonder how to save all those sharings.. right? So, if you do want to back up every thing that you have shared… here are the steps to go about it: 1. Go to Account Settings,
Social Media is useful if its used for the right reasons. What we are seeing is that kids are glued to Facebook etc in a way that never happened before. Is that good? A study [http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2011/08/social-kids.aspx] has some startling findings.
Infosys is realigning itself. The entire realign work has been going on for last year or so. Broadly speaking there are 3 phases to it: 1. Business Operations Restructuring: This has been completed. It affected roughly 55,000 people. Basically, in this phase the company’s employees were aligned in
How did Cognizant become #3 of the Indian IT companies? That’s an interesting question. Here are three reason that “First Post” identifies [http://www.firstpost.com/blogs/business-blogs/who-cares-if-cognizant-overtakes-wipro-employees-do-52975.html] : 1. Long-standing emphasis on the quality of its work-force. 2. Wipro, the company it toppled, has been preoccupied with
Facebook is an interesting platform for one to keep in touch with friends and family, specifically the extended one. And since it even suggests people’s birthdays so one can always be on time. And the person who is wished is happy that s/he is getting greeted from the
These days the professional and personal lives are very closely entangled. Many companies – like HP – are specifically making products that cater to both people’s personal and work requirements. One of most common place for people to hang out is the Facebook page. More and more people are getting their
On a typical project done by an Indian IT company, the resources in India are charged at an average of $25-35/hr. Some years back it used to be $45, but it has steadily fallen. The other component are the resources from Indian practice working onsite. These resources are charged
Google is going crazy with Operating Systems. They have two – well kinda three – out there already: * phone OS on Android 2.3/2.4 called Gingerbread * a tablet OS on Android 3.0 called Honeycomb * browser-based operating system, Chrome-OS When you look at the information coming out of Google, you
Getting an iPad2 in Asia is no easy feat – specially with long lines and short supplies. With the earthquake in Japan and the subsequent Tsunami, Apple’s raw material supplies have also been affected. Well, the living beings on the planet are of course realing under the shortage from probably,
As the social media war heats up, Google has come out with its own version of “Like” button, which beckons recommendations from the public for the various web pages, sites, products etc. What is it? Per Google: > The +1 button is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should
The future of computing is heavily dependent on the present and near term of the phone world. And in this space, it seems that Android is the one which is leading the space in terms of how many phones are adapting the operating system. But is Google really a winner
Google has come out with its Game-Changer Operating System for tablets – Android 3.0 Honeycomb at a gathering at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters. It supports features like – video chat, 3D “carousels” (that helps to scroll through books, music and other content) and multitasking. Google is also opening up
Recently, my four year old came up to me all excited with the DVR remote in hand and showed me some product that he wanted me to buy. He had recorded the commercial and he would even pause it for effect. Additionally, my other little one who is going to
Previous to this post, we discussed how students can be some of your best recruiters due to the influence of social media. Today, we are going to discuss the connection between email and social media tools. The communication framework in CRM software applications is, perhaps, the most robust and powerful
The fingers now have more power than any other part of our body, thanks to social media tools. When at a campus or mall, the fingers are constantly on the move using some gadget or gizmo; this is changing the way we communicate. Today I’m going to discuss how
Unless you have severe issues and have been holding back for a long time or are from the sub continent where a healthier way of water is used, chances are you have seen a toilet paper roll. Remember the tube over which the paper is rolled up on? Well, now
The world is a reflection of who we have become. What works in the world is somewhat a manifestation of what we espouse – consciously or unconsciously. This dawned on me the recently when I was trying to look for something I had written sometime back on Facebook. Did you ever
Asymmetric attacks on computer networks are amongst the biggest emerging threats to the UK, the government has said in its new National Security Strategy (NSS): “A Strong Britain in An Age of Uncertainty.” There will be an extra GBP 500 million to bolster cyber security, focused on protecting key infrastructure
In July this year, half of the 24 transponders on INSAT-4B shut down. The DTH companies in India from Doordarshan to VSNL and Sun TV were without service. So, they shifted to AsiaSat – which uses a Chinese Satellite ASIASAT-5 instead. AsiaSat is owned by General Electric and China International Trust
As the tablet market heats up, Blackberry is coming out with its own version of its competition to iPad. As we said in an earlier post [https://www.drishtikone.com/future-world-computing-will-be-defined-smartphones-today-not-laptops] , that future of computing is going to be decided by the mobile computing as opposed to laptops of today.
New products and new markets are defined by players who catch the giants of the current industry on the wrong foot. As the computing world is unfolding, that is precisely how I see it playing out for the giants as well. Microsoft and Intel have defined the personal computing for
Thanks to new and innovative technology, managing small businesses has become more efficient. Whether it’s with new accounting automation trends [https://futurefirm.co/accounting-automation/]or inventory databases, technology is making numerous aspects of business much easier to manage and more streamline. For businesses online, there are also more technology
Semantic and contextualized search is an important area which will impact our ability to quickly do “intelligent” searches around the web. As the information on web has grown – one came to realize that a vast amount of it was lying there with no context in the direct sense. When such
Do you want to SMS a friend in a hurry who is in US or India or Malaysia or Pakistan or maybe even Canada? All those free SMS sites that you go to bring the untold misery of pop ups and unnecessary registrations. Right? So, you are on your laptop
In the physical world, most people lock their doors, buy car insurance, and take other precautions to protect themselves from harm. In the digital world, most people leave their valuable online reputation wide open and vulnerable to computer errors, cruel pranksters, vicious rivals, and identity thieves. To combat this, many
GoogleWave [http://wave.google.com] is now available to everyone. It was earlier rolled out by Google by invites but as of May 18, it was freely available. Honestly, for all these months – of restrictive roll out – I did not see a whole lot of use for it. I already
We all know that iPad is the killer for most e-readers, like Kindle. But the market has lot more e-readers than just the Kindle. Here is a list of most of the e-readers. Amazon Kindle: By far the most popular. DX: $489, Smaller version is from $259. It has a
Microsoft has bungled its internet business like no other company. I personally feel that there should be a federal edict to dis allow Microsoft from doing ANY business online. Here is a company that bought Hotmail at its peak and screwed it up soooo badly that it just ran not
WIth non-traditional companies like Google and Apple becoming big as mobile providers – the traditional companies like Samsung, Nokia, and LG are becoming nervous. Google and Apple have changed the game! So, unless the hardware manufacturers have a game plan that includes elements of software AND services, their goose is really
According to a Gartner report, as the economy improves, the IT’s functions are going through a change. From just reducing the IT costs, CIOs will need to think of increasing productivity of the businesses. Therefore appropriate investment needs to be made. Business Users, of course, have their own expectations
Dot Com Bust: End of an Era On January 3rd, the NASDAQ started the year at 4131. Confidence was unmistakable and hope from the new internet companies running still high. Hope that they will change the way world worked. Millions had been made in IPOs and acquisition deals by companies
There are many questions in people’s minds.. so here are some answers: 1. When will it be available? It starts to ship End of March. 2. What will be the price? 1. $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi model 2. $599 for a 32GB iPad 3. $699 for a 64GB
There are many questions in people’s minds.. so here are some answers: 1. When will it be available? It starts to ship End of March. 2. What will be the price? 1. $499 for a 16GB Wi-Fi model 2. $599 for a 32GB iPad 3. $699 for a 64GB
Apple has unveiled its iPAD. Its a tablet PC with a lot of storage and real thin. Of course, it has the iPhone/iPod interface. It seems clear that it will hit at a lot of products – Kindle, Smartphones, Netbook, GPS devices, and even regular laptop market. I would venture
Apple has unveiled its iPAD. Its a tablet PC with a lot of storage and real thin. Of course, it has the iPhone/iPod interface. It seems clear that it will hit at a lot of products – Kindle, Smartphones, Netbook, GPS devices, and even regular laptop market. I would venture
As the world grows more commercial and “modern” one thing that gets hit is one’s connections. I remember that when we were kids, just going with our Mom to her friend’s place where they would reminisce their childhood or gossip about their in-laws and we would simply be
As the world grows more commercial and “modern” one thing that gets hit is one’s connections. I remember that when we were kids, just going with our Mom to her friend’s place where they would reminisce their childhood or gossip about their in-laws and we would simply be
I had gotten the Google Wave invite quite a few weeks ago. And I gave it to many others as well via facebook. I know many on my facebook network had asked me to review the service. BUT .. although I was excited about the invite and felt great to receive
For last two days, our Internet has not been working well. I thought it was because there might be an issue with the Broadband service from Comcast, which does happen sometime. And when I called them, I faced issues getting the thing resolved from their end. Well, this morning at
Wikipedia is an interesting human experiment. Multitudes of people, totally unrelated, came to gether in an ad-hoc way to create content. Such content that it became the number one encyclopedia. Now for anything you either go to Google or to Wikipedia. But the article growth in Wikipedia has been slowing
Dear SAP Professional: We want to let you know that your site (www.SAPprofessionals.org) has become extremely powerful now. It has taken on cutting edge Social networking features. The total membership is already over 8000 members and this will help it grow further. 1. Now, you can create your
You find the Google interface completely staid and boring? You could really improve it up with an interesting Firefox extension. This extension not only improves the look and feel for the Gmail but also Google Calendar and Google Reader! The extension is called Google Redesign [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/
Do you know what Microsoft is upto? It started bing – as the new search thing.. which I wonder if anyone is using? i am not. I still prefer Google. Its still simpler and much easier on the eye. It recently dumped Encarta – probably killed by the growing Wikipedia. And now
WordPress is also undergoing changes and progressing by leaps and bounds. It all started with WordPress [http://www.wordpress.org/] and then came bbPress [http://www.bbpress.org/], and then WordPress MU [http://mu.wordpress.org/] (the multi-user) version.. and finally the BuddyPress [http://buddypress.org/] – which are a bunch
Do you want to watch TV channels on the internet? Here is a link to the site [http://freetubetv.net/index.php] where you can check out a lot of channels conveniently categorized under News, Music, Religion, Movies, etc. I was watching the Dawn News [http://freetubetv.net/index.php?
I have a web site on WordPress whose login/password I had forgotten. Even the email that had been configured in the account wasn’t the correct one. So, I was stuck!!! All that I had was the access to the cpanel. The BIG question:How do you change the
Twitter is a world-wide giant IM if you use the right tools – say TweetDeck. The one thing that it was lacking was search.. although they had it at a special search page [http://search.twitter.com/]. I feel if Google acquired it then Twitter would add a search power which
Do you remember Geocities? It was looong time back! During the 1990s and the DotCom era, geocities was the first tool that people used to create their first websites. Most of the souls who are on blogs and social networks right now, tries their hand at creating websites using Geociies.
Yesterday, I bought a new laptop as my old one had become really slow given that I had a lot of applications on it. I really want to test out some business applications in the coming days and so (i) I needed larger memory and (ii) better speeds. So, I
All us bloggers are really in the business of news. So, one study of the teens done Conducted for the NAA by Northwestern University’s Media Management Center. The findings are interesting and very intuitive. Its not that the teens do not want news. They do. But some interesting things
Chinese phones have flooded the Indian market in the recent past. But they are a security risk! Around 250 lakh handsets will stop working by April 15. These phones do not have IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers. This IMEI number gets reflected at cell phone towers with which, if
What demographic group do you think would be the fastest growing amongst users of Facebook in the last 6 months? Any guesses? Well, its the one you would least expect! Women between the age of 55 to 65 year old. They are using it to play Scramble and Twist. And
There was a time when we friends would do our own trade in cricketers. Now a different trade happens. It just struck to me that there was an interesting parallel between the trading of the cricketers from around the world, and the little trading that we used to do in
Disclaimer: This is just for education and information and is not meant to be any form of legal advise. Please call up your Immigration attorney or Ms. Sunita Kapoor [http://www.sunitakapoor.com] for more information. With the Downturn of IT due to the economy turmoil and critical H-1B investigations
This is an excerpt from the book Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time by Joel Comm with Ken Burge, brought to you specially by Drishtikone.com [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone] Every conversation has rules. We know not to interrupt someone when they’
Google has come out with a new gmail functionality called Multiple Inboxes. Basically they have made available messages under different labels or types of messages (starred, drafts etc) to be seen on the main screen of your email. This way you needn’t go back and forth to different labels
Storing and sharing documents is a major issue, isn’t it? Especially when you have large document or files (audio) that you would love to share with your friends but cannot. I wanted to list some suggestions that I feel are effective and cost-effective, so if you aren’t already
It is a tough climate out there in the corporate world, specially in the IT market. Currently, ERP market is dominated by the two giants – SAP and Oracle. These two, between them, really own the majority of the market. But is that how it is going to be in future?
Twitter, as we discussed earlier is a great tool out there and its popularity seems to keep growing all the time. I have found this 25 apps, that I found most useful. I have used some and find them great (Trackthis and Xpenser are two of the best for their
Ok, the next browser offering from Microsoft is here. They have released the RC1 version [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/default.aspx] (Release Candidate 1). It brings some more added headaches for most of us who own our own blogs – specially the hosted variety! Microsoft had promised that
Did you know that Microsoft had its own version of Sourceforge? I didn’t. It is called Codeplex [http://www.codeplex.com/] and people host open source projects there. In the last one year, it has grown by leaps and bounds. It now has over 120k registered users and 7,
Gmail has been a great product ever since it was launched. The only issue with all the online based emails is that you have an issue when you are not connected. You can of course use the pop based option – like I use Spicebird to circumvent the issue – but now
Yahoo groups started a great mechanism to bring people together. Google groups also followed. These egroups are very easy ways to link people in a way such that every one can interact through the ubiquitous emails. Sadly the social networking sites have even as yet not evolved to a point
We all know the benefits of Facebook. Let’s take a moment to see the negatives it can bring as well. A husband in UK was so enraged when his estranged wife changed her “Marital Status” on FB from Married to Single that he started calling her. When she did
Satyam is going down despite the Indian Government’s best attempts. Already at least two clients may be tapping Patni to make the change over. All State and GE, where Patni is also big have given feelers to Patni to help augment the team. All State, apparently, has terminated its
Yesterday I had discussed the use of MS OneNote here and how useful it is. EverNote is an alternative but not quite there. Today I found two good alternatives that somehow are quite like OneNote. Action Outline First one is ActionOutline [http://www.actionoutline.com]. It comes in 3 versions
I have been reconfiguring my laptop – really adding software that I can use to better organize my life. One of my main challenges is to keep my self organized. So I decided to find ways that are simple and yet powerful and accessible for organizing. When I am saying organizing,
Laptop has become the way to do computing for most people now. Specifically with its mobility factor and the, now, ubiquitous wi-fi + broadband facilities in almost every house (most of the homes I visited in India have wi-fi + broadband – in fact MTNL’s broadband router also has a wireless router
I have always believed that if the correct infrastructure is brought to the ground, the growth in the technical areas will go up exponentially in India. India is, for example, a great ground for Internet and web. Now, it is growing even further.74% of all internet connections now in
Today we have web 2.0 with so much stuff on it. But there was time when all this began and even images were a novelty. The story of the first image served on the world-wide-web (WWW) is pretty interesting. People involved did not realize the significance of what they
Real estate property flipping has been common for some years now. That being said, there are also people that specialize in flipping websites! The modus operandi is pretty simple. Find a website that shows good potential – content, niche, audience – but lacks a good design/style/platform. Take the site and
Today, three more technology sites that I found to be pretty useful. DimDim [http://www.dimdim.com/] : It is an open source web conferencing software and is available as a hosted option as well with different pricing alternatives. I like one feature – no need to install anything to get onto
An article from The Hindu [http://www.thehindu.com] talks about three web tools that have come out from India which are created for the world audience! All these tools are very interesting and useful. I had known about one of these but had no idea they came from India.
This is an interesting interview [http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/jul/14sld1.htm] with Phaneesh Murthy – who left Infosys (I think after a scandal) and joined iGate. He has taken the company from negative 8% to positive 37% profit margins. That’s a big jump. Some of his stats
Toyota is planning to make Prius even more energy efficient and green. By next Spring, Toyota will come out with a Prius powered with solar panels [http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/toyota-equip-prius-solar-panels/story.aspx?guid={A5960A1A-E176-4A08-952C-4BC4A0A69284}] . It will help power the AC. > The redesigned Prius will have solar panels
Saw this on Amit Aggarwal’s Digital Inspiration [http://www.labnol.org/internet/video/google-tools-protect-bollywood-movie-stars-india/3562/] blog. It is about how a company Congregational Security uses Google Apps, Earth, Maps etc to protect dignitaries and celebs in Israel and India (as well as US). So its pretty interesting that some
So, a flying saucer from the earth is ready and a Bengali has created a prototype for it in the US. Subrata Roy is a University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor. He has submitted a patent for his flying saucer. It is a circular, spinning aircraft design
The current US election has seen a lot of drama. It will see more on the way to the final day. What intrigued me a lot was the news that John McCain is IT ILLITERATE [http://www.intentblog.com/archives/2008/06/john_mccain_is.html]… and does NOT care
Three things happened on the same day in three different geographical locations, yet logically connected. 1. A young school-going child from France noticed some changes on the seawater in Phuket, Thailand, where she was vacationing with her parents. She was able to associate what her geography teacher taught and warned
This is funny!This guy [http://www.omgenius.com/google-is-a-spam-google-says-so/] says that according to Google’s own Quality Rating Guidelines for what a SPAM is – Google’s site is itself a Spam! Guidelines: > When trying to decide if a page is Spam, it is helpful to ask yourself this question:
These days with social networking, photo uploading, blogs, and twittering, can you imagine what someone with some smarts in IT can gather? The photos are stamped with time and location. The locations can be mashed with Google Earth and matched to find exact locations. If someone could collect the information
Institute of Sensory Analysis and Marketing Consultancy in Göttingen (ISI) and the Oberhausen-based specialist for interactive services Convisual, announced the patent for the smart card-sized chip on Tuesday. So, now soon, you would be able to send not just SMS but also some scents. The customers would have 100 prefabricated
Most of the terrorists in South Asia are using cell phones to carry out their discussions and plan their moves. Now, in the age of technical expertise, its easy to not only locate where a person is…. but also listen to what is going on around and with that person
Now Google has added Hindi Translation to its translation functionality. I think it was long due and now, I am sure other Indian languages will join in as well! Have you tried this? Just one thing – this translation functionality assumes that the person knows the devanagiri script – and if that
We have Google Earth, Google Sky… and now its the time for Google Ocean [http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9931412-7.html?tag=bl]! Google is mapping every nook and crany of this planet and the Universe we live in so it can be indexed and searched upon! Its not easy,
Contrary to all beliefs, India is being attacked by China as we speak! This is not just the age of Nuclear or bomb warfare but intellectual and computer (internet) warfare. And China is doing all it can to hit India where it can! Attacks on National Infomatics Center (NIC) – which
– How many zeroes are there in 90,000? – What’s the square root of 25? – I’ve come 10th in my class for the past two years. What have I done wrong? – What’s the price of pumpkin in Ghaziabad? – Who killed Mahatma Gandhi? – What’s the price of milk
Geeks love the underdogs and are inherently anti-establishment. Microsoft has been the most hated kid on the block for years now. But this guy has taken that hatred to a whole new level!
Which is a better eCommerce option? – Drupal + Uber Cart – osCommerce – Magento Magento is a (pardon my lingo) kick-ass ecommerce package. It has so many functionalities that its amazing. It is still evolving though. Some people, though, have a need to combine a CMS with a cart – so the obvious choice
Lately, I have been doing some tweaks to Drishtikone which may not have been apparent. Drupal follows a file system that where the nodes, pages, blocks etc follow a certain hierarchy and priority. Since I will be using this information, I wanted to lay it down in one place for
Electronics world has been a fight on formats, where the winner takes the spoils. Last battle was fought for the Video recording at its inception.VHS [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHS] (Video Home System) from JVC vs Betamax of Sony. VHS beat the Sony version, although the JVC format
Do you have an email account with Hotmail or any other service and want to move it to yahoo mail? There is an official way to do that. Use Trueswitch to move your addresses, calendars, and mails as well as notify all your contacts. Try it out.
Falling in love has become technical. It is no longer about feelings. It is about the effectiveness and efficiency of the investment one makes in a relationship – both of time and money. So, if the feelings dont match then it the match is called off! There are web sites that
We had bought this laptop with Vista recently and my wife is not very happy with it. We knew it was not a good move from Microsoft.. but THIS bad? courtesy: cnet blog [http://www.cnet.com/8300-13506_1-17.html]
There are many ways social networks are used. For dating, friendships and not so legal activities to start with, and then for politics etc. Twitter – which doesnt do a whole lot for the owners (no revenue model really), but excellent viewership and interaction has been used the most innovatively! The
Given our earlier discussion [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/drishtikone/?q=content/undersea-cable-disruption-it-terrorist-attack] on the cutting of the internet cables earlier, today the news came that a 5th cable [http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/06/1431206&from=rss]was cut off (or powerd off?) and entire
My friend, Puneet Wahi, today showed me a site – which is unlike ANYTHING I have ever seen! It is the future. Today, I really saw the future. The site is ZCubes [http://home.zcubes.com/]. It is the entire computing world IN a browser on a site. You can possibly
I use Drupal on this site – Drishtikone – and WordPress on Businessmusings.com and BIMusings.com. One reason why I dread this decision is because drupal puts a lot of load on the server while wordpress is easy on that front. Plus there are more themes for WP than for Drupal.
Ever since I have built Drishtikone as a long term blogging/community platform, for me it was important to have at its base something that was flexible, scalable and powerful. Drupal is and has been the only one that fit the bill! Fortunately, there are some who share my enthusiasm
Sri Lanka’s downstream petroleum sector is implementing SAP. Specifically it is the: > Ceylon Petroleum Storage Terminals Ltd (CPSTL), a common user facility running the software with Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) and Lanka IOC which own the firm being fee paying clients. .. who are implementing the 350 million Sri Lankan
Stealth is a part of him! He created the first computer virus and many other things… noteworthy ones. Now he is taking on Google. [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/02/the-next-google-search-challenger-blekko/] In search engine technology. He has already got funding for USD 2 million from Baseline Ventures but is
Tata is buying the American luxury car brand Jaguar. There is expectedly a huge hue and cry. People believe that association of a luxury brand with an *Indian* company will dilute its appeal. It is all about perceptions after all. The Indian brands, this writer [http://ridingtheelephant.blogs.fortune.cnn.
Tata is buying the American luxury car brand Jaguar. There is expectedly a huge hue and cry. People believe that association of a luxury brand with an *Indian* company will dilute its appeal. It is all about perceptions after all. The Indian brands, this writer [http://ridingtheelephant.blogs.fortune.cnn.
Internet searches is one place where you have strange partners! According to a Google report for India, Gandhi and Aishwarya Rai are the most searched names. Hmmm. That is quite an accomplishment for the bare chested old man roaming around in a cotton cloth talking of non-violence and threatening fast-unto-deaths
Internet searches is one place where you have strange partners! According to a Google report for India, Gandhi and Aishwarya Rai are the most searched names. Hmmm. That is quite an accomplishment for the bare chested old man roaming around in a cotton cloth talking of non-violence and threatening fast-unto-deaths
Scramjets – planes with Mach 15 speed – may become a reality now! To put things in perspective, the world’s fastest jet, the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, set a speed record of Mach 3.3 in 1990 when it flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in
Scramjets – planes with Mach 15 speed – may become a reality now! To put things in perspective, the world’s fastest jet, the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, set a speed record of Mach 3.3 in 1990 when it flew from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in
The disbelief and the reaction in the US totally baffles me and makes me laugh! If someone is smart enough to create a supercomputer from chips picked up from black market.. then more power to them! Ideally AMD should have built one by now… or some pc company. People with
The disbelief and the reaction in the US totally baffles me and makes me laugh! If someone is smart enough to create a supercomputer from chips picked up from black market.. then more power to them! Ideally AMD should have built one by now… or some pc company. People with
Ok, this is the BESTEST ever animation I have ever seen! Enjoy! Animator vs. Animation [http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34244097/] by * alanbecker [http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/] on deviant [http://www.deviantart.com]ART [http://www.deviantart.com] source [http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097] – sent in by Ruchi.
Ok, this is the BESTEST ever animation I have ever seen! Enjoy! Animator vs. Animation [http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34244097/] by * alanbecker [http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/] on deviant [http://www.deviantart.com]ART [http://www.deviantart.com] source [http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097] – sent in by Ruchi.
Today, 100 years ago, was the first flight of a helicopter. But that was not the only thought on the wings.. In China – in 400BC, some prototypes of helicopters were made as well.. > One hundred years ago Frenchman Paul Cornu piloted a twin-rotor helicopter of his own design, and rose
Today, 100 years ago, was the first flight of a helicopter. But that was not the only thought on the wings.. In China – in 400BC, some prototypes of helicopters were made as well.. > One hundred years ago Frenchman Paul Cornu piloted a twin-rotor helicopter of his own design, and rose
The competition for talent is heating up around the world. Now, EU is starting a scheme that mimics US’ green card (permanent residence card) scheme that gives permission to people skilled in areas of high demand. The EU says it needs 20m skilled workers over the next two decades, and
I had talked of investment advice from Phil Fisher, who talked of a superior advertising capability within a company to be a good investment. Well, now the investment gurus would need to go a step further… the best companies are those who become household names without much advertising! Like Google
World-wide free wi-fi anyone? you would need to share some of your wi-fi to get some wi-fi. Wanna trade some [http://www.fon.com/en/]? > FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. FON is a Community of people making WiFi universal and free. Our vision is WiFi everywhere
TCS [http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2007/gb20071018_188694.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business] has just won a USD 1.2 billion deal from Nielsen – the Dutch media company. This is the first big ticket win in the billion dollar league. It will be a
There are no ethics in business anymore! Those who thought that MNCs in India would be more ethical are smoking pot! Here is an interesting and a distasteful hijacking of the domain by Vodafone of Airtel’s domain name. Type Airtel.com and you will be directed to www.vodafone.
The entire world uses Microsoft’s Excel to do its maths on computer! Entire Planning and Forecasting systems of even the largest of the world corporations are built on Excel with all the complex algorithms. What if that foundation has a bug such that it cannot do a simple math?
While Apple has indeed hit it big with iPod and iPhone. But the market may be hotting up! And the lines between different providers may be blurring. Now, of all the companies – Intel, the chip maker, may be reading with the next iPhone killer product, reports Switched.com [http://www.
Long back I worked for a leading IT company and came to the US for a short training and then worked on a project – with an alliance consulting partner (a Big 6 firm). Now, at that time the company had no plan in the area of my training to start
Registering the domain name takes $5-7 a year. That’s it! The entire world outsources software development to India for low cost. If despite of that a Government of India’s Public Sector Union’s website domain expires – which of course the entire world would, ostensibly, be using to get
First of all, I cannot understand this deal about iPhone and AT&T! Why should iPhone only be maded to work with AT&T. Apple is losing so many consumers and buyers in the process. It is really shooting itself in its foot… because by the time it realizes.. many
How we approach our sites and where we "reside" says something about us and who we are. I did not quite realize that the social networking sites would end up revealing our "class" and our background. But a new study [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6236628.stm]
The Bridge in Minneapolis collapsed yesterday evening, It was built in 1967 and was undergoing some repairs. And it just collapsed like a house of cars. So, 7 people died. Now, what could lead to the collapse of a very "healthy" bridge – as it was given a "clean bill of
Hmm.. it takes a lot to get up there in space these days! So, we some going up after getting a little tipsy [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/27/nasas_hard_drinking_explorers/]. > "Interviews with both flight surgeons and astronauts identified some episodes of heavy use of alcohol
This is a new one! I have seen many thoughts on future.. but this New Jersey town [http://www.physorg.com/news104562985.html] (Ocean City) is taking the current technology to a .. well .. new frontier! Here is how the "Beach of the Future" will look like: > At the beach of
There are many legends on how innovative the Indian engineers and software programmers are but this one from Kamat.com’s blog beats all.Vikas Kamat [http://www.kamat.com/vikas/blog.htm] describes how a team in India was trying to debug a piece of software that was to
Is the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD war over [http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39091]? > Supermarket giant Wal-Mart has delivered a blow to the Blu-Ray standard by buying more than two million HD-DVD units from Taiwan. > The gear, bought from the electronics outfit Fuh Yuan, will be released in the
Now Yahoo is here with Messenger on the web [http://webmessenger.yahoo.com/]. So you dot need to download the messenger client. Just use it from the web. Also, the history of all your conversations is now carried on the yahoo servers itself.. and not the person’s pc. Now,
Another acquisition by Google and another step to competing MS Office. This time on the powerpoint front. Here is the scoop from GigaOm [http://gigaom.com/2007/06/19/enter-zenter-google-office-is-now-complete/#more-9625] .. > Google has snapped up yet another start-up [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/more-sharing.html] – Zenter, which is building
Know of the latest in the email war?Yahoo Mail [http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/tools/tools-08.html] has raised the storage to UNLIMITED! Now, you need not delete your emails.. pics etc.. just to make space for the new emails. They have followed Gmail now.
MOre acquisitions for Google… it is in on a spree!! > More geoweb tools for Google. Geo-tagging photo site Panoramio announced on its blog this morning that it will be acquired by Google for an undisclosed sum. Google posted the news on its blog last night. > The company is a one
Although this article talks about just Infosys – bu it is a good indicator of what is going on in the Indian IT companies in general. The hiring is up; attrition rate is up (Infy, btw, has one of the lowest attrition rates); the salaries are up. What is the key
VishK [http://vishk.wordpress.com/2007/02/11/backus-naur-form-and-ashtadhyayisanskrit-grammar/] talks about "Functional Programming" – a paradigm in programming. > Functional programming (FP) is of interest to many people because it describes ‘what a programmer is trying to accomplish’ without worrying about ‘how the computer will accomplish it’. It is a paradigm where
This is a very familiar rant from the Indian companies – that the demand for the talented people in IT is so high that (1) they cannot retain them and (2) the cost of delivery is going high. So what do they do? They go and start hiring folks from non-engineering
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